Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/274

 with which many of the works of the firm are lavishly embellished.

The stereotyping and electrotyping departments vie with each other for the distinction of being the most interesting in the House. What they achieve in strength of atmosphere, owing to the combined fumes of acids and gaseous emanations from boiling metals, needs a visit to understand, but it is worth the experiment. Machines, handled by deft workers, trim and cut stereo and electroplates like butter; illustrations are improved by hair-pointed chisels manipulated with feminine delicacy. Tiny hammers wielded by men who work with magnifying glasses remove excrescences invisible to the naked eye. Then, in the electro moulding rooms, shiny figures flit to and fro—for the plumbago clings to flesh and clothing and, in the flooding light of the casting-room, when a furnace door opens, produces weird Mephistophelean effects worthy of the Lyceum in Henry Irving's day. And so runs the tale of achievement; backing-up rooms stinging with chloride; electrotyping baths mysterious as a fathomless lake; a testing torture-chamber from which issue unscathed only blocks and plates that are perfect—such are a few of the million and one details that go to the making of an illustration.

After the type has been passed for press and thoroughly read by the readers, the forms are taken to the main machine-room in the basement. This floor space covers an area of 12,600 feet, and contains about forty large printing machines. It is lighted from the glass roof already referred to, some 60 or 70 feet above. The most striking peculiarity of this machine-room is that the looker-on sees a number of printing presses at work without being able to discover whence they derive their motion, no shafting or bands being visible, no confusion of ever-shifting belts. If he asks, he is told that each machine is driven by a properly protected electric motor directly coupled to its starting gear. The printing machines themselves are of various kinds, according to