1831.—JAMES THOMSON. Certain improvements in making or producing printing types. “My improvements consist in making printing types by casting or forming a cake of metal having letters formed and protruding on one side of it, and in afterwards sawing this cake directly or transversely, so as to divide it into single types.” The casting is effected in two ways. First by forming a mould from types set up, and immersing this within an iron box in a pot of melted type-metal, “as in making stereotype plates; with this difference, however, that in the present case, the plate must be as thick as the length of the intended type; and further, that in setting up the types for the cast, proper spaces must be made between each letter and between the lines, in order to allow for what will be taken away in the sawing.” The second mode is “by taking a plate of copper or other suitable metal, and making in it indentations or matrices with a punch having on it the letter for the intended type, taking care to make them in straight rows, direct and transverse. The plate being so indented, is put into an iron box and immersed in a pot of liquid type-metal, and kept there the proper depth and proper time, so as to enable the metal fully to enter into those indentations or matrices, that the letter may be well formed. The cake thus cast or formed, after being taken out and cooled, is sawed as before.” {123} [Illustration] CHAPTER V. THE STATE CONTROL OF ENGLISH LETTER-FOUNDING.