Part 7
Answer many of the purposes of quotations, but are principally useful as frames or miniature chases for circular or oval jobs. The sizes are graduated from 5 × 8 to 12 × 18 Pica ems.
These are made of various sizes, so as to form circles or parts of circles from one to twenty-four inches in diameter. Each piece is exactly one-eighth of a full circle, and, when combined with similar pieces, will form quarter, half, three-quarter, and full circles. By reversing the combination of some of the pieces, serpentine and eccentric curves may be made of any length or depth.
There are two kinds: _inner quadrates_, with convex surface, and _outer quadrates_, with concave surface. The curved line is produced by placing the convex and concave surfaces parallel to each other, so that when locked up firmly they hold the type inserted between them. The other sides of the quadrates are flat and right-angled, to allow a close introduction of type, and an easy justification with common quadrates.
As these quadrates are perfect segments of a large circle, they cannot be increased or diminished without destroying the truth of the curve. If the thin ends are pieced out with common quadrates, good justification will be rendered impossible; if they are shortened by cutting off, they are ruined. Bits of lead or short pieces of card between the curved surfaces are also wrong: they destroy that exact parallelism which is necessary for the security of the type. Very accurate justification of the outer extremities of the quadrates is also indispensable. If the curved surfaces are kept parallel, and the flat surfaces kept square, no difficulty will be found in using them, and they will prove a valuable aid in ornamental printing.
LABOUR-SAVING CURVATURES, &c.
Morris’s Adjustable Line Formers, or Labour-Saving Curvatures, do away with bent leads, plaster, wax, and other methods of making curved lines. Their economical advantages, and the neatness and exactitude of curve secured by their use, will be appreciated at a glance by all practical job printers.
LEADS.
Leads form an essential part of a printer’s outfit, since it is scarcely possible to set up a single page or job in which they may not be usefully employed; but their chief purpose is for spreading the lines apart so as to reduce the amount of matter in a page. Fine works are always thus leaded. They are usually cast by letter-founders in a long mould, and then cut to the required lengths. The bodies are regulated by Pica standard, and they are usually cast four, six, or eight to Pica, but are occasionally varied from one down to fourteen to Pica. Leads for jobbing purposes are now cut to graduated lengths, like labour-saving rule.
FLOWERS AND BORDERS.
The flowers and borders designed and cast at the present time far surpass any made by founders of earlier days. Their richness and variety enable printers to execute delicate and elaborate work, rivalling plate engraving, and afford a wide scope for the display of taste and artistic skill. The combination borders are especially valuable from being cast on uniform bodies, thus rendering them susceptible of a vast number of changes.
The ancient practice of ornamenting pages with head and tail pieces of flowers and odd designs seems to be coming in vogue again, particularly in works printed in the old-style type.
BRASS RULES.
Rules are required mainly for table-work, and for pages which contain two or more columns. They are also useful in titles and jobs. Brass rules should never be more than type height, unless for perforating purposes, to divide railroad checks, &c. A shade lower would be often better, as the pressman would be enabled to bring off their impression more clearly. In table-work, the rule and figures should be separated by a lead, and all the rules should fit closely and accurately.
The lately-invented
BRASS LABOUR-SAVING RULE
is of immense economical advantage to the printer. Being cut to a graduated scale, from one em to fifty ems Pica in length, advancing in the shorter pieces by ens and in the longer by ems, all waste in cutting is avoided by the printer, as rules of any length can be formed by employing two or more pieces. This rule is put up in regular founts, of various styles, with sufficient mitred pieces for outside bordering.
Metal space-rules, cast by type-founders, are commonly used for cross-rules in table-work; but the shorter pieces of labour-saving rule will answer as well.
On the next page we insert a plan of a case for labour-saving rules, with boxes suited for the various sizes, in which the rule should be kept when not in use.
EARLIEST WRITTEN SOUNDS.
The hieroglyphic is the most ancient form of written sounds. The earliest known monuments containing phonetic hieroglyphics date about forty centuries ago, or six hundred years before the time of Moses, who is supposed to have been versed in the knowledge of the hieroglyphs. Yet nothing worthy of the name of an alphabet existed till a later period, when the Phœnicians invented a purely alphabetic system, but suppressing the vowels, and from this has originated all the modes of alphabetic writing now used.[12] The Greeks introduced the vowels into their graphic system, and so brought to perfection the invaluable invention of alphabetic writing.
The discovery of the Rosetta stone furnished a clue to the method of deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphics; and Dr. Young and Champollion were the first to make use of the suggestive opportunity. The words _Ptolemy_ and _Cleopatra_ were made out; and these served as a key or incentive to further investigations; and extensive and curious volumes have been devoted to the interpretation of Egypt’s mysterious inscriptions on monuments and writings on papyrus.
