Rag VatThe Big RoomCourtesy S. D. Warren Co.WHERE RAGS BECOME PAPERThe vat where the rags cook and turn over, and the big room where the web of finished paper is passed through rollers and cut into a neat pile of trimmed sheets.
Courtesy S. D. Warren Co.WHERE RAGS BECOME PAPERThe vat where the rags cook and turn over, and the big room where the web of finished paper is passed through rollers and cut into a neat pile of trimmed sheets.
There is, however, a method called the "sulphite process," used principally in treating the coniferous woods, by which a much better paper can be made. In all plants there is a substance called "cellulose." This is what gives strength to their stems. The wood is chipped and put into digesters large enough to hold twenty tons, and is steam-cooked together with bisulphite of magnesium or calcium for seven or eight hours. Another method used for cooking such woods as poplar and gum, is to boil the wood in caustic soda, which destroys everything except the cellulose. Wood paper of one kind or another[31]is used for all daily papers and for most books. Whether the best wood paper will last as long as the best rag paper, time only can tell.
The Government of the United States tests paper in several ways before buying it. First, a single sheet is weighed; then a ream is put on the scales to see if it weighs four hundred and eighty times as much. This shows whether the paper runs evenly in weight. Many sheets are folded together and measured to see if the thickness is regular. To test its strength, a sheet is clamped over a hole one square inch in area, and liquid is pressed against it from below to see how much it will stand before bursting. Strips of the paper are pulled in a machine to test its breaking strength. A sheet is folded over and over again to see whether holes will appear at the corners of the folds. It is examined under the microscope to see of what kind of fibers it is made and how much loading has been used in its manufacture. To test blotting paper, strips are also put into water to see how high the water will rise on them.
Besides writing and wrapping papers and the various kinds of board, there are many sorts which are used for special purposes. India paper, for instance, is light, smooth, and strong, so opaque that printing will not show through it, and so lasting that if it is crumpled, it can be ironed out and be as good as new. This is used for books that are expected to have hard wear but must be of light weight. There are tissue papers, crêpe papers for napkins,and tarred paper to make roofs and even boats water-tight. If tar is brushed on, it may make bubbles which will break afterwards and let water in; but if tar is made a part of the paper itself, it lasts. Paper can easily be waxed or paraffined, and will then keep out air and moisture for some time. Better still, it can be treated with oil and will then make a raincoat that will stand a year's wear, or even, if put on a bamboo frame, make a very good house, as the Japanese found out long ago. Paper coated with powdered gum and tin is used for packing tea and coffee. Transfer or carbon papers so much used in making several copies of an article on the typewriter are made by coating paper with starch, flour, gum, and coloring matter. Paper can be used for shoes and hats, ties, collars, and even for "rubbers." It has been successfully used for sails for light vessels, and is excellent made into light garments for hospital use because it is so cheap that it can be burned after wearing. Wood pulp can be run through fine tubes into water and made so pliable that it can be twisted into cord or spun and woven into "silk." Not only water but also fire can be kept out by paper if it is treated with the proper substances. An object can be covered with a paste of wood pulp, silica, and hemp; and when this is dry, a coat of water-glass will afford considerable protection. There has been some degree of success in making transparent paper films for moving pictures; and if these are coated with water-glass, they will not burn. Paper can be so treated thatit will either conduct electricity or become a nonconductor, as may be desired. In Germany, a "sandwich paper" has been made by pressing together four layers—felt, pulp, cotton, pulp—which is cheap and strong and useful for many purposes.
When we come to papier maché, there is no end to the kinds of articles that are made of it. The papier maché, orpaper pulped, is made by kneading old newspapers or wrapping papers with warm water into a pulp. Clay and coloring are added and something of the nature of glue; and it is then put into a mould. Sometimes to make it stronger for large mouldings, bits of canvas or even wire are also used. The best papier maché is made of pure wood cellulose. The beautiful boxes and trays covered with lacquer which the Japanese and Chinese make are formed of this; but it has many much humbler uses than these. Paper screws are employed in ornamental wood work, and if a hole is begun for such a screw, it will twist its way into soft wood as well as steel would do. Barrels of paper reinforced with wire are common. Gear wheels and belt pulleys are made of papier maché, and even the wheels of railroad coaches; at least the body of the wheels is made of it, although the tire, hub, and axle are of cast-steel. Circular saws of pulp are in use which cut thin slices of veneer so smoothly that they can be used without planing. Papier maché is used for water pipes, the bodies of carriages, hencoops, and garages. Indeed, it is quite possibleto build a house, shingle it, decorate it with elaborate mouldings and cornices, finish it with panels, wainscoting, imitation tiling, and furnish it with light, comfortable furniture covered with imitation leather, silk, or cloth, and spread on its floors soft, thick carpets or rugs woven in beautiful designs—and all made of wood pulp. Even the window panes could be made of pulp; and if they were not perfectly transparent, they would at least let in a soft, agreeable light, and they would not break. Pails, washtubs, bathtubs, and even dishes of paper can be easily found. There are not only the paper cups provided on railroad trains and the cheap picnic plates and saucers, but some that are really pretty. Ice cream is sometimes served in paper dishes and eaten with paper spoons. Milk bottles are successfully made of paper, with a long strip of some transparent material running up and down the side to show how much—or how little—cream is within. Napkins and tablecloths made of paper thread woven into "cloth" are cheaper than linen and can be washed as easily. Paper towels and dishcloths are already common; but when paper shall fully come to its own, it is quite possible that there will be little washing of dishes. They can be as pretty as any one could wish, but so cheap that after each meal they can be dropped into the fire. Indeed, there are few things in a house, except a stove, that cannot be made of some form of paper,—and perhaps that too will be some day.
