avoided. The aid of the typewriter enables the operator to keep pace
with the sending operator, and his pace has been increased in the past
few years by the introduction of a code system. Here is a specimen of
the code system as used by the operator in sending out a news item:—
“Madrid, March 17—T Qn Regent h sined t Treaty of Peace btn Spn &
t Uni Stas. T treaty wb frwded to t French Ambsdr, Jules Cambon, at
Washn, fo exg w t one sined by Pr McKinley. No decree q sj wb pud d
‘Official Gazette.’
“Ofl rlns btn t 2 govts wi nw b promtly rnud. Ix rmrd 5 Mir to t Uni
Stas wb Snor. Don J. Brunetti, Duke d’Arcos, fmr Spnh Mir to Mex, wos
wif is an Amn.”
When this seemingly incomprehensible conglomeration of letters leaves
the hand of the receiving operator it reads as follows:—
“Madrid, March 17—The Queen Regent has signed the Treaty of Peace
between Spain and the United States. The treaty will be forwarded to
the French Ambassador, Jules Cambon, at Washington, for exchange with
the one signed by President McKinley. No decree on the subject will be
published in the ‘Official Gazette.’
“Official relations between the two governments will now be promptly
renewed. It is rumored that the Minister to the United States will be
Señor Don J. Brunetti, Duke d’Arcos, former Spanish Minister to Mexico,
whose wife is an American.”
The London “Times” recently has been experimenting with a scheme
whereby reporters in the Houses of Parliament operate the typesetting
machines in the London office by the wire from their quarters in
Parliament.
It is only a question of time when this practice comes into use in the
reporting of all legislative proceedings.
In some of the New York newspaper offices, the receiving operator sits
at a typesetting machine and puts into type the messages which come
over the wires.
How rapidly we have advanced in this direction in the last half of the
nineteenth century is thus shown. What will be done by our successors
in the first half of the twentieth century, no man can at this time
satisfactorily predict.
IV. TYPE-MAKING, STEREOTYPING, PICTURE-MAKING.
The manufacture of the small metal pieces called type has undergone
little change in this nineteenth century. That which has been done
has been in the way of producing artistic designs, so arranged that
combinations can be formed pleasing to the eye, and an aid to rapid
workmanship. The machinery in use has lost its crudity, the production
has been increased, and the finish become more perfect. The setting of
type by machinery has been a serious blow to this industry, and the
time will come when it will be devoted entirely to the making of job or
fancy types.
Benjamin Franklin attempted to make metal type in this country, but he
did not succeed. It was not until 1796 that type-making was commenced
here.
As in many other departures in the printing business, the city of
Philadelphia took the lead. Binney and Ronaldson, of Edinburgh,
Scotland, established the first foundry in this country, operating
it in Philadelphia. After a severe struggle and with some aid from
the State, a business was established by the two Scotchmen, which
afterwards became known as the Johnson Foundry, under MacKellar, Smiths
& Jordan, which is still in existence. They were followed by David
Bruce, also a Scotchman, and by 1813 foundries had been established in
New York and other large cities.
Since that time improvements have been introduced, but nothing has
come forth which deserves to be ranked with the printing-press or the
typesetting machine.
The type founder will tell you how much better are the machines used
in 1899 than those which produced type in 1850. But he cannot point
out any device connected with it which the mechanical world can
designate as marvelous, or the people at large regard as a wonderful
invention. Type once was rubbed into smoothness by boys. Now it is
done automatically on the machine. By the hand process about four
hundred types an hour were cast; by the present mechanism a speed of
six thousand an hour has been acquired. Until about 1875, this output
hardly met the demand; now it will do so. Before many years it will be
far in excess of the requirements.
* * * * *
Stereotyping is the art of making plates cast in one piece of type
metal from the surface of one or more pages of type. In the beginning
of the nineteenth century, stereotyping was used to an exceedingly
limited extent. The printers were prejudiced against it for reasons
purely selfish. It was not until 1813 that it was introduced into the
United States, and only a few years previously Lord Stanhope introduced
it into the English printing business. “The Larger Catechism of the
Westminster Assembly” professes on its title-page to have been the
first work stereotyped in America. It bears the date of June, 1813. Now
the process is in general use—plaster, clay, and papier mâché being
used.
