The type are placed in the machine just as they come from the press, the galley being adjustable to any size of page; and any letters that the machine cannot distribute are simply transferred to the “pi-line,” where they stand in regular order, and can be distributed by another machine or by hand. The type used is the common type cast at our foundries, as described on page 225. For the setting-machine no change is made, but for the distributer, this being automatic, it is prepared by a simple system of nicks in the back of the letter. These nicks are added very quickly and cheaply; but this necessity will soon be obviated, as the foundries are already making matrices or moulds for casting founts of type containing the distributing-nick. The question which will doubtless decide the fate of this and all other machines for the purpose is the question of speed. The machines we have described, notwithstanding their newness and the necessary inexperience of the operators, make an economy of more than fifty per cent. in the time of doing a given amount of work. The distributer, being run by steam and tended by a boy, does the work of several men. This is a great gain; twenty-five per cent. has been thought an amount very desirable to be reached. It seems, too, that skill in operating the setter is easily acquired. As an illustration of this, may be given the case of a young girl who had never seen the inside of a printing-office, and who was induced to try the new machine. She was initiated into the ready use of the type-setter in five minutes’ instruction. Seizing the mechanical hand, which takes the letters one by one as rapidly as thought can spell from the groove-like case, in the first hour, with the rapid click, click, of the new-found “key,” she set very correctly six hundred ems, and in the second hour accomplished the task of a thousand ems. An office boy was as successful. After a few hours’ acquaintance with the machine, it is common for mere children, in dispatch and correctness of execution, to rival workmen who have had long experience in type-setting by hand. The setter has been operated in competition with two superior compositors of many years’ practice, and has done more work than both, on fair and equal terms. Such being the results in the present condition of the machinery, it is only just to conclude that this is an invention which not only does honor to the art, and is an important step in its progress, but must contribute materially to the cheapening of books and the dissemination of literature, and so serve the highest interests of human life. [Illustration: STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.] [Illustration] XXIII. Stereotyping.--Plaster Moulds.--Planing and Beveling.--Correcting Stereotype Plates.--Process of Electrotyping.--The “Guillotine.”--Ornamenting.