type founders, though not to the exclusion of older sizes, and it has
been extended to regulate the thickness or set of types, and also the
position of the faces on the bodies as regards alignment. The Didot
point-system, used in France, is based on a point of 0·376 mm., the
English point being 0·35145 mm. The following are specimens of
the principal bodies of ordinary British and American types, with
their corresponding appellations on the point-system, the first five
being now mainly for display purposes:—
| Points. | |||
| The Encyclo | 2-line small pica | 22 | |
| The Encyclopaed | Great primer | 18 | |
| The Encyclopaedia | English | 14 | |
| The Encyclopaedia Brit | Pica | 12 | |
| The Encyclopaedia Britan | Small pica | 11 | |
| The Encyclopaedia Britannica, | Long primer | 10 | |
| The Encyclopaedia Britannica, | Bourgeois | 9 | |
| The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th | Brevier | 8 | |
| The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th | Minion | 7 | |
| The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition | Nonpareil | 6 | |
| The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition | Ruby | 512 | |
| The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition | Pearl | 5 |
[The larger type used in the body of this work is 10-point, and the smaller 8-point.]
The height of types is 1112 in. Those lower than the standard dimensions are said to be “low to paper,” and if surrounded by higher types will not give perfect impressions. Spaces and quads are 34-in. high for direct printing, but for stereotyping are cut rather higher (0·83 in.).
According to the purpose for which they are used, types are divided into two classes—book type, including Roman and Italic; and job type, including a multitude of fanciful forms of letters, chiefly founded on the shape of the Roman and Italic letters, and intended to be more prominent, delicate, elegant, &c. It is impossible to enumerate all the varieties Varieties of Face. of the latter class, as additions are being constantly made and once popular styles always going out of fashion. The leading varieties are the antiques, which are Roman letters with strokes of nearly uniform thickness, as M; sanserif or grotesques, which have no serifs, as M; blacks, as M; and scripts, which represent the modern cursive or Italian handwriting, as M. Black letter is now only a jobbing type in English-speaking countries, although it was the first character used in printing. It is still used in Germany, with certain modifications, as the principal text-letter for books and newspapers. A comparison of the numerous reproductions that have been issued of Caxton’s works with any modern line of black letter will show how greatly the form and style have been altered. The present style of Roman type dates only from about the first quarter of the 18th century. Previously the approved shape was as follows:—
Printing has been defined to be the act, art, or practice
The use of this type was revived by Charles Whittingham, nephew of the founder of the Chiswick Press, about 1843, and it has since become a favourite form, under the name of old style. Some of the punches cut by the first notable English type-founder, William Caslon (1692–1766), have been preserve, and types are being constantly cast from them. Nearly all founders now produce modernized old style.
In this connexion reference may be made to the modern revival of artistic book printing in England by William Morris and others influenced by him. This development took definite form in the founts and books of the Kelmscott Press, which is distinguished by the use of three founts designed by Morris. The Troye and Chaucer founts, both Gothic, are best fitted for ornamented medieval works, while the Golden or Roman fount is without the exaggerated contraction of form laterally, the exaggerated use of thick and thin strokes, and the vicious stroke-terminations common to modern founts. It is a type of full body, designed in careful relation to the up and down strokes, and resting upon solid serifs, as with Jenson’s fount, for instance, but in detail more allied to fine penmanship or black letter. The Vale books, often classed with the Kelmscott, may be counted with them so far as they also are controlled by one designer, from the important matter of type, decoration and illustration, to that of “build” and press work. The first Vale book in which these conditions were achieved is Milton’s Minor Poems (1896). In this is employed the Roman type, known as the Vale fount, designed by Charles Ricketts, which differs from the Kelmscott fount in a greater roundness or fullness of body, and in a modification of details by the conditions of type-making. The second fount used in the Vale issues, first employed in The Plays of Shakespeare (1896), is less round in body, more traditional in detail and lighter in effect.
Manufacture of Type.—Type is made of an alloy, known as type-metal, which consists chiefly of lead, with smaller amounts of antimony and tin. The exact proportions vary in different countries and foundries and with the size and quality of the type, but in general more than 60% is lead and the antimony predominates over the tin. Sometimes small quantities of other metals, such as copper and iron, are added. Large letters, such as are used for bills and posters do not come within the province of the type-founder; they are made of wood, chiefly rock maple, sycamore, pine and lime, planed to the right size and engraved by special machinery.
The earliest printers made their own types, and the books printed from them can now be distinguished with almost as much certainty as handwriting can be identified. The modern printer has recourse to the type-founder. The first step in the making of type, according to the old method, is the production of a matrix. The letter is cut on the end of a piece of Matrices for Type. fine steel, forming the punch (fig. 2), which is afterwards hardened. A separate punch is required for each character in every fount of type, and the making of them requires great care and delicacy in order that the various sorts in a fount may be exactly uniform in width, height and general proportions. During the process of its manufacture, the punch is frequently tested or measured by delicate gauges to insure its accuracy, and from time to time it is examined by means of a smoke-proof, that is, an impression obtained by holding it in a flame and stamping it on paper. When the letter is perfect, it is driven into a piece of polished copper, called the drive or strike (fig. 3). This passes to the justifier, who makes the width and depth of the faces uniform throughout the fount. They must then be made to line exactly with each other. When completed, the strike becomes the matrix (fig. 4), wherein the face of the type is made. But matrices are now commonly produced by the aid of an engraving engine which copies a standard drawing of each letter on any desired scale, and they may be obtained from existing founts by electro-typing.
|
|
| ||
| Fig. 2.—Punch. | Fig. 3.—Drive. | Fig. 4.—Matrix. |
Until well into the 19th century types were cast from the
matrices in small hand-moulds, the output from which with a skilful
worker was about 400 letters an hour. The mould
consisted of two portions fitting closely to each other
and containing the matrix with a space to receive the
metal for the shank; holding it in his left hand the operator poured
Type Casting.
in the metal with his right, and after jerking it at arm’s length, to
bring the metal well up against the matrix, opened the two halves
and threw out the type. In 1838 David Bruce, Junr., of New York,
a Scotsman, who had migrated to America, invented a machine to
perform substantially the same operations; this increased the rate
of production to about 100 a minute for ordinary sizes, and with
Fig. 5.—Type
with jet.
improvements and modifications remained a standard appliance for
40 years after its introduction. The metal, kept molten by a small
furnace, was injected by a pump into the mould, which at every
revolution of the axle came up to the spout of the pump, received
a charge of metal, receded, opened, and discharged the type. But
neither the hand mould nor the Bruce machine produced finished
type. To the bottom of each there was attached a wedge-shaped
jet (fig. 5), somewhat similar to that on a bullet cast
in a hand mould. This had to be picked off by
hand; the burr on the shoulder of the types had
also to be rubbed off, and a groove had to be cut
in the bottom to form the feet. Many efforts were
made to devise machines which should perform
these operations and produce finished type, one of
the most satisfactory being that patented by Henry
Barth, of Cincinnati, in 1888, but the principle of
the divided mould which opened to discharge the
type was generally retained. A new principle,
however, was adopted by Frederick Wicks (1840–1910)
in his rotary type casting machine, which
was developed into a practical apparatus in London
just at the end of the 19th century, and which
is able to produce finished types, ready to be dispatched to the
