THE STRAND MAGALINE.

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the preparation of a new ong from the beginning. In - this clectroplate and stereao: type departiment, with its complexity ol overs head gearing, its grime of hlack-lead. and 1ts cmell of hot way, there are no fewer than twenty-two entirely different sorss of machimes at work : and it must be remembered that 1 deal of skilled hand=work: s done with various additional tools.

When all these plates ave prepared, of which no fewer than 460 are vequired every month, they are fixed upon the cylinders of the print- ing machines. And Lo see these machines, which for Tie STRAND MAGAZINE alone Are of three different sorts, we must descend (o the basement. The most noticeable of these is the * Rotary Art Press 7 the only one in Lurope —-which will print sixtv-four Mustrated pages atoonce revolution ol the cylinders. Another s the Web Press, which will print and fold sixty-four pages al cach revolution : and the third, a smaller = Stop Cvlinder 7 Press, capable ol very fine work, Lut printing only sisteen pages at e, and covering 750 of such sheets oneone side i an hour.

But before any printing takes place, the paper, m great Folls of more than two miles long, must be re-wound, and for this a spectal winding machme s provided, whereon the paper unwinds from its original voll and (orms another. This liberates the clectrieity

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which and which hinders and immterferes

with charged, with accuracy of the folding it also facthitates e detecetion e cutting out of the mevitable faulty joins in the paper. Much depends on the paper, i

new paper s ousually o highty

and great care is requisite in s use o it s often found that different recls of, to all appearance, exactly the same mike of paper, Tor unaceountable reasons, produce cntirely different results, cood and had. Motnted on platforms attached to Lthe Rotary Art Press are four men, whose busi- Hess 1L s to tleed 7 the machine with sheets of paper. These sheets of paper are gripped by the machimery, and pass between two cvlinders. The lower of these evlinders ca IT1es, irly fised to its surlace, sixty-four platts of ‘i STRAND MacaziNe pages, and sixteen inking rollers, supplicd with ik from two fountains, ink these plates. The upper cvlinder is simply the impression eylinder,” carrying no plates, 1ts function being to press the paper against the Tower. Thus only one Gide of the paper s printed ata thine 1t Leig Tound advisable in the case ol ine work Lo allow one side to dry betore treating the other. The printed sheets pass over and down on rows of guiding tapes, which keep them flat: they go four at o time, two on cach set of tapes, and in the end slide over a light frame of Taths, hinged at the Pottom and looking like an exageerated and very wide comb.