Baskerville made types much superior in distinctness and elegance to any that had previously been used. He improved greatly the lines of the letters, their style and appearance, making them as artistic as possible. To this end he planned in detail the style of all type which he used. He experimented also in the manufacture of ink to get that which had the most permanent color. He superintended the manufacture of the paper he used in order to obtain a finished surface best adapted to receive the impressions of the type. Printing in America during the colonial days was subject to much difficulty. The first printing press in our country was set up at Cambridge in the house of the president of Harvard College, Rev. Henry Dunster, in 1639. Eliot's Bible in the Indian language was printed upon this press between 1660 and 1663. This same printing establishment is still in existence and has been known for many years as the University Press. The first Bible printed in America in any European language was a German Bible issued in 1743 by Christopher Sower in Germantown, Pennsylvania. This was a wonderful work for those early days. It was a large quarto Bible, consisting of 1,284 pages, and it took four years to complete the printing of it. [Illustration: A FRANKLIN PRESS.] How quaint the early printing press would appear to us of to-day! It was used with very little change for one hundred and fifty years. The "forms" of type were placed upon wood or stone beds surrounded by frames called "coffins," moved in and out by hand with great labor, and after each impression the platen which had pressed the paper down upon the type had to be screwed up again with a bar. The presses which Benjamin Franklin used were made with wooden framework of the simplest possible construction. Iron frames were first used in England just one hundred years ago. Franklin, in his Autobiography, tells the story of his attempt to set up a printing establishment in Philadelphia. At first he found it difficult to obtain any work, but finally he was given the job of printing forty sheets of a "History of the Friends." The price offered was low, but Franklin and his partner, Meredith, decided to accept it as a beginning. Franklin set up the type for a sheet each day, while Meredith "worked it off at the press" the next day. The type had to be distributed every evening in order that it might be ready for the next day's composition. Therefore it was often late at night before Franklin finished his day's task, perhaps eleven o'clock or even later. Other little jobs came in to delay the printers, but Franklin was determined to do a sheet a day of the history. One night, just as his work was done, one of the forms was accidentally broken, and two pages "reduced to pi." Franklin, late as it was, distributed the pi and composed the form again before going to bed.