greatest combination of printing units yet
devised.

The "bed and platen" system of printing as first used in hand presses
occupies such an important place in the history of the book-printing
press that a further description of its career is necessary.

In December, 1806, Friedrich Koenig, a Saxon, who later gave to the
world the first practical cylinder press, went from Germany to England
to seek assistance in carrying out his plans for the construction of
a greatly improved printing press, having failed in his efforts in his
own country and in Russia. He succeeded in enlisting the support of
Thomas Bensley, a London printer, and constructed a press in which all
the operations but laying on and taking off of the sheet were
performed mechanically.

An accurate description of this press is not extant, but it is known
to have consisted of a large wooden frame, a platen worked by a
vertical screw and gears, a type-bed drawn forward and backward by
means of straps fastened to a large roller underneath the bed, a
tympan frame and frisket arranged to open and close automatically with
the movement of the bed, and an inking apparatus, consisting of an
ink-box with a narrow slit in the bottom through which the ink was
forced by a piston upon a roller below, from which it was transmitted
by two intermediate rollers to another and lower roller which inked
the form as it passed underneath. The two intermediate rollers had an
alternating, lateral motion which spread or distributed the ink
sideways before it reached the lowest roller.

This press was the first to have ink-distributing rollers and the
first to be run by steam power. In April, 1811, the "Annual Register"
for 1810 was printed on it by Mr. Bensley at the rate of eight hundred
impressions an hour. Nothing further is recorded about this press, and
it was probably abandoned as being too complicated.

In the following year, Koenig's first cylinder press was completed, to
be followed two years later by an improved cylinder press made for the
_London Times_, which will be referred to farther on.

In his experiments, the Earl of Stanhope had tried, without success,
to find a substitute for inking-balls by making rollers covered with
different kinds of skins. He also tried other materials, such as
cloth, silk, etc., but the unavoidable seam and the impossibility of
keeping these materials soft and pliable defeated his purpose. About
1813 inking-rollers made of a composit