214 



NATURE 



\7uly 12, 1877 



employed by the proprietors of Lloyd's Weekly News- 

 paper. Shortly afterwards the proprietors of the Times 

 adopted it, and by means of a ten-cylinder machine, 

 16,000 single impressions of the Times were thrown off 

 per hour. This was till lately the most rapid printing 

 machine ever invented, but having to be supplied with 

 separate sheets of paper from ten different feeding- 

 boards, it required some twenty men and boys to work it. 

 Since that time a still further advance in the art of 

 printing has been made by the invention of the now 

 celebrated Walter machine, by which the bulk of the 

 Times is now produced. This machine works from a 

 continuous roll of paper, printing it on both sides and — 

 requiring the attendance of cnly a man and two boys 

 — thiows off 25,cco single impiessicns, or 12,500 complete 

 newspapers, per hour. 



In all these lapid machines the \.y^&fortnes are cast in 

 cylindiically-curved stereotype plates, which are produced 

 by first setting up the matter in type by the ordinary 

 process and then pressing the formes so produced into 

 papier /A'(?(7/t'mculds into whidi the stereotype metal is 

 cast, by this means several plates from the same mould 

 can be produced and therefore the same number of iden- 

 tical sheets may be printed at the same time. 



With itgaid to the actual operation of printing the aid 

 that Science has given has been almost exclusively in the 

 direction of mechanical improvement and perfection. 

 The ait of stereot>pirg or the reproduction of plates and 

 blocks fcr illustrations has, however, been developed by 

 (liscovtties in many branches of Philosophy. Electricity 

 has kngbeen employed in the production of copies of wood 

 engravings by the electrotype process, which copies are 

 now almost universally used for rapid woik where fine 

 finish is not necessaiy, and the many procesies in which 

 photography is combined with engraving are every day 

 becoming mere generally employed for improving and 

 facilitating the art of printing. 



It will readily be understood that notwithstanding all 

 the iinpiovements in printing machinery by which such 

 lapidiiy as we have referred to is insuied, the art of rapid 

 printinjj will be most materially hampered unless the 

 optralion of type-setting or composing can be carried on 

 with corresponding rapidity. The importance of this is 

 shown by the attention it has received and by the many 

 systems that have been devised for mechanical and 

 automatic type-setting. A special feature of the Caxton 

 exhibition is the collection of machines for that purpose. 

 Here again Science has lent her aid, and to any one 

 interested in the applications of Science for the assistance 

 of personal dexterity a careful study of the various 

 machines exhibited will be found most interesting and 

 instructive. 



One of the most beautiful of these machines is 

 the automatic type-setter of Dr. Mackie, which we 

 illustiate in Fig. i, and which is a most ingenious 

 application of the well-known principle first invented 

 by M. Jacquard, and applied by him to the opera- 

 tion of weaving, and which has since been employed 

 for telegraphic and other purposes. In this machine a 

 horizontal wheel, carrying a number of little platforms, 

 revolves on a vertical axis beneath a set of upright boxes 

 arranged in a circle rcurd it. Each of these boxes is 

 divided vertically into eight ccmpartments containing the 

 types ; and the platforms, during the revolution of the 

 horizcntal wheel, pass in succeisron below, but without 

 touching them. Eaeh platform is furnished with eight 

 adjustable projecting pins, that is to say, as many as 

 there arc compartments in the boxes. The use of these 

 pins, or "pick-pockets" as they are called, is to temo\e 

 the types contained in the corresponding ccmparltnenls 

 of the boxes at the moment of passing below them ; and 

 the types so removed, resting en the platforms, are carried 

 round with them until pushed off at another point in 

 their revolution, where they are collected and delivered 



in long lines in their proper order, and evenly spaced. 

 The pins are automatically set up or left alone by the 

 Jacquard mechanism to be referred to presently. 



Calling the compartments containing the types and the 

 corresponding pins on the platforms by the figures i, 2, 

 3, 4, &c., it might at first be supposed that if, for instance, 

 the pins i and 3 were set up, they would remove types 

 from the first and third compartments of all the boxes as 

 ihey passed beneath them, but this is provided against 

 by the platforms being hinged at one end, so as to be 

 capable of rising and falling through a small vertical arc, 

 and by another portion of the Jacquard mechanism each 

 platform is raised only when it is approaching that 

 particular box which contains the compartments to which 

 its projected pins correspond. 



The regulation of the movements of both platforms 

 and pins is effected by a set of levers, whose movements 

 are determined by the positions of the perforations on a 

 continuous ribbon of Jacquard paper, which positions 

 correspond to the letters, spaces, &c., required to be set up. 

 This ribbon is fed into the machine at a uniform speed by a 



revolving spur-wheel armed with pins, which gear into a 

 longitudinal row of holes punched along the centre of 

 the strip of paper, and which is shown in Fig. 2, which re- 

 presents a piece of the paper ribbon perforated for setting 

 up the name of this journal, "Nature." The four lower 

 rows, which are marked in the figure with Roman 

 numerals, are those by which the rising and falling of the 

 platforms are regulated, and the other eight rows, 

 indicated by ordinary figures, correspond to the eight 

 compartments of the boxes and control the protrusion of 

 the pins or " piclcpoeleis." On reference to the ligure it 

 will be seen that the capital letter N is drawn from the 

 fifth compartment of that box, under which a platform is 

 raised by the dropping of the levers, which are controlled 

 by the combination of the two lines of perforations 

 marked I. and \\\ ; and again the small letter r is con- 

 tained in the third comparlnient of a box Avhose plalforrn 

 is raised by the single lever corresponding to the ton 

 marked I. 



The perforation of the paper is done at a separate 

 inslriiiiient, which, at the Caxton Exhibition, is, in external 

 appearance, exactly like an crdirary cottage pianoforte, the 

 keys of which are marked with the letters, figures, spaces, 



