Collotype printing is not merely done by hand presses, but is also done by machinery. At Herr Albert's a gas engine of six-horse power is employed to drive the machines, and each machine requires the attention of a skilled mechanic and a girl. The press is very like the lithographic quick press. Upon a big steel bed lies the little collotype block. The glass printing block, with its brownish film of gelatine, moves horizontally to and fro, and, as it does so, passes under half a dozen rollers, which not only supply ink, but disperse it. Some of the rollers are of leather and others of glue, and, whenever the printing block retires from underneath them, an ink slab takes the place of the block, and imparts more ink to the rollers; sometimes as many as eight rollers are used, for the difficulty of machine printing is to apply the ink as delicately and equally as possible.
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