Section II.—Block Prints. 
49 
1899.] 
Block-printing. 
paper are referred to as I, II, Ilia, III&, IIIc, and Hid respectively. 
The paper of the Pothi (No. II of the First Set) I am doubtful in 
classifying, but it probably belongs to Class III b. 
That these books were printed from blocks of type is apparent 
from the fact that the text is repealed over 
and over again, from page to page, the repe¬ 
titions being facsimiles, as shown by measurements made by me (see 
below under the First Set). The type, cut on the block, was enclosed 
in a square of raised straight lines, and occasionally these inclosing 
lines are printed off along with the inclosed type; but as a rule they 
do not seem to have been inked, and only a few traces of them, here 
and there, are seen (as, e.g., on Plates IX and X). The printing was 
not always carefully done; occasionally the blocks were inked too much, 
and the impressions are smudgy : at other times they were inked 
too little, and the impression is almost illegible. When the print is 
repeated on the same page, the impressions, for the sake of economy, 
were sometimes placed so close together as to cause the margins of 
the prints to run into one another and obliterate the letters. From the 
fact that sometimes one has to remove the rivets, in order to be able 
to read the whole of the impression, it is evident, that, as a rule, the 
sheets or pages were printed first before they were stitched or riveted into 
books. In some books, especially of the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Sets, 
the paper appears to have been more or less strongly greased, before 
printing, possibly with the object of sizing it; but the process has 
sometimes had the effect of rendering the impressions almost illegible. 
A regular system appears to have been observed in printing the 
xylographs. As already explained, the first 
and the last leaves of a book were always left 
blank, for the purpose of serving as a cover. For the same reason, the 
exterior pages of the second and penultimate leaves were also left blank. 
The printing almost invariably commences on the interior of the second 
leaf ( i.e ., the 4th page of the whole book), and stops on the interior of 
the penultimate leaf (i.e. y the ante-ante-penultimate page of the whole 
book). There are a few exceptions, which will be noted in the detailed 
description; see, e.g ., No. VI of the First Set. Thus supposing a 
book had six leaves or twelve pages, the imprints would commence 
on the fourth page and stop on the 9th page ; pages 1, 2, 3 and 10, 11, 
12 being blank. With regard to the arrangement of the imprints on 
the pages, the principle (to which there are only a very few exceptions) 
was that they were placed alternately in an upright and reversed 
position. Whence it follows that, in reading a book, one would at first, 
read consecutively, throughout the book, all the upright impressions ; 
J. i, 11 
System of Printing. 
