where, must have been engraved by pointed instruments of the hardest steel; the inscriptions on the softer limestones, steatites or talcose slates of Assyria and Babylon were obviously made with a sharp cutting instrument, and the arrow-headed writing on their bricks was impressed with a punch or die. The tablets of lead, copper, or soft brass, required a steel pointed stylus. The waxen tablets required a stylus of ivory or bone, with a flat blade for making necessary erasures, and when parchment and paper was used for writing purposes, the sharp pointed stick, or later the reed pen was employed to inscribe upon these surfaces the matters which needed to be written. The Chinese used and still use, a Camel's hair pencil charged with the semi-liquid paste, known as India Ink, for the same purpose. The leaves of various species of palm are still used in the East for writing, and a pointed stick and the juice of some berries serve for pen and ink. With the introduction of paper into Eastern Europe in the seventh and eighth centuries, came the employment of the gray goose quill which for a thousand years and more, was the implement for writers and scribblers of all sorts. Yet there were serious objections to the quill pen. Its point was only hard before it had been long soaked in ink, and it was far from being permanent. It is said, indeed, that Dr. John Gill, the famous commentator and theologian, wrote all his thirty or forty ponderous folios with one quill pen, and that an old one when he began; but it does not surprise us to be told by the same authority, that the printer of his works complained that he had been made blind by the effort to decipher Dr. Gill's manuscript. It resulted from this inequality and rapid deterioration of quill pens that when the inventive genius of modern nations was aroused, one of the first things in which improvement was sought was the implement of the ready writer. The points required for a good pen were a firm, indestructible point, great flexibility, non-corrosion of either pen or point, capacity to retain a sufficient quantity of ink to prevent the necessity of constant replenishing, and adaptability to the various tastes of writers. Metals seemed to possess most of these qualities, but the early experiments with them proved failures. As early as 1803, attempts were made in Great Britain to make pens of steel. They had but a single slit, and were poor affairs, though quite costly. Silver was tried with a little better success, but the points were too soft and the pen bent very easily. It was, moreover, too costly for general use. The improvements in steel pens made by Mason, Gillott, Perry, Levy, and other manufacturers between 1820 and 1830 and since that time, have rendered these useful little articles of great service to the world. By the use of machinery and the division of labor, their production was so greatly cheapened that they were put within the reach of all. In Birmingham, England alone, nearly 1,500 millions of steel pens are annually made. Large numbers are also manufactured on the continent of Europe. Many attempts have been made to manufacture steel pens in the United States, but without great suc cess. One or two manufacturers have, however, persevered in spite of all opposition and discouragements, and have succeeded in producing by the aid of machinery, a good pen at a fair price. The Washington Medallion pen has attained such a reputation as to be largely counterfeited in Germany and England. But the steel pen, popular and cheap as it has been and still is, does not answer all the requirements of a good pen. It is in its best estate wanting somewhat in the pliancy of the quill; it deteriorates rapidly on use, so that the handwriting can never be precisely the same on two successive days, and it soon corrodes and becomes entirely worthless. Permanency and uniformity in execution are the indispensable requisites for a perfect pen. It is not surprising then that attention should early have been turned to gold as most likely to fulfil these requisites. The first attempts were like those in steel, failures. The first gold pens were made by John Isaac Hawkins, an American residing in England, about 1825. Mordan, the English pencil case maker, also attempted to make them not long after, but his pens were inelastic and poorer than Hawkins'. The use of iridium and osmium points to these pens is due to Mr. Hawkins, who soldered them on to the points of the pens he made. Rev. Mr. Cleveland, an American clergyman, visiting England, purchased of Haw kins his right to make gold pens in 1835, and on his return induced Levi Brown, a watchmaker in Detroit, to undertake their manufacture. At first Brown met with little success, but in 1840, he removed to New York and there the business grew in im portance. The pens made were, however, | pen making was reduced to an exact science. very unsatisfactory, and would be now con- Previously even the best makers could not sidered worthless except for old gold. About 1814, Mr. John Rendell, an employe of Brown, commenced making machinery for the manufacture of pens, which up to that time had been made almost entirely by hand. A. G. Bagley and a Mr. Barney, Mr. Leroy W. Fairchild, Mr. Spencer and Mr. Dixon, both of whom were subsequntly associated with Mr. Rendell, engaged in the manufacture between this period and 185), and soon after several others commenced operations in a small way. Very many inferior pens were thrown upon the market, but those made by the machinery of Ren dell, improved by Fairchild, had a very good reputation. One of Fairchild's improvements consisted in bedding the iridium points in the gold instead of soldering them as had been done at first. In 1859, there were in the United States thirteen gold pen factories, eight of which were in New York, and one in Brooklyn. There were also two in Con necticut, one in Massachusetts, and one in Cincinnati. Five or six of these made pens of very fair quality, the rest produced only inferior goods, and most of them worthless trash. duplicate a pen. Its exact temper and elasticity, and its perfect writing qualities were beyond their control, and hence the selection of a pen was a matter which must be attended to in person. Mr. Morton brought his machinery to such perfection, and was so exact and thorough in every department of the manufacture, that he could at once decide by a glance at the handwriting of a customer what grade of pen would best suit him, and introduced the practice of filling individual orders by mail, and in the ten years, 1860-1870, forwarded some millions of pens in that way. There are now a very considerable number of manufacturers of gold pens in this country, some of them formerly employes of