TYPE

( Caractère , Fr.; Druckbuchstabe , Germ.) The first care of the letter-cutter is to prepare well-tempered steel punches, upon which he draws or marks the exact shape of the letter, with pen and ink if it be large, but with a smooth blunted point of a needle if it be small; and then, with a proper sized and shaped graver and sculpter, he digs or scoops out the metal between the strokes upon the face of the punch, leaving the marks untouched and prominent. He next works the outside with files till it be fit for the matrix. Punches are also made by hammering down the hollows, filing up the edges, and then hardening the soft steel. Before he proceeds to sink and justify the matrix, he provides a mould to justify them by, of which a good figure is shown in plate XV. , Miscellany , figs. 2. 3. of Rees’s Cyclopædia . IMG:4147767755307473660_illo1260.png:Type mould A matrix is a piece of bra or copper, about an inch and a half long, and thick in proportion to the size of the letter which it is to contain. In this metal the face of the letter intended to be cast is sunk, by striking it with the punch to a depth of about one eighth of an inch. The mould, fig. 1157. , in which the types are cast, is composed of two parts. The outer part is made of wood, the inner of steel. At the top it has a hopper-mouth a , into which the fused type-metal is poured. The interior cavity is as uniform as if it had been hollowed out of a single piece of steel; because each half, which forms two of the four sides of the letter, is exactly fitted to the other. The matrix is placed at the bottom of the mould, directly under the centre of the orifice, and is held in its position by a spring b . Every letter that is cast can be loosened from the matrix only by removing the pre ure on the spring. A good type-foundry is always provided with several furnaces, each surmounted with an iron pot containing the melted alloy, of 3 parts of lead and 1 of antimony. Into this pot the founder dips the very small iron ladle, to lift merely as much metal as will cast a single letter at a time. Having poured in the metal with his right hand, and returned the ladle to the melting-pot, the founder throws up his left hand, which holds the mould, above his head, with a sudden jerk, supporting it with his right hand. It is this movement which forces the metal into all the interstices of the matrix; for without it, the metal, especially in the smaller moulds, would not be able to expel the air and reach the bottom. The pouring in the metal, the throwing up the mould, the unclosing it, removing the pre ure of the spring, picking out the cast letter, closing the mould again, and re-applying the spring to be ready for a new operation, are all performed with such astonishing rapidity and precision, that a skilful workman will turn out 500 good letters in an hour, being at the rate of one every eighth part of a minute. A considerable piece of metal remains attached to the end of the type as it quits the mould. There are nicks upon the lower edge of the types, to enable the compositor to place them upright, without looking at them. From the table of the caster , the heap of types turned out of his mould, is transferred from time to time to another table, by a boy, whose busine it is to break off the superfluous metal, and that he does so rapidly as to clear from 2000 to 5000 types in an hour; a very remarkable dispatch, since he must seize them by their edges, and not by their feeble flat sides. From the breaking-off boy, the types are taken to the rubber , a man who sits in the centre of the workshop with a grit-stone slab on a table before him, and having on the fore and middle finger of his right hand a piece of tarred leather, pa es each broad side of the type smartly over the stone, turning it in the movement, and that so dexterously, as to be able to rub 2000 types in an hour. From the rubber, the types are conveyed to a boy, who, with equal rapidity sets them up in lines, in a long shallow frame, with their faces uppermost and nicks outwards. This frame, containing a full line, is put into the dre er’s hands, who polishes them on each side, and turning them with their faces downwards, cuts a groove or channel in their bottom, to make them stand steadily on end. It is e ential that each letter be perfectly symmetrical and square; the least inequality of their length would prevent them from making a fair impre ion; and were there the least obliquity in their sides, it would be quite impo ible, when 200,000 single letters are combined, as in one side of the Times newspaper, that they could hold together as they require to do, when wedged up in the chases, as securely as if that side of type form a solid plate of metal. Each letter is finally tied up in lines of convenient length, the proportionate numbers of each variety, small letters, points, large capitals, small capitals, and figures, being selected, when the fount of type is ready for delivery to the printer. The sizes of types cast in this country vary, from the smallest, called diamond, of which 205 lines are contained in a foot length, to those letters employed in placards, of which a single letter may be 3 or 4 inches high. The names of the different letters and their dimensions, or the number of lines which each occupies in a foot, are stated in the following table :— | Double Pica | 41 | 1⁄2 | | Paragon | 44 | 1⁄2 | | Great Primer | 51 | 1⁄4 | | English | 64 | | | Pica | 71 | 1⁄2 | | Small Pica | 83 | | | Long Primer | 89 | | | Bourgeois | 102 | 1⁄4 | | Brevier | 112 | 1⁄2 | | Minion | 128 | | | Nonpareil | 143 | | | Pearl | 178 | | | Diamond | 205 | | T. Asp in wall, Esq., the American consul, obtained, in May, 1828, a patent for an improved method of casting printing types by means of a mechanical proce , being a communication