The first step in making ready to print a manuscript is to find out how many words there are in it, what kind of type to use, how much "leading" or space between the lines there shall be, and what shall be the size of the page. In deciding these questions, considerable thinking has to be done. If the manuscript is a short story by a popular author, it may be printed with wide margins and wide leading in order to make a book of fair size. If it is a lengthy manuscript which will be likely to sell at a moderate but not a high price, it is best to use only as much leading as is necessary to make the line stand out clearly, and to print with a margin not so wide as to increase the expense of the book. The printer prints a sample of the page decided upon, any desired changes are made, and then the making of the book begins.
MonotypeCasting RoomCourtesy The Riverside Press.WHERE THIS BOOK WAS SET UPThe monotype girl wrote these words on her keyboard, where they made tiny holes in a roll of paper. The roll went to the casting-room where it guided a machine to make the type much as a perforated music-roll guides a piano to play a tune.
Courtesy The Riverside Press.WHERE THIS BOOK WAS SET UPThe monotype girl wrote these words on her keyboard, where they made tiny holes in a roll of paper. The roll went to the casting-room where it guided a machine to make the type much as a perforated music-roll guides a piano to play a tune.
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. Those letters which are used most often are put where the compositor can reach them most readily. He stands before his case with a "composing[37]stick" in his hand. This "stick" is a little iron frame with a slide at the side, so that the line can be made of any length desired. The workman soon learns where each letter is, and even an apprentice can set the type in his stick reasonably rapidly. On one side of every piece of type there is a groove, so that he can tell by touch whether it is right side up or not. He must look out especially to make his right-hand margins regular. You will notice in books that the lines are all of the same length, although they do not contain the same number of letters. The compositor brings this about by arranging his words and spaces skillfully. The spaces must be as nearly as possible of the same length, and yet the line must be properly filled. If a line is too full, he can sometimes place the last syllable on the following line; if it is not full enough, he can borrow a syllable, and he can at least divide his space so evenly that the line will not look as if it were broken in two.
Not many years ago all type was set in this manner; but several machines have now been invented which will do this work. In one of the best of them the operator sits before a keyboard much like that of a typewriter. When he presses keya, for instance, a mould or matrix of the letterais set free from a tube ofa's, and slides down to its place in the stick. 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 printingis 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. When a manuscript goes to the press to be set up in this way, the copy is given to the keyboard operator who sets it up on a machine which looks much like a typewriter. Instead of writing letters, however, the machine punches tiny holes in a strip of paper which is wound on a roll. When the roll is full it goes to the casting room where it is put on another machine containing hot type metal and bronze matrices from which the letters of the words are to be cast. The holes in the paper guide the machine to make the type much as a perforated music roll guides a piano to play a tune. The reason why the machine is called a monotype is that the letters are made one at a time, andmonosis the Greek word forone.
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." These have wide margins, but the print is of the width that the page of the book will be. They are read by the proof-readers, and all such mistakes as the slipping in of a wrong letter, or a broken type, the repetition of a word, or the omission of space between words are corrected. Then the proof goes to the author, who makes any changes in his part of the work which seem to him desirable; and it is alsoread by some member of the editorial department. If there are many changes to be made, another proof is usually taken and sent to the author.
The reason for this extreme carefulness is that it costs much less to make changes in the galley proof than in the "page proof." This latter is made by dividing the galley into pages, leaving space for the beginnings of chapters and for pictures, if any are to appear on the printed pages, and setting up the numbers of the pages and their running titles. Page proof also goes to proof-readers and to the author. Corrections on page proof are more expensive than on galley proof because adding or striking out even a few words may make it necessary to change the arrangement on every page to the end of the chapter.
