Page:Cowie's Printer's pocket-book and manual.djvu/9

 PRINTERS' POCKET-BOOK.

is desirable that every department of a printing office should be on one floor, but indispensable that the press-room be separate from the composing-room.

If it is necessary to have many floors, the presses should be on the basement, and the composing-rooms above.

The sink or wetting-room ought to be close to the press-room; there should be cisterns to collect the rain water, as it is much better for wetting paper than river water, which is commonly murky, or the hard and fetid water of wells and pumps; though the last is well enough, and perhaps better for rinsing the forms.

In arranging the presses it is requisite to economise space, and yet have as much light as can be obtained; they ought to be placed in a line, and, without inconveniencing the men, occupy the least possible room. Each press should have a window sufficiently large to cast the light direct upon the whole, viz., the tympan, the form, the paper, and the ink-table.

The floor of the press-room ought to be boarded, and not bricked or tiled, because the wear of bricks produces a subtile dust, which mixes with the ink and sticks to the paper, and soils every part of the machinery.

If the press-room be used as a drying-room, the polling ought to be raised sufficiently high to prevent the sheets B