SCIENCE IN THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD 



provements in the presses, and the demand for constantly 

 changing "copy" in the different editions of the daily 

 papers, the hand-setting methods were found to be a 

 constant drag. It was not until early in the J 8os, 

 however, that any mechanical aids were devised. 

 But since that time type-setting and composing ma- 

 chines have almost completely supplanted hand-setting 

 methods. 



The different kinds of machines that have taken the 

 place of hand setting all fall into one of three general 

 classes. There are those in which ordinary types are used, 

 but in which the setting is done by the aid of a key- 

 board working in much the same manner as the ordinary 

 typewriter keyboard, the pressure of each key setting 

 in motion machinery that places the corresponding type 

 in its place on the stick. There are also machines in 

 which no type is used, the letters being formed on a bar 

 by the manipulation of a keyboard, and cast in slugs 

 of one line each, so that the operator literally casts his 

 type as he goes along. And there is still a third class, 

 quite as wonderful, with which the operator uses a 

 machine provided with a keyboard, the letters of which, 

 when depressed, punch holes in a roll of paper. This 

 roll is then placed in a steam-driven machine which 

 interprets the holes in the strip of paper into type 

 corresponding to the keys depressed by the operator, 

 casting them one by one at the rate of something like 

 a hundred a minute, and placing them hi position 

 ready for the presses. 



Each of these classes of machines has its advan- 

 tages and disadvantages, which may be considered for a 



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