In this machine, distribution is the reverse of composition, and is effected by simply reversing the motion of the shaft.  By duplicating certain parts of the machine, both operations are performed at the same time.  The process of distributing, and also that of resetting the same matter, may be made automatic by means of the Register.  This device, although an original invention with Mr. Felt, is an application of the principle of the Jacquard loom.  It consists of a narrow strip of card or paper, in which holes are punched as the types are taken, forming a substitute for the troublesome nicking of the type, which has heretofore been thought indispensable to automatic distribution.  By this means the type can be changed in resetting, if desired, so that different editions of the same work can be printed in different sizes of type.

The machine is adapted to the use of combination-types as well as single letters.  For this purpose Mr. Felt has developed a new system, based upon an elaborate analysis of the language.  In a number of examples of printed matter, embracing a wide range of literature, the frequency of the single and combined letters has been ascertained by careful and accurate computation, and reduced to a percentage.  It may interest the reader to know that e is the letter of most frequent occurrence, constituting one-eighth of the language. The, as a word or syllable, is found to be six per cent.; and, four per cent.; in, three per cent., etc.

I have not pretended, in this description of Mr. Felt’s machine, to explain every technicality, or to raise and answer possible objections.  The great point is, that the labor of setting, justifying, leading, and distributing types by machinery is actually done, by means of his invention.  Thus the aspiration of inventive genius, in this department of art, is nobly fulfilled.  Thus the links in the chain of progress are complete, from Laurentius Coster, walking in the woods of Holland, in 1430, and winning, from an accidental shower-bath, the art of making movable types, down to the wide-awake Massachusetts Yankee, whose genius will make printing as cheap as writing, and therefore a thousand times more available for all purposes of civilization,—­besides lightening the burdens of toil, and blessing the jaded worker with a bright prospect of health, competence, and ease.

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HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.

BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.

V.

RAKING UP THE FIRE.