to be ejected upon a travelling band. This device of using a paper
strip perforated in different positions to correspond to different
letters was patented by Felt in 1860 (U.S. Patent Spec. No. 28,463),
and he also utilized it for effecting distribution, the “dead” or
used type being dealt with by another machine through which the
paper strip was run in the reverse direction. This quality, however,
was not so valuable as it might appear at first sight, since any
correction, however simple, of necessity made the perforated paper
ineffectual as a guide in distribution. The Thorne machine, exhibited
in the Paris Exhibition of 1878, was a development of the
principle of a rotating disk, but the types, which were contained in a
vertical cylinder, were selected by touching keys in the ordinary
manner. When liberated they fell upon a rotating table, whence
they were deflected by a finger upon a travelling band and delivered
into the composing race. The American Simplex machine
resembles the Thorne very closely. The Wicks composing machine,
again, adopts a different principle from both the above groups.
The types are ejected upon a straight race set at an angle of 45°.
Thus each has to travel a different distance from the other—a
result which the inventors of the Delcambre group of machines
were at pains to avoid; and when several keys are struck together
so as to give a combination like “and,” the several types delivered
to the race follow each other in proper succession to the point of
assembly, the letter whose key is nearest to the left side of the keyboard
preceding those whose keys are more to the right.
The Paige composing, justifying and distributing machine—an American invention—is one of the most remarkable pieces of mechanism ever put together. It contains 18,000 parts, and the patent specifications form an imposing volume. It is operated by keys in the ordinary way, but automatic mechanism advances the ejected letters in words, spaces them and inserts the lines in the “galley” with “leads” if desired; at the same time other mechanism automatically distributes dead matter and refills the tubes which contain the supplies of types. Two machines were made, and are said to have done good work, but the cost of construction and the complicated nature of the mechanism made the apparatus impracticable commercially, and the two that were made are now on view as mechanical curiosities, the one in the Columbia Institute and the other in Cornell University. The Paige machine dispensed with the guide-plate of the Delcambre group, the letters being ejected on a plane along which a driver passed at intervals and swept the type into a receiving race on the left of the machine. The Dow composing and justifying machine, a later American invention, adopts this characteristic of the Paige, but has two drivers meeting at the centre of the plane which receives the letters. The types having been swept to the centre by these, a vertical driver forces them downwards into a vertical receiver. When a line has been set a justifying key is touched, the vertical line passes to a horizontal position, and is driven forwards to a point where apparatus measures it, and having removed temporary brass spaces replaces them with others selected from a series of ten different thicknesses.
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Fig. 8.—Nick System of Distribution (Simplex Machine).
Distributing Machines.—There are two main classes of distributing machines. One, which is exemplified by the Delcambre or the Fraser machine, is operated by a keyboard; the compositor strikes the keys corresponding to the letters of the printed matter he wishes to distribute, and thus opens gates through which the types pass and find their way down a guide-plate to their proper tubes. The other comprises a number of machines which agree in requiring the type to be specially nicked for their use. Each type has its own particular combination of nicks, and the receptacles in which the type is collated are provided at their entrances with wards corresponding to these nicks, so that each type can only enter the one receptacle for which its nicks are arranged (fig. 8). In some cases, as in the Empire and the Dow, the distributor is a separate machine; in others, as the Thorne and the Simplex, it is combined with the composing machine in such a way that the two work simultaneously.
Fig. 9.—Diagram of Linotype Machine.
Linotype.—An enormous amount of ingenuity has been expended on the Linotype, which was developed into a practical machine by Ottmar Mergenthaler, of Baltimore, though two of its elements—the solid bar of type and the wedge space—were invented by others, the former by T. W. Smith, of the Caslon Foundry, and the latter by Jacob W. Schuckers, of Washington. The following will give a general idea of its working: In the magazine A (fig. 9) are a series of matrices, formed with the characters in intaglio on one edge, which are discharged by gates, operated from the keyboard D into the chutes E, and thence upon the travelling belt F; this delivers them upon a revolving pusher wheel by which they are set up in proper order in the assembler block G. Above the assembler block is a space magazine, and from this the space key J releases a space bar, when desired, which drops into place in the line. As the matrices are forced into the assembler block they move to the left against the resistance of a sliding abutment, thus being held compactly in place in the line. As soon as a complete line is set up, the compositor operates a hand lever by which the assembler block and matrices are raised to the level of a horizontal slide, where the line is grasped between two jaws and carried to the left, and lowered into position opposite the mouth of the mould wheel K. Here the justification of the line is effected by means of an upwardly moving plunger which drives the wedge-shaped spaces, seen in fig. 10, into the line, and thus expands it to the exact length required. The matrices are then locked firmly in a vice with the characters opposite the mouth of the mould. At this time the pump plunger in the melting pot M (fig. 9) is forced downwards by mechanism actuated by suitable cams on the driving shaft, and a jet of molten type metal is ejected into the mould and against the characters on the matrices, thus casting the bar or “slug.” The cast bar is next forced, by a revolution of the wheel K, between a pair of knives, by which it is trimmed, and into a galley, where it is pushed along by a packer arm and placed beside its fellows in a column ready for use.
It is next necessary to distribute the matrices to the magazines, in order that the operation of the machine may be carried on continuously. The matrices and spaces are raised from the vice and brought opposite a bar R, which carries on its under side a series of undercut ribs corresponding to the teeth which are shown at the edges of the V-shaped notch in the top of the matrices (fig. 10) and
the matrices are pushed on to this bar so as to be suspended by the