The process of stereotyping originally was to preserve the pages, so
that an entire edition of a work could be finished without requiring
large numbers of type, and to have it ready for future editions. For
newspaper work it came into vogue to save the rapid wearing out of the
type by the impressions made.
From the practical introduction of stereotyping in this country,
in 1813, by Robert Bruce, until about 1850, the slow, tedious, and
troublesome process of making the plates by plaster of Paris was in
vogue. That was done by the plaster being poured over the face of the
type. Molten lead was then run into the cast, after which the plate
was finished. The time thus occupied caused the work to be confined to
books, magazines, and weekly issues of small journals. When the plate
was taken from the cast it was rough, imperfect, and unfit for use.
Men, whose specialty was finishing, were employed to make the plate so
as to meet the requirements of the printing press.
It was just at the opening of the last half of the nineteenth century
that papier mâché began to be used in this country. A few years before
that time it had been brought into use in London and Paris. Its
introduction into the United States found the printing trade ready
and willing to accept it, and but a few years passed before it came
into general use by the newspapers. It is a peculiar combination. The
paper matrix is formed by paste of starch, flour, alum, and water.
This is spread over a thick paper, on which are placed layers of fine
tissue paper. When ready for use, it is placed on the face of the type
and a deep impression secured by being passed through a press. Then
it goes into a steam chest to be dried, from there it is passed into
the casting machine, the molten metal poured in, and a few minutes
thereafter the plate is ready for the press. Up to a few years ago, the
impression on papier mâché was secured by being beaten with brushes
prepared for that use. The method had two disadvantages,—consumption
of time and destruction of type. The press now used obviates these
defects. The old way took about twenty minutes to produce a plate. Now
it is done in from five to seven minutes. The machinery here introduced
has been of benefit to the trade, but none of it ranks among the great
inventions of the century.
The making of electrotype plates had its origin early in the century,
when it was found that stereotype plates had a limit as to durability.
Electroplating suggested to Josiah Adams, in 1839, the idea of a
copper surface for the stereotype plate. It took ten years to bring
it into practical use. His first successful work in this line was on
the engravings and borders for a Bible issued in New York. It was
found to be particularly adapted to engravings, producing a surface
of sufficient smoothness to allow the pressman to make a print of
exquisite fineness. The improvements introduced tended only toward
the saving of time and the excellence of finish. Practically the
same process is used now that was employed half a century ago. An
impression of the type is made on wax, the electric current is secured
by a deposit of fine graphite, the mold is placed in a bath containing
a solution of sulphate of copper and is made part of the electric
circuit, in which also is introduced a zinc element in a sulphuric acid
solution. The current deposits a film of copper on the graphite surface
of the mold. When it has assumed a sufficient thickness, it is taken
from the bath, the wax is removed, and the copper shell trimmed. It is
then backed with an alloy of type metal. The finishing process brings
the plate to the proper thickness, after which it is blocked to the
height required for printing. That is the process. To it in the last
ten years there has been applied the use of steam machinery. In the old
days the making of electrotypes required from ten to fifteen hours.
They now are produced in from two to three hours.
* * * * *
The close of the nineteenth century witnesses the disappearance
entirely from the printing establishment of the once generally
used wood engraving. The rise and fall of this once splendid art
is practically encompassed in the period of time covered by the
nineteenth century. Thomas Bewick, an Englishman, gave wood engraving
an artistic impetus by the production of illustrations for his
“Histories of British Quadrupeds,” which appeared about 1790. Up to
that period the work was crude. The books and magazines of the first
decade of the century were illustrated in a way then regarded as highly
artistic. The application of the Bewick method brought forth work which
ranked in the line of high art. Of the development of this work volumes
could be written. To simplify the situation it is only necessary to
recall how these pictures were made. Squares of boxwood were used,
on the face of which was spread a preparation of water-color Chinese
white. On this surface the artist drew his picture, and then the
engraver’s art was brought into requisition—the engraving being done
alongside the pencil lines.
