The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1907-02-01

| in Europe-direct from the engraved
metal plate, and in what is now the
prCof-rress In this case the press
was worked by hand for each repro
duction needed. as it is now in get
ting the proof Music printed in this
way shows somewhat soiled and
darkened page, because some little ink
J stays on the surface Of the plate after
wiping, and it can also be told by
reason of the indentation made in the
paper by the edges of the plate un-
der pressure
! The Lithographic Stones,
The printing is transferred to the
stone on which it is to be engraved
by placing a paper proof of it upon
the stone in proper position and apply
ing pressure. Upon the stone now is
the entire impression of the page, in
ink and reversed, The stones used
for this purpose are about inches
thick when new, with a surface which
is not only smooth, but perfectly level,
! having been made so by grinding with
heavy steel plate revolved by ma
chinery, Some OF these stones are
A by 60 inches in size, capable of
| taking 16 pages, and weighing from
! 900 to 1000 pounds each They are
handled by movable derricks, which
| run on overhead tracks suspended
from the ceiling, by which they may
De moved from one machine to an
other.
When all the pages which are to
be printed from the stone have been
| transferred to it, the whole is care
fully examined for imperfectiOns.
Spots, streaks and smears of ink
which are found on the surface at
points where no printing is desired
are removed with proper scraping
tools, and at all places where there
should be ink, but is not, it is put on
| by the operator. Then the stone is
ready for the etching with diluted nit
rio acid. This eats away the sur
face of the stone where it is not COW
cred with ink Upon the ink itself
the acid has no action, so that at the
completion of the etching the char
acters on the page which are to be
printed from the stone stand up
above the general level
The acid used is so weak that it
does not injure the hands of the oper-
ator, who applies it with small
brush and sponge to one small por-
ton of the stone after another. The
etching is very shallow, so that the
/ differences in level, upon completion,
are not perceptible to the naked eye
and scarcely so to the touch. The
chief skill Of the workman at this
point consists in seeing that the acid
does not remain too long. In prac-
tice he wipes it off frequently with his
sponge to examine it, and puts more
on until the right amount of etching
has been done. 1t is asserted, in
deed, that the desired result at this
point is not so much a lowering OF
the surface of the stone at the places
where it is not to print as a cleansing
of it, whereby the ink which subse-
quently comes in contact with it will
not stick to it.
Now the stone is ready to go upon
the presto where it goes by der
rick-that turns out the printed mu-
sic. This is much like the fiat-bed
power press used in the printing OF
certain kinds of reading matter, with
linking rollers arranged in similar
way, but has notifications, such as
greater hardness of the rollers and
other features, necessitated by the
fact that the stone on the moving bed
is heavy and the difference Of level
between the faces of the characters
and the general surface Of the stone
which is to receive no ink is so very
slight. This, too, calls for the use
of special inks. The paper printed
from this press is the same size as the
stone and one side of it is still blank.
Upon this are printed, from another
stone and in precisely the same way,
the remaining pages, which, in the
case Of 16-page stones, go to make up
80 pages of music The folding Of
the printed sheet is done just as the
folding of any printed matter Of sim
liar size would be.
Not only are the pages containing
the music etched upon and printed
from the stone, but also the title
page, with its ornamental design
sometimes in more than one color and
sometimes with a half-tone portrait
OF other engraved picture, and the last
page, which is usually given over to
advertising announcements Of other
work by the same publishers In the
case Of two-sheet music much Of it Is
printed not from stone by the litho-
graph method but from sterotyped