pleasant and cool. In fact, any one may be in my foundry during the worst parts of the process, without any inconvenience or injurious effects. I must, however, confess, that I have found in this, as in many other branches of trade, that where considerable discretion and practical skill are requisite, and where a manufactory is established for one particular business, it is far better, and cheaper to purchase the relative articles ready made, than to attempt the embracing of every branch under one concern. This observation will apply very closely to that of smelting and compounding of metals; requiring furnaces and apparatus of far greater power than are requisite for stereotyping; besides that, the process, from the stench and danger of fire, ought never to be carried on in the midst of a populous neighbourhood. I am, moreover, well convinced, and again repeat, that even independent of the latter, and certainly important consideration, I have the metal ready made, to any required strength, much cheaper than it would cost me by being made at home. Mr. Mason, of Cornwall-road, Surry, has paid great attention to this branch of manufacture; and I have from him the metal, in pigs, ready for the foundry, made from foreign regulus and tea-lead, at about 40s. per cwt.; and my dross and sweepings refined for 14s. per cwt. on the product, which could not very well be done in a foundry at any expense. It may be necessary here to observe, that I by no means intend to assume that either the foundry or the apparatus, as here shown and described, are in exact conformity with other stereotype foundries; or have any pretensions to superiority. But it is, altogether, what I find effectual for the intended purpose; and calculated to produce plates equal to any, and superior to most that have come into my hands. I converted a spare kitchen. into a foundry, chiefly for experiment, and that I might be perfectly competent to say, that no part of this work has been written without a practical knowledge of every branch of the profession treated of. I had some standing work by me which I could practise upon, although with every inconvenience of low spaces, quadrats and leads. If I succeeded I might keep the plates and release my type: and if I found it agreeable to pursue the art still further, I might make my foundry a permanent addition to my business, and undertake work in this branch, for my own connexions, rather than let it go elsewhere. VARIOUS MODES OF STEREOTYPING. SECTION IV. Various other modes of Stereotyping-The French-Hoffman's ProcessPingeron-Rochen-Carez foundation of an English Patent—Gengembre and Herhan-Efforts in the art, to form Assignats-Herhan's Process of striking the Mould in Semi-fluid Metal-His new method of composing Matrices instead of Types-Applegath and Corper's New Patent for striking the Mould—Similarity to the Methods of Carez and Herhan-Mr. Brunel-His Patent for a New Mode of Stereotyping-Advantages-Not yet applied to Book-work-Very similar to Hoffman's. In conformity with the plan adopted in this work, of describing the several methods used in every department of printing, with the variety of machinery either deemed the best, or most generally known and in practice, by which the different processes are effected; and then of briefly noticing the various methods and machines adopted by some, and proposed by others, I shall now shortly mention the several inventions and variations in the stereotype art attempted since the time of Van der Mey, Gedd, Tilloch, and Lord Stanhope. In these descriptions we shall find that the French possess, as usual, the numerical superiority on the score of variety; and that all those of our own country who have proposed methods essentially differing from that which is fairly designated THE STANHOPEAN METHOD, have borrowed their ideas, in great part at least, from what has been made public by the artists of that nation. "The year 1784 is a memorable era in the history of stereotype and polytype printing, in France, as the attempts which were made in that year, in these arts, by François-Ignace-Joseph Hoffman, a native of Alsace, but residing at that time in France, excited the emulation of the artists of that nation, and produced an uninterrupted series of efforts, which, in the course of twenty years, brought the art of stereotype printing to that state of perfection in which it is now there practised. Availing himself of the then recent discoveries of Darcet, respecting the easy fusi bility of certain alloys of bismuth,* Hoffman attempted to apply some of these to the formation of stereotype plates, by pressing them into moulds or matrices, the idea of forming which from pages of type he had taken from the previous essays of Gedd. He thus describes his process in a manuscript memoir, quoted by M. Camus-' With a page composed of types in the usual manner, he made an impression in a mass of soft fat earth, mixed with plaster (gypsum), and prepared with a glutinous paste of syrup of gum and potatoe starch. This impression became a matrice, into which a composition of lead, bismuth, and tin, being pressed at the moment of cooling, gave plates which exhibited, in relief, fac-similes of the types which had been used to form the matrice.'-In another part of the same memoir, it appears, that, before pouring the alloy into the clay matrices, he heated, in a stone, both them and the trowel with which he spread and pressed the alloy into them, in order to prevent a too rapid and unequal cooling of the metal. Instead of the composition above-mentioned, he sometimes used clay, mixed with Spanish white and Champagne chalk. The solid plate, which was the result of this process, when squared and properly adjusted, he fixed with pins upon a square block of walnut-tree wood."-Hodgson, p. 55-57. M. Pingeron formed a composition of talc, gypsum, clay, tripoli, sand, &c. for the mould, into which he poured the type metal. He used, also, a sand-pit for the same purpose; and a composition of German spar, sal-ammoniac, &c. which would bear several castings before destroyed. : Another French artist, Rochen, proposed to set up a whole stereotyping establishment in the compass of a box, forming the appearance of a book! like Fraser's "much-admired Solanders," to contain pamphlets or like our family draught and back-gammon boxes. The stock of types to be sufficient for four lines! the mould to be taken in gypsum with charcoal powder; and seven or eight pieces of this stereotype to be joined on one block, to form a page! These fooleries and burlesques soon gave way to some "Six parts of bismuth, four of tin, and three of lead, form an alloy, which becomes very soft at the heat of boiling water, and which may be kneaded, like wax, when half fluid; eight parts of bismuth, five of lead, and three of tin, form an alloy, which melts at a heat less than that of boiling water." thing more substantial, and truly scientific. In 1787 Joseph Carez, printer, of Toul, in France, brought to some degree of perfection and utility, a process which he called homotype, or many types in one. This appears to me the more interesting, as having close affinity to a method for which a patent has been lately taken out in this country, and which will, in due order, be described; to prevent any imputation of prejudice on my part, I shall copy the description of Carez as given by Mr. Hodgson, from M. Camus. "The page, after being composed in the usual way, with moveable types, and carefully corrected, was inclosed in an iron chase, in which it was firmly held by screws. It was then attached, with the face downwards, to the underside of a block of oak wood, suspended from one arm of an iron lever, or swing beam (bascule). Upon the top of a wooden pillar, resting on the ground, and immediately underneath the page, there was placed a thin card or paste-board tray, rubbed over with oil. The workman then took from a furnace close at hand, a quantity of melted type metal, which he poured into the paste-board tray, and attentively watched its cooling. The moment that it began to be covered with a slight cloud, he let the block of wood and page fall upon it, and thus an impression, en creux, of the page was formed. The whole was then detached from the block; the page and the plate were separated, which was done very readily; and the plate was carefully examined. The workman then took off what was necessary, cut down the edges, and lastly, fixing this plate to the under side of the block, or ram, he let it fall upon some fused metal, placed, as before, on the sole of the machine, and thus obtained a plate, in relief, fit for printing with. This plate was then carefully examined and cleaned; its edges were cut off, sufficient being left at top and bottom to afford hold for a screw. The plate was then reduced by a plane to a determinate thickness, which was scarcely the twelfth of an inch below the nick of the letter. In this state, when wanted, it was attached by screws to a block of wood properly adjusted, and impressions taken from it in the usual manner" [pp. 66, 67.] It appears that M. Carez was eminently successful in his new process, and about 1786 and 1787 completed many works of magnitude, including a Dictionary and Bible, in close Nonpareil type. In 1792 Hoffman attempted a mode of producing stereotype plates, to avoid the expense of the composition of pages, and this with a |