Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/554

HISTORY]

Early Types and their Fabrication.—We must now take notice of two theories or traditions which have been current for a long time as to some intervening stage between the art of block-printing and the art of printing with movable cast metal types. One theory or tradition would have it that the inventor of printing, after the idea of single, individual, movable types had arisen in his mind, practised his new invention for some time with wooden types, and that he came only gradually to the idea of movable types cast of metal.