explained with entire satisfaction by the hypothesis that this closeness is the result of flattening out under pressure. One is strengthened in this belief when he discovers that it was not an uncommon practice in the type-foundries of the fifteenth century to join the matrices. Six of the matrices owned by Enschedé, and by him attributed to Schœffer, were made to be combined. These leaden matrices were pierced through their sides with a gimlet-hole, in which an iron wire was inserted to bind them together, and keep them securely on the mould. The method was faulty, for it could not keep the matrices in proper position; it could not produce types uniform as to height and true as to line.[1]
The thick faces and flattened lines of the types in many of the unknown printer's books show that his types were of very soft metal, probably of pure lead. To satisfy his doubts on this subject, Enschedé cast in some of his antique moulds types composed almost entirely of lead. The experiment succeeded: he was convinced that practical types of lead could be founded in matrices of lead.[2] Blades carried this experiment to a more successful conclusion, for he put the types to practical use. He had cast for him a collection of types in
- ↑ The process seems impracticable, but whoever carefully studies the British and American patent reports, will find specifications of inventions in typography that are much more absurd. There can be no doubt of their use. Koning cites one M. Fleischman, who had not only seen conjoined matrices in the type-foundry of C. Hardwich, of Nuremberg, but had experimentally cast types from them in an old mould that appears to have been made for this express purpose. Speckelinus, Paul Pater, Meerman, Schoepflin, Spiegel, and other early chroniclers, have specifically mentioned types pierced with a hole, and bound together with wire. These so-called types were either punches or matrices. Koning, l'Origine, etc., de l'imprimerie, p. 12.
- ↑ Benjamin Franklin, in his autobiography, has given a curious description of his attempt to supply his defective printing office with types cast in matrices of lead:
"Our printing house often wanted sorts, and there was no letter-foundry in America; I had seen types cast at James's in London, but without much attention to the matter; however, I contrived a mould, and made use of the letters we had as puncheons, struck the matrices in lead, and thus supplied in a pretty tolerable way all deficiencies. I also engraved several things on occasion; made the ink; I was warehouseman, and, in short, quite a factotum."
