Note 32 — INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER THE TYPES AND TYPEFOUNDING OF THE FIRST PRINTERS.

Works of the late Dr. Benjamin Franklin, consisting of his Life, written by himself, in 2 vols. London, 1793, 8vo, i, 143. It is a very singular fact that in a later corrected edition of the same work, edited by John Bigelow, and published in Philadelphia in 1875, the passage above quoted reads as follows: “I contrived a mould, made use of the letters we had as puncheons, struck the matrices in lead, and thus supplied in a pretty tolerable way all deficiencies.” Whichever reading be correct, the illustration is apt, as proving the possibility of producing type from matrices either of clay or lead in a makeshift mould.