The Building of a Book Part 3

New proofs are taken of the corrected galley, and these are revised by a proof-reader in order to be sure that the compositor has made all the corrections marked and to mark anew any he may have overlooked or wrongly altered. If many such occur, the proof is again pa.s.sed to the compositor for further correction and the taking of fresh proofs. The reviser having found the proof reasonably correct, and having marked on its margin any noticed errors remaining, and also having "Queried"

to the author any doubtful points to which it is desirable that the latter's attention should be drawn, the proof--known as the "first revise"--and the ma.n.u.script are sent to the author for his reading and correction or alteration.[2]

[Footnote 2: If the book is to be ill.u.s.trated, the author or publisher should be particular to indicate the position of all cuts by pasting proofs of them on the margin of the galley-proofs nearest the place desired. The time occupied by the "make-up" in "overrunning" matter for the insertion of cuts is charged as "author's time," and they can be inserted at less expense in the galley-proofs while making-up the type into pages than at any other time. All alterations, so far as practicable, for the same reason, should also be made in the galley-proofs, especially those which involve an increase or decrease in the amount of matter, since changes of this nature made in the page-proof necessitate the added expense of a rearrangement of the made-up pages of type.]

On the return of the galley-proofs to the printer, the changes indicated on the margins are made by compositors selected for the purpose, and the galleys of type and the proofs are then turned over by them to the "make-up." The "make-up" inserts the cuts, divides the matter into page lengths, and adds the running t.i.tles and folios at the heads of the pages.

At this stage the separate types composing the page are held in place and together by strong twine called "page cord," which is wound around the whole page several times, the end being so tucked in at the corner as to prevent its becoming unfastened prematurely. The page thus held together is quite secure against being "pied" if proper care is exercised in handling it, and it can be put on a hand-press and excellent proofs readily taken from it. A loosely tied page, however, may allow the letters to spread apart at the ends of the lines, or the type to get "off its feet," or may show lines slightly curved or letters out of alignment. The proof of a page displaying such conditions often causes the author, unlearned in printers' methods, much perturbation of mind and unnecessary fear that his book is going to be printed with these defects. These should in reality be no cause for worry, since by a later operation, that of "locking-up" the "form"

in which the pages will be placed before they are sent to the electrotyping department, the types readily and correctly adjust themselves.

Proofs of these twine-bound pages are taken on a hand-press, pa.s.sed to the reviser for comparison with the galley-proofs returned by the author, and if the latter has expressed a wish to see a second revise of the proofs, they are again sent to him. For such a "second revise"

and any further revises an extra charge is made. The proofs to which an author is regularly ent.i.tled are a duplicate set of the first revise, a duplicate set of "F"-proofs,--to be mentioned later,--and one set of proofs of the electrotype plates; though it may be added that the last is not at all essential and is seldom called for.

Usually the author does not require to see another proof after the second revise, which he returns to the printer with his final changes and the direction that the pages may be "corrected and cast," that is, put into the permanent form of electrotype plates. Some authors, however, will ask to see and will make alterations in revise after revise, even to the sixth or seventh, and could probably find something to change in several more if the patience or pocketbook of the publisher would permit it. All the expense of overhauling, correcting, and taking additional proofs of the pages is charged by the printer as "author's time." It is possible for an author to make comparatively few and simple changes each time he receives a new revise, but yet have a much larger bill for author's changes than another who makes twice or thrice as many alterations at one time on the galley-proof, and only requires another proof in order that he may verify the correctness of the printer's work. The moral is obvious.

After the pages have been cast, further alterations, while entirely possible, are quite expensive and necessarily more or less injurious to the plates.

The author having given the word to "cast," the pages of type are laid on a smooth, level table of iron or marble called an "imposing stone."

