At 2:45 dial by the time at America, each sub-office had great sheets of paper saturated with the metallic chemicals used to prepare the home-form, spread perfectly flat upon copper beds, and the little traveler in position at the lower left-hand corner of the sheet. At precisely 3 dial the operator at America touched the key of a sympathetic instrument, and the traveler on his sheet of paper passed rapidly down the entire page. At every sub-office the traveler performed a similar journey, being regulated by a main sympathetic instrument. When the travelers reached the end of the page, they automatically returned to the point of starting, excepting that they moved the width of the 100 points, or two inches, to the right. This was repeated until every particle of the paper necessary for a whole edition had been completely passed over. The principle, as Cobb learned, was this: The home sheet having metallic letters, and the copper bed being connected with a battery, whenever a point of the traveler touched a letter a current passed to the point, thence to the relay, which caused the sympathetic needle to move to the right. At the sub-office, the mate of this needle also moved to the right and closed the circuit of the local battery; a current then passed down to a point of the traveler--which point was a mate to one of the points in the home traveler--and thence through the prepared paper, changing the composition into a fine metallic line. Whenever the points of the home traveler passed off of a metallic letter the current for that particular point or points was broken, as the paper had been rendered non-conductive after its receipt from the type-writers. The result was that each sub-office had an exact copy of the original form, made up of thousands of little, fine lines, but so close together as to form perfect letters. These forms were quickly placed in rapid-acting plating baths, and the top surface, or that side over which the traveler passed, plated with aluminum. In thirty minutes the forms were covered by a sheet of metal which held every letter that had been made in the paper by the electrical change of the chemical, rigidly in position; the letters being formed clear through the paper. The forms were now flattened, and then bent over rollers for the great rotary presses. The last act in the manipulation of these forms was then accomplished by decomposing and removing all the paper which had not been transformed into metal. The result of all these operations was that a printing cylinder was obtained exactly similar to the one at the home office. The paper was then printed and distributed as in former times. Cobb studied all these details very carefully, and left the establishment with feelings of astonishment at the progress made in a hundred years. "We must have an early breakfast, Junius," said Hugh, that evening, "for we are to take the Tracer across the sea and visit the metropolis."