PaOTOTYPOGE APH Y. 599 



a bent lever handle. Then followed the Ruthven, an Edinburgh 

 machine, and the Columbian, a Philadelphia production, both based 

 on the Stanhope principle, but accomplishing their tasks with greater 

 economy of labour and greater speed. 



But the demands of the age were insatiable. The successful appli- 

 cation of steam power to machinery in other directions, quickly of 

 course suggested itself as an auxiliary in printing, especially in the 

 printing of newspapers, the circulation of which had now become 

 exceedingly great. In 1814, the cylinder press of the London Times 

 was the marvel of the day. Then, each in succession claiming and 

 proved in practice to be really an advance in excellence, came the 

 American Rotary, the Walter Web-feeder, the Prestonian Automa- 

 ton — the last throwing off by a series of actions, looking like 

 the result of self-consciousness and reason, huge sheets printed 

 on both sides, disengaged from each other, and folded in incalcu- 

 lable numbers and with lightning rapidity. Caxton boasted in the 

 Colophon of his Recueil, that the whole book was begim in one 

 day and finished in one day : that is, that the first folio of the 

 whole edition was worked ofi" in one day, and the last folio in the 

 same space of time. This for an edition of five hundred, and 

 probably Caxton's would not be larger, would, when the sheet 

 was printed on both sides, involve one thousand inkings, one thousand 

 pulls of the press handle, one thousand placings and replacings, 

 with a variety of other careful manipulations. Under the cir- 

 cumstances the old pi'inter might legitimately claim some credit for 

 the capabilities of his art. Perhaps not much more could have 

 been accomplished with the machines at which Franklin worked in 

 London and Philadelphia. The Stanhope furnished forth completed 

 sheets of letter-press at the rate of 250 per hour. The first Times 

 cylinder printed perfect copies of that great daily publication at the 

 rate of 1,100 per hour, and now we hear of 10,000 perfected sheets 

 per hour as the rate of production attained by the Automaton Web- 

 feeder. 



What the intellectual exigencies of future generations may be, who 

 can say 1 Education is spreading every day, and in evei-y country. 

 The love of knowledge, of science, of literature, is penetrating all 

 communities deeper and deeper, and will, in the onward march of 

 civilization, be universal. And accompanying this great movement, 

 another phenomenon is apparent — a tendency to a unity of alphabet, 