They are then enclosed--either two or three or four pages together, according to their size--in iron frames called "chases," in which they are squarely and securely "locked up," the type having first been levelled down by light blows of a mallet on a block of smooth, hard wood called a "planer." This locking-up of the pages in iron frames naturally corrects the defects noted in the twine-bound pages, and not only brings the type into proper alignment and adjustment, but prevents the probability of types becoming displaced or new errors occurring through types dropping out of the page and being wrongly replaced.

When the locking-up process is completed, the iron chase and type embraced by it is called a "form." A proof of this form is read and examined by a proof-reader with the utmost care, with a view to eliminating any remaining errors or defective types or badly adjusted lines, and to making the pages as nearly typographically perfect as possible. It is surprising how many glaring errors, which have eluded all readers up to this time, are discovered by the practised eye of the final proof-reader.

The form having received this most careful final reading, the proof is pa.s.sed back to the "stone-hands"--those who lock up and correct the forms--for final correction and adjustment, after which several more sets of proofs are taken, called "F"-proofs (variously and correctly understood as standing for "final," "file," or "foundry" proofs). A set of F-proofs is sent to the author to keep on file, occasionally one is sent to the publisher, and one set is always retained in the proof-room of the printing-office. These proofs are characterized by heavy black borders which enclose each page, and which frequently render nervous authors apprehensive lest their books are to appear in this funereal livery. These black borders are the prints of the "guard-lines," which, rising to the level of the type, form a protection to the pages and the plates in their progress through the electrotyping department; but before the plates are finished up and made ready for the pressroom, the guard-lines, which have been moulded with the type, are removed.

After several sets of F-proofs have been taken, the form is carried to the moulding or "battery" room of the electrotyping department, where it leaves its perfect impress in the receptive wax. Thence it will later be returned to the composing room and taken apart and the type distributed, soon to be again set up in new combinations of letters and words. The little types making a page of verse to-day may do duty to-morrow in a page of a text-book in the higher mathematics.

After the type form has been warmed by placing it upon a steam table, an impression of it is taken in a composition resembling wax which is spread upon a metal slab to the thickness of about one-twelfth of an inch. Both the surface of the type and of the wax are thoroughly coated with plumbago or black lead, which serves as a lubricant to prevent the wax from adhering to the type.

As the blank places in the form would not provide sufficient depth in the plate, it is necessary to build them up in the wax mould by dropping more melted wax in such places to a height corresponding to the depth required in the plate, which is, of course, the reverse of the mould, and will show corresponding depressions wherever the mould has raised parts. If great care is not taken in this operation of "building-up," wax is apt to flow over into depressions in the mould, thereby effacing from it a part of the impression, and the plate appears later without the letters or words thus unintentionally blotted out. The reviser of the plate-proofs must watch carefully for such cases.

The mould is now thoroughly brushed over again with a better quality of black lead than before, and this furnishes the necessary metallic surface without which the copper would not deposit. Then it is "stopped out" by going over its edges with a hot iron, which melts the wax, destroys the black-lead coating, and confines the deposit of copper to its face.

After carefully clearing the face of the mould of all extraneous matter by a stream of water from a force-pump, it is washed with a solution of iron filings and blue vitriol which forms a primary copper facing. It is then suspended by a copper-connecting strip in a bath containing a solution of sulphate of copper, water, and sulphuric acid. Through the instrumentality of this solution, and the action of a current of electricity from a dynamo, copper particles separate from sheets of copper (called "anodes," which are also suspended in the bath) and deposit into the face of the mould, thus exactly reproducing the elevations and depressions of the form of type or ill.u.s.trations of which the mould is an impression. After remaining in the bath about two hours, when the deposit of copper should be about as thick as a visiting card, the mould is taken from the bath and the copper sh.e.l.l removed from the wax by pouring boiling hot water upon it. A further was.h.i.+ng in hot lye, and a bath in an acid pickle, completely removes every vestige of wax from the sh.e.l.l. The back of the sh.e.l.l is now moistened with soldering fluid and covered with a layer of tin-foil, which acts as a solder between the copper and the later backing of lead.

