16 is the only kind now used in this establishment for the Magazine and for book-work. Harper's Weekly, for which still greater rapidity is required, being printed upon cylinder and rotary presses. The appearance of the Adams Press is shown in the illustration. Its general operations may be made intelligible, but the machinery which they are effected is very complex. It contains all the essential parts of the hand press, though differently arranged. The bed rises up against the plat en instead of the platen coming down upon the bed; the tym- | lies horizontally, and is moved forward to repan is stationary under the platen; the frisket ceive the sheet, and backward to bring it over THE ADAMS PRESS. the tympan, and the operator, with a sharp knife, cuts out the paper where he wishes to lighten the color, and pastes on small pieces of the form, resting upon the bed, which has by increasing the pressure upon some parts and only the upward and downward motion. The diminishing it on others. An impression is "feeder," who is usually a girl, lays the sheet taken upon a sheet of paper. The engravings of paper upon an inclined plane, the edge in this will appear poor and indistinct; the slightly projecting; it is caught by a set of heavy parts will appear too feeble, the light iron fingers, which pull it down upon the frisk-parts too strong. This sheet is pasted upon et, by which it is carried to the "form" which has just received the ink; the impression is then given by the knee-joint from below; the sheet is then lifted, or rather blown, by a bel-paper where he wishes to deepen it; sometimes lows upon a series of "endless tapes," from which it is taken by a light frame, which turns upon an axle, at the proper moment, and whirls the sheets over, laying them in a regular pile at the end of the press opposite the one where they were received. Meanwhile the press has been busy in "distributing" the ink. This is an essential operation, for without perfect distribution there can be no good printing. The distributing apparatus is quite complicated. One roller slowly revolves, its lower surface immersed in a trough of ink, bringing up a regulated quantity of ink to the top, where it is touched at fixed intervals by another roller, transferring a portion of ink to still another. Then there is a roller which, besides revolving, has an oscillating motion back and forth, and another, called a "crab," which travels to and fro in a puzzling sort of way. The result of all this series of movements is that the ink is spread uniformly over the distributing-roller, from which it is taken by the inking-roller, or rather set of rollers; for several of them are arranged in a frame, by which it is transferred to the typeplates. men. The whole of the complicated series of movements is performed by the press simultaneously and automatically, the only human action being that of the "feeder," who places the paper so that the press can get hold of it. An Adams Press will work 6000 sheets, each containing sixteen pages, in a day; thus, with one "feeder," doing the work of six presses and pressThe establishment contains 35 of these presses, of which at least eight are always at work on the Magazine, and twice as many in certain parts of the month. For executing fine work rapidly nothing has been produced which equals them. Not a few of them have within a few years been sent to Europe. They were first bought for great Britain, we believe, by Mr. William Chambers, who, while on a visit to America, saw them in operation in the Harper establishment, and at once perceived their superiority over any European press. one thickness, frequently three or four. These pieces will often be not half as large as one's finger nail. The tympan, in printing, lies between the form and the platen of the press, so that the force of the impression is increased where any of these bits has been added, just in proportion to their thickness and number, and is diminished where any thing has been cut away. Το "make ready" a form with many cuts requires the work of two men for from two to six days; and the press must stand idle during that time, for if the pages were moved the tenth part of an inch from their original position on the bed, these "overlays" and "cuttings - out" would not fall over the right place. As the time of a press is worth ten dollars a day, this expensefrom thirty to a hundred dollars for a single sheet-can be afforded only where a very large number are to be printed, or when a high price is put upon the work. The general excellence of the printing of the illustrations in this Magazine is owing to the care bestowed upon making them ready. Facing each other (pages 18, 19) are impressions taken from the same plate, showing the difference produced by "making ready." Had we chosen a larger cut, with a greater variety of tone, the difference would have been still more marked. The sheets having been printed are taken by the serviceable "Steam Paddy" to the next story, where they are dried and pressed. For drying the sheets are hung loosely upon the bars of a long rack, which when filled is pushed into a room heated by steam-pipes. These racks run upon rails fixed to the ceiling, in order to leave the floor unencumbered. The end of each rack consists of a board which just fits the opening into which the frame runs. When all are loaded and pushed in the entire front forms a close partition. There are 25 of these racks, each capable of holding 2000 sheets, so that 50,000 sheets may be dried at once; the process occupying about three hours. This is the only place where the sheets are loosely placed so as to be readily combustible. But there is no fire in the room, and the nearest gas-burner is so placed that no sheet can come within several yards of it; and this burner is lighted only upon those rare occasions when the work can not be finished by daylight, which is only a few hours in the course of the year. Thus the risk from fire in this most ex The "cut forms" of the Magazine go through, before printing, another process, known as "making ready." The beauty of a printed page of type depends upon its having a uniform color throughout. But to give the proper effect to an engraving the heavy parts must be blacker-that is, must receive more ink-than posed quarter is reduced to an almost infinithe light ones. As the ink is laid on uniform- | tesimal amount. ly these parts of the sheet must be made to The dried sheets are then to be pressed, in take up more from the plate. This is effected order to remove the indentations made by the VOL. XXXII.-No. 187.