Years ago all books were printed directly from the type; and some are still printed so. After printing, the letters were returned to their compartments. If a second edition was called for, the type had to be set again. Now, however, books are generally printed not from type, but from a copper model of the type. To make this, an impression of the page of type is made in wax and covered with graphite, which will conduct electricity. These moulds are hung in a bath of copper sulphate, where there are also large plates of copper. A current of electricity is passed through it, and wherever the graphite is, a shell of copper is deposited, which is exactly like the face of the type. This shell is very thin, but it is made strong by adding a heavy back ofmelted metal. From these plates the books are printed. A correction made in the plate is more expensive than it would have been if made in the galley or in the page, because sawing out a word or a line is slow, delicate work; and even if one of the same length is substituted, the types spelling it have to be set up, a small new plate cast, and soldered in.
WHERE THIS BOOK WAS PRINTEDCourtesy The Riverside Press.WHERE THIS BOOK WAS PRINTEDThe girls are feeding big sheets of paper into the presses, thirty-two pages being printed at one time. The paper is fed into many modern presses by means of a machine attached to the press. The pressmen see that the printing is done properly.
Courtesy The Riverside Press.WHERE THIS BOOK WAS PRINTEDThe girls are feeding big sheets of paper into the presses, thirty-two pages being printed at one time. The paper is fed into many modern presses by means of a machine attached to the press. The pressmen see that the printing is done properly.
Printing one page at a time would be altogether too slow; therefore the plates are arranged in such a way that sixteen, thirty-two, or sometimes sixty-four pages can be printed on one side of the paper, and the same number on the other side. Every pagemust come in its proper place when the sheet is folded for binding. Try to arrange a sheet of even sixteen pages, eight on each side, so that when it is folded every page will be in the right place with its printing right side up, and you will find that it is not very easy until you have had considerable experience. If the sheet is folded into four leaves, the book is called a "quarto," or "4to"; if into eight, it is an "octavo," or "8vo"; if into twelve, a "duodecimo," or "12mo." Books are sometimes advertised in these terms; but they are not definite, because the sheets of the different varieties of paper vary in size. Of late years, publishers have often given the length and width of their books in inches.
After the sheets come from the press, they are folded to page size. Sometimes this is done by hand, but more often by a folding machine through which the sheet of paper travels, meeting blunt knives which crease it and fold it. If you look at the top of a book you will see that the leaves are put together in groups or "signatures." These signatures usually contain eight, sixteen, or thirty-two pages. If the paper is very thick, not more than eight leaves will be in a signature; if of ordinary thickness, sixteen are generally used. The signatures are piled up in order, and a "gatherer" collects one from each pile for every book.
The book is now gathered and "smashed," or pressed enough to make it solid and firm for binding. Next the signatures are sewed and the book is trimmed so the edges will be even. If the edges areto be gilded, the book is put in a gilding press and a skillful workman covers the edges with a sizing made of the white of eggs. Gold leaf is then laid upon them and they are burnished with tools headed with agate and bloodstone or instruments of various sorts until they are bright. Sometimes the edges are "marbled," and this is an interesting process to watch. On the surface of a vat of thin sizing the marbler drops a little of many colors of paint. Then he draws a comb lightly across the surface, making all sorts of odd figures, no two alike. The book is held tight and the edges are allowed to touch the sizing. All these odd figures are now transferred to the edges of the leaves and will stand a vast amount of hard use before they will wear off.
Thus far the book is flat at the edges of the leaves and at the back. Books are sometimes bound in this way, but the backs are usually rounded into an outward curve, and the fronts into an inward curve. This is done by a machine. At each end of the outward curve a deep groove is pressed to receive the cover. To make the covers of a cloth-bound book, two pieces of pasteboard of the right size are cut and laid upon a piece of cloth coated with glue. The edges of the cloth are turned over and pressed down, as you can often see if the paper lining of the cover is not too heavy. The cover needs now only its decorations to be complete. A die is made for these, and the lettering and ornamentation are stamped on in colors. If more than one color is used,a separate die has to be made for each. If this work is to be done in gold, the design is stamped on lightly and sizing made of white of eggs is brushed on wherever the gold is to come. Gold leaf is laid upon this sizing, and the cover is stamped again. The same die is used, but this time it is hot enough to make the gold and egg stick firmly to the cover. To put the cover on, a piece of muslin called a "super" is glued to the back of the book with its ends projecting over the sides, and a strip of cartridge paper is glued over the super. Then the book is pasted into the cover. It is now kept under heavy pressure for a number of hours until it is thoroughly dry and ready to be sent away for sale.
So it is that a well-made cloth-bound book is manufactured. Leather-bound books are more expensive, not only because their materials cost more, but also because the greater part of the work of binding and decorating has to be done by hand. If a book is to be illustrated, this must also be attended to, the number and style of the pictures decided upon, and the artist engaged before the book is put in press, in order that there may be no delay in completing it.
