Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/62

52 could have been entertained, and practised, by hundreds of experimenters of whom there is no tradition. It is probable that there was such a practice, but the stamping of single types by hand pressure was not typography, nor did it lead to its subsequent invention. Experimental types like these, which had been cut by hand, were of no practical value, for they could not have been used on any extensive scale.

There is something more in types than is apparent at the first glance. Simple as they may seem, they are evidences of notable mechanical skill in the matter of accuracy. The page before the reader was composed with more than 2,000 pieces of metal; the large page of a daily paper may contain more than 150,000 of these little pieces. Whether the page is large or small, the types are always closely fitted to each other; they stand accurately in line, and the page is truly square. If the types of one character, as of the letter a, should be made the merest trifle larger or smaller than its fellows in the same font, all the types, when composed, will show the consequences of the defect. The irregularity of line that is scarcely perceptible in the first row will be offensively distinct in the second. It will increase with each succeeding row, until the types become a heap of confusion which cannot be handled by the printer. Advantages which might be secured from movable types are made of no effect by an irregularity so slight that it would be passed unnoticed in the workmanship of ordinary trades. The illustration proves that it is not enough for types to be movable; they must be accurate as to body; they must fit each other with geometrical precision.

The accuracy of modern printing types is due more to the nice mechanisms employed by the type-founder than to his personal skill. He could cut types by hand, but the cost of hand-cut types would be enormous, and they would be vastly