lx Proceedings of Royal Society of Ediiiburgh. ^ 
This was the position of the problem in 1850, when Mr Thomas 
Nelson invented his rotary press. Now, the points in which the 
Nelson Press went beyond all previous inventions were : (1) That its 
cylinders were covered not with types but with stereotype plates cast 
in a curved mould ; (2) that the paper was in the form of a continu- 
ous web, and passed automatically through the machine ; (3) that it 
had a serrated knife sunk into the face of one of the impression 
cylinders, for the purpose of cutting the paper into sheets. It was 
also a perfecting machine, printing both sides of the paper at one 
operation. These are what I have called the essentials of a rotary 
press, and they appeared in the Nelson Press for the first time. 
The invention did not pass without notice. When the working 
model was exhibited in London in 1851, it was referred to in all 
the principal newspapers, and it was minutely described (with 
drawings) in Cassell’s Illustrated Exhibitor (1852). Probably the 
reason why the plan of the Nelson Press was not at once adopted 
was, that it was suggested for the printing of books, for which it is 
admitted not to be well adapted. Its special applicability to 
newspaper work had not then been realised, though it was not 
improbably suggested by the exhibition of the machine. In the 
Hoe machine, with which The Times superseded the Applegatli 
in 1858, the type formes were still affixed to the cylinder, only that 
cylinder was horizontal instead of being vertical. The paper also 
was fed-in in sheets from ten separate platforms. There was as yet 
no web. 
The first machine made on the model of the Nelson Press was 
that of Marinoni of Paris, but even that was not in the first instance 
a web machine. The reel of paper, however, was soon added, and 
in its completed form, as patented in this country in 1872, the 
machine was an obvious copy of the Nelson Press, and indeed that 
was scarcely denied by the inventors. Since that time, the rotary 
press has been brought to a marvellous state of perfection in the 
“ AValter Press,” and in the “ Hoe Double-web Press ” ; and while 
I, of course, admit that these machines contain many improvements 
and refinements that were not dreamed of in 1850, I think I am 
entitled to claim that the three essentials of these and of all rotary 
machines — namely, plates cast in the curve, a web of paper, and a 
serrated knife — were all found in the Nelson Press, as it was 
