If Gutemberg’s attempts when in partnership with Andrew Drytzehn and others did not extend beyond block-printing, and if the four “pieces” which were in the press are assumed to have been four engraved blocks, it is evident that the mere unscrewing them from the “_chase_” or frame in which they might be enclosed, would not in the least prevent persons from knowing what they were; and it is difficult to conceive how the undoing of the two screws would cause “the pieces” to fall asunder. If, however, we suppose the four “pieces” to have been so many pages of moveable types screwed together in a frame, it is easy to conceive the effect of undoing the two screws which held it together. On this hypothesis, Gutemberg’s instructions to his servant, and Anthony Heilman’s request to Conrad Saspach, the maker of the press, that he would take out the “pieces” and distribute them, are at once intelligible. If Gutemberg’s attempts were confined to block-printing, he could certainly have no claim to the discovery of a new art, unless indeed we are to suppose that his invention consisted in the introduction of the press for the purpose of taking impressions; but it is apparent that his anxiety was not so much to prevent people seeing the press as to keep them ignorant of the purpose for which it was employed, and to conceal what was in it. The evidence of Hans Dünne the goldsmith, though very brief, is in favour of the opinion that Gutemberg’s essays in printing were made with moveable types of metal; and it also is corroborated by the fact of _lead_ being one of the articles purchased on account of the partnership. It is certain that goldsmiths were accustomed to engrave letters and figures upon silver and other metals long before the art of copper-plate printing was introduced; and Fournier not attending to the distinction between simple engraving on metal and engraving on a plate for the purpose of taking impressions on paper, has made a futile objection to the argument of Bär,[III-24] who very naturally supposes that the hundred florins which Hans Dünne received from Gutemberg for work done on account of printing alone, might be on account of his having cut the types, the formation of which by means of punches and matrices was a subsequent improvement of Peter Scheffer. It is indeed difficult to conceive in what manner a goldsmith could earn a hundred florins for work done on account of printing, except in his capacity as an engraver; and as I can see no reason to suppose that Hans Dünne was an engraver on wood, I am inclined to think that he was employed by Gutemberg to cut the letters on separate pieces of metal.