Many publishers do not print at all, but have their work done at some printing establishment. Where all the making of a book, however, from manuscript to cover, is in the hands of one firm, there is a certain fellow-feeling among the different departments, and a wholesome pride in making each one of "our books" as excellent as possible in everydetail. As one of the women workers in such an establishment said to me, "I often think that we become almost as interested in a book as the author is."
Whenever there was a convenient goosepond on the way to school, the children of less than one hundred years ago used to stop there to hunt for goose quills. They carried these to the teacher, and with his penknife—which took its name from the work it did—he cut them into the shape of pens. The points soon wore out, and "Teacher, will you please mend my pen?" was a frequent request.
When people began to make pens of steel, they made them as nearly like quill pens as possible, with pen and holder all in one. These were called "barrel pens." They were stiff, hard, and expensive, especially as the whole thing was useless as soon as the pen was worn out, but they were highly esteemed because they lasted longer than quills and did not have to be mended. After a while separate pens were manufactured that could be slipped into a holder; and one improvement after another followed until little by little the cheap, convenient writing tool that we have to-day was produced.
A pen is a small thing, but each one is worked upon by twenty to twenty-four persons before it is allowed to be sold. The material is the best steel. It comes in sheets five feet long and nineteen inches wide, and about one fortieth of an inch thick, that is,three times as thick as the finished pen. The first machine cuts the sheet crosswise into strips from two to three inches wide, varying according to the size of the pen to be made. These strips are put into iron boxes and kept at a red heat for a number of hours to anneal or soften them. Then they pass between heavy rollers, a process which not only helps to toughen them, but also stretches the steel so that it is now fifty inches long instead of nineteen.
At least six or seven people have handled the material already, and even now there is nothing that looks like pens; but the next machine cuts them out, by dies, of course. The points interlap; and the cutting leaves odd-shaped openwork strips of steel for the scrap-heap. This part of the work is very quick, for the machine will cut thousands of pens in an hour. Now is when the little hole above the slit is punched and the side slits cut. To make the steel soft and pliable, it must be annealed again, kept red hot for several hours, and then cooled. Thus far it has looked like a tiny fence paling, but at length it begins to resemble a pen, for it is now stamped with whatever letters or designs may be desired, usually the name of the maker and the name and number of the variety of pen, and it is pressed between a pair of dies to form it into a curve. The last annealing left the metal soft so that all this could be done, but too soft to work well as a pen; and it has to be heated red hot again, and then dropped into cold oil to harden it. Centrifugal force,which helps in so many manufactures, drives the oil away, and the pens are dried in sawdust. They are now sufficiently hard, but too brittle. They must be tempered. To do this, they are placed in an iron cylinder over a fire, and the cylinder revolved till the pen is as elastic as a spring.
The pen is of the correct shape, is tough and elastic; and now it is put into "tumbling barrels" which revolve till it is bright and ready for the finishing touches. If you look closely at the outside of a steel pen just above the nib, you will see that across it run tiny lines. They have a use, for they hold the ink back so that it will not roll down in drops, and they help to make the point more springy and easier to write with.
The pen must be slit up from the point. This is done by a machine, and a most accurate one, for the cut must go exactly through the center of the point and not reach beyond the little hole that was punched. Only one thing is lacking now to make the pen a useful member of society, ready to do its work in the world; and that is to grind off the points and round them in order to keep them from sticking into the paper.
After so much careful work, it does seem as if not one pen out of a thousand could be faulty; but every one has to be carefully examined to make sure that the cutting, piercing, marking, forming, tempering, grinding, and slitting, are just what they should be. These pens carry the maker's name, and a few poor ones getting into the market might spoil the sale of thousandsof boxes; therefore the examiner sits before a desk covered with black glass and looks at every pen. The faulty ones are heated so that they cannot be used, and they go to the scrap-heap.
Now the pens are ready so far as usefulness goes, but people have preferences in color. Some prefer bronze, some gray, and some black; so off the pens go to the tempering-room, their last trip, and there are heated in a revolving cylinder till the right color appears; then they are chilled and lacquered, put into boxes, labeled, packed, and sold for such low prices that the good folk of a century ago, who paid from twenty-five to fifty cents for a pen, would have opened their eyes in amazement. When the typewriter was invented, some people said, "That will be the death of the steel pen"; but as a matter of fact, it has greatly increased its sale. The typewriter makes writing so easy and so quick that many more letters are written than formerly. All these letters have to be answered, and few people compared with the whole number own typewriters, and therefore the pen still holds its place.
The lacquer on a steel pen protects it until it has been used for a while. After that, it will rust, if it is not wiped, and it will wear out whether it is wiped or not. All that the gold pen asks is not to be bent or broken, and it will last almost forever. It has the flexibility of the quill, but does not have to be "mended." Gold pens are made in much the same way as are steel pens; but just at the point a tiny shelfis squeezed. Upon this shelf a bit of the alloy of two exceedingly hard metals, iridium and osmium, is secured by melting the gold around it; and it is this bit which stands all the wear of rubbing on the paper. When gold pens were first made, tiny bits of diamonds or rubies were soldered on for points; but they were expensive, and they had a disagreeable fashion of falling off.
