Triumphs of invention and discovery, &c. &c. / by J. Hamilton Fyfe.

  • Fyfe, J. Hamilton (James Hamilton), 1837-1880.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Triumphs of invention and discovery, &c. &c. / by J. Hamilton Fyfe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to suppress it; but that if they were peaceable, their wages should be continued to every one of them till similar employment could be procured/—a promise which was, no doubt, faithfully performed; and having so said, he distributed several copies among them. Thus was this most hazardous enterprise undertaken and successfully carried through, and printing by steam on an almost gigantic scale given to the world. On that memorable day, the 29th of November 1814, appeared the following announcement, Our journal of this day presents to the public the practical result of the greatest improvement connected with printing since the discovery of the art itself. The reader now holds in his hands one of the many thousand impressions of the Times newspaper which were taken off last night by a mechanical apparatus. That the magnitude of the invention may be justly appreciated by its effects, we shall inform the public that after the letters are placed by the compositors, and enclosed in what is called a form, little more remains for man to do than to attend and watch this unconscious agent in its operations. The machine is then merely supplied with paper; itself places the form, inks it, adjusts the paper to the form newly inked, stamps the sheet, and gives it forth to the hands of the attendant, at the same time withdraw- ing the form for a fresh coat of ink, which itself again distributes, to meet the ensuing sheet, now