M QUAD.—A contraction of em quadrat (q.v.).

MACHINE.—In England, a printing press in which the operations of laying-on the sheet, inking the forme, and effecting the impression, among others, are automatically performed, is called a machine; although to speak correctly, every press is a machine, and every printing machine is a press, as said in America. The invention of machines has given an impetus to the progress of the art of printing, and has thereby accelerated the diffusion of knowledge to an extent which cannot be contemplated without a feeling of amazement. By the use of machines, sheets of paper can be printed of a size which could not possibly be obtained on a press worked by hand, and at a speed which, compared with that of the hand press, is that of the express train to the tortoise. Savage, in his “Dictionary of Printing,” treats machine printing as synonymous with cylindrical printing, which it is not, for platen machines are certainly not presses. The only distinction which can be logically drawn is what we have alluded to above—the fact of certain operations being effected automatically. It is undoubtedly the fact that the first suggestion on the records of the Patent Office, for the employment of the cylindrical principle in typographic impression, is due to William Nicholson, who, in 1790, obtained Letters Patent for a “machine or instrument on a new construction, for the purpose of printing paper, linen, cotton, woollen, and other articles, in a more neat, cheap, and accurate manner than is effected by the machines now in use.”