The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1900-06-13

redeemed the papers pawned in Lon
don and brought suit against Singer.
Enormously costly litigation followed,
but Howes claims were sustained, and
the many manufacturers of machines
then springing up were forced to pay
him royalties. These, at the expira-
tion of his patents in 1867, had brought
the inventor nearly $2,000,0O0 In Sep
tember of that year Howe died. Since
his first model many thousands of
patents have been taken out on sew
ing machine improvements. Modifi-
cations of these machines to suit vari-
GUS lines of manufactures have given
the sewing machine place in the fac
tory more solidly than in the home.
Everywhere it is driven by electric
power, and aside from textiles It has
embraced nearly every branch of
leather manufacture
In the printing arts the nineteenth
century has made an indelible mark.
First of these, perhaps, is the print
ing press. The first press in North
America, oddly enough, was set UP in
the City of Mexico in 1860, from which
a large volume in Spanish was printed
in 1511. 1t was nearly 100 years later
that the first press was set up in Ply
mouth colony for the purpose of print
ing Bibles for the Indians. In 1872
Christopher Sower established the first
type foundry at Germantown, Pa, and
soon afterward the printing press in
America was a merchantable thing.
With the year 1900 the old world was
interested in an improved printing
press. Nicholson in England had con-
ceived Of a cylindrical press, but could
not overcome the difficulty of a neces-
sary curved type surface. Koenig, a
German, made an advancement ain a
cylinder which wrapped itself in the
paper and rolled with it across the
fiat type surface. The London Times,
using this device in 1914, could print
1,S00 impressions an hour on one side
of the paper.
CYLINDRICAL PLATE AND PRESS
About this time Professor Wilson, of
Glasgow, perfected a plaster process
for stereotyped plates under the pa
tronageof Earl Stanhope, of England.
In 1916 Cowper made the first curved
stereotype plates, but not till 1863, in
the office of the London Times, were
the first cylindrical plates made for a
cylindrical press. The French papier-
the first time the cylinder press was
an assured fact.
In 1873, in the United States, Hoe
| perfected the first rotary press, and
| from this the rapid newspaper press
| has come-a press that prints, cuts,
| pastes, folds and counts it's tens of
thousands of papers in an hour.
The typewriter, as a pathfinder,
do h. fnr. 4l,A t,y,, f,,rr
| machine. But when the world had
| seen a perfected writing machine it
| still assured the hand compositor that
| no ingenuity of head or hand would
| tack from his trained fingers lthe lit
| tie metal stick with it's lettered point.
But the penman and the printer are
| both going. Within decade the type
writer and the type-setting machines
| have become almost universal in their
| kindred fields.
| The linotype machine of the Ottmar
| Mergenthaler patent is one of the most
wonderful perfecting machines ever
recorded in the patent office. In the
| latter end of century of uneXam-
pied inventions it gained for it's de-
| signer the title of pioneer inventor"
and also the Elliott Cresson gold medal
I
| delphia.
| lMergenthaler who died in October
| last was a native of Wurtemburg
| Germany, where he was born in 1854
| At IA years of age ne was appren-
| ticed to matchmaker, and four years
later emigrated to Baltimore, Nd to
escape militry service. He spent years
in the study of a possible type casting
| Df,l,i ,ipn Nd s,, htri1 Iiraer
the machines which finally became the
| linotype machine of 1884.
OPERATION OF THE MACHINE.
BY a system of keys similar to those
| of typewriter, the matrices of a
line are assembled and automatically
justified or spaced. 1t is then trans
ferred to a mold and a line of type
| cast from pot of molten metal. The
matrices are then withdrawn, the mold
| removed, the metal line planed across
the bottom and finally deposited in it's
order in the galley. Then, automatic
ally the matrices are picked up and
| distributed into their respective maga-
| zines, from which a finger-touch will
drop them again into the next line of
composition. AS an Illustration of the
admirable adjustment of this machine
it may be mentioned that type metal
| is very sensitive to a high degree OF
! heat, and, becoming too hot, it may
be ruined. A gas jet keeps this metal
| molten, and, to avoid Overheating, the
| flame is made to regulate ITSELF keep
ing the metal for the type line at a
! uniform degree of heat. The first of
these machines ever tried was in the
office of the New York Tribune in
July, 1886. Eight thousand of them
are in use at the present tine and the
| name of Mergenthaler VII go down to
| history with those of Watt, Stephen
son, Fulton, Edison, Morse and Bell
The art of illustration has kept
| abreast of the art of printing, until
here and there they have merged al
most into the fine arts. The wood cut
| and the steel engraving are gone. In
| their places are the zinc etching, the
| pnotogra Vure and the half-tone plate.
| Color work is done to a perfection that
requires an expert, almost, to say that
it is not from the brush. Compare
son of book or magazine Of today
with one of only twenty-five years
ago will accentuate the progress of
the illustrator and of the printer.
GROWTH OF THE BICYCLE.
The bicycle, as one of the wonders
OF the age, was slow in evolving Not
till the geared wheel of the safety pat
tern was perfected, did the machine
come into general favor. The pneu-
matte tire and ball bearings have
made ii. Noiseless, moving without
friction and of phenomenal lightness
in proportion to it's load and the dis