After this beginning the business of printing grew rapidly, in spite of the high cost of paper, receiving its principal impulse from a strong demand for primary books for schools and little manuals of devotion. News-sheets followed, issued at irregular intervals, and after twenty-five years, it became customary to issue them on the arrival of ships bringing news from Spain. As early as 1621 Jerónimo de Contreras, who had been a printer in Seville, appeared as the publisher of these news-sheets; and for the next hundred years he and members of his family were the leading printers of Lima. His son, José de Contreras, succeeded him in 1641, and continued his business until 1688. Two years before this last date, in 1686, José de Contreras, a grandson of the founder of the house, organized an independent printing establishment, which held a practical monopoly of printing in Lima until 1712. The printing of books for primary instruction in the local schools brought to the head of this new establishment considerable profits, and by a decree of the crown José de Contreras acquired the title of Royal Printer. The Inquisition, the University of San Marcos, and various other institutions resorted to his press for the printing required. After the death of the Royal Printer his brother, Jerónimo de Contreras, carried on the business for a number of years, and the establishment maintained itself without essential change of character until 1779. [Illustration: Page from the First Book to be printed in South America] [Sidenote: Printing by Jesuits] Early printing elsewhere in South America was almost exclusively the work of the Jesuits. They had a press at the mission station of Juli near Lake Titicaca, in the second decade of the seventeenth century, but it was only after about a hundred years that a press was set up in any other part of South America. In the missions of Paraguay the first book printed by the Jesuits appeared in 1705. This was entitled _De la diferencia entre lo temporal y eterno_, by Padre Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, translated into Guaraní by Joseph Serrano.[2] [Sidenote: Press of Córdoba] The Jesuits established a printing press at Córdoba in connexion with the college of Monserrat, but after the expulsion of the order from South America the press was transferred to Buenos Aires in 1780. About eight years later the authorities of the college felt the need of the press that had been removed, and sent Manuel Antonio Talavera to Buenos Aires to request that it might be replaced by another. The negotiations ended, however, without any immediate result. [Sidenote: Printing at Quito]