The sh.e.l.ls are now placed face downward in a shallow pan, and melted lead is poured upon them until of a sufficient depth; then the whole ma.s.s is cooled off, and the solid lead plate with copper face is removed from the pan and carried to the finis.h.i.+ng room, where it is planed down to a standard thickness of about one-seventh of an inch.

The various pages in the cast are sawed apart, the guard-lines removed, side and foot edges bevelled, head edge trimmed square, and the open or blank parts of the plate lowered by a routing machine to a sufficient depth to prevent their showing later on the printed sheet.

Then a proof taken from the plates is carefully examined for imperfections, and the plates are corrected or repaired accordingly, and are now ready for the press.

Although, owing to the expense and to the fact that the plate is more or less weakened thereby, it is desirable to avoid as much as possible making alterations in the plates, they can be made, and the following is the course generally pursued. If the change involves but a letter or two, the letters in the plate are cut out and new type letters are inserted; but if the alteration involves a whole word or more, it is inadvisable to insert the lead type, owing to its being softer and less durable than the copper-faced plate, and it will therefore soon show more wear than the rest of the page; and so it is customary to reset and electrotype so much of the page as is necessary to incorporate the proposed alteration, and then to subst.i.tute this part of the page for the part to be altered, by cutting out the old and soldering in the new piece, which must of course exactly correspond in size.

As a patched plate is apt at any time to go to pieces on the press, and may destroy other plates around it, or may even damage the press itself, it is generally considered best to cast a new plate from the patched one. This does not, however, apply to plates in which only single letters or words have been inserted, but to those which have been cut apart their whole width for the insertion of one or more lines.

The plates having been finally approved, they are made up in groups (or "signatures") of sixteen, and packed in strong boxes for future storage. Each box generally contains three of these groups, or forty-eight plates, and is plainly marked with the t.i.tle of the book and the numbers of the signatures contained therein.

The longevity of good electrotype plates is dependent upon the care with which they are handled and the quality of paper printed from them; but with smooth book paper and good treatment it is entirely possible to print from them a half million impressions without their showing any great or material wear.

COMPOSITION BY THE LINOTYPE MACHINE

By Frederick J. Warburton.

The Linotype, p.r.o.nounced by _London Engineering_ "the most wonderful machine of the century," was not the product of a day. Its creator, whose early training had never touched the printer's art, was fortunately led to the study of that art, through the efforts of others, whose education had prepared them to look for a better method of producing print than that which had been in use since the days of Gutenberg; but his invention abolished at one stroke composition and distribution; introduced for the first time the line, instead of the letter, as the unit of composition; brought into the art the idea of automatically and instantly producing by a keyboard solid lines of composed and justified type, to be once used and then melted down; rendered it possible to secure for each issue new and sharp faces; abolished the usual investment for type; cheapened the cost of standing matter; removed all danger of "pieing," and at the same time reduced greatly the cost of composition. The story is an interesting one.

In the autumn of 1876, Charles T. Moore, a native of Virginia, exhibited to a company of Was.h.i.+ngton reporters a printing machine upon which he had been working for many years, and which he believed to be then substantially complete. It was a machine of very moderate dimensions, requiring a small motive power, and which bore upon a cylinder in successive rows the characters required for printed matter. By the manipulation of finger keys, while the cylinder was kept in continuous forward motion, the characters were printed in lithographic ink upon a paper ribbon, in proper relation to each other; this ribbon was afterwards cut into lengths, arranged in the form of a page, "justified," to a certain extent, by cutting between and separating the words, and then transferred to a lithographic stone, from which the print was made. Such print was not, of course, of the highest character, but it was a beginning; and the machines were used in Was.h.i.+ngton and New York, mainly in the transcription of stenographic notes taken in law cases and in the proceedings of legislative committees. A number of these machines was built, but mechanical difficulties became so frequent that the parties interested resolved, very wisely, before proceeding to build upon a large scale, to put the machine into the hands of a thorough mechanical expert, so that it might be tried out and a determination reached as to whether or not it was a commercially practical one. At the head of the little company of men who nurtured this enterprise and contributed most largely by their labors and means to its development, were James O.

