TYPE, a rectangular solid of metal, wood, or other hard material having a raised letter, figure, punctuation mark, or other character on the upper end, which, when inked, is used to make im pressions on paper and other smooth sur faces; the term is also used collectively. Types must be all of a uniform height, and perfectly true in their angles, other wise they could not be locked firmly to gether to be printed from. Notches are made on one side of the type to assist the compositor in distinguishing the bottom from the top; the groove is a channel made in the bottom of the type to make it stand steadily. From the character of the letters types are known as CAPI TALS, small or lower-case letters, italics, script, etc. From their size they re ceive the following names, from bril liant, which, however, is rarely used, to English, the largest used in ordinary book work: Brilliant, diamond, pearl, 'ruby, nonpareil, minion, brevier, bour geois, long primer, small pica, pica, Eng lish. The different sizes are now, how
ever, named by the "point" system, as 5 point, 5%-point, 6-point, etc.
Types are made by casting (which is now done by machinery), the letter be ing first cut on the end of a steel punch, and the punch then driven into a piece of copper, which forms the matrix or bottom of the mold intended to produce the letter. A fount or font is a complete assortment of any given kind of type, the number of each letter being in pro portion to the frequence of its occurrence in printed matter, thus: A complete font of type, including Ro man and Italic, with capitals, figures, points, and signs, consists of 226 differ ent characters.