A century ago, writers would have thought it the height of luxury to have a gold pen; but now they are not satisfied unless they can be saved the trouble of dipping it into an inkstand, and they look upon the fountain pen as their special friend. The fountain pen carries its supplies with it. The pen itself is like any other gold pen, but the barrel is full of ink. A little tube carries the ink to the point, and the slight bending back of the pen as one writes lets it run out upon the paper. At the end of the slit, at the back of the pen, is a hole to let air into the barrel as the ink runs out. A perfect fountain pen ought to be prepared to write—without shaking—whenever the cap is taken off, and not to refuse to work so long as a drop of ink remains in the barrel. It should never drop ink at the point and, whether the point is up or down, it should never leak there or anywhere else.
The stylographic pen is quite a different article. There is no pen to it; the writing is done with the end of a needle which projects through a hole at the point. The barrel and point are full of ink; but even if the pen is held point down, it will not leak because theneedle fills up the hole. When you press the point on paper to write, the needle falls back just enough to let out what ink is needed. The flow stops the instant the pen ceases to touch the paper. The special advantage of the stylographic is that the mere weight of the pen is sufficient pressure, and therefore many hours of writing do not tire the muscles of the hand. The advantage of the fountain pen is that it has the familiar action of the gold pen, and that it will adapt itself to any style of handwriting.
A pen of almost any kind is a valuable article, but for rough-and-ready use we should find it hard to get on without its humble friend, the lead pencil. A lead pencil, by the way, has not a particle of lead in it. The "lead" is all graphite, or plumbago. Years ago sticks of lead were used for marking, and made a pale-gray line. When graphite was introduced, its mark was so black that people called it black lead, and the name has stuck. No one who has ever tried to use a pencil of real lead could fail to appreciate graphite, and when a graphite mine was discovered in England, it was guarded by armed men as watchfully as if it had been a mine of diamonds. That mine was exhausted long ago, but many others have been found. The best graphite in the world comes from Ceylon and Mexico.
When graphite was first used for pencils, it was cut into slabs and these slabs into small strips. The broken and powdered graphite was not used until it was discovered that it could be mixed with clay and somade into sticks. In a lead pencil there are only three substances, graphite, clay, and wood, but a really good one must be manufactured with as much care as if it were made up of twenty. First of all, the graphite is ground and ground and ground, until, if you take a pinch of it between your thumb and finger, you can hardly feel that anything is there. It is now sifted through fine silk and mixed with water and finely powdered clay, and becomes a wet, inky mass. This clay comes from Austria and Bohemia and is particularly smooth and fine. The amount put in is carefully weighed. If you have a hard pencil, it was made by using considerable clay; if your pencil is soft, by using very little; and if it is very soft and black, it is possible that a little lampblack was added.
This inky mass is ground together between millstones for several weeks. Then it goes between rollers, and at length is squeezed through a die and comes out in soft, doughy black strings. These are the "leads" of the pencils. They have been thoroughly wet, and now they must be made thoroughly dry. They are laid on boards, then taken off, cut into pieces the length of a pencil, and put into ovens and baked for hours in a heat twenty times as great as that of a hot summer day. They certainly ought to be well dried and ready for the wood. The red cedar of Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama is the best wood for pencils because it is soft and has a fine, straight grain. It is cut into slabs about as long as one pencil, as wide as six, and a little thicker[53]than half a pencil. Every piece must be examined to make sure that it is perfect, and it must be thoroughly seasoned and kiln-dried to free it from oil. Then it goes through a grooving-machine which cuts out a groove half as deep as the lead. The lead is laid into one piece, another is glued on top of it; and there is a pencil ready for work.
HOW THE LEAD GETS INTO A PENCILCourtesy Joseph Dixon Crucible Co.HOW THE LEAD GETS INTO A PENCIL(1) The cedar slab. (2) Planed and grooved. (3) The leads in place. (4) Covered with the other half of the slab. (5) The round pencils cut out. (6) The pencil separated and smoothed. (7) The pencil varnished and stamped.
Courtesy Joseph Dixon Crucible Co.HOW THE LEAD GETS INTO A PENCIL(1) The cedar slab. (2) Planed and grooved. (3) The leads in place. (4) Covered with the other half of the slab. (5) The round pencils cut out. (6) The pencil separated and smoothed. (7) The pencil varnished and stamped.