And here it was that the artistic instinct of the handler of the
“graver” appeared,—the delicacy of touch being shown in the shading
and in the finish of the lines. By this method there have been produced
rare works of art, as can be seen by an examination of the books
printed in the first half of the century.
The time taken in the making of the engravings, however, prevented
the possibility of their being used by the newspapers and magazines
as generally as was desired. This want was in a measure met by the
introduction of machine “grooving.” The cuts, however, could not be
used to print from directly in consequence of the warping of the
boxwood, and it was necessary in every instance to make stereotype or
electrotype plates. Then, too, came the realization of the fact that
the reproduction of portraits needed something which would preserve
features and expression. In those days some of the pictures produced
were ludicrous in the extreme, and it became a standing joke in the
newspapers that the best way to cast ridicule upon a public man was
to print his picture. In the work of reproducing scenes the skill
of the artist and the engraver frequently brought forth results
which were marvels of excellence. For a number of years the wood
engraving business flourished in this particular line, despite the
dissatisfaction existing in regard to portrait work. In the production
of illustrations for fine books, printed on good paper with flat
presses and properly “under-” or “overlaid,” there was attained a
degree of perfection in lines and shading which raised the pictures
almost to the rank of steel and copperplate engravings. Many of those
engaged in the work of drawing and cutting were possessed of a skill
which would have won for them distinction in other artistic lines.
This, practically, was the condition of the profession when the end of
the first half of the nineteenth century had been reached. Even then,
however, the question of a substitute was under severe consideration
in scientific as well as artistic circles. Experiments were made
with copper, acids, and zinc, but satisfactory results could not be
obtained. It was not until 1860 that a successful substitute was
produced. Gillot, a Frenchman, brought forth a system of etching. By
this means a photograph from an artist’s drawing was placed above a
plate of gelatine, chemically sensitized. The parts of the gelatine
exposed to the light became hard, and the remainder was brushed away
with warm water. From this an electrotype could be made directly. That
process has given way to the present system of photographing on zinc,
and the use of acid baths for etching. Other improvements—principally
the use of the screen—have resulted in the production of half-tones
which are highly satisfactory in newspaper work. By this means there
can be produced such reproductions as give the features of persons so
that recognition is as easy as in the case of photographs. With the
aid of different sizes of screens, backgrounds are secured which add
materially to the artistic excellence of the pictures. So well done is
the work in this direction that the plates can be used on the curved
cylinders of the huge octuple presses, and enormous editions are
printed from them. The peculiarity of this process is that the original
can be reduced or enlarged so as to suit any width of column or page
without affecting one way or the other the fineness of the work. Pen
and ink drawings made by artists are photographed and backgrounded
with the utmost accuracy as to design and detail. It has been found,
however, that scenes in half-tones do not give as much satisfaction as
do portraits, and it is believed to be only a question of time when
there is a return to line engravings so far as the newspapers are
concerned.
When one compares the photographic reproductions which appear in the
magazines and newspapers of to-day with those of even ten years ago,
there is seen an advancement which tells a wonderful story of the
rapid march of artistic taste. The outline picture—excellent of its
kind—has the appearance of crudity almost grotesque when placed beside
the life-like half-tone reproduction of photographic art.
Wood engraving has been relegated to the days of the hand-press, the
mail news-carrier and the plaster of Paris process of stereotyping.
Inventive genius not only has advanced for the printing press and its
adjuncts; it has also laid a heavy hand on art, causing it to pause and
consider how soon the pencil and the brush will be superseded entirely
by the rhythmic motion of the machine.
THE CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN MINES AND MINING
BY GEO. A. PACKARD,
_Metallurgist and Mining Engineer_.