Among those who have investigated the Egyptian hieroglyphs, Mr. R. Lepsius is one of the most practical, for he has reduced the ancient characters to typographical uses for the behoof of the delvers into the earth’s earliest lore. He began the work soon after his return from a scientific expedition to Egypt during the years 1842-46, and his hieroglyphic types now completed number more than thirteen hundred. The Prussian government furnishing the needful pecuniary means, his first task was to ascertain the forms of hieroglyphic signs which would be most suitable for typographical purposes, and here the labour was immense. After laborious research, he reached the conclusion, that as European print had been formed, not from the monumental characters of the Greeks and Romans, but essentially from the current handwriting of documents on parchment and paper, so the hieroglyphic type should follow, not the chiseled or painted characters on the monuments, but the style of those written on papyrus. The style and proportions having been established, the punch-cutting was mostly executed by Mr. Ferdinand Theinhardt, the excellent Prussian type-founder, who for a series of years has been skilfully engaged in producing the matrices. We are indebted to Mr. Theinhardt for the specimens here given; the first of which is the hieroglyphic alphabet, and the second is the beginning of an ancient text found in a leather roll of the Royal Museum of Berlin, referring to the foundation of the temple of the Sun at On or Heliopolis in Egypt.
HIEROGLYPHIC ALPHABET.
TRANSLATION.
Done in the month of Hatoor of the third year of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Kheperkara Usertesen I.—the blessed and eternally living.
The King, wearing the double crown, sat in the royal hall. There was held a council of his attendants, the counsellors of the apartments of the Pharao (may he live!) and the great (chiefs) for the site of the foundation. Speeches were made, while they listened; and they deliberated, stepping forward. “Well!” said the King, “let me order the work and fittingly commemorate deeds of glory. Henceforth I will erect buildings and lasting steles to the double Horus,” that is to the god of the rising and setting Sun, etc.
RUNIC ALPHABETS.
Runes were the earliest alphabets in use among the Teutonic and Gothic nations of Northern Europe. The exact period of their origin is not known. The name is derived from the Teutonic _rûn_, a mystery; whence _runa_, a whisper, and _helrûn_, divination; and the original use of these characters seems to have been for purposes of secrecy and divination. Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon tradition agree in ascribing the invention of runic writing to Odin or Wodin. The countries in which traces of the use of runes exist include Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Germany, Britain, France, and Spain; and they are found engraved on rocks, crosses, monumental stones, coins, medals, rings, brooches, and the hilts and blades of swords. Runic letters were also often cut on smooth sticks called _rûn-stafas_, or mysterious staves, and used for purposes of divination. But there is no reason to believe that they were at any time in the familiar use in which we find the characters of a written language in modern times, nor have we any traces of their being used in books or on parchment. We have an explanation of the runic alphabet in various MSS. of the early middle ages, prior to the time when runes had altogether ceased to be understood.
The systems of runes in use among the different branches of the Teutonic stock were not identical, though they have a strong general family likeness, showing their community of origin. The letters are arranged in an order altogether distinct from that of any other alphabetical system, and have a purely Teutonic nomenclature. Each letter is, as in the Hebrew-Phœnician, derived from the name of some well-known familiar object, with whose initial letter it corresponds. Runes, being associated in the popular belief with augury and divination, were to a considerable extent discouraged by the early Christian priests and missionaries, whose efforts were directed to the supplanting of them by Greek and Roman characters. But it was not easy suddenly to put a stop to their use, and we find runes continuing to be employed in early Christian inscriptions. This was to a remarkable extent the case in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia, where we have traces of runic writing of dates varying from the middle of the seventh to the middle of the tenth century. Runes are said to have been laid aside in Sweden by the year 1001, and in Spain they were officially condemned by the Council of Toledo in 1115.
The different systems of runes, all accordant up to a certain point, have been classed as the Anglo-Saxon, the German, and the Norse, each containing different subordinate varieties. The Norse alphabet is generally considered the oldest, and the parent of the rest. It has sixteen letters corresponding to our _f_, _u_, _th_, _o_, _r_, _k_, _h_, _n_, _i_, _a_, _s_, _t_, _b_, _l_, _m_, _y_, but has no equivalent for various sounds which exist in the language, in consequence of which the sound of _k_ was used for _g_, _d_ for _t_, _b_ for _p_, and _u_ and _y_ for _v_: _o_ was expressed by _au_, and _e_, by _ai_, _i_, or _ia_; and the same letter otherwise was made to serve for more than one sound. Other expedients came, in the course of time, to be employed to obviate the deficiency of the system,—as the addition of dots, and the adoption of new characters. But the runic system received a fuller development among the Germans and Anglo-Saxons, particularly the latter, whose alphabet was extended to no fewer than forty characters, in which seem to have been embraced, more nearly than in any modern alphabets, the actual sounds of a language. The table on the following page exhibits the best known forms of the Anglo-Saxon, German, and Norse runic alphabets, with the names and the power of the several letters.
