ENGLISH.- This is used for printing Bibles, large books, and the body of handbills. The French and Dutch call it St. Augustine; it is supposed, therefore, that this sized type was first used by those nations in printing the works of that writer.

PICA. This is the standard by which all the others are measured. It is more generally used than any other sort, especially in printing works of a high character. The French and Germans call it Cicero, it having been originally used by them in printing the Roman orator's epistles.

SMALL PICA.—This is the favourite type for novels. It is called brevier by the Germans, and philosophie by the French.

LONG PRIMER.-This sort is generally used for printing small books, or large books with close pages. The French call it little Roman, and the Germans corpus, it having been used by them, in the first instance, for printing the Corpus Juris.

BOURGEOIS. This type is very much used, and generally forms the largest type employed in print

ing newspapers. Bourgeois is a French word, signifying a citizen, and the name is applied to it in England as expressing the common use of the type. The French themselves call it gaillarde.

BREVIER.—This is employed in printing small cheap books, and for notes to larger type. It is supposed to have derived its name from the practice of using it to print breviaries, or Roman Catholic church books. The French call it little text, and the Germans maiden letter.

MINION. This type is very largely used in printing newspapers, as well as in small prayer-books and bibles, and pocket editions of other works. The Germans call it. colonel, and the French mignonne, or favourite.

EMERALD —This is a small kind of minion, used chiefly in newspapers, and only lately introduced.

NONPAREIL.—This type is so called because it is far more beautiful than any other sort. It possesses all the beauty, without losing the distinctness of the larger sorts.

RUBY.—This is, like Emerald, an interpolation in the original order of types. It was, at first, a nonpareil body with a smaller face. The French have no type which corresponds with it.

PEARL. This is only used for miniature books and notes, and is legible only to persons possessing strong sight.

DIAMOND....This is the smallest sort of type, and was first cot by the Dutch. A book printed in this type is, indeed, a curiosity, like the Lord's Prayer written on the size of a sixpence. The letters are to small, that 2,800 of them are contained in a pound weight, Strong eyes are requited in read it, and still stronger eyes to arrange the letters fur printing. We may add, however, that a type still smaller was cast by M. Didot, a French printer.

The above types are used in book printing; there are others which are used for placards. For instance, paragon; double pica; two-line pica; two-line English; two-line great primer; and canon, which is four times as large as pica. The types larger than canon have no distinct names, but are known as five, six, seven, twenty, or fifty-line pica, according to their size. Above 12-line pica, the letters are usually cut in wood—not cast in metal.

Type-founders all adopt the same names for these letters; but not always the same height and depth. The consequence is, that types cast at one foundry cannot very well be worked with those cast at another foundry.

A process has lately been introduced of facing the type with a very thin surface of copper by electrotyping.

Stereotype Printing.

Stereotype is a word derived from two Greek words, signifying fixed and type. Stereotype printing consists in printing from metal plates instead of from moveable types. If the reader will imagine a page not formed of single letters put together, but of a mass of letters cast in one block at the same time, he will understand what is meant by stereotype orinting.

The following is the mode of making these metal plates. A page of the ordinary type (excepting the spaces, used in dividing the words, are higher) is set up in the usual way; not, however, to be used for printing, but merely as a model of the stereotype plates required. A small metal frame is then fitted to the page, with a rim which rises above the face of the type about of an inch, being the thickness of the mould. The face of the type is brushed over with oil, and then covered

E

with liquid plaster, which is brushed off again with a soft brush, and more plaster is poured on, and worked well into the type by the hand; and the face of this plaster, when it congeals, retains, of course, an exact resemblance of the type with which it has been in contact. The plaster cast, after being removed from the type, is baked at a great heat in an oven, and when it is rendered thoroughly dry and hard, it is ready to be used as a mould, or matrix, for casting the metal plates which are to be printed from.

The casting is a very delicate operation, and is effected in an iron box, which is made hot, and is just large enough to contain the mould. At the bottom of the box is a loose iron plate, perfectly smooth, called a floating plate. The mould, the edges of which are cut to allow the metal to run into it, is placed with its face downwards upon this plate. The top of the box is covered by a lid, which is screwed down tight, and holes are cut in the corners of the lid, so that the liquid metal may easily flow into the box. The box and its contents are then lowered, by means of a Crane, into a large iron vessel containing molten type-metal. As the box sinks, the metal runs into it, through the holes in the corners of the lid, and under the floating plate, and both are forced up against the lid of the box by the bulk of the metal falling to

the bottom. The metal is thus effectively forced into every indentation of the mould. At the end of ten minutes, the box is hoisted out of the melted metal and cooled in water; the plaster mould is then separated from the metal cast, and the face of the cast presents an exact copy of the page of moveable types from which the plaster mould was taken. The metal plate is now examined, to remove any imperfection in the casting. The loops of the letters a and e, and similar letters, are liable to become filled up, owing to dust or air bubbles in the mould; this is remedied by removing the metal with a graver, and, if a letter is defective, by putting in moveable types. The back of the plate is then made smooth by a lathe, and the plate is mounted, or fastened on a block of wood, to make it as high as a page of common type. In this state, the plate is ready for printing by press or machine, in the ordinary way.

Stereotype printing is, then, in principle similar to the block printing which preceded the use of moveable types. It has really brought back the art, after a long course of improvement, almost to its original simplicity. At the commencement, the printers used solid blocks, on which were cut all the words composing a page; and, in stereotype printing, all the words of a page are cast in one block. The difference is this: the first was engraved