PRINTING. 
The iuk used by printers has already 
been treated of in the article Ink, which 
spe. Tlie manufacture of good common 
ink seems to be as yet hut very imperfectly 
understood. That used in tine priating 
has been more attended to, and many of 
our best printers are now able to pro- 
duce impressions in a great degree fiee 
from that offensive brown cast which is to 
be observed in many books printed with 
what is called common ink. 
The balls used in laying the ink on the 
forms are a kind of wooden funnels, with 
handles, the cavities of which are stuffed 
with wool or hair, and covered over with a 
pelt prepared for the purpose. One skin 
generally makes two proper sized balls. 
When the skin has been sufficiently soaked 
in urine, which will take about fourteen 
or fifteen hours, it is taken out and curried, 
by putting it round an iron called a cur- 
rying iron, or round some upright post: the 
pressman taking hold of each end of it, 
and drawing it with as mgeh force as pos- 
sible backwards and forwards, till it is ren- 
dered soft and itliable. He then cuts the 
skin exactly in two, puts them under his 
feet, and continpes to tread them till they 
are so dry as to stick to the foot in tread- 
ing. The skin is then laid on a board or 
flat stone, and stretched as much as possi- 
ble by rubbing the ball-stock upon it. It 
is then nailed upon (he ball stock in plaits 
about an inch wide, thrusting in as much 
wool as the cavity of the stock and the 
skin vyill conveniently hold. Ifj however, 
too much wool wpre to be put in, it would 
render the balls hard and difficult to work 
with. If too little wool is in the balls, they 
soon flap and wrap over into wrinkles, so 
as to prevent an equal distribution of the 
ink on their surface. When the balls are 
thus knocked up, as it is termed, they are 
dipped in urine, and scraped with a blunt 
knife until they are perfectly clean ; they 
are then dried with a clean sheet of stout 
paper, and patted with the hand until no 
moisture remains on the surface. The 
balls, when they are completed, have much 
the shape and appearance of a very large 
mallet, used by stone masons, except that 
their surface is much broader and rounder. 
The press is a curious and complex ma- 
chine: it consists of two upright beams, 
called cheeks ; they are generally about six 
feet one inch long, eight inches and a half 
broad, and five^inches thick, with a tenon 
at each end. The tenon at the upper end 
gf the cheek is cut across tlie breadth, and 
enters the cap within half an inch of (ho 
top. The cap is a piece of solid timber, 
three feet long, eleven inches wide, and 
tour inches thick. The lower tenon of the 
cheek enters the feet, which is a square 
wooden frame made very thick and strong. 
The head, which is moveable, is sustained 
by two iron bolts that pass through the cap. 
The .spindle is an upright piece of iron, 
pointed with steel, having a male screw 
which goes into the female one in the head 
about four inches. This spindle is so con- 
trived, that when the pressman pnlls a lever, 
which is attached to it, the pointed end 
of it works in a steel pan or cup supplied 
with oil, which is fixed to an iron plate let 
into the top of a broad thick piece of ma- 
hogany, with a perfectly plane surface, 
called the platten. This platten is made 
to rise and fall as the pressman pulls or let 
go the lever or bar. When the platten 
falls, it presses upon a blanket, by which 
the paper is covered when it lies upon 
the form, from which the impression is in- 
tended to be taken. The form is laid upon 
a broad flat stone, or thick marble slab, 
which is let into a wooden frame, called 
the coffin, and which is made to move 
backwards or forwards:, by the turning of ^ 
wince, or rounce. At the end of the coffin 
are three frames ; two of which are called 
tympans, and the remaining one a frisket. 
The tympans are square, and are made 
of three slips of very thin wood, and at the 
top a piece of iron, still thinner ; that called 
the outer tympan is fastened with hinges to 
the coffin; they are both covered with 
parchment, and between the two are 
placed blankets, which are -necessary tot 
take off' the impression of the letters upon 
the paper. The frisket is a square frame 
of thin iron, fastened with hinges to the 
tyrapaii; itis covered with paper ciitin the 
necessary places, that the sheet, which is 
put between the frisket and the outer tym- 
pan, may receive the ink, and that nothing 
may hurt the margins. To regulate the 
margins, a sheet of paper is fastened upon 
this tympan, which is called the tympan 
sheet, and wiiicli ought to be changed 
whenever it becomes wet with the paper 
to be printed upon. On each side is fixed 
an iron point which makes two holes in the 
sheet, which is to be placed on the same 
points when the impression is to be made 
bn the other side. In preparing the press 
for vvorking, or as it is called by pressmen, 
making ready a form, great care and at- 
tention is requisite that the painted sheel^ 
