Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art and ScienceFyfe, J. Hamilton (James Hamilton)
History
Triumphs of Invention and Discovery in Art and Science
Fyfe, J. Hamilton (James Hamilton)
Inventions -- History; Inventors; Technology -- England -- 19th century
telegrams, and all the latest intelligence, and does not reach the press
till near five o'clock.
The first sight of Hoe's machine, by several of which the _Times_ is now
printed, fills the beholder with bewilderment and awe. You see before
you a huge pile of iron cylinders, wheels, cranks, and levers, whirling
away at a rate that makes you giddy to look at, and with a grinding and
gnashing of teeth that almost drives you deaf to listen to. With
insatiable appetite the furious monster devours ream after ream of snowy
sheets of paper, placed in its many gaping jaws by the slaves who wait
on it, but seems to find none to its taste or suitable to its digestion,
for back come all the sheets again, each with the mark of this strange
beast printed on one side. Its hunger never is appeased,--it is always
swallowing and always disgorging, and it is as much as the little
"devils" who wait on it can do, to put the paper between its lips and
take it out again. But a bell rings suddenly, the monster gives a gasp,
and is straightway still, and dead to all appearance. Upon a closer
inspection, now that it is at rest, and with some explanation from the
foreman you begin to have some idea of the process that has been going
on before your astonished eyes.
The core of the machine consists of a large drum, turning on a
horizontal axis, round which revolve ten smaller cylinders, also on
horizontal axes, in close proximity to the drum. The stereotyped matter
is bound, like a malefactor on the wheel, to the central drum, and round
each cylinder a sheet of paper is constantly being passed. It is
obvious, therefore, that if the type be inked, and each of the cylinders
be kept properly supplied with a sheet of paper, a single revolution of
the drum will cause the ten cylinders to revolve likewise, and produce
an impression on one side of each of the sheets of paper. For this
purpose it is necessary to have the type inked ten times during every
revolution of the drum; and this is managed by a very ingenious
contrivance, which, however, is too complicated for description here.
The feeding of the cylinders is provided for in this way. Over each
cylinder is a sloping desk, upon which rests a heap of sheets of white
paper. A lad--the "layer-on"--stands by the side of the desk and pushes
forward the paper, a sheet at a time, towards the tape fingers of the
machine, which, clutching hold of it, drag it into the interior, where
it is passed round the cylinders, and printed on the outer side by
pressure against the types on the drum. The sheet is then laid hold of
by another set of tapes, carried to the other end of the machine from
that at which it entered, and there laid down on a desk by a projecting
flapper of lath-work. Another lad--the "taker-off"--is in attendance to
remove the printed sheets, at certain intervals. The drum revolves in
less than two seconds; and in that time therefore ten sheets--for the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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