FOUNT, or FONT, among printers, a set or quantity of letters, and all the ap pendages belonging thereto, as numeral characters, quadrats, points; &c. cast by a letter-founder, and sorted. Founts are large or small, according to the demand of the printer, who orders them by the hundred weight, or by sheets. When a printer orders a fount of five hundred, lie means that the fount, consisting of letters, points, spaces, quadrats, &c. shall weigh 5001b. When he demands a fount of ten sheets, it is understood, that with that fount he shall be able to com pose ten sheets, or twenty forms, without being obliged to distribute. The founder takes his measures accordingly; he rec kons 1201b. for a sheet, including the quadrats, &c. or 60th. for a form, which is only half a sheet : not that the sheet always weighs 1201b., or the form 601b.; on the contrary, it varies according to the size of the form : besides, it is always supposed that there are letters left in the cases. As, therefore, every sheet does not comprehend the same number of let ters, nor the same sort of letters, we must observe, that, as in every language some sounds recur more frequently than others, some letters will be in much more use, and oftener repeated than others, and consequently their cells or should be better stored than those f the letters which do not recur so fre uently : thus, a fount does not contain n equal number of a and b, or of b and , &c. the letter-founders have therefore
'a list or tariff or, as the French call it, a police, by which they regulate the propor tions between the different sorts of cha racters that compose a fount: and it is evi dent that this tariff will vary in different languages, but will remain the same for all sorts of characters employed in the same language. Suppose a fount of 100,000 characters, which is a common fount ; I ere a should have 5000; c, 3000; e, 11,000; i, 6000; in, 3000; the k, only .00 ; and the X, y, and z, not many more.