Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1896 — MARVEL OF THE AGE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MARVEL OF THE AGE.

THE LINOTYPE ECLIPSES ALL MODERN INVENTIONS. How It Has Revolutionized the Old Art of Printing:—Notes a New Era in the Newspaper World— Description of the Machine. Useful and Popular. The art of printing has been a wonderful, instrumentality in the dissemination of knowledge, the progress, of good government, the defense of civil rights and as a general aid ( to liberal progress, but It has always been at the cost of a slow and painful process, the selection and placing by hand of each letter and character and space of the words and language. An ordinary col-

unit of reading matter uses about 8.000 pieces of type. Each piece must be chosen from its classified box, or flat pigeon hole, and after being used in print must be returned to its place again. The tedious work which attends this art employs the most intelligent large body of skilled

men in the world, and their daily labor Is performed av an enormous draft on their nervous and. mental energy. In this painful way the handicraft harf been conducted from the days of Faust and Gutenberg. For four centurles and a half there has been little advance In this respect till now. The attempts to set type by machinery have been many, and generally unsuccessful. The London Times was fitted up a few years ago with apparatus that would set type, but the losses by breakage of type and the expense of its operations were too great. It was not till four or five years ago that the confidence of publishers in the success of machinery to take the place of ordinary hand composition was won. The improvements steadily in progress since the inception of the most successful machine were finally victorious over all obstacles. They completely changed the old trade of printing, and gave, especially to the work of the daily paper, facilities which

till lately were only a dream. The machine which brought this revolution to pass is the Linotype, and the story of its invention and that of its capabilities read like a romance. Twenty years’ companionship with one idea, the expenditure of over a million dollars, and the successful survival of many bitter disappointments Is the brief story of Ottmar Mergenthaler, the German watchmaker, in bringing his invention up to Its present standard of perfection. During tl.is time it kept Mr. Mergentlialer a poor man, and, as failure after failure was made, it nearly broke the inventor's heart. He is still alive, however, and is a young-looking, almost boyish, man. He lives in New York and spends his

gently compiled and set in type. The rapidity with which the linotype is worked made it a necessity. It can cast four lines of type while a compositor Is setting one, and as there is no distribution of type, there are relatively few mistakes to be corrected, and consequently little or no delay in getting the matter into the forms. The men who have stood at the case for

years are now seated at a keyboard, and all that the “typo” had to do was to learn the keyboard of the machine just as any stenographer learns the keyboard cf a typewriter. The machine is automatic and does the rest. A true description of the linotype would necessarily be a technical one, for many of the most complex automatic movements known to the mechanic are involved in its operation. To describe what it does, can be done in a sentence. In answer to the operator's touch on the lettered keys, it assembles lettered brass matrices into line, and then in response to a touch of the lever it'carries the line of matrices to a mold where the line of type is cast from molten metal, after, which it distributes the matrices in their proper places in the magazine from which they were taken. The cast line is ready for printing without further labor. The almost, human action of the machine may be understood, when it is said that the brass matrices, from which the linotype slug is cast, are handled automatically by the machine, seven times after they leave the magazine before they find their way into the magazine again. This is done month after month, thousands of times a day, with never a deviation or error in the assembling or replacing of the ninety characters that are at the command of the operator. All the parts of the machinery are adjusted in their turn, to meet the matrices in their travels, and to perform their duty in setting them in line, casting the slug from them and returning them to the magazine. There

A—Matrix magazine. R—Escapement which holds matrices In magazine. C—Escapement rods connecting with keyboard. I). E—Alleys to convey matrices: T—Endless (ape for same purpose. U—Stick for holding matrices as setup, t—Space blanks. H—Space delivery system. K—Mold wjieel. M—Melting pot. R—Matrices paltKM. to distributer, the route indicated by curved dotted linos to distributer. T, U- Spirab-tb carry mattkfes along distributer.

summers in the Adirondack Mountains, for his health is not good. When he started to carry out his Idea, Mr. Mergenthaler built a workshop In the loft of his stable, and for years be and his invention were the objects of as much curiosity as the famed “Darius Green and his flying machine.” He first tried tu create a machine that would make a matrix from which a column or page, might be cast. Then he produced oue wlijch would punch the Letters into sheet lead or paper from which a column or page might be cast. These failed .to meet approvp.l and several more machines were invented in which the papier mache matrix played the prominent part, but they were also declared impracticable. It was while working aloug these lines that the idea of the “linotype” wa3 hit upon. The Idea of setting up lines of metal was adopted as the basis of operation, and upon this idea the present linotype has been worked out. The development after that was very rapid. The casting of the lino of type by the machine and the operation of the whole by a keyboard like that of a typewriter were added, and finally the distribution of the pieces to their proper compartments was made automatic and the linotype was complete. , la the composing rooms of big newspapers, a minute’s tiniie after sunset is worth as much as an hour in the day. Speed is everything. Within five hours the history of a day must be intelll-

are three distinct operations gone through by the linotype—setting the matrices* casting the line of type and distributing the matrices. All three go on at once, and one does not interfere with the other. While one line is being distributed, another is being cast and a third set. The lines of type once

cast are handled in exactly the same manner as regular type, only they are much more easily shifted about These lines of type can be either printed from directly or can be stereotyped' for use on big newspaper perfecting presses. Once used, the lines of type are ro-

turned to the melting pot and are ra> melted, to be cast over again. A comparison of what can be done on the linotype and what can be done by hand will show 4he difference. One man can set by hand from 1,000 ems of matter per hour to 1,500. On a machine it is a poor operator that cannot sot 4 000 ems of matter per hour, and records of nearly 8,000 ems per hour

have been made on regular newspaper work. A perfect proof from' a linotype is very common. The linotype is guaranteed to produce over 7,500 ems per hour and good operators constantly set from 4,000 to 5,000 emu per hour. Records of 8,700, 10,000 and 13,000 have already been made. All the large dallies in the country, over 300 small dailies, and a large number of book and job printing offices now<-have the machine® in use. Over 3,000 have been sold in the United States within the past six years. Since perfecting the machine the inventor has devoted his time to improvements, in malMng it meet the needs of every branch of the printing trade. It is now possible to clnuige the face of the typo on a machine in and substitute any of the smaller or reading type, such as “agate,” “nonpareil,” "minion,” “brevier,” “long 'primer,” “small pica,” and italics. Every machine can be fitted with two molds, a “solid” and a “leaded” body, which can be interchanged in a moment and with a supply of molds and magazines on hand, one machine can be made to turn out any of the faces above mentioned on any length of mold. It will be a surprise to learn that the machine occupies a space of only five feet square, weighs less than 2,000 pounds, and requires only one-fourth horse-power— steam or electricity—to operate it. The gas jets used to keep the type metal in a molten state consume less than fifteen feet an hour, .and after an operator has become acquainted with his machine, the services of a machinist are not required. In large offices, of course, where speed and time are the great ..consideration, machinists are required to care for the machines. Though twenty years were spent in creating the linotype, it was only a few years ago considered perfect. It is, therefore, in its infancy. The inventor has but begun to produce a radical change in the printing world which the superiority of his inventlbn will complete, in a few years.

THE MATRIX.

THE LINE OF TYPE OR “LINOTYPE.”

MAIN PORTION'S OF A LINOTYPE.

ASSEMBLED MATRICES AND WEDGE SPACES.

THE LINOTYPE MACHINE.