Such a pencil would be useful, but to sell well it must also be pretty; and therefore it goes through machinery which makes it round or oval or six-sided, as the case may be, rubs it smooth, and varnishes it, and then, with gold leaf or silver leaf or aluminum or ink, stamps upon it the name of the maker, and also a number or letter to show how hard the lead is.
The pencil is now ready for sale, but many people like to have an eraser in the end, and this requires still more work. These erasers are round or flat or six-sided or wedge-shaped. They are let into the pencil itself, or into a nickel tip, or drawn over the end like a cap, so that any one's special whim may be gratified. Indeed, however hard to please any one may be, he ought to be able to find a pencil to suit his taste, for a single factory in the United States makes more than six hundred kinds of pencils, and makes so many of them that if they were laid end to end they would reach three times across the continent.
There are many exceedingly cheap pencils, but they are expensive in the end, because they are poorly made. The wood will often split in sharpening,and the lead is of poor materials so badly mixed that it may write blacker in one place than another, and is almost sure to break. Good pencils bearing the name of a reliable firm are cheapest.
If any one should give you a lump of clay and ask you to make a bowl, how should you set about it? The first thing would be, of course, to put it on a table so you could work on it with both hands. You would make a depression at the top and push out the sides and smooth them as best you could. It would result in a rough, uneven sort of bowl, and before it was done, you would have made one discovery, namely, that if the table only turned around in front of you, you could see all sides of the bowl from the same position, and it would be easier to make it regular. This is just what the potter's wheel does. It is really two horizontal wheels. The upper one is a disk a foot or two in diameter. This is connected by a shaft with the lower one, which is much larger. When the potter was at work at a wheel of this sort, he stood on one foot and turned the lower wheel with the other, thus setting the upper wheel in motion. This was called a "kick-wheel." As wheels are made now, the potter sits at his work and turns the wheel by means of a treadle.
Almost any kind of clay will make a dish, but no one kind will make it so well that the addition of some other kind would not improve it. Whatever clays are chosen, they must be prepared with great careto make sure that not one grain in them is coarser than any other. Sometimes one will slip through, and you can see on the finished dish what a bad-looking place it makes. Even for the coarsest earthenware, such as flower-pots, the moist clay is forced down a cylinder and through a wire sieve; and for stoneware and porcelain it has to go through several processes. When flint and feldspar are used, they are ground fine at the quarry. On reaching the factory, they are mixed with the proper quantities of other clays—but in just what proportions is one of the secrets of the trade. Then they go into "plungers" or "blungers," great round tanks with arms extending from a shaft in the center. The shaft revolves and the arms beat the clay till all the sand and pebbles have settled on the bottom, and the fine clay grains are floating in the water above them. These pass into canvas bags. The water is forced out through the canvas, and on every bag there is left a thin sheet of moist clay. If this is to be used for the finest work, it is ground and pounded and washed still more, until it is a wonder that any of it survives; then it is sifted through a screen so fine that its meshes are only one one hundred and fiftieth of an inch across. Now it becomes "slip," and after a little more beating and tumbling about, it is ready to go to the man at the wheel.
This man is called the "thrower," because he lifts the lump of clay above his head and throws it down heavily upon the center of the wheel. The things that happen to that lump of clay when he touches it andthe wheel revolves seem like the work of magic. He presses his thumbs into it from above and draws the walls up between his thumbs and fingers. He clasps his hands around it, and it grows tall and slender. He lays his finger on the top of the little column of clay, and it flattens in a moment. He points his finger at it, barely touching it, and a little groove appears, running around the whole mass. He seems to be wasting considerable time in playing with it, but all the while he is making sure that the clay is perfectly uniform and that there are no bubbles of air in it. He holds a piece of leather against the outside surface and a wet sponge against the inside, to make them perfectly smooth; and in a moment he has made a bowl. He holds his bent finger against the top of the bowl, and it becomes a vase. With another touch of his magical finger the top of the vase rolls over into a lip. If he makes a cup or a mug, he models a handle in clay and fastens it in place with slip. When it is done, he draws a wire deftly between the article and the table, and puts it on a board to dry.
When you watch a potter at work, it all looks so simple and easy that you feel sure you could do it; but see how skillfully he uses his hands, how strong they are, and yet how lithe and delicate in their movements. See into what odd positions he sometimes stretches them; and yet these are plainly the only positions in which they could do their work. See how every finger does just what he wishes it to do. Notice all these things, and you will not be so certainthat making pottery is the easiest thing in the world.
