TYPE, in theology, an image or representation of some object which is called the antitype. In theological use it is applied chiefly, although not exclusively, to those m.ophetic prefigurings of the persons and things of the new dispensation which are found rn the ritual, and even in the history of the Old Testament. Under the heads BERME REUTICS, EXEGESIS, have been explained the different senses of which the literal text of Scripture is considered susceptible. Of one of these, the "mystical," the "typical" sense forms a further subdivision. The word itself is used as well by the writers of the New Testament (Acts, vii. 43; Romans, v. 14; Philippians, iii. 17) as by the Jewish historians, for instance, Philo, Opp. t. i. p. 108; and while St. Paul and other sacred writers speak of the ancient types of things to come, St. Peter completes the parallelism by describing baptism as the antitype of the ark of Noah, 1 Peter, iii. 21. Of the types of the Old Testament, many are directly pointed out as such in their very institution; many also are distinctly applied in the New Testament. There is a large class, how ever, which more properly fall under the mystical sense of Scripture, and which are called indirect, that is to say, "adaptive" or " applied" types. In the application and interpretation of these, many of the fathers, and especially Augustine and Gregory the great, are most elaborate and ingenious.
TYPE (Gr. typos, an impression or stamp), the name given to the stamps or dies which impress the letters on the paper in printing (q.v.). Printers, in early times, made the letters which they used, but in process of the necessity for a division of labor created the distinct business of type founding. There is evidence that, at the beginning of the 16th c., the apparatus fortype-founding was much the same as up till near the middle of this century. The first step in the process is the cutting of a punch or die resembling the require'd letter. The punch is of hardened steel, with the figure of the letter cut, the reverse way, upon its point. On this die being finished, it is struck into a piece of cop
per about an inch and a quarter long, one-eighth of an inch deep. and of a NViChil proportion ate to the size of the type to be cast. This copper, being so impressed with the representa non of the letter, requires to adjusted to the mold, so that the "face" or impression of the punch (in the copper) may be brought into such relation with the metal which forms the " body" or stalk of the type, that when the types are " set up" they may stand at the proper distance from each other, and be in "line" or range, and also square to the page; this work is termed " justifying," and the copper is now a " matrix." The matrix is now fixed into a small instrument or frame, called the mold, which is composed of two parts. The external surface is of wood, the internal of steel. At the top is a. shelving orifice, into which the metal is poured. The space within is of the size of the required body of the letter, and is made exceedingly true. The melted metal, being poured into this space, sinks down to the bottom in the matrix, and, instantly cooling, the mold is opened, and the type is cast out by the workman. This process of casting types is executed with great celerity.. Of course, every separate letter in the alphabet, every figure, point, or mark, must have its own punch and matrix. In casting types, the founder stands at a table, and has beside him a small furnace and pot with heated metal, which he lifts with a small ladle. Type-metal was a compound of lead and regu lus and antimony, with a small proportion of tin; but in 1856 a new compound was formed by adding a large proportion of tin to the lead and antimony, which considerably increased the cost of the metal, but it doubled its durability. The antimony gives hard ness and sharpness of edge to the composition, while the tin gives toughness and tenacity, and removes the brittleness which antimony causes when used largely without tin.