The success of the Remington machine has led to the invention of a number of other machines of more or less ingenious mechanism. These, however, may be divided into three general classes: (t) type-bar machines, such as the Caligraph, the National, etc.; (2) cylinder machines, repre sented by the Crandall and the Hammond; and (3) wheel machines, of which there are several forms. In the " cylinder " machine the letters and signs are on a cylinder having a lateral and rotary motion produced by the striking of a key, which brings the proper type to the common printing point. An advantage claimed for this machine over the type-bar is that it is a variable spacer—that is, it gives more space to wide letters (tn, w) than to narrow letters (i, t, 1); another advantage is, that the cylin der having one style of type can be removed and a cylinder having another style of type can be substituted, so that many kinds of type can be employed in the same machine. The wheel machines are of simple construction. The letters and signs are placed on the periphery of a wheel whose rotation brings any desired letter into position for printing. The machine has a dial-index and pointer to indicate the type which is in position.
problem of setting type by machinery has resisted nearly every effort at solution. The hand compositor of the pres ent time employs precisely the same methods that Gutenberg used at Strasburg four centuries ago. Experiments with devices for saving time and labor at the "case" date back many years. The inventions of Mitchel, Delcambre, Fraser, Alden, and others were designed merely to duplicate by machinery the motions of the compositor's hands, but they could not stand the test of practical work. Perhaps the best of this class of machines were those of G. A. Burr; their results were fairly satisfactory, but they had certain defects which were fatal obstacles to success. In '884, Ottinar Mergenthaler of Baltimore, Maryland, a native of Wiirtemberg, Ger many, invented a type-setting machine almost human in its action. Its conception, however, was primarily due to James A. Clephane, a Wash ington stenographer, who had for years made writing- and printing machines a study'. In 1876, Mr. Clephane employed an engineering firm, of which Mr. Mergenthaler was a member, to work from drawings by a Western inventor, and in pursuance of this Mr. Mergenthaler showed a singular aptitude for this kind of work. He began to experiment by employing various methods of casting type-bars from matrices made by indentations in soft material, and he soon improved upon the crude device originally submitted. His first idea was to form a rotary machine with keys for impressing female dies in a continuous strip of heavy paper; this was superseded by a machine controlling a series of sliding bars bearing on their edges all the characters and spaces; a key mechanism moved these bars endwise so as to bring a selected character on any bar in a line with a previously selected character, and thus to form a matrix of a complete line for casting. In 188o an entire change of system was made, and in 1884
the machine was completed whose perfected form is known as the "Lino type." The Linotype (61. r 28, jig. 2) is in appearance somewhat like an upright piano. It is about 5 feet long, 5 feet high, and 3 feet broad. As is shown by the Figure, the most conspicuous objects, supported by the heavy iron base, are a typewriter key-board and a series of vertical flattened tubes. Each of these tubes or magazines contains a number of short strips of brass, having the mould for a particular character stamped in the farther edge. The bottom strip or in each tube rests in a slot at the end of the corresponding key; and when this key is depressed, the matrix at once drops in an upright position into a groove or channel sloping above the key-board from right to left. A powerful air-blast instantly forces the matrix along a wire, which maintains it in its upright position to the lower end of the groove, and here two metallic fingers, working automatically, push it out into full view upon a horizontal slide; and as it is marked on the outer edge with the letter it represents, the operator can correct his work as he goes along. 'When all the matrices of a word are assembled on the slide, a touch on a particular key brings down a long, thin, wedge shaped strip or "space-band." The thicker end of this wedge hangs below the matrices, just over a metal plate, so that when the line is fin ished the automatic raising of this plate will push the space-bands upward through the line until the different words are all equally divided, and thus the nice process of "justification" is accomplished at a single stroke.
The first step is now finished. The line is ready to be cast. But the operator simply moves a lever and goes on with his work at the keys, leaving the machine to do the rest; and it does it quickly and well. As the lever moves, the space-bands spread the words, a pair of clamps seize the line of matrices, remove them from the slide, and press them against the face of a vertical disc. Extending horizontally through this disc is a narrow opening or slot of the exact length of the required type-bar. Behind it a small gas-furnace keeps a potful of type-metal constantly at liquid heat; and while the moulded edges of the matrices are held against the disc, an automatic force-pump throws out a jet of molten metal through the slot. In an instant a block is formed of the size and shape of an ordi nary line of types, bearing on its face in relief the letters corresponding to the line of matrices. The disc then makes half a turn, the bar meets a pair of automatic knives which trim it square, and the next moment it is pushed out solid, but still warm, at the bottom of a galley standing on end against the machine at the operator's left.