from a foreigner residing abroad. The machine is described, with six explanatory figures, in the second series of Newton’s Journal, vol. v. page 212. The patentee does not claim, as his invention, any of the parts separately, but the general proce and arrangement of machinery; more particularly the manner of suspending a swing table (upon which the working parts are mounted) out of the horizontal and perpendicular position; the mode of moving the table with the parts of the mould towards the melting-pot; the manner of bringing the parts of the mould together, and keeping them closed during the operation of casting the types. Several other mechanical schemes have been proposed for founding types, but I have been informed by very competent judges, Me rs. Clowes, that none of them can compete in practical utility with that dexterity and precision of handiwork, which I have often seen practised in their great printing establishment in Stamford-street. u. ULTRAMARINE ( Outremer , Fr.; Ultram a rins , Germ.); is a beautiful blue pigment obtained from the variegated blue mineral, called lazulite ( lapis lazuli ), by the following proce :—Grind the stone to fragments, rejecting all the colourle bits, calcine at a red heat, quench in water, and then grind to an impalpable powder along with water, in a paint-mill, (see Paints, grinding of ,) or with a porphyry slab and muller. The paste being dried, is to be rubbed to powder, and pa ed through a silk sieve. 100 parts of it are to be mixed with 40 of rosin, 20 of white wax, 25 of linseed oil, and 15 of Burgundy pitch, previously melted together. This resinous compound is to be poured hot into cold water; kneaded well first with two spatulas, then with the hands, and then formed into one or more small rolls. Some persons prescribe leaving these pieces in the water during 15 days, and then kneading them in it, whereby they give out the blue pigment, apparently because the ultramarine matter adheres le strongly than the gangue , or merely siliceous matter of the mineral, to the resinous paste. MM. Clement and Desormes, who were the first to divine the true nature of this pigment, think that the soda contained in the lazulite, uniting with the oil and the rosin, forms a species of soap, which serves to wash out the colouring-matter. If it should not separate readily, water heated to about 150° F. should be had recourse to. When the water is sufficiently charged with blue colour, it is poured off and replaced by fresh water; and the kneading and change of water are repeated till the whole of the colour is extracted. Others knead the mixed resinous ma under a slender stream of water, which runs off with the colour into a large earthen pan. The first waters afford, by rest, a deposit of the finest ultramarine; the second, a somewhat inferior article, and so on. Each must be washed afterwards with several more waters, before they acquire the highest quality of tone; then dried separately, and freed from any adhering particles of the pitchy compound by digestion in alcohol. The remainder of the ma being melted with oil, and kneaded in water containing a little soda or potash, yields an inferior pigment, called ultramarine ashes . The best ultramarine is a splendid blue pigment, which works well with oil, and is not liable to change by time. Its price in Italy was five guineas the ounce, a few years ago, but it is now greatly reduced. The blue colour of lazulite had been always ascribed to iron, till MM. Clement and Desormes, by a most careful analysis, showed it to consist of—silica, 34; alumina, 33; sulphur, 3; soda, 22; and that the iron, carbonate of lime, . were accidental ingredients, e ential neither to the mineral, nor to the pigment made from it. By another analyst, the constituents are said to be—silica, 44; alumina, 35; and soda, 21; and by a third, pota a was found instead of soda, showing shades of difference in the composition of the stone. Till a few years ago, every attempt failed to make ultramarine artificially. At length, in 1828, M. Guimet resolved the problem, guided by the analysis of MM. Clement and Desormes, and by an observation of M. Ta aert, that a blue substance like ultramarine was occasionally produced on the sandstone hearths of his reverberatory soda furnaces. Of M. Guimet’s finest pigment I received a bottle several years ago, from my friend M. Merimée, secretary of the Ecole de Beaux Arts , which has been found by artists little, if any, inferior to the lazulite ultramarine. M. Guimet sells it at 60 francs per pound French,—which is little more than two guineas the English pound. He has kept his proce secret. But M. Gmelin, of Tübingen, has published a prescription for making it; which consists in enclosing carefully in a He ian crucible a mixture of 2 parts of sulphur, and 1 of dry carbonate of soda, heating them gradually to redne till the ma fuses, and then sprinkling into it by degrees another mixture, of silicate of soda, and aluminate of soda; the first containing 72 parts of silica, and the second 70 parts of alumina. The crucible must be exposed after this for an hour to the fire. The ultramarine will be formed by this time; only it contains a little sulphur, which can be separated by means of water. M. Persoz, profe or of chemistry at Str as bourg, has likewise succeeded in making an ultramarine, of perhaps still better quality than that of M. Guimet. Lastly, M. Robiquet has announced, that it is easy to form ultramarine, by heating to redne a proper mixture of kaolin (China clay), sulphur, and carbonate of soda. It would therefore appear, from the preceding details, that ultramarine may be regarded as a compound of silicate of alumina, silicate of soda, with sulphuret of sodium; and that to the reaction of the last constituent upon the former two, it owes its colour.