These machines are called respectively the Linotype and Monotype. Roughly described, they are to the compositor what a typewriter is to a clerk--forming words in obedience to the depression of keys on a keyboard. But whereas the typewriter merely imprints a single character on paper, the linotype and monotype cast, deliver, and set up type from which an indefinite number of impressions can be taken. They meet the compositor more than half-way, and simplify his labour while hugely increasing his productiveness. As far back as 1842 periodicals were mechanically composed by a machine which is now practically forgotten. Since that time hundreds of other inventions have been patented, and some scores of different machines tried, though with small success in most cases; as it was found that quality of composition was sacrificed to quantity, and that what at first appeared a short cut to the printing-press was after all the longest way round, when corrections had all been attended to. A really economical type-setter must be accurate as well as prolific. Slipshod work will not pay in the long run. Such a machine was perfected a few years ago by Ottmar Mergenthaler of Baltimore, who devised the plan of casting a whole _line of type_. The Linotype Composing Machine, to give it its full title, produces type all ready for the presses in “slugs” or lines--hence the name, Lin’ o’ type. It deserves at least a short description. The Linotype occupies about six square feet of floor space, weighs one ton, and is entirely operated by one man. Its most prominent features are a sloping magazine at the top to hold the brass matrices, or dies from which the type is cast, a keyboard controlling the machinery to drop and collect the dies, and a long lever which restores the dies to the magazine when done with. [Illustration: _By kind permission of The Linotype Co._ _The Linotype Machine. By pressing keys on the key-board the operator causes lines of type to be set up, cast, and arranged on the “galley” ready for the printers._] The operator sits facing the keyboard, in which are ninety keys, variously coloured to distinguish the different kinds of letters. His hands twinkle over the keys, and the brass dies fly into place. When a key is depressed a die shoots from the magazine on to a travelling belt and is whirled off to the assembling-box. Each die is a flat, oblong brass plate, of a thickness varying with the letter, having a large V-shaped notch in the top, and the letter cut half-way down on one of the longer sides. A corresponding letter is stamped on the side nearest to the operator so that he may see what he is doing and make needful corrections.