Invention, Processes, and Wrinkles.

To Deepen Colored Inks.—Never try to darken transparent colored inks with black, as the black destroys the transparency of any color with which it is mingled. A bright ink is best deepened by mixing dark blue, 10-e lake, and yellow, and adding the mixture little by little to the original color until the desired color is attained. To slightly deepen very delicate tints, a little rose lake and chrome yellow will often be found very useful, effecting the desired result without destroying the delicacy of the original color.—Pointers.

Mixing Colored Inks.—In the October Printing World, Mr Malcolm L. Wade has a good practical article on this subject. This is one of his wrinkles: « Here is a remedy for the want of time. Procure an atmospheric gas-burner and a small enamelled bowl, costing together about three shillings, and by making the ink hot, you can mix thoroughly in five minutes as much color as you could half-mix in the duct or on a slab in a quarter of an hour. The bowl can be wiped out with some waste oil each time it is used. »

A Photo Rubber Stamp. — According to the Stationery Trades Journal, a new field in photography has been opened up by the Photo Rubber Stamp Company, Birmingham. They reproduce in facsimile, by a patent process, any photograph, drawing, or engraving, so that when inked in the ordinary way it will give an excellent reproduction. The complete apparatus, consisting of stamp, ink-roller, and tube of ink, fitting into a tin box, is supplied at a moderate price. The wide field of usefulness which this invention will occupy is evident.

Glass Type is once again announced as a novelty. As before, it is a French patent. It can be cast with greater sharpness (?) than metal; will endure friction much better (?), and can be more easily kept clean. These statements are about as correct as the preliminary announcement « quite a novelty. » Fourteen years ago, « malleable glass type » was advertised with a great flourish of trumpets. In Caslon's Circular for July, 1878, it is condemned with perhaps unnecessary severity from a single specimen type in the possession of the editor. The face was imperfect, but that was « the best part of it. » « This type, » said the critic, « is out of the square on every side, round at the foot, and dreadfully wedge-shaped—in fact, a most inaccurately cast type, left undressed for the simple reason that the material cannot be diessed. » One of the recommendations of the inventor—which the compositor will fully appreciate—was, that unlike metal, the glass type would never lose its glitter! Glass type may have a limited range of usefulness. We would not care to use it on any smaller body than four-line. The invention, like many others, is quite unpractical, yet we read in an American exchange, that one French newspaper is printed entirely from glass type.

Soapstone.—This peculiar article of commerce, which printers use in a prepared form for engine packing, is a mineral of a soft slippery nature, and is technically called steatite, consisting principally of silica, magnesia, and more or less alumina and water. It has an oily feeling, suggestive of a piece of wet soap, and is of three or four different colors, though mostly of a whitish cast. It comes principally from New England, the Middle States, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. Its great durability in withstanding excessive heat renders it valuable for lining furnaces and ranges, and it has been used in the manufacture of fireproof, waterproof, and acid-proof paint for the preservation of limestone or sandstone buildings. In its powdered form it is also largely used as a lubricant, but it is as an ingredient in the manufacture of some kinds of steam packing that it is best known. Thousands of tons of it are put on the market annually, and as it is supplied for packing engine-glands and stuffing-boxes, it lies like a greasy powder in a woven tube or casing of abestos fibre. If suet lubricators are used with soapstone packing, care should be taken that all traces of the consumed portions get right away, or the engine-driver will find it rolled up in balls from the size of a pea to that of a walnut, choking his super-heater, or lying like moulding-wax about his valves and hinges.