No two pieces of hand work are exactly the same; and skillful as the potter is, his pieces are not precisely alike. Many of them therefore are passed over to the turner for finishing. He uses an ordinary lathe, and with this he thins any place that may be a little too thick, rounds the edge, and smooths it. The article is partly dried when he takes it, and so its walls can be cut thinner. When it leaves his lathe, all signs of hand work have vanished, but the dish is exactly like the others of the set, and this is what the greater number of people want. In some potteries there is hardly a throwing wheel in use, and articles are formed in plaster of Paris moulds. There are two ways of using these moulds. By one method, the mould is put upon a "jigger," a power machine which keeps it revolving, and clay is pressed against its walls from within. Above the mould is a piece of iron cut in the shape of the inside curve of the bowl or whatever is being made. This skims off all the extra clay from the inside of the walls. Plates and saucers are made on a jigger. The mould used for this work is a model of the top of the plate. The workman makes a sort of pancake of clay and throws it upon the mould. A second mould, shaped like half of the bottom of the plate, is brought down close and revolves, cutting off all the extra clay and shaping the bottom of the plate.
When the very finest ware is to be made, the mould is used in quite another fashion. If a pitcher, forinstance, is to be cast, the mould is made in two sections and tied tightly together. Then the slip is poured into it and left for a while. The plaster of Paris absorbs the water and a layer of clay is formed all about the walls. When this is thick enough, the liquid is poured out, and after the pitcher has dried awhile, the mould is carefully opened and the pitcher is very gently taken out. The handle is made in a little mould of its own and fastened on with slip. "Eggshell" porcelain is made in this way. The clay shell becomes smaller as it dries, so there is no trouble about removing it from the mould—if one knows how. If a large article is to be cast, the mould is made in sections. Of course this fine ware must all be made by hand, especially as machines do not work well with the finest clays; but cheap dishes are all made by machinery.
After any clay article is thrown, or moulded, or cast, it is passed through a little doorway and set upon a shelf in a great revolving cage. The air in this cage is kept at about 85° F.; but this heat is nothing to what is to follow; and after the articles are thoroughly dry, they are placed in boxes of coarse fire-clay, which are called "saggers," piled up in a kiln, the doors are closed, and the fires are lighted. For a day and night, sometimes for two days and two nights, the fires burn. The heat goes up to 2000° or 2500° F. Every few hours test pieces, which were put in for this purpose, are taken out. When they are found to be sufficiently baked, the fire-holes are bricked up and the furnace is left for twodays longer to cool. The ware is then called "biscuit."
Biscuit is dull and porous. It is soon to be glazed, but first whatever underglaze decorating is desired may be done. Sometimes the decorations are painted by hand, and sometimes they are printed on thin paper, laid upon the ware, and rubbed softly till they stick fast. After a while the paper is pulled off, but the colors remain. Gold must be applied over the glaze, and the article fired a second time.
After this decorating, the ware is generally passed to a man who stands before a tub of glaze, and dips in each article, though sometimes he stands before the pieces of ware and sprays them with an air brush. Many different kinds of glaze are used, made of ground flint, feldspar, white clay, and other substances. Common sea salt works exceedingly well, not in liquid form, but thrown directly into the fire. The chief thing to look out for in making a glaze is to see that the materials in it are so nearly like those in the ware that they will not contract unevenly and make little cracks. This glaze is dried in a hot room, then looked over by "trimmers," who scrape it off from such parts as the feet of cups and plates, so that they will not stick to the saggers in firing. Besides this, little props of burned clay are used to hold the dishes up and keep them from touching one another. These props have fanciful names, such as "spurs," "stilts," "cockspurs," etc. Often you can see on the bottom of a plate the marks made by these supports.
IN THE POTTERYIN THE POTTERYPieces of coarse pottery being delivered to the kiln for firing.
The articles now are sent to a kiln to be fired. When they come out there is another chance for decorating, for colors may be put on, and another firing will make them look like underglaze painting If the decorator wishes the ware to have the appearance of being ornamented with masses of gold, he can trace his design in yellow paste, fire it, cover it with gold, and fire it again. To make the "gilt-band china" so beloved by the good housewives of the last century, the decorator puts the plate upon a horizontal wheel, holds his brush full of gold against it, and turns the wheel slowly. Sometimes the outlines of a design are printed and the coloring put in byhand. When broad bands of color are desired to be put around a plate or other article, the decorator sometimes brushes on an adhesive oil where the color is to go, and paints the rest of the plate with some water-color and sugar; then when the oil is partly dry, he dusts on the color in the form of powder. A plunge into water will wash away the water-color and leave the oil with the powder sticking to it. Shaded groundwork is made with an atomizer. Indeed, there are almost as many methods of decorating wares of clay as there are persons who work at it. The results are what might be expected from the prices; some articles are so cheap and gaudy that any one will soon tire of them. Others are really artistic and will be a "joy forever"—until they break.