Clephane, a well-known law and convention reporter, and Andrew Devine, then the Senate reporter of the a.s.sociated Press. In their search for an expert, a Baltimore manufacturer named Hahl, who had constructed some of these machines, was consulted, and upon his recommendation his cousin, Ottmar Mergenthaler, was selected to undertake the work, and thus the future inventor of the Linotype was discovered.

Mergenthaler was born in 1854, in Wurtemberg, Germany, had been a watchmaker, and at this time was employed upon the finer parts of the mechanical work done in Hahl's shop. The contract was that Mergenthaler was to give his services at a rate of wages considerably beyond what he was then receiving, and Hahl was to charge a reasonable price for the use of his shop and the cost of material. The task undertaken, however, proved to be a far larger one than had been antic.i.p.ated, and the means of the promoters were exhausted long before the modifications and improvements continually presented had been worked out. The circle of contributors was therefore necessarily widened, and indeed that process went on for years, enough, could they have been foreseen, to have dismayed and disheartened those who were there "in the beginning." Mergenthaler and Moore, a.s.sisted by the practical suggestions of Clephane and Devine, continued to work upon the problem for about two years, by which time the lithographic printing machine had become one which indented the characters in a papier-mache strip, and this being cut up and adjusted upon a flat surface in lines, the way was prepared for casting in type metal. The next step of importance was the production of the "bar indenting machine," a machine which carried a series of metal bars, bearing upon their edges male printing characters, the bars being provided with springs for "justifying" purposes. The papier-mache matrix lines resulting from pressure against the characters were secured upon a backing sheet, over this sheet was laid a gridiron frame containing a series of slots, and into these slots type metal was poured by hand to form slugs bearing the characters from which to print. This system was immediately followed by a machine which cast the slugs automatically, one line at a time, from the matrix sheets.

It was in this work that Mergenthaler received the education which resulted in his great invention and in due time he presented his plans for a machine which was known as the "Band" machine. In this machine the characters required for printing were indented in the edges of a series of narrow bra.s.s bands, each band containing a full alphabet, and hanging, with s.p.a.cers, side by side in the machine. The bands tapered in thickness from top to bottom, the characters being arranged upon them in the order of the width-s.p.a.ce which they occupied. By touching the keys of a keyboard similar to a typewriter, the bands dropped successively, bringing the characters required into line at a given point; a casting mechanism was then brought in contact with this line of characters, molten metal forced against it through a mould of the proper dimensions, and a slug with a printing surface upon its face was thus formed. This was recognized as a great advance and was hailed with delight by the now largely increased company. The necessary funds were provided and the building of the new machine undertaken. But Mergenthaler continued active, and before a second of the "Band" machines could be built, he had devised a plan for dealing with the letters by means of independent matrices. These matrices were pieces of bra.s.s measuring 1-1/4 inches by 3/4 of an inch and of the necessary thickness to accommodate the character, which it bore upon its edge in intaglio; they were stored in the newly devised machine in vertical copper tubes, from the bases of which they were drawn, as required, by a mechanism actuated by finger keys, caught by the "ears"

as they dropped upon a miniature railway, and by a blast of air carried one by one to the a.s.sembling point. Wedge s.p.a.cers being dropped in between the words, the line was carried to the front of the mould, where "justification" and casting took place.

Success seemed at last to have been reached, and now the problem was, first, how to obtain means to build machines, and second, how to persuade printers to use them. The first of these was the easier, although no slight task; the second was one of great difficulty. The field for the machine then in sight was the newspaper, and the newspaper must appear daily. The old method of printing from founder's type, set for the most part by hand, was doing the work; a revolutionary method by which the type was to be made and set by machine, although promising great economies, was a dangerous innovation and one from which publishers naturally shrank. They could see the fate which awaited them if they adopted the new system and it proved unsuccessful. However, a number of newspaper men, after a careful investigation of the whole subject, determined to make the trial; and the leaders of these were Whitelaw Reid of the _New York Tribune_, Melvin Stone of the _Chicago News_ (to whom succeeded Victor F. Lawson), and Walter N. Haldeman of the _Louisville Courier-Journal_.

