A modern large newspaper press is a bewildering sight to behold; there is such a vast number of rolls and cylinders, and the web of paper moves so rapidly. But, after all, the machine is multiplex rather than complex. It consists of a large number of printing cylinders, all operating in a single frame. Take, for instance, a double-octuple, color-combination press. It consists really of two separate presses, each operating on four webs of paper that feed from opposite ends toward the middle. There are two type cylinders for each web, one for each side of the paper. Each cylinder is long enough to take four stereotype plates side by side, and since each plate extends but half way around the cylinder we have eight pages printed on each side of the web. This makes sixteen pages per web or sixty-four for each half of the machine, giving a total of 128 page impressions at each turn of the cylinders. It is seldom that a 64-page paper is required, hence the webs are slit in two by a revolving knife blade and each section of the press has two folding mechanisms so that two sets of 16-page papers are printed, folded, and delivered by each section. Arrangements are provided whereby the product may consist of 32-page papers. The papers are delivered by a traveling conveyor and every fiftieth paper is pushed out ahead of the others so as to provide a simple method of keeping count of the product. PRINTING 240,000 PAGES PER HOUR The cylinders turn at the rate of 300 revolutions per minute which means that the paper runs through the machine at nearly 14 miles per hour. Summing up all the webs we have a total consumption of 108 miles of paper per hour. The paper is 6 feet wide and the weight of paper in an hour’s run is about 18 tons and the hourly production is 150,000 sixteen-page papers. When color is used, the press will deliver 50,000 24-page papers per hour with the two outside pages printed in three colors and black. The course of the color printed web must necessarily be different from that of the plain black printed web. It must pass through a number of printings; and to prevent the moist ink from transferring to the impression rolls and from them back to a succeeding page, thus soiling or blurring the impression, an extra roll of thin paper is passed between the printed web and the impression cylinders. This acts in a measure as a blotter. The offset paper is taken up on a roll and used over and over again. It is used not only for color work, but also when fine half tone engravings are to be printed so that a cleaner impression may be obtained.