-B taken to the other end of the same floor, made in diameter, and the larger is twelve, one pound into a pile composed of one printed sheet and at s will lift (12×12=144) one hundred and a sheet of very smooth hard pasteboard, placed alternately. Such a pile, about six feet high, is placed in a hydraulic press. The Hydraulic (more properly the Hydrostatic) Press is the most powerful machine constructed by man. It is based upon the principle which the old philosophers named the "hydrostatic paradox" -that any quantity of water, however small, may be made to lift any weight, however large. A simple illustration of this law is found in the fact that one can fill a hogshead of water from below as well as from above by pouring it through the smallest possible pipe. The small column of water balances (i. e. has the same upward and downward pressure as) the larger one of the same height. The absolute pressure of each of these two columns varies as the area of the surfaces; and the area of two circles varies as the squares of their diameter. The sectional diagram presents the essential features of the Hydraulic Press in its simplest form: It consists of the small cylinder a, fitted with a pistons, worked by the lever c, b, d; this communicates by a pipe with the large cylinder A, having a piston S, which expands at the top into the platen P, on which is the DIAGRAM OF HYDRAULIC PRESS. substance W, to be com MADE READY. forty-four at S; but if by means of the lever a force of one hundred pounds is applied at s, it will lift (144 X 100) 14,400 pounds at S. In the hydraulic presses used in this establishment the smaller cylinder has a bore of only a quarter of an inch, the larger one of a foot: a pound on the small piston raises (12 X 12 X 4X4) 2304 pounds on the larger. But by means of a forcing-pump worked by the steam-engine | water is driven with immense force into the small cylinder. This is regulated by the weight with which the escape-valve (answering to the safety-valve of a steam-boiler) is loaded. The ordinary weight, applied by a lever, is 600 pounds, so that the press as actually worked has a force of 1,382,400 pounds-more than six hundred tons. This is often greatly exceeded, and can be increased to any amount by adding to the pressure on the escape-valve. The possible power of the press is only limited by the strength of the materials of which it is constructed. We have worked them so as absolutely to pull asunder the wrought iron rods, as thick as a man's leg, which unite the top and bottom plates of the press. Water has been driven by the hydraulic press through the pores of a cast-iron cylinder fourteen inches thick. One feet square, and is about eight feet high. To un For the benefit of sundry half-taught "in- After remaining in the press eight or ten ventors," who trouble us at intervals with hours, under a squeeze of 600 tons, the sheets papers on "perpetual motion" and the like, are taken out-all their roughnesses effectually we state that neither the hydraulic press nor removed-and are sent to the next floor above, any other machine creates power. The most where they are to be "folded." The pages that it does, or can do, is to condense, distrib- were so arranged that, when the entire sheet ute, or arrange power communicated to it from is properly folded, each page will follow anwithout. If, for example, one pound on the other in its proper order. Until quite recentsmaller piston will raise a thousand pounds only "folding" was performed solely by manual the larger one for a foot, the smaller one must labor. For the Magazine it is now executed traverse a thousand feet to do this. If the by Chambers's "Folding-Machine." power is a spring or a weight, as much force derstand its operation it must be borne in mind must be applied to coil the spring or wind up that each sheet of this kind is doubled at the the weight as they exert in uncoiling or de- middle; that doubled sheet is next folded scending. In fact, every machine really in- through its centre; and that doubly - folded volves an absolute loss of power from friction sheet is again doubled together: there are and other causes. Machinery simply applies thus three folds to each sheet; and each of the power given to it just when and where it is these must be exactly in its right place, or the wanted. whole book will be irregular. Externally the Folding-Machine presents the appearance of a low table, the lid divided at the centre into two parts-the division not being shown in the ac Our hydraulic presses are made very massive in order to endure the strain to which they are subjected. A press occupies a space of four NOT MADE READY. companying small illustration. The operator lays the sheet upon the table in such a way that two small points pass through two holes in the sheet. These holes were made by two steel points in the press when the sheet was first printed. These "point-holes" serve as guides in several cases, which we have not thought necessary to specify. The "knife," which looks very like the blade of a hoe, and appears in the illustration partly ele vated, now comes down on the sheet over the line of the first fold, and forces it down between two rollers which compress the doubling. This completes the first fold. A second and third knife and pairs of rollers, hidden under the cover of the machine, make the second and third folds in the same manner; and the triplyfolded sheet is dropped down into a receptacle at the bottom of the machine. This is the working of the machine for folding an octavo sheet. Still more wonderful is the machine which folds a duodecimo. To comprehend the operation of this it must be understood that a "12mo" sheet (that is, as the phrase is now understood, one to be folded into twelve leaves, not pages) is imposed in two parts, of sixteen and eight pages respectively. These are cut apart. The larger part is folded precisely like an octavo, as before described; the smaller part is folded only twice, and is then placed in the middle of the already folded larger part. These two parts are hence called the "outset" and the "inset." This machine cuts them apart, folds each separately, puts the inset into its place in the outset, and drops the whole folded sheet into its receptacle. An expert workwoman will fold about 3500 octavo, or two-thirds as many duodecimo, sheets in a day. The machine will fold about 14,000. The folded sheets are then taken up another story, and placed in piles in regular order on a long table. The "gatherer" walks along, picking up one from each pile. These make a Number. Three holes are stabbed through the whole. In the illustration the Stabbing Machine is operated by a treddle; it is now worked by the steam-engine. The sheets are then stitched together by passing a thread through the holes. The cover is put on, and pasted at the back; and the work of "Making a Magazine" is completed. With the exception of making the drawings and engravings, it has all been performed in the Cliff Street building. The Magazines are now put into large trucks, carried down by the "Steam Paddy" three stories, and wheeled across into the Wareroom, whence they are forwarded to subscribers. This is a spacious apartment, occupying, with its two wings, the entire second floor of the Franklin Square building. It is entered from the street |