When we consider how largely the discovery and exploration of America
was due to the search for mines, that the precious metals might be
found to replenish the depleted treasuries of European monarchs; and
when we note that, as a result of this search, the world’s annual
production of gold and silver had increased in the three hundred years
following the discovery from $5,508,000, in 1500, to $48,995,000 at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, we view with surprise the little
progress made during this period in the art of mining.
At the beginning of the present century, we find in use the same
general methods that were followed in the time of Columbus. The very
first operation—the search for veins—was oftentimes conducted
after the manner of the Middle Ages; for in Pryce’s “Mineralogia
Cornubiensis,” which seems to have been one of the leading works on
mining of the last century, there occurs, among other methods, a
lengthy treatise on “How to Discover Mines by the Sole Virtue of the
Hazel-tree.” Powder, although it had been invented for centuries, had
been so little employed in mining that it was considered merely as a
last resort. In a description of mining methods, another work says:
“The soft vein is generally dug with the spade and turned out into
wooden trays; but the hard veins are knocked out with a gad and a
hammer. If the ore is so hard as to be incapable of breaking it in this
manner, they usually soften it with fire. But a still more expeditious
method is the working with gunpowder. _A small quantity of powder does
great things this way._”
In 1800 the coal miner was working by the naked light of the tallow
dip. Cast-iron rails had been introduced but a few years, and rails of
wrought iron, which could be bent to follow the curves of the drifts,
were unheard of. The cars were pushed along the levels by boys. Water
power, where it could be obtained and applied by means of the overshot
wheel, was in general use for pumping, hoisting, and ventilating. But
from many a mine the ore was raised by women, who pulled the bucket
up “by walking away with the end of the rope” which passed from them
over a sheave and thence down the shaft. In places the ore was still
carried up the steep inclines to the surface on the backs of women and
girls. Ventilation, when not secured by natural means, was obtained by
bellows operated by men or mechanically. A mine which had been worked
to a depth of one thousand feet was extraordinary. Though steam power,
applied in the form of what was known as the atmospheric engine, a
device utilizing for suction the vacuum formed by the condensation of
steam in a chamber, had been used for years in draining mines, the
steam engine, as invented by Watt, had been introduced for hoisting
in only a few places. The power was applied to turn a long crank arm,
which rotated the drum.
At the beginning of the century the mines of Cornwall, which were the
greatest producers in Great Britain, were turning out about 5,000,000
pounds of tin and 10,000,000 pounds of copper a year, while the whole
United Kingdom was furnishing only 170,000 tons of iron. South America
was the greatest producer of gold and silver, wonderfully rich mines
of the latter having been found in Peru and Chile. Humboldt places the
production of the whole South American continent for the year 1800 at
691,625 pounds of silver and 9900 pounds of gold.
The United States at that time had practically no mining within its
borders. Some small mines of iron, lead, and copper, which had been
opened to supply the demands created by the Revolution, were producing
spasmodically; but even as late as 1821, William Keating, in an address
before the American Philosophical Society, said, “Upon the whole we
think we may be warranted in saying that there are as yet no mines in
activity in the United States. Coal, in most places, is taken from the
surface, or dug from the foot of a hill. The lead mines of Missouri are
rich and abundant, but the mining is a mere pilfering of the richest
spots.”
In 1801 the Cornish pumping system was introduced. A long rod,
extending from the surface to the bottom of the shaft, operates
simultaneously a series of pumps placed, one above the other, at
intervals of about two hundred and fifty feet. The lowest one lifts the
water from the pump and delivers it into a tank from which the next one
draws its supply, and this in turn forces it up to a higher tank. With
this improved means of drainage mines began to be sunk deeper, a depth
of three thousand feet having been reached with this method of pumping.
The manufacture of iron pumps, which had begun to replace wooden ones
toward the end of the eighteenth century, decreased the amount of
repairs necessary on the pumps, and aided in making possible better
arrangement of underground work.
