The short bar of soft steel is known as a Punch. When it has received the impress of the counter-punch, the punch cutter, for so the engraver of letters is called in type-foundries, cuts away the outer edges until the model letter is pronounced perfect. This is work of great exactness, for the millions of types that may be made by means of the punch [p055] will reproduce all its peculiarities, whether of merit or defect. The steel of the punch is then hardened until it has sufficient strength to penetrate prepared copper. It is then punched, by quick and strong pressure, on the flat side of a narrow bar of cold rolled copper. This operation makes a reversed or sunken imprint of the letter on the punch. In this condition, the punched copper bar is known among type-founders as a Drive, or a Strike, or an Unjustified Matrix. It becomes the Matrix proper, only after it has been carefully fitted-up to suit the mould. The exterior surface of the drive must be made truly flat, and this flatness must be parallel with the face of the stamped or sunken letter in the interior. The sides of the drive must be squared, so that the interior letter shall be at a fixed distance from the sides. The depth of the stamped letter, and its distance from the sides, must be made absolutely uniform in all the matrices required for a font or a complete assortment of letters. The object of this nicety is to secure a uniform height to all the types, and to facilitate the frequent changes of matrix on the mould. The justifying and fitting of matrices to moulds is one of the most exact operations in the art of type-founding. For every character or letter really required in a full working assortment of types, the type-founder cuts a separate punch and fits up a separate matrix; but for all the characters or letters which are made to be used together, there is but one mould. Types are of no use, as has been shown, if they cannot be arranged and handled with facility, and printed in lines that are truly parallel. However unlike they may be in face, they must be exactly alike in body. This uniformity of body, which is as [p056] essential as variety of face, can be most certainly secured by casting all the types in one mould. All the matrices are, consequently, made with a view to being fitted to one mould. The mould forms the body, and the matrix forms the face of the type. With nearly every change of matrix there must be a new adjustment of the mould. The word Body, as used by printers and type-founders, means the measurement of a type in one direction only—in a direction at a right angle with the regular lines or rows of printed matter. The types of the accompanying illustration are of the same height, but they are of different bodies. [Illustration: Pica Small-pica Long-primer Bourgeois Brevier Minion Nonpareil body. body. body. body. body. body. body. (See also page 18.)]