The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-09-05


piece" After the last touches of the burin
IL is kept in the fire five or six hours, to gain
adamantine hardness. Then it is laid on the
bed of a press-another giant of iron-and
under heavy weight (only 5000 pounds, but
all converging on the point of cOntact), little
cylinder of soitened steel is rolled over it,
backwards and forwards. After the first faint
impression the workman takes out the Oylin-
der to see where harder or lighter pressure is
needed. When he puts it back to roll again,
the variation of one hair-breadth from its old
track would blur and ruin both die and plate.
But the nice adjusted machinery, under his
exact eye, makes no mistakes. In an hour or,
two the cylinder, or .'die," bears a perfect
impression, in relief of the face of the SO note,
down to its finest line and most delicate shade.
Then the little original plate is locked up in
the safe, to repeat this process whenever
wanted. The cylinder, hardened in the fire.
becomes perfect die. Next a large, smooth
plate of softened steel is placed on the press
the die is rolled over it again and again. till
the plate bears four impressions of the 50
note. Then the die is locked up ready for
similar use in future. The new plate is now
ready to print the "ives, four at a time.
Plates for the smaller fractional notes, coupons,
and beeT-stamps, each bear from a dozen to
forty impressions. This most ingenious
"Transfer Process" by which the original
steel plate is multiplied indefinitely, was de-
vised early in this century by one Jacob Per-
kins, of NewburypOrt, Mass, the inventor OF
steel engraving itself.
Now, into one of the printing-rooms. As
we open its door, the clatter of fortyfou noisy
presses breaks upon us. Each has three
attendants-One man, who carefully inks the
large, shining plate, and, when its interstices
are filed, rubs the rest of it's surface clean and
dry; second, who lays the plate upon the
bed, shoves it under the tympan for its mighty
pressure, and then returns the plate to be
inked; and a girl, who lays on the blank sheets
and removes them after they are printed,
placing leaf of brown paper between each
two, to keep them from blotting. Each press
throws off about one hundred and fifty sheets
per hour, but in emergencies its product can
be largely increased. From one flies a ma
tional flag, in cOmmemoration of three thou
sand impressions once obtained from it in seven
and half hours.
The plates are artifcially heated the press
man handles them nimbly, and they would
blister unaccustomed fingers. In these vernal
days the great room is like an oven. Perspi-
ration streams from the workmen, and the girls
keep their large palm fans in motion. This
labor is exceedingly hard and trying. The old
mode of printing was upon wet sheets, which
came out like the damp morning newspaper.
Clark, against strong opposition, has intro
duced dry printing. 1t promotes security;
dry sheets are easily kept in the counted
packages of one thousand each. Wet, in large
unequal masses, must often be changed from
one pile to another. Dry printing is twenty
five per cent. cheaper, and its labor is less
severe than the old mode, which often causes
rupture in pressmen.
In printing from types, stereotype plates, or
wood engravings, the raised letters and lines
stand out so boldly from the general surface
that but slight weight is needed to stamp their
inky faces legibly upon the paper. But in
steel engravings lines are cut into the plates
then filled with ink, and an immense pressure
is required to stretch and drive the paper
into all these fine interstces. Each press
here is a monster of muscle. The hug of q
| grizzly bear is not the touch of fy's foot in
| comparison. Put an linked plate and sheet
| into its mouth, then move a little spring, and
| the steel jaw comes down with the weight of
800 tons. The power is pumped up from the
| Potomac. 1t is on the simple principle that if
! you apply the pressure OF one ton to a little
column of water one inch square, and then
connect that column by pipe with the water
! of a tank whose surface is 800 times as large,
you impart the one ton to each of the 800
square inches, and can then bring the whole
amount to bear upon one point no larger than
the end of your finger. Mighty is the giant
Cold Water when clad in hydrostatic armOr.
Into brOnZing-room. We should have
glanced here earlier, for here bonds and frac-
tional notes are first treated. The blank paper
is passed through Hoe cylinder press, where
it receives in ink the figures and rings which
are to glitter on back and face of the finished
note. Then it goes through a second steam
press, where brushes put on yellow, shining
powder in the places where the bronze ought
to go. This adheres to the wet ink; then, in
the same machine, other brushes clean off all
bits of metal from the rest of the paper; and
an iron frame throws out and piles up the
sheets. Bronze is made of copper and zinc
1t dries itself, and cannot be obliterated with
out destroying the paper. Girls who tend the
presses wear caps of white paper to protect
their hair against minute particles floating
about like flour in a grist mill.
The walls, as in all other rooms where ma
chlnery is running by steam, exhibit placards
-'LADIEs MUST NOT WEAR FULL SKIRTS IN THIS
Room" The order originated in the serious
injury OF one, through her dress catching in
wheel. So through working hours limp skirts
hang upon forlOrn figures. But in passing the
dressing-rooms and alcOves we notice that
each, with its long rows of nails, is a museum
OF hoops, all waiting to be donned at the close
OF the day when the Bureau is still. II every
private household is entitled to one skeleton
in its closet, two or three hundred is not more
than fair allowance for the Treasury De-
partment.
Here is a numbering room. dozen girls
sit at tiny machines worked by treadles. One
takes bond-you see it moving hither and
thither in her swift hand under the swift
stamp, "click, click, click, " and quicker than
the ticking of a watch, the number "l94, 64A
is printed in vermilion successfully upon 1t,
OT1 oil 20 fOwtxy 10