“A roller impregnated with a thick ink made of oil and lampblack is passed over the plate. The letters and orthographic signs, which alone stand out in relief, become covered with ink; the rest does not take it because its surface is lower. A sheet of paper is placed on the inked plate; it is covered with a pad to protect it, then pressed hard. The ink of the characters is deposited on the paper, and the sheet is found printed on one side. To print the other, the operation is repeated with a second plate. The metal letters are, as I said, carved wrong side before, as the letters of a book appear when you look at them in a mirror. The inky imprint left by them on the paper reproduces them in a reversed position, and consequently in the right way. “The first sheet is followed immediately by a second. With the roller the plate is inked again, a sheet of paper is applied, pressure is exerted, and it is done. Then comes a third sheet, a hundredth, a thousandth, indefinitely. All that is needed each time is to ink the plate, cover it with paper, then press. All this is done with such rapidity that in a short time we have a great pile of printed sheets, each of which it would take a whole day to write by hand. “Before the invention of this marvelous art, which enables us to reproduce the works of the mind very rapidly and in as great numbers as may be desired, we were restricted to hand-made copies. These manuscript books required years of work, and hence were very rare and high-priced. Large fortunes were necessary to acquire a library of several volumes. To-day books find their way everywhere, spreading in profusion, even among the lowest classes, the sacred bread of intelligence. Printing has been known for four hundred years: its invention is due to Gutenberg.” “That is a name I shall never forget,” said Jules. “It deserves, above all, to be remembered, for with the printed book Gutenberg rendered impossible henceforth the ignorant times through which man has miserably passed. Our intellectual treasures, resources for the future, are better than engraved on stone or metal; they are inscribed on sheets of paper, in copies too numerous to be all destroyed.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXI BUTTERFLIES