Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/312

302 type-founder of Paris, says that punches of wood and matrices of lead were used in his type-foundry for the casting of large ornamental types even as late as the beginning of the present century. His description is as curious as it is instructive.

Whether the types of the unknown printer were founded entirely in sand, or in matrices of lead, cannot be positively determined from the appearance of the letters, for it seems that either method of founding would produce types showing similar defects. It is probable that the punches were cut on wood, and sunk in hot metal as described by Didot, and that the types of the Speculum were not only cast in lead matrices, but that the matrices were sometimes conjoined, and that two or more letters were cast together on one body. There is a closeness of fitting in some of the words which cannot be