New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1866-03-07
THE ALDEN MACHINE.

There are two Things which, hltnerto, IL nus
been held could not be done by machinery-to
think and to set type. Perhaps there is quite mis-
chief enough done at the former task with the fa-
cilties nature has provided us, without asking
for more. If an editor or parson could put
qure of paper under his pillow or in his hat, and
find, after due and patient waiting, that his ed
itorials or his sermons were written thereon
ready for the printer, it would be questioned
whether the world would be benefited thereby,
as the world, probably has its thinking done Tor 1t
now quite as fast as is good for it. But there's no
question of the usefulness of printing, and labor
saving machinery in that art is as desirable as
in any other. BY the Alden Machine this great
end is at length. we believe, gained.
Many of our readers have doubtless heard OF
it for the last half.dozen years. From its trst
germ in the brain Of Timothy Alden, once
compostor in this office, it has grown, during
that PERIOD through numberless difficulties and
over formidable obstacles, to the present fact.
That great fact is that hour after hour, day
after day, the machine, in the hands of skill
full workman, will set type rapidly, correctly
and uninterruptedly. Put to practical work,
set, SO to speak, to earn its own living, we be-
lieve that in one weeks time it would do,
with two attendants the work in the Office of
a daily newspaper of at least four men in
any given number of hours. The practical
printer will readily understand, and even the
impractical public can comprehend that this, if
true, must needs make an era in the art of
printing. The work of human muscles and
nerves is multiplied by an ingenious complica-
ton of iron and steel and, the result must be, as
it always Is in the introduction of labor
saving machinery, that perfection and
increased advantage follow use, and that
there will be, not fewer printers but
more and cheaper printing. The field OF
labor is enlarged; to meet the new demand q
new branch of industry is created, and to the
old hand-work, not always the most elevating
to the craftsman, is added FRAMEWORK which
makes a better man Of him. Though Mr.. Alden
did not 1--we to see the practical realization OF
bis idea, the machine is now essentially as he
left it, changed only in the correction Of such
mperfection of minute details as are always
and inevitably developed in the practical work
ing Of all new machinery. His name is i'm
mortal as the creator of new industry and the
beneiactor of an old one.
We have had the Alden Machine under close
and watchful observance in this building for
many months, and We have seen it put, under
very great disadvantages, to the severest tests.
IT is beautiful piece of mechanism, apparently
exceedingly complicated and yet exceedingly
simple. The problem the inventor set himself
to solve was to take a designated letter from a
certain point and deliver it, at the command Of
a touch upon q key, at another. This is one
motion-the setting. The second is to take up
type without any order than that given
by "nick" on the type, and drop it at
another given point-and this is its distri-
button. Both these operations 60 on
at one and the same time. We attempt no de-
tailed description, meaning only to explain that
the machine, by certain hicks upon the body of
the type, By certain adjustments to those hicks.
and the constant multiplication of all its parts,
is enabled to set type by direction Of the touch
upon the alphabetical keys to distribute type at
the same time and to do both with an accuracy
as uherring as the hand and eye of the
operator can direct, and with degree of
rapidity even now six times as great
as that of the human type-setter.
Rut hosiJa thu onorator thara ,nust lao another
workman to Justify" the type delivered, and
when both these are skilled workmen or work
women, it needs practice only to enable them
to do the work of six type-setters In other
words, it is proved beyond peradventure that
the machine can set 1900 ems per hour. with
one operator aud one "justifer." To set eco
ems per hour is the task of an ordinary type
setter at the case. After careful and pa
tient observation, we can see no reason
why this amount of work may not
be the practical result of the machines labor
from years end to years end. OF course it must
have skilliul operators, and in its continuous
use it is not impossible that in some minute de-
tails corrections and Improvements are yet to be
made, as the case is in all new machines But
patient and candid trial, it seems to us,
is all that is necessary to put them,
as fast as they can be manufactured, into our
book and newspaper offices to do that work in
which, since the invention ofprinting, there has
been no advance. The almost universal belief
hitherto has been that, till mechanism could be
made to think, it could not be made to supply