As seen in the illustration, the web of paper leaves the roll at its right, rising to a point at the top where it passes between two hollow cylinders covered with felt and filled with steam, which serve to dampen the paper as may be necessary, the small hand-wheel seen above these cylinders regulating the supply of steam. After leaving these cylinders the paper descends sloping toward the right, and passes through two highly polished cylinders for the purpose of recalendering. After this it passes under the lowest of the three large cylinders of the press, winds itself in the shape of an S toward the outside and over the middle cylinder, and leaves the press in an almost horizontal line, after having been printed on both sides, and is then cut into sheets. The printing is done while the paper is passing around the two white cylinders. The cylinder carrying the first form is placed inside and toward the center of the press, only a part of its cog-wheel and its journal being shown in the engraving. The second form is placed upon the uppermost cylinder, and is the outside or cut form. Each one of the form cylinders requires a separate inking apparatus. That of the upper one is placed to the right at the top, and the bottom one is also at the right, but inside. Each one has a fountain the whole breadth of the press, in which the ink is kept, and connected with which, by appropriate mechanism, is a system of rollers for the thorough distribution of the ink and depositing it upon the forms. The rapidity with which the impressions follow each other does not allow any time for the printing on the first side to dry, and as a consequence the freshly printed sheet coming in contact with the "packing" of the second cylinder would so soil it as to render clean printing absolutely impossible. To avoid this, a second roll of paper is introduced into the machine, and is drawn around the middle cylinder beneath the paper which has already been printed upon one side, and receives upon its surface all "offset," thus protecting and keeping perfectly clean both the printed paper and the impression cylinder. This "offset" web, as it leaves the press, is wound upon a second roller, which when full is exchanged for the new empty roller--a very simple operation. The machines print from 3,500 to 4,000 sheets per hour _upon both sides_, a rate of production from twenty-eight to thirty-two times as great as was possible upon the old-fashioned hand-press, which was capable of printing not more than 250 copies upon _one side_ in the same time. The device above described for preventing "offset" is, we believe, the invention of Mr. H.J. Hewitt, a well known New York printer, 27 Rose Street. * * * * * FRENCH CANNON.