If an electric automobile could be charged in fifteen seconds and then would run for forty hours without recharging, it would be looked upon as a great wonder; but to wind a watch in fifteen seconds and have it run for forty hours is so common that we forget what a wonder it is. When you wind your watch, you put some of the strength of your own right hand into it, and that is what makes it go. Every turn of the key or the stem winds up tighter and tighter a spring from one to two feet long, but so slender that it would take thousands to weigh a pound. This is the main spring. It is coiled up in a cup-shaped piece of metal called a "barrel"; and so your own energy is literally barreled up in your watch. The outer end of this spring is held fast by a hook on the inside of the barrel; the inner end is hooked to the hub of a wheel which is called the "main wheel," and around this hub the spring is coiled.
This spring has three things to do. It must send the "short hand," or hour hand, around the dial or face of the watch, once in twelve hours; it must send the "long hand," or minute hand, around once an hour; and it must also send the little "second hand" around its own tiny circle once a minute. Todo this work requires four wheels. The first or main wheel is connected with the winding arrangements, and sets in motion the second, or center wheel, so called because it is usually in the center of the watch. This center wheel revolves once an hour and turns the minute hand. By a skillful arrangement of cogs it also moves the hour hand around the dial once in twelve hours. The center wheel moves the third wheel. The chief business of the third wheel is to make the fourth turn in the same direction as the center wheel. The fourth wheel revolves once a minute, and with it turns the tiny second hand.
Suppose that a watch has been made with only the main spring, the four wheels, and the three hands, what would happen when it was wound? You can tell very easily by winding up a mechanical mouse or a train of cars or any other toy that goes by a spring. It will go fast at first, then more and more slowly, then it will stop. This sort of motion might do for a mouse, but it would not answer for a watch. A watch must move with steadiness and regularity. To bring this about, there is a fifth wheel. Its fifteen teeth are shaped like hooks, and it has seven accompaniments, the balance wheel, the hair spring, and five others. This wheel, together with its accompaniments, is able to stop the motion of the watch five times a second and start it again so quickly that we do not realize its having been stopped at all. A tiny arm holds the wheel firmly, and then lets it escape. Therefore, the fifth wheel and its accompaniments arecalled the "escapement." This catching and letting go is what makes the ticking.
A watch made in this way would run very well until a hot day or a cold day came; then there would be trouble. Heat makes metals expand and makes springs less elastic. Therefore in a hot day the watch would go more slowly and so lose time; while in a cold day it would go too fast and would gain time. This fault is corrected by the balance, a wheel whose rim is not one circle, but two half-circles, and so cunningly made that the hotter this rim grows, the smaller its diameter becomes. In the rim of the wheel are tiny holes into which screws may be screwed. By adding screws or taking some away, or changing the position of some of them, the movement of the watch can be made to go faster or slower.
All this would be difficult enough to manage if a watch was as large as a cart wheel, with wheels a foot in diameter; but it does seem a marvel how so many kinds of wheels and screws and springs, one hundred and fifty in all, can be put into a case sometimes not more than an inch in diameter, and can find room to work; and it is quite as much of a marvel how they can be manufactured and handled.
Remembering how accurate every piece must be, it is no wonder that in Switzerland, where all this work used to be done by hand, a boy had to go to a "watch school" for fourteen years before he was considered able to make a really fine watch. He began at the beginning and was taught to make, first, wooden handles for his tools, then the tools themselves,such as files, screw drivers, etc. His next work was to make wooden watchcases as large as dinner-plates. After this, he was given the frame to which the various wheels of a watch are fastened and was taught how and where to drill the holes for wheels and screws. After lessons in making the finer tools to be used, he was allowed to make a watch frame. All this took several years, for he had to do the same work over and over until his teachers were satisfied with it. Then he was promoted to the second room. Here he learned to adjust the stem-winding parts, to do fine cutting and filing, and to make watches that would strike the hour and even the minute. Room three was called the "train room," because the wheels of a watch are spoken of as "the train." The model watch in this room was as large as a saucer. The young man had to study every detail of this, and also to learn the use of a delicate little machine doing such fine work that it could cut twenty-four hundred tiny cogs on one of the little wheels of a watch. In the fourth room he learned to make the escapement wheel and some other parts; and he had to make them, not merely passably, but excellently. In the fifth and last room, he must do the careful, patient work that makes a watch go perfectly. There are special little curves that must be given to the hair spring; and the screws on the balance wheel must be carefully adjusted. If the watch ran faster when it was lying down than when it was hanging up, he learned that certain ones of the bearings were too coarse and must be madefiner. In short, he must be able to make a watch that, whether hanging up or lying down, and whether the weather was hot or cold, would not vary from correct time more than two and a half seconds a day at the most. Then, and not till then, was the student regarded as a first-class watchmaker.
The graduate of such a school knew how to make a whole watch, but he usually limited his work to some one part. Every part of a watch was made expressly for that watch, but sometimes a hundred different persons worked on it. The very best of the Swiss watches were exceedingly good; the poorest were very bad, and much worse to own than a poor American watch because it costs more to repair a Swiss watch than an American watch.