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Inventions.

Rapid Letter-Copying.—A roller copying-press has lately been patented in England, which is advertised to copy one hundred letters in two minutes.

Water-lining.—A new German method of producing water-lines on paper after it has passed through the calendering-machine consists in pressing a die, composed of threads held between two united sheets of paper, upon the paper to be water-lined, which produces the desired result.

Grooved Page Furniture.—Some time ago an American house produced pica clumps, quads, and spaces, grooved for string, so that a form might be locked and unlocked without being untied. Mr A. Huck, of J. M. Huck & Co., Offenbach-am-Main, has improved upon this invention, and secured protection in Great Britain for his new patent furniture.

New Illuminant for Photography.—A novel aid to instantaneous photography has been devised by two Berlin chemists. It consists of an explosive powder made of pulverized magnesium, chlorate of potash, and sulphide of antimony. When this is ignited, it will illuminate the darkest room with a flash lasting one-fortieth of a second—long enough to obtain a photograph of a person or object in the apartment.

New Card-Punch.—Our American exchanges contain descriptions of a new punch for ball programmes, &c., intended to be worked at the press in the same manner as a type-form. The punch is of steel, type-high, firmly embedded in a metal block which is made to justify with ordinary furniture. For the tympan a sheet of stout manila paper is used, backed at the proper place with a small piece of zinc. An open space at the back of the punch-block allows the cutting to drop out.

Flyer Attachment to Treadle Machines.—Messrs Cropper have introduced and patented an important improvement in their « Minerva » machine. The sheet is fed in the usual manner, and after being printed is seized by a gripper and deposited on a board at the back of the machine. In order that the gripper may act, the form must be placed at the bottom of the bed. The additional cost is small, and the advantages are obvious—in the greater speed at which the machine may be worked, and the cleanliness of the work, which is not smudged by handling after printing.

Stereo Furniture—Messrs Sharrow & Anderson, Soho, have sent us, through our London agent, a sample parcel of metal furniture. The typographic furniture is of the ordinary make. The stereotype furniture is slotted at the sides to admit the brass catches, which are provided with a stud fitting into a round hole in the furniture. This is a less simple arrangement than some others in use, but has several advantages. The slot allows the stereotype furniture to come close to the lock-up, and the brass stud gives a perfectly secure hold, besides preventing the catch from falling down when the outside furniture is removed.

Stamped-out Wooden Type.—The well-known Page Wood Type Manufacturing Company, of Connecticut, have now completed and patented a machine which is expected to revolutionize the business. The letters are stamped upon the wood by dies, and are more perfect than those produced by the old process. It will turn out letters as small as two-line pica at the rate of ten or twelve thousand an hour, and large letters at the rate of three thousand an hour. The types can be sold at half the former price, and the machine completes in one hour as much as the entire shop could formerly produce in three days. It is a wonderful sight to see the machine turning out finished types as fast as the blocks can be fed to it by the operator. It has taken ten years to bring the machine to perfection.

Stone Types.—Various attempts, says the Printing Times, have been made from time to time to find substitutes for type metal in the manufacture of type, stereotype plates, &c., but up to the present time with no very great success, Two Austrians, however,—Messrs. F. Kammann, of Vienna-Neustadt, and F. Jurschina, of Hartmanngasse, Vienna,—claim to have solved the difficulty by their Artificial Stone. It is claimed that this stone can be readily moulded and is cheap: it is hard, yet sufficiently elastic to bear great pressure without injury, whilst the type moulded from it will readily take up, retain, and give off the ink. For large type letters the substitute is stated to be especially suitable. Finely-powdered silicic acids of a greater or less degree of purity are mixed with a small quantity of hydraulic lime; fluid silicate of soda is poured over the mixture, and it is kneaded until it becomes a uniform plastic mass, which is then pressed into suitable moulds; or the mixture can be poured in a fluid state into the moulds. When the mass has hardened, it is taken out of the mould and dried, and is then ready for use.

Galvanized Wooden Types.—The Bulletin de l'Imprimerie calls attention to an invention made by M. Duval, of Paris, which, it claims, will cause quite a revolution in the typographic world. In short, M. Duval has been experimenting with the galvanic process and wooden type, and has succeeded in induing the upper surface with a coating of copper. The importance of the invention can hardly be over-estimated, especially to those who use a great deal of wood letter and know its perishable nature. In order: to produce what the inventor calls galvanized wooden type, the letters are placed in a galvanoplastic bath, and receive a coating of copper. The letter, while preserving nearly the lightness of wood, is as strong as metal, the copper coating rendering its form unchangeable, and preserving the wood from exterior influences and other risks which result from the ordinary manipulations to which type is subjected. The covering of the upper surface with galvanized copper has also the effect of preserving the delicate serifs of the letters, which are as strong as type metal. It is suggested that this invention may be advantageously applied to wood-cuts.

Improvement in News Machinery.—An important invention has been patented by Mr J. H. Buxton, Mr Davis Braithwaite, and Mr W. Smith, all of the Manchester Guardian, in connexion with newspaper machinery. The invention is a device for the rapid insertion of late news without removing the forms from the cylinder. The peculiarity of the invention consists in a combination of mechanism for securing type-printing surfaces in a box or holder, and the combination of the latter with a printing drum separate from the main printing cylinder. The type roller prints during each revolution two copies of one side of the paper, leaving two small blanks; the blanket roller is wrapped with a layer of india-rubber, on the top of which is a layer of flannel. A movable roller or collar is arranged on a shaft, and carries in a slot sufficent type to fill up the blank spaces left by the type-roller. It is supplied with ink by means of an inking pulley or roller. The shaft is driven by means of gearing, and as the type roller prints two copies at each revolution, the shaft has to revolve twice for each revolution. The paper pastes between the revolving type roller and the blanket roller. Thence it is led under the type carried in the movable roller or collar, and then passes round the blanket roller to another part of the machine, where the other page is printed. Supposing the news of some important event comes to hand, the type in the movable roller is taken out and the late news inserted, and the same process of printing is gone through again.