treble," etc. The work performed on these machines in the Government Bindery consists, in part, of post-office money orders, both domestic and international, the paging of blank books for the several Departments of the Government and Congress, and the numbering of checks, bonds, etc. But the money-order business, which is so rapidly increasing from year to year, is the principal occupation of these machines. Hundreds of new offices are established every year, and for these, as well as for all those established since the inauguration of the money-order system, millions of blanks are required to be printed annually; and it has been prophesied that if the increase in this service continues in the same ratio a few years more, it will require one-half the space now occupied by the whole Bindery to execute this single class of work for the Government.

FORWARDING ROOM.

The term "forwarding," as applied to book-binding, indicates that branch which takes the books after they are sewed, and advances them until they are put in leather, ready for the finisher; and a person working at this part of the trade is called a forwarder.

The Forwarding Room is located in the main building, fronting on H street. There are employed here about 175 persons, nearly all males, and the following machinery is in use:

All the binding for the Government is done in this room, and the number of volumes turned out in a single year would more than fill the Congressional Library, the largest library in America. Blank books of all conceivable sizes and styles, from the small pass-book, 21⁄2 by 3 inches, to the ponderous double-entry ledger, 21 by 32 inches, and printed volumes, from the smallest size to the largest folio, are bound in this room.

The stamping and marbling are also done here.

The process of marbling is always an interesting one to visitors. It

is one of the many ways of ornamenting books, and is used alike on the covers, linings, and edges. The process is very simple, when understood, but appears difficult to the uninitiated. The following description of this beautiful art is copied from Harper's Magazine: "There is a favorite style of half-leather binding which involves a

FIG. 28.-ACME AUTOMATIC AND FOOT CLAMPING CUTTER. process so beautiful, as fairly to entitle it to a separate paragraph. This is where the back is of leather, and the sides of marbled' paper. A shallow tank is filled with water in which gum has been dissolved. The different colors are simply ground in water. The marbler dips a brush into a pot, and with a peculiar flirt sprinkles the color into the

tank. The color spreads upon the surface in irregular oval forms, just as a drop of oil spreads upon water. He then in like manner sprinkles other colors. These colors will not mix; a drop of one falling upon another merely crowds a space for itself, altering the shape of the first color. A third color does the same thing to both, and so on. Sometimes only one color is used, sometimes half a score. Every color presents a series of forms bounded by curved lines. Thus, if the first color was red and the second blue, if a drop of the latter falls upon the center of a drop of the former, there will be a blue center sur

FIG. 29.-SEMPLE CUTTING MACHINE.

rounded with a red ring; if a blue drop falls upon the edge of a red one, there will be a blue cutting into the circumference of a red one; and so on through the whole range of colors, no one of which in any case intermixes with another. The pattern is frequently varied by drawing a long comb through the colors at any stage of the process.