CHAPTER VIII.
WILLIAM CLOWES: INTRODUCER OF BOOK-PRINTING BY STEAM.
"The Images of men's wits and knowledges remain in Books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation.

Neither are they fitly to be called Images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages; so that, if the invention of the Ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote Regions in participation of their Fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as Ships, pass through the vast Seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other ?"--Bacon, On the Proficience and Advancement of Learning.
Steam has proved as useful and potent in the printing of books as in the printing of newspapers.

Down to the end of last century, "the divine art," as printing was called, had made comparatively little progress.

That is to say, although books could be beautifully printed by hand labour, they could not be turned out in any large numbers.
The early printing press was rude.

It consisted of a table, along which the forme of type, furnished with a tympan and frisket, was pushed by hand.