Into these offices, then, the Linotype went. To Mr. Reid belongs the honor of giving the machine a name--line of type--Linotype, and of first using it to print a daily newspaper. Of the machine last described, two hundred were built, but before they were half marketed, the ingenious Mergenthaler presented a new form, which showed so great an advance that it was perforce adopted, and the machines then in use, although they gave excellent results, were in course of time displaced. The new machine did away with the air blast, the matrices being carried to the a.s.sembling point by gravity from magazines to be hereafter described, and the distributing elevator was displaced by an "arm" which lifted the lines of matrices, after the casting process, to the top of the machine to be returned to their places.

The improvements made in the Linotype since Mergenthaler's time (who died in 1899 at the early age of forty-five) have been very great; indeed, almost a new machine has been created in doing what was necessary to adapt it to the more and more exacting work which it was called upon to perform in the offices of the great American book publishers. These improvements have been largely the work of, or the following out of suggestions made by, Philip T. Dodge, the patent attorney of the parties interested in the enterprise from the beginning, and later the president of the Mergenthaler Linotype Company. They went on year after year under the supervision of a corps of gifted mechanical experts, the chief of whom was John R. Rogers, the inventor of the Typograph, until from the machine of Mergenthaler, supplying through its ninety keys as many characters, a machine appeared yielding three hundred and sixty different characters from the like keyboard. The magazines, too, were capable of being charged with matrices representing any face from Agate (5-point) to English (14-point), and even larger faces for display advertising and for initial letters, by special contrivances which cannot be described without carrying this article beyond reasonable limits. Among the ingenious devices added are: the Rogers systems of setting rule and figure tables, box heads, etc.; the reversal of the line so as to set Hebrew characters in their proper relation; the production of printers' rules of any pattern; the making of ornamental borders; a device for the casting of the same line an indefinite number of times from one setting. The machine was also greatly simplified in its construction.

The amount of money expended in the enterprise before the point of profit was reached was very great; it aggregated many millions of dollars; but the promoters had faith in the success of the machine and taxed themselves ungrudgingly. Among those who contributed largely to the ultimate result by substantial aid and wise counsel in the conduct of the business the name of D. O. Mills should be particularly mentioned.

It was Mergenthaler's great good fortune to have had as his supporters many men of the character of those mentioned above, and in thus being relieved of all financial anxiety and permitted to work out thoroughly and without delay every idea that suggested itself either to him or to the ingenious men who had been drawn into the enterprise. His profits, too, were proportionate to the company's success, and although he did not live to enjoy them for his natural term of years, he had the satisfaction of knowing that a handsome income would continue to flow into the hands of his wife and children.

The company's princ.i.p.al works are situated in the Borough of Brooklyn, New York City, and have a s.p.a.ce devoted to manufacturing purposes of about one hundred and sixty thousand square feet. Approximately one hundred Linotypes, besides a large number of smaller machines and a vast quant.i.ty of supplies, are turned out from there every month; but the growing demand from abroad for American-built machines has led to the consideration of plans for an entirely new establishment, to be built in accordance with the latest modes of factory construction.

About ten thousand Linotypes are now in daily use.

