494 THE APPLICATIONS OF PHYSICAL FORCES, [BOOK iv. 



type sufficiently deep to enable a casting to be taken from it which 

 shall yield a page of clear-cut lettering, ready for printing from. 

 Before the casting is taken, however, this paper matrix is made 

 absolutely dry by being placed on another hot plate. That only 

 occupies a very brief space of time, and when it is satisfactorily 

 finished the paper is trimmed carefully, and then placed face up- 

 ward inside a semi-circular mould, when its edges are fastened down 

 by bands of iron of the thickness that the cast is meant to be. 

 On these bands a counterpart of that mould is then let down from a 

 small crane, and fastened so that a semi-circular chamber is formed 

 the size of the page of the newspaper, and about three- eighths of an 

 inch deep all round. Into this a pot of molten stereotyping metal 

 is poured, the mould having first been turned on end so as to compel 

 the metal to fill the cavity completely, and, after resting for a 

 moment or two till the metal has set, the inner part of the mould 

 is removed by the crane, the paper matrix is peeled off, scarcely 

 browned, and capable of being used again and again, and the solid 

 cast is swung round and deposited, still adhering to the mould, 

 in another cavity exactly the shape of that from which it was 

 taken. Here its edges are trimmed, and the lump of metal which 

 formed the excess at the top of the casting sawn off by a small 

 revolving saw driven by steam. That done, the cast may be said to 

 be complete. The page of lettering now presents the appearance of 

 a strong, solid half-cylinder of white metal, ribbed on the inside so 

 as to facilitate the paring off of possible inequalities, and covered on 

 its outer face with crisp, clean, shining letters, ready at once for the 

 press ; and the whole of the work of stereotyping is done. Now the 

 work of steam begins. 



The first thing to understand regarding newspaper steam printing 

 is, that it does not print sheet by sheet, as all machines hitherto 

 have done, but that it prints from a continuous roll of paper, 

 from which it cuts off the newspapers sheet by sheet as it passes 

 them out at the other end, perfectly printed. This web of paper 

 is, therefore, the first thing that catches the eye on entering the 

 machine-room, and is itself the result of no little effort to adapt 

 means to ends. A web making some 5,500 sheets of the Times, 

 all wound on one reel, is placed behind each machine, and when 

 printing commences,, the paper runs continuously through the press, 



