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This is especially marked in rapid color-printing, and in the successors of inadequate typesetting-machines in the linotype, the monotype, the typograph, etc. Most wonderful of all, perhaps, is the improved printing-press itself, in various classes, each adapted to its special purpose.
The Lanston machine sets up tables of figures, poetry, and all those difficult pieces of composition that so try the patience of the hand compositor. It is called the monotype because it casts and sets up the type piece by piece.
The reason why the machine is called a monotype is that the letters are made one at a time, and monos is the Greek word for one. By the linotype and monotype machines type can be set in a "galley," a narrow tray about two feet long, with ledges on three sides. When a convenient number of these galleys have been filled, long slips are printed from them called "galley proofs."
"This is a monotype," said Mr. Buckingham Smith, picking up a dusty print off the window-sill. "I do one occasionally." "Did you do this?" asked George, who had no idea what a monotype was and dared not inquire. "Yes. They're rather amusing to do. You just use a match or your finger or anything." "It's jolly good," said George. "D'you know, it reminds me a bit of Cézanne."
At the end of the line, the matrices forming it are carried in front of a slot where melted type metal from a reservoir meets them. Thus a cast is made of the matrices, and from this cast the printing is done. This machine is called a linotype because it casts a whole line of type at a time. Most book work is done on the monotype machine.
The monotype girl wrote these words on her keyboard, where they made tiny holes in a roll of paper. The type is kept in a case at which the compositor stands. This case is divided into shallow compartments, each compartment containing a great many e's or m's as the case may be. The "upper case" contains capitals; the "lower case," small letters.
This labor of typesetting was at last generally done away with by the invention of two intricate and ingenious machines. The linotype, the invention of Ottmar Mergenthaler of Baltimore, came first; then the monotype of Tolbert Lanston, a native of Ohio.
The linotype is the favorite composing machine for newspapers and is also widely used in typesetting for books, though the monotype is preferred by book printers. One or other of these machines has today replaced, for the most part, the old hand compositors in every large printing establishment in the United States.
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