Excerpt from Type-Composing Machines of the Past, the Present, and the Future: A Paper Read Before the Balloon Society of Great Britain, at St. James Hall, October 3rd, 1890 Let us look a little further into the reason why machinery of the kind has been such a failure. One of the causes is that type-setting, though apparently a Simple process, is a most complex one. It is partly mental, partly mechanical. The compositor has to decipher his copy, which in itself may take him longer than to pick up the types that reproduce it. He must punctuate his matter as he goes along, according to rule and custom. Before arriving at the end of his line he most likely will have to consider how he can make a proper division of a word which will not come in in its entirety. These are mental operations which cannot be facilitated by machinery.' Besides the type-lifting process, he has to ensure that all his lines are exactly of the same length. This is of the utmost importance. It is effected by inserting or withdrawing one12 type - setting and distributing machinery. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.