CHAP, ix.] VARIOUS APPLICATIONS OF STEAM. 497 



passing first over some wet rollers, which damp it, water continually 

 oozing out through folds of cloth from a supply contained inside the 

 rollers, and which rapidity of revolution forces outward. From thesj 

 rollers it goes upward to where the stereotype plates forming the 

 four pages of one side of a sheet of the paper are fastened on a 

 cylinder just large enough to take a sheet to go round it. Against 

 that cylinder there is another, identical in size, possessing a soft 

 surface, which presses lightly against the edge of the type, and 

 between these the sheet passes, taking up an impression as it goes. 

 It is then carried downward round another Iar r e cylinder, covered 

 with cloth, the "set off" on which is taken off by another cylinder in 

 contact with it, and that again by a rubber, in a fashion that is both 

 simple and effective. The web of paper, still running on, passes, 

 between the second type -covered roller and its counterpart taking the 

 impression on its other side of the remaining four pages ; and, that 

 done, it runs out between two more rollers of the same circumference. 

 The machinery is so adjusted that the knife catches the paper exactly 

 between each sheet, and, the paper being held hard on each side by 

 the spring bar, cuts it in two, all but a couple of tags near each end, 

 which are left for the purpose of pulling the sheet on between two 

 sets of running tapes, until it is caught by a pair of small rollers, 

 which are driven at a greater speed than the rest of the machine. 

 These immediately tear the sheets apart where they have been all 

 but cut, and the tapes, hurry on what is now a completely printed 

 newspaper up an inclined plane, at the top of which they carry it 

 down an oscillating frame which moves pendulum- wise so exactly that 

 it delivers a paper precisely at each end of its short swing on to the 

 face of another set of running tapes, which carry it downward on 

 their outward face by the mere force of contact as they run. Between 

 these tapes a frame, like a huge comb, swings backward and forward, 

 catching up one delivered paper at every motion and flinging it down 

 on a board, behind which a boy sits to watch and adjust the sheets as 

 they fall. The current of air raised by the motion of this frame 

 suffices to hold each succeeding sheet against the tapes along which 

 it moves. Thus two boys and the man who attends the machine 

 are all the manual labour required, and the manner of delivering 

 the papers alternately on to two inclined boards ready to receive 

 them gives the boys plenty of time to see that they fall properly, 



K K 



