through the cylinders at the rate of nearly two hundred feet a minute. It does ten times as much work as the noisier and more bustling presses by its side.” [Illustration: ROTARY ART PRESS] The success of this perfecting press induced the makers to devise a machine on the rotary principle adapted for the finest kind of illustrations--in short, to make a press which should do work as fine as it was possible to do on the hand press or the stop cylinder. The result was the setting up, in 1890, at the De Vinne Press, of a machine known as the “Rotary Art” press. This machine is described in the “Century” of November, 1890, as follows:--“Sixty-four plates of the ‘Century’ truly bent to the proper curve, are firmly fastened on one cylinder sixty inches long, and about thirty inches in diameter; sixteen inking rollers, supplied with ink from two fountains, successfully ink these sixty-four plates with a delicacy and yet with a fullness of color never before attained. The shafts of the impression cylinder and the plate cylinders, 4½ inches in diameter, do not give or spring under the strongest impression. Although rigid in every part, in the hands of an expert pressman it can be made responsive to the slightest overlay. This machine is fed by four feeders from single sheets in the usual manner, and does the work of four stop cylinders in superior style. The gain in performance is not as great as the gain in quality of presswork, but quality was considered more than speed. The performance of the machine could have been more than doubled by adding to it other cylinders which would print on both sides of the paper; but careful experiment has proved that the _finest_ woodcuts cannot be properly printed with this rapidity. To get the best results the ink on one side of the paper must be dry before it is printed on the other side.” [Illustration: “TIT BITS” PRESS]