The Anglo-Saxon runes, as here given, are derived from a variety of MS. authorities, the most complete containing forty characters, while some only extend as far as the twenty-fifth or twenty-eighth letter. Neither the name nor the power of some of the later letters is thoroughly known, and they are without any equivalents in the Norse runic system. The German runes are given from a MS. in the conventual library of St. Gall, in Switzerland. Though the various runic alphabets are not alike copious, the same order of succession among the letters is preserved, excepting that, in the Norse alphabet, _laugr_ precedes _madr_, although we have placed them otherwise, with the view of exhibiting the correspondence of the three systems. The number of characters in the Anglo-Saxon alphabet is a multiple of the sacred number eight; and we have the evidence both of a Swedish bracteate containing twenty-four characters, and of the above mentioned St. Gall MS., that there was a recognized division of the alphabet into classes of eight letters,—a classification which forms the basis of a system of secret runes, mentioned in that MS. Of these secret runes, there are several varieties specified: in particular, 1. _Iis-runa_ and _Lago-runa_ (of which specimens exist in Scandinavia), consisting of groups of repetitions of the character _iis_ or _lago_, some shorter and some longer, the number of shorter characters in each group denoting the class to which the letter intended to be indicated belonged; the number of longer ones, its position in the class. 2. _Hahal-runa_, where the letters are indicated by characters with branching stems, the branches to the left denoting the class, and those to the right the position in that class. There is an inscription in secret runes of this description at Hackness, in Yorkshire. 3. _Stof-runa_, in which the class is indicated by points placed above, and the position in the class by points below, or the reverse.
The best-known inscriptions in the Anglo-Saxon character are those on two grave-stones at Hartlepool, in Northumberland, on a cross at Bewcastle, in Cumberland, and on another cross at Ruthwell, in Dumfriesshire. The inscription on the west side of Bewcastle cross, which we give as a specimen of Anglo-Saxon runes, is a memorial of Alcfrid, son of Oswiu, who was associated with his father in the government of the kingdom of Northumbria, in the seventh century.
It has been thus deciphered into the Anglo-Saxon dialect of the period:—
+ THIS SIGBECUN SETTÆ HWÆTRED EM GÆRFÆ BOLDU ÆFTÆR BARÆ YMB CYNING ALCFRIDÆ GICEGÆD HEOSUM SAWLUM.
Or, in Modern English:—
This memorial Hwætred set and carved this monument after the prince after the king Alcfrid pray for their souls.
The inscription on the Ruthwell cross, after being long a puzzle to antiquaries, was first deciphered in 1838 by Mr. John M. Kemble, an eminent Anglo-Saxon scholar. It is written alternately down one side of the stone and up another, and contains a portion of a poem on the subject of the Crucifixion. Mr. Kemble’s interpretation received a very satisfactory confirmation by the discovery of a more complete copy of the same poem in a MS. volume of Anglo-Saxon homilies at Vercelli.
Mr. D. M. Haigh, whose researches have added much to our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon runes, has endeavoured to set up for them a claim of priority over the Norse characters. Instead of considering the additional Anglo-Saxon letters as a development of the Norse system, he looks on the Norse alphabet of sixteen letters as an abridgment of an earlier system, and finds occasional traces of the existence of the discarded characters in the earliest Norse inscriptions, and in the Scandinavian _Iis-runa_ and _Hahal-runa_, where the letters are classified in accordance with the Anglo-Saxon groups of eight.
The Scandinavian kingdoms contain numerous runic monuments, some of them written _boustrophedon_, or with the lines beginning alternately from the right and left; and there are many interesting inscriptions on Swedish gold bracteates. The Celtic races, from their connection with the Scandinavians, became acquainted with their alphabet, and made use of it in writing their own language; and hence we have, in the Western Islands of Scotland and in the Isle of Man, runic inscriptions, not in the Anglo-Saxon, but in the Norse character, with, however, a few peculiarities of their own. Some of the most perfect runic inscriptions are in Man; others of similar description exist at Holy Island, in Lamlash Bay, Arran; and there is an inscription in the same character on a remarkable brooch dug up at Hunterston, in Ayrshire. Dr. D. Wilson considers that the Celtic population of Scotland were as familiar with Norse as the Northumbrians with Saxon runes.
We sometimes find the Norse runes used to denote numerals, in which case the sixteen characters stand for the numbers from 1 to 16; _ar_ combined with _laugr_ stands for 17, double _madr_ for 18, and double _tyr_ for 19. Two more letters are used to express higher numbers, as _ur ur_, 20; _thurs thurs os_, 34.[13]
ANGLO-SAXON ALPHABET.
