_Uber Land und Meer_, which is one of the finest illustrated newspapers
published in Germany, gives the following: We recently gave our readers
an insight into the establishment of _Uber Land und Meer_, and to-day we
show them the machine which each week starts our paper on its journey
around the world--a machine which embodies the latest and greatest
progress in the art of printing. The following illustration represents
one of the three fast presses which the house of Hallberger employs in
the printing of its illustrated journals.
With the invention of the cylinder press by Frederick König was verified
the saying that the art of printing had lent wings to words. Everywhere
the primitive hand-press had to make way for the steam printing machine;
but even this machine, since its advent in London in 1810, has itself
undergone so many changes that little else remains of König's invention
than the principle of the cylinder. The demands of recent times for
still more rapid machines have resulted in the production of presses
printing from a continuous roll or "web" of paper, from cylinders
revolving in one given direction. The first of this class of presses
(the "Bullock" press) was built in America. Then England followed,
and there the first newspaper to make use of one was the _Times_. The
Augsburg Machine Works were the first to supply Germany with them, and
it was this establishment which first undertook to apply the principle
of the web perfecting press (first intended for newspaper work only,
where speed rather than fine work is the object sought) to book
printing, in which far greater accuracy and excellence is required, and
the result has been the construction of a rotary press for the highest
grade of illustrated periodical publications, which meets all the
requirements with the most complete success.
[Illustration: IMPROVED FAST PRINTING PRESS FOR ENGRAVERS]
The building of rotary presses for printing illustrated papers was
attempted as early as 1874 or 1875 in London, by the _Times_, but
apparently without success, as no public mention has ever been made of
any favorable result. The proprietor of the _London Illustrated News_
obtained better results. In 1877 an illustrated penny paper, an
outgrowth of his great journal, was printed upon a rotary press which
was, according to his statement, constructed by a machinist named
Middleton. The first one, however, did not at all meet the higher
demands of illustrated periodical printing, and, while another machine
constructed on the same principle was shown in the Paris Exposition of
1878, its work was neither in quality nor quantity adequate to the needs
of a largely circulated illustrated paper. A second machine, also on
exhibition at the same time, designed and built by the celebrated French
machinist, P. Alauzet, could not be said to have attained the object.
Its construction was undertaken long after the opening of the
Exposition, and too late to solve the weighty question. But the
half-successful attempt gave promise that the time was at hand when a
press could be built which could print our illustrated periodicals more
rapidly, and a conference with the proprietors of the Augsburg Machine
Works resulted in the production by them of the three presses from which
_Uber Land und Meer_ and _Die Illustrirte Welt_ are to-day issued. As
a whole and in detail, as well as in its productions, the press is the
marvel of mechanic and layman.
As seen in the illustration, the web of paper leaves the roll at its
right, rising to a point at the top where it passes between two hollow
cylinders covered with felt and filled with steam, which serve to dampen
the paper as may be necessary, the small hand-wheel seen above these
cylinders regulating the supply of steam. After leaving these cylinders
the paper descends sloping toward the right, and passes through two
highly polished cylinders for the purpose of recalendering. After this
it passes under the lowest of the three large cylinders of the press,
winds itself in the shape of an S toward the outside and over the middle
cylinder, and leaves the press in an almost horizontal line, after
having been printed on both sides, and is then cut into sheets. The
printing is done while the paper is passing around the two white
cylinders. The cylinder carrying the first form is placed inside and
toward the center of the press, only a part of its cog-wheel and its
journal being shown in the engraving. The second form is placed upon the
uppermost cylinder, and is the outside or cut form. Each one of the form
cylinders requires a separate inking apparatus. That of the upper one is
placed to the right at the top, and the bottom one is also at the right,
but inside. Each one has a fountain the whole breadth of the press,
in which the ink is kept, and connected with which, by appropriate
mechanism, is a system of rollers for the thorough distribution of the
ink and depositing it upon the forms.
The rapidity with which the impressions follow each other does not allow
any time for the printing on the first side to dry, and as a consequence
the freshly printed sheet coming in contact with the "packing" of the
second cylinder would so soil it as to render clean printing absolutely
impossible. To avoid this, a second roll of paper is introduced into the
machine, and is drawn around the middle cylinder beneath the paper which
has already been printed upon one side, and receives upon its surface
all "offset," thus protecting and keeping perfectly clean both the
printed paper and the impression cylinder. This "offset" web, as it
leaves the press, is wound upon a second roller, which when full is
exchanged for the new empty roller--a very simple operation.
The machines print from 3,500 to 4,000 sheets per hour _upon both
sides_, a rate of production from twenty-eight to thirty-two times as
great as was possible upon the old-fashioned hand-press, which was
capable of printing not more than 250 copies upon _one side_ in the same
time.
The device above described for preventing "offset" is, we believe, the
invention of Mr. H.J. Hewitt, a well known New York printer, 27 Rose
Street.
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