THE PRINTING MACHINE,

WORKED BY STEAM.

PRINTING is a wonderful art. When it was first invented, people wondered, and those who loved not the light, said that it was an invention of the devil, and strange as it may now seem, some were superstitious enough to believe them. But we are not going to tell you all about how it was invented; though we may do this some day. We are going to say a little about the last great improvement in the Presses which print the letters-these letters which you are now reading; which are printed in what is called a Scandinavian Printing Machine, worked by steam; a picture of which is given on the opposite page.

At first the Printing Presses were made of wood, with a stone bed to place the letters upon. We have now an old one, and an awkward clumsy thing it isof very little use for anything. Indeed we often wonder how books could be printed at such presses at all. They moved at a very slow pace, and required much pains and patience to manage them. They were as much unlike one of our new presses as an old lumbering stage coach going at five miles an hour, is unlike a moving steam engine gliding along the rails at five and twenty! Then iron presses, neat and strong, were invented, with nice smooth iron beds on which to place the letters. These were a great improvement. Both the wooden and the iron presses required two men to work them, one to lay on the ink, and the other to pull down the press and stamp the letters.

But this improvement, great though it was, was not sufficient. More was required, and as one improvement leads to another, a very great one was soon made. Newspapers in London, printed and sold every

day, could not be printed fast enough to supply the demands of customers. Some clever mechanics said, "Why not make a press to go by steam? Other machinery is made to go by steam, why not a Printing Press ?" And so they sat down and schemed, and planned, and contrived, until at last a Printing Machine was invented. And a wonderful thing it is. Let us tell you a little more about it.

Look at the picture again. There stands the Machine-about eight feet long and four feet widemade of iron throughout. The forme of type, on which the paper is printed, is placed in the centre on a bed, which can be moved in and out to let them put the forme in. You may see it in the middle, marked with little strokes like the pages of a book. When all is ready, the engine sets the machine in motion by means of two leather straps which you see going up at the end of the machine to the boy's right hand. These turn a large wheel round, which sets the whole in motion. That boy is laying on the white paper on a frame, which, as soon as ever he has laid it down flat on the frame, is carried along till it comes over where the form of type lies, and there it stops, and, just as it stops, down comes the flat surface of the press, which we call the platten, and makes the impression. And then, up goes the platten again directly, and the sheet which is now printed comes out upon the frame to the place where it was put on. Another boy standing on this side takes it off as quick as he can, and then the other boy lays on another as quick as he can; and they must be quick, for the steam engine wont stop for them. It moves the machine along at a quick but regular pace, and they must be very attentive and expert in laying on the sheets and taking them off again.

To make it plainer still, for we wish you to understand it, you see a table at the boy's left hand on which lie the white sheets of paper ready to lay on the frame, or frisket, as printers call it, which lies

open before him, with strings crossing both ways to bear up the paper which he lays upon it. Those strings are so tied across as to let the paper go down upon the pages of the type when it gets into the press. That white square which the boy has hold of with his right hand is also an iron frame covered with parchment, which lifts up and down by means of hinges like the lid of a box, and is called the tympan. So when the boy has laid the sheet of paper on the frisket before him, he turns down the tympan with his right hand upon it, and in it goes; when it comes out the other boy lifts up the tympan and takes it off, and thus he stacks up a pile of printed sheets on the table at his right hand; and in this way they proceed laying on and taking off as fast as the engine moves the machine along.

But about the ink, and how it is managed. At first, when the old wooden presses were used, the printers had two great balls of leather stuffed with wool, about as big as a man's head, which they held, one in each hand, and having dabbed them together to make the ink fine, they then dabbed them on the type. We cannot help smiling when we think of it; but they did so when the writer was a boy. He well remembers seeing them used in the extensive printing premises of the Mozley's, at Gainsborough, in Lincolnshire. Afterwards rollers were invented, made of a composition of boiled glue, treacle, &c., fixed on an iron frame so as to turn round and roll over the whole surface of the types at once. The same kind of rollers are used in the printing machine. Look at the further end of the machine, to the right hand of the boy, and you will see a roller extending across the machine, and inserted in a trough with ink in it. Then you will see something like a dagger at this end of it fastened to the centre of the roller at the top, and joined to a rod at the bottom: that is to make the roller turn round slowly, and bring up fresh ink