Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/306

 more and more copies, and quicker and yet quicker printing were wanted, as years and centuries rolled on, there came at last the great art of transparent printing, by which thousands of great sheets of transparent material, consisting each of thousands of separate newspapers, can now be simultaneously permeated by the printing rays.

But having thus to deal with many millions of copies of each paper, so easily produced, how next are they all promptly distributed? Let us enter a news-office at early morn. The printing machine has just laid down a large square mass, resembling a great old paving stone—one of many more that are quickly to follow. This square mass has been placed beneath an electric-cutting apparatus, which at once separates it into many four-inch square piles, consisting each of thousands of separate newspapers. Magnetic rods next attach the adjacent corners of these piles, and these so-charged rods, whose electricity at once separates each little newspaper sheet, are distributed to energy-mills all about outside, as far and wide as any particular newspaper has taken up its hand-delivery circulation. The passing public take these papers from off the rod; but as each paper is not electrically released without a preliminary turn of the mill-handle, the energy thus created and stored constitutes the payment for the paper. As most people are out in the morning for air and exercise, this ready and simple method is found to answer best, alike for circulation and account-keeping.