It was at about this time, the beginning of the present century, that
the method of opening ground by shafts, levels, and raises, which we
refer to as “blocking out ore,” began to be more generally adopted,
displacing the former mode of following down the ore by a series of
irregular, isolated excavations. With it came overhead stoping, in
which, after the shaft has been sunk, the level driven and timbered,
and a raise made, the miner begins breaking down the ore from over his
head, allowing it to run down into chutes. From these it is drawn out
into cars pushed along the tracks in the level. The waste is allowed
to accumulate on top of the stulls, or timbers, forming the top of the
level above referred to, and serves as a platform upon which the miner
stands in breaking down more ore.
The invention of the safety lamp, in 1815, is probably the most
important event of the early part of the century. Previous to this the
miners fired the gas in the “rooms” with their candles, which were
raised toward the roof with the aid of a long pole, the miners lying
flat on the floor of the level to escape the blaze, and sometimes
putting on wet jackets to avoid being scorched. As first invented by
Davy, the safety lamp consisted merely of a cylinder of wire gauze
surrounding the flame, much as the flame is surrounded by a glass globe
in the modern lantern, except that the diameter of the cylinder did not
exceed two inches. This was based upon the theory that the gas set on
fire by the light would burn inside the gauze without heating it hot
enough to ignite the gas outside. The principle was correct, and the
lamp worked satisfactorily when carefully used under proper conditions.
It was soon found, however, that in a strong air current, or if swung
at a more rapid speed than six feet per second in an explosive mixture,
the surrounding gas would be ignited. As a man walking naturally
on the surface moves at a rate of between five and six feet per
second, it will be easily seen that even were the speed considerably
diminished underground,—and any one who has tried to follow a mine
foreman through mine workings knows the speed slackening is slight,—a
very slight swing of the arm would bring the rate of movement of the
lantern up to the danger point. Another and a very unexpected factor
in causing explosions with the new lamp also developed; and that
was the great carelessness of the men who used it. Armed with this
device, and deluded by the quietly burning flame, the miner would seat
himself upon a pile of coal, draw forth his pipe and fill it, and
deliberately open the gauze to light it. As a consequence, for a time
after the introduction of the safety-lamp, the number of accidents
from explosions increased. This latter difficulty, the recklessness of
the miners, was presently overcome by having the lamps locked, and by
depriving the men of all matches before admitting them to the mine.
An improved lamp, introduced by Clanny, wherein the lower part of the
cylinder was replaced by glass, partially protected the flame from
strong air currents, and also gave a better light. Later, Müseler added
an interior sheet iron chimney, which divides the air current so that
the hot air does not strike directly against the gauze, and the lamp as
thus improved is very largely used, especially in Europe.
[Illustration: SINKING, DRIFTING, AND STOPING WITH THE
INGERSOLL-SERGEANT DRILLS.]
In 1831 the safety fuse was invented, a train of powder having been
used before this for firing the charges. The same year a patent was
granted to Moses Shaw of New York for an electrical device to fire
several charges at once. It was at about this time, too, that the
man-engine was invented in Germany. Some miner, noticing the slow and
steady up and down motion of the long rods which operated the pumps
in the Cornish system, had conceived the idea of nailing steps on to
them at intervals, and riding up and down. As mines grew deeper and
the time and labor required for the men to get down to their work
increased, a special engine, utilizing an improvement of this device,
was employed for raising and lowering men. This “man-engine” consisted
of two parallel beams, moving slowly up and down the shaft with a
reciprocating motion, the length of the stroke being about twelve feet.
Upon these beams small platforms were nailed at distances equal to the
length of the stroke. The miner wishing to descend stepped upon the
top platform of one beam as it started on its down stroke. At the end
of this stroke he found himself twelve feet down the shaft, on a level
with the second platform of the other beam, which had in the mean time
been coming up, and he stepped across on to this, which now began its
down stroke. Thus by constantly stepping from one rod to the other at
the completion of each down stroke, he was conveyed to the bottom. By
reversing the process he was raised to the surface.
[Illustration: INGERSOLL-SERGEANT DUPLEX STEAM-ACTUATED AIR COMPRESSOR.]