He
then touches the justifying-key, and the spacer seizes the line and
draws it into another part of the machine, to be justified, while the
empty stick resumes its feeding. No time is lost; for, while the stick
is setting a second line; the "spacer" is justifying the first; so that,
in a few moments after starting, the processes are going forward
simultaneously. That of justifying is, perhaps, the most ingenious. It
is accomplished in this wise. The stick never sets a full line, but
leaves room for spaces, and with the last letter of each word inserts a
piece of steel, to separate the words. When the line has been drawn into
the spacer, the pieces of steel, which are furnished with nicked heads
for the purpose, are withdrawn, and ordinary spaces are substituted. All
this requires no attention whatever from the operator. The matter, thus
set and justified, is now leaded by the machine, and deposited upon a
galley ready for the press.

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 thi