A word may be said about the progress of the printing press towards perfection. The changes have all been from direct or reciprocating to rotary or revolving motion. At first the type was inked by "ink balls," and the paper was pressed on it by a flat platen brought down upon it with pressure by means of a spring or screw. Inking is now invariably done by rollers, but the direct action of a flat platen pressing against a flat bed is still preserved, not only in all the smaller and simpler presses, but in those which do the very finest work. The first great step towards increased speed was made when the paper was pressed against the type by a cylinder or drum. This is the character of most newspaper presses, and of a good number in the WITNESS pressroom. In these presses the types still travel backwards and forwards on a flat bed, which has to stop and reverse its motion twice for every impression. The next step in advance was that which placed the types also on a cylinder, so that there might be for them only one continuous motion round and round in one direction. This is illustrated by the large rotary presses in the picture of the pressroom, one of which, the four-cylinder, has just been removed to make way for presses adapted to finer magazine work. There is still in the rotary press the necessity of feeding by hand. A number of machines have been invented to feed themselves from a roll of paper, thus introducing another rotary motion, and to "deliver" the paper by still another rotary process. None of these presses, so far, have come to such perfection as to print from type as well and as fast as the great rotary press now used by the Witness, but they are constantly improving in construction. Such presses have, of course, to print one side of the paper and then the other before the sheet leaves the press, and would have to deliver these perfected sheets as fast from one exit as the rotary does from eight or ten. It is in these points where the difficulty is found, as one side has to be printed before the ink is dry on the other, and the rapid disposal of the finished papers requires very ingenious machinery. There are further improvements still in the future. We can imagine lithography completely supplanting type or stereotype printing,--as it has begun to do,--the impression of the type being transferred to stone, or some other lithographic surface. If lithographic surfaces could be made cylindrical they could, being smooth, work against each other, and so print both sides of the paper _at the same time_. The whole press would thus consist of two impression rollers and two more to ink them going round just as fast as the chemical character of the ink would permit. The WITNESS has had to purchase a new machine about every five years to keep up with the times, and it is not probable that it will be otherwise in the future. [Illustration: HOISTING "TURTLE" ON THE PRESS.]