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Movable Metallic Types in Chinese.
MAY,
wished to print, paste this text upon a plate of wood, and thus make the white portions distinctly visible to the engraver. Since this period (1049) to the present day, the Chinese printers have continued in general to print froin wooden plates, or from stereotype plates of copper engraved in relief. But under the reign of the Emperor Kang-hi, who mounted the throne in 1662, some European Missionaries, who enjoyed great influence with this monarch, decided upon engraving 250,000 movable types in copper,* which served to print, under the title of Ku-kin Tú-shú, a collection of ancient and modern works comprising 6000 octavo volumes, and of which the Royal Library of Paris possesses many considerable portions: (as, The History of Music, in 6 volumes; The History of the Chinese Language, and of its Characters and Writing in different ages, in 80 volumes; and The History of Foreigners known to the Chinese, in 75 vols.) In elegance of form and beauty of impres sion, this edition rivals the finest works published in Europe.
There exists in the Imperial palace of Peking an edifice called Wú-ying tien, where, since 1776, they have printed every year, a great number of works with movable types, obtained, as in Europe, by means of engraved punches and matrices. The Bibliothèque Royale possesses many editions of an admir- able finish and beauty, which bear the seal of this printing establishment, whose types have received from the Emperor the elegant name of Tsu-chin, or "Congregated Pearls."
The official report which precedes one of these editions, discovers to us a very interesting fact, the observation of which may possibly give birth in Europe to some experiments and results of serious importance. Our punches of steel and matrices of copper entail great expense, and are exposed to rapid deteriora- tion by oxidation. The Chinese have guarded against this double inconven- ience by engraving their punches from hard and fine-grained wood (at a cost of from 5 to 10 centimes each type), and make use of these for striking the anatrices in a kind of porcelain paste, which they then bake in a kiln, and in which they afterwards cast the printing types with an alloy of lead and zinc, and sometimes even with silver.
It remains for us to know how they manage to succeed in justifying† (as they say in the language of founders) matrices of such material. One may be allowed to suppose however that the justification of these matrices is such as to leave nothing to be desired, since the typographical results which we have before us are of a nature to satisfy the most competent and fastidious judges. (For example, the edition in small text of the Shui-king Chf, or “Book of Rivers, with a Commentary," which has been sent to M. Arago by the author of the present notice.) I shall not conclude this article without explaining the motive which determined the Emperor Kienlung, in the year 1776, to found the printing establishment for movable types in the Wa-ying palace. This illustrious monarch having published an edict in 1773 for engraving on wood, and printing at the expense of the state, 10,412 of the most important works of Chinese literature, a member of the Financial Board named Kin Kien, consider- ing that it would require an enormous number of plates for printing this vast collection of books, and that the expense of engraving would be immense, pro- posed to the Emperor to adopt the system of printing by movable types, and submitted to him the models of these types arranged upon the plates, and ac- companied with all the necessary instructions for the engraving of the punches in wood (see above), the striking of the matrices, the casting of the types, and setting them up in forms.
The Emperor approved of this project by a special edict, and ordered these
Some years afterwards they committed the great mistake of melting and destroying these 250,000 copper types. Of this much-to-be-regretted fact we are informed in the preface of a small work on Agriculture printed more slowly by the anme process in the Typographical esta- blishment of the imperial palace called Wa-yiug-tien, of which we now proceed to speak more
in detail.
↑ To justify a matrix, is to make it perfectly square and of the standard size and thicknoNS, HO that the types cast shall be exactly of the same height, &c.
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