The following is a description of the ten-cylinder steam printing-press now used in the office of the New York World. It is one of the best specimens of its kind to be seen in the great city:
The dimensions of the press are as follows: Entire length, 40 feet; width, 15 feet; height, 16 feet. The large horizontal cylinder in the center is about 4-1/2 feet in diameter, and on it are placed the "forms" of type for the four pages of one side of the paper. Each of these constitutes a segment of a circle, and the whole four occupy a segment of only about one-fourth of the surface of the cylinder, the other three-fourths being used as an ink-distributing surface. Around this main cylinder, and parallel with it, are ten smaller impression cylinders, according to the number of which a press is termed a four, six, or ten-cylinder press. The large cylinder being set in revolution, the form of types is carried successively to all the impression cylinders, at each of which a sheet is introduced and receives the impression of the types as the form passes. Thus as many sheets are printed at each revolution of the main cylinder as there are impression cylinders around it. One person is required at each impression cylinder to supply the sheets of paper, which are taken at the proper moment by fingers or grippers, and after being printed are conveyed out by tapes and laid in heaps by means of self-acting flyers, thereby dispensing with the hands required in ordinary machines to receive and pile the sheets. The grippers hold the sheet securely, so that the thinnest newspaper can be printed without waste.
The ink is contained in a fountain placed beneath the main cylinder, and is conveyed by means of distributing rollers to the distributing surface on the main cylinder. This surface being lower or less in diameter than the form of types, passes by the impression cylinders without touching them. For each impression there are two inking rollers, which receive their supply of ink from the distributing surface of the main cylinder, and raise and ink the form as it passes under them, after which they again fall to the distributing surface.