Machinery for printing calicoes.
--An idea may be formed of the extraordinary influence which the introduction of machinery and improvements in engraving have had in cheapening the cost of printed calicoes, from the statement made in one of Professor Calvert's lectures, that large furniture patterns, such as are required for some of the Oriental markets, and into which sixteen colors and shades enter, would have cost formerly from seven to nine dollars per piece, because they would have required sixteen distinct applications of as many different blocks, and would have required more than a week in printing, whereas the same piece can now be printed in a single operation, which takes three minutes, and cost about one dollar and a half. So rapid is the progress of one branch of manu facture in connection with another, that it has only recently been possible to produce the rollers capable of performing this operation, that is to say, cylinders of copper forty-three inches in circumference by forty-four inches long. Such, indeed, has been the marvellous progress of improvement in this branch of manufacturing that, for light styles of printing, the time required to print a piece of thirty-six yards is not more than one minute.