The machine as at present built is shown in part by the accompanying cut, and its operation may be briefly described as follows:--

The Linotype machine contains, as its fundamental elements, several hundred single matrices, which consist of flat plates of bra.s.s having on one edge a female letter or matrix proper, and in the upper end a series of teeth, used for selecting and distributing them to their proper places in the magazine. These matrices are held in the magazine of the machine, a channel of it being devoted to each separate character, and there are also channels which carry quads of definite thickness for use in tabular work, etc. The machine is so organized that on manipulating the finger keys, matrices are selected in the order in which their characters are to appear in print, and they are a.s.sembled in line side by side at the point marked _G_ in the ill.u.s.tration, with wedge-shaped s.p.a.ces between the words. This series of a.s.sembled matrices forms a line matrix, or, in other words, a line of female type adapted to form a line of raised printed characters on a slug which is cast against them. After the matrix line has been composed, it is automatically transferred to the face of a slotted mould, as shown at _K_, and while in this position the wedge s.p.a.ces are pushed up through the line, and in this manner exact and instantaneous justification is secured. Behind the mould there is a melting pot, _M_, heated by a flame from a gas or oil burner, and containing a constant supply of molten metal. The pot has a perforated mouth which fits against and closes the rear side of the mould, and it contains a pump plunger mechanically actuated. After the matrix line is in place against the front of the mould, the plunger falls and forces the molten metal through the mouth pot into the mould, against and into the characters in the matrix line. The metal instantly solidifies, forming a slug having on its edge raised characters formed by the matrices. The mould wheel next makes a partial revolution, turning the mould from its original horizontal position to a vertical one in front of an ejector blade, which, advancing from the rear through the mould, pushes the slug from the latter into the receiving galley at the front. A vibrating arm advances the slugs laterally in the galley, a.s.sembling them in column or page form ready for use. To insure absolute accuracy in the height and thickness of the slugs, knives are arranged to act upon the base and side faces as they are being carried toward the galley. After the matrices have served their purpose in front of the mould, they are s.h.i.+fted laterally until the teeth in their upper ends engage the horizontal ribs on the bar _R_; this bar then rises, as shown by the dotted lines, lifting the matrices to the distributor at the top of the machine, but leaving the wedge s.p.a.cers, _I_, behind, to be s.h.i.+fted to their box, _H_. The teeth in the top of each matrix are arranged in a special order, according to the character it contains, the number or relation of its teeth differing from that of a matrix containing any other character, and this difference insures proper distribution. A distributor bar, _T_, is fixed horizontally over the upper end of the magazine and bears on its lower edge longitudinal ribs or teeth, adapted to engage the teeth of the matrices and hold the latter in suspension as they are carried along the bar over the mouths of the magazine channels by means of screws which engage their edges. Each matrix remains in engagement with the bar until it arrives at the required point, directly over its own channel, and at this point for the first time its teeth bear such relation to those on the bar that it is permitted to disengage and fall into the channel. It is to be particularly noted that the matrices pursue a circulatory course through the machine, starting singly from the bottom of the magazine and pa.s.sing thence to the line being composed, thence in the line to the mould, and finally back singly to the top of the magazine. This circulation permits the operations of composing one line, casting from a second, and distributing a third, to be carried on concurrently, and enables the machine to run at a speed exceeding that at which an operator can finger the keys. A change from one face of type to any other is effected by simply drawing off one magazine and subst.i.tuting another containing the face required, so that the variety of faces needs to be limited only by the number of them which the printer chooses to carry in his stock.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Linotype Matrix.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Diagram of the Linotype Machine.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Linotype Slugs.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Linotype Melting Pot and Mold Wheel.]

Matrices are also made bearing two characters, as the ordinary body character and the corresponding italics, or a body character and a small capital or a black face, and either of these is brought into use as desired by the touching of a key, so that if, for instance, it is required to print a word in italics or black face at any part of the line being composed, it is effected in this way, and composition in the body letter is resumed by releasing the key.

The latest pattern of machine is supplied with two magazines, superimposed one above the other, each with its own distributing apparatus. The operator can elect, by moving a lever, from which magazine the letter wanted will fall--the same keyboard serving for both. It is thus possible to set two sizes of type from one machine, each matrix showing two characters as described above.

COMPOSITION BY THE MONOTYPE MACHINE

By Paul Nathan.