Mr. Morton, but while some of them make very good pens, there is no uniformity about their manufacture, and most of them lack that permanent temper and elasticity which are the result of Mr. Morton's processes. This peculiar excellence of Morton's pens has been recognized by English bankers and clerks, among whom these pens have the highest reputation. We desire to be understood in regard to this matter. The other pen manufacturers may, In 1851, Alexander Morton, who had pre- and we presume do, make occasionally, pens viously been in the employ of Mr. Bagley, as good as those made by the Morton procommenced the manufacture of gold pens cess, but they cannot do it uniformly by any on his own account in New York City, and other method. We have no means of knowvery soon by his inventions for tempering ing what has been the comparative success and finishing them with perfect uniformity, of the different manufacturers, nor is it a took the position which he and his successors | matter of any consequence in this work. It have maintained to this day. For the first is only the perfection of the product which time in the history of the manufacture, gold concerns us. CHAPTER I. BOOK-BINDING. BOOK-BINDING. commandments could not have needed binding, nor could the rocks and bricks, on which the Babylonians traced their ideas, have well THE binding of books is an art probably been bound. The different modes of conolder than the art of book printing itself, veying and preserving ideas, that were adoptsince there existed a necessity for confining ed in different ages and nations, caused rethe manuscripts and scrolls that were the course to be had to almost all materials acmedium of preserving thought in ancient cording to exigencies, and these were predays. Even that was a progress, however; served according to the exigency. since the slabs of stone that bore the divine The books of wood, or metal, were bound and one side of a double sheet receives the impression of those sixteen pages by one movement of the press, and then, being reversed, receives an impression on the other side from the same type. As the sheets leave the press they are hung up to dry, when they are placed under a hydraulic press of great power. They are then counted out into quires of twenty-four sheets each, and sent to the binders. There, in the folding room, the sheets are folded by girls. The object is to fold down the pages, so as to fall one upon the other with perfect accuracy, since upon this the proper binding of the book depends. The whole edition of sheets is folded with great rapidity by one girl. Some of these will fold 400 in an hour, but the average may be 300. A folding machine has lately been introduced, by which, it is said, two girls will do as much as eighteen by hand. Each sheet folded is a signature, and gen by fastening the sheets of which they were composed at the backs by hinges. When parchment and paper succeeded, the backs of the sheets were sewed together, and the covering varied as the arts progressed and materials were adopted. The art itself has made material progress only of recent years. It came to be a separate art only when the discovery of printing, by multiplying books, made the binding of them too laborious for those who did it when years were spent in copying one book. In 778, Alcuin, a monk, native of England, commenced to copy the Bible, and finished it 800, for the Emperor Charlemagne. When twenty-two years was required to make one copy, there was not much business for the binder, whose labors commenced with those of the printing press. While books were still comparatively dear, the binding bore a small proportion to the cost. Of late years, the tendency has been toward neatness and durability. The req-erally these are designated by some figure uisites of a well-bound book are solidity, elasticity, and elegance. Among the nations of Europe, the French take the lead in artistic taste, but the English excel in the expensive finish of the more costly editions. In the United States, machinery is employed, more than elsewhere, to attain the desirable result at less cost. at the bottom of the first page of each sheet. The folded sheets are laid in piles, in the order of these signatures. The "gatherer" then, with the right hand, takes them, one by one, and places them in the left, until a complete set, or full book, is collected. This is performed so rapidly, that it is said an active girl will gather 25,000 in a day. After this, the sheets are "knocked up" evenly, and pressed in a hydraulic press; but recently, a machine has been introduced, by which time is economized. The engraving, on another page, shows the figure of that by Hoe & Company, which is the favorite for embossing, as well as compressing. The machine runs slower for smashing. The size, 15 by 17, weighs half a ton, and is sold at $400. The book is now examined by the collector, in order to detect any error of arrangement in the signatures. The books then go to the sawing machine, where, being properly arranged, fine circular saws cut fine indentations in the books, to admit as many pieces of twine, to each of which each sheet is sewed. This is performed by girls, at a table appropriated for that purpose. When the sewing is complete, the "end papers' are pasted on the book. Books are printed upon paper of various sizes, which formerly were three, called royal, demy, and crown. The book took the size indicated by the paper used. The demy size was mostly used, and the sheets were folded a greater or less number of times. Thus, folded once in the middle, gives two leaves, or four pages, and is called folio. When the sheet is again folded, it gives four leaves, or eight pages, and is called quarto; folded again, the result is eight leaves, or sixteen pages, and is octavo. By folding into twelve leaves, or twenty-four pages, we make a duodecimo; and if into eighteen leaves, or thirty-six pages, it forms octodecimo. Of a size less than this, the books are pocket editions. The sizes of books thus formed are generally designated as 4to, 8vo, 12mo, 18mo, 24mo, 32mo, 48mo, etc. The size of the printed page corresponds with the size of this fold. Thus, the size of this The books next are trimmed by having volume is royal octavo, being printed on the edges cut by a machine. To effect this paper a size larger than demy, or ordinary they are piled upon a platform, under a large octavo. Each sheet of paper contains eight knife, which, being worked by a crank, leaves, or sixteen pages; and there are fifty descends, like a guillotine, cutting a large of these sheets in the book. Thus, the type number at once. The figure of the trimming is composed of sixteen pages in one "form," | machine is given on another page. The |