The Anglo-Saxon alphabet, and the forms and sounds of the letters, are shown in the following table:—
Two useful Anglo-Saxon letters have disappeared from modern English,—namely, Þ or þ th (_th_in), and Ð or ð th (_th_ine).
The Anglo-Saxon letters which vary from those now used were doubtless mere corruptions of the Roman forms,—viz. the capitals A, C, E, G, H, M, S, and W, and the small letters d, f, g, i, r, s, t, and w. Several marks of abbreviation were used by the Saxons, as ꝥ _that_, ⁊ _and_, &c. These were not original members of the alphabet, but were introduced probably for despatch.
About the year 1567, John Daye, who was patronized by Archbishop Parker, cut the first Saxon types which were used in England. In this year, _Asserius Menevensis_ was published by the direction of the archbishop in these characters; in the same year, Archbishop Ælfric’s _Paschal Homily_; and in 1571, the _Saxon Gospels_.
On the two following pages will be found a plan of cases for Saxon types.
GERMAN ALPHABET.
Outside of Germany, there is perhaps no country in which German printing is so extensively carried on as in the United States. We present a table of German characters, with their names, and their corresponding forms in English.
+---------------+-------------------+-----------------+ | German Form. | English Form. | German Name. | +---------------+-------------------+-----------------+ | | | | | ~A~ ~a~ | A a | ah | | | | | | ~B~ ~b~ | B b | bay | | | | | | ~C~ ~c~ | C c | tsay | | | | | | ~D~ ~d~ | D d | day | | | | | | ~E~ ~e~ | E e | a | | | | | | ~F~ ~f~ ~ff~ | F f ff | ef, ef-ef | | | | | | ~G~ ~g~ | G g | gay | | | | | | ~H~ ~h~ ~ch~ | H h ch | hah, tsay-hah | | | | | | ~I~ ~i~ | I i | e | | | | | | ~J~ ~j~ | J j | yot | | | | | | ~K~ ~k~ ~ck~ | K k ck | kah, tsay-kah | | | | | | ~L~ ~l~ | L l | el | | | | | | ~M~ ~m~ | M m | em | | | | | | ~N~ ~n~ | N n | en | | | | | | ~O~ ~o~ | O o | o | | | | | | ~P~ ~p~ | P p | pay | | | | | | ~Q~ ~q~ | Q q | koo | | | | | | ~R~ ~r~ | R r | er | | | | | | ~S~ ~ſ~ ~s~ | S s s | es, | | ~ſſ~ | ss | es-es | | ~ſz~ ~ſt~| sz | es-tset, es-tay | | | | | | ~T~ ~t~ | T t | tay | | | | | | ~U~ ~u~ | U u | oo | | | | | | ~V~ ~v~ | V v | fōw | | | | | | ~W~ ~w~ | W w | vay | | | | | | ~X~ ~x~ | X x | iks | | | | | | ~Y~ ~y~ | Y y | ipsilon | | | | | | ~Z~ ~z~ ~tz~ | Z z tz | tset, tay-tset | | | | | | ~ä~ ~ë~ ~ü~ | ä ö ü _or_ æ œ ue | | +---------------+-------------------+-----------------+
Several of the German letters, being somewhat similar in appearance, are liable to be mistaken one for another. To aid the learner, we give such letters together, and point out the difference.
~B~ (B) and ~V~ (V).
The latter is open in the middle, the former joined across.
~C~ (C) and ~E~ (E).
~E~ (E) has a little stroke in the middle, projecting to the right, which ~C~ (C) has not.
~G~ (G) and ~S~ (S).
~S~ (S) has an opening above, ~G~ (G) is closed, and has besides a perpendicular stroke within.
~K~ (K), ~N~ (N), ~R~ (R).
~K~ (K) is rounded at the top, ~N~ (N) is open in the middle, ~R~ (R) is united about the middle.
~M~ (M) and ~W~ (W).
~M~ (M) is opened at the bottom, ~W~ (W) is closed.
~b~ (b) and ~h~ (h).
~b~ (b) is entirely closed below, ~h~ (h) is somewhat open, and ends at the bottom, on one side, with a projecting hair-stroke.
~f~ (f) and ~ſ~ (s).
~f~ (f) has a horizontal line _through_ it, ~ſ~ (s) on the left side only.
~m~ (m) and ~w~ (w).
~m~ (m) is entirely open at the bottom, ~w~ (w) is partly closed.
~r~ (r) and ~x~ (x).
~x~ (x) has a little hair-stroke below, on the left.
~v~ (v) and ~y~ (y).
~v~ (v) is closed, ~y~ (y) is somewhat open below, and ends with a hair-stroke.
GREEK.
A small amount of Greek types is indispensable in every considerable book printing-office. The Greek alphabet contains twenty-four letters, which we give in the following table, with the name of each character expressed in Greek and English, and its sound and numerical value.
THE GREEK ALPHABET.