run in"
under the platen by means of a crank at the side of the press, and
the platen was screwed down to make the impression. After the
impression had been taken, the platen was screwed up, the bed "run
out," the tympan frame and frisket lifted, and the printed sheet taken
off.

The introduction of this Stanhope press gave a great impetus to the
development of the printing press in other countries as well as in
England, and many varieties were devised during the thirty years
following. Although as early as 1811 Koenig had made a cylinder press
which had proved fairly successful, the better grades of printing
could be obtained only by the flat pressure of the hand-presses. In
some of these hand presses, the platen, or upper impression plate, was
moved into position over the bed and remained stationary while the bed
with the type-form upon it was forced upward to make the impression.
In others, the platen was hinged to the bed, but in all of them the
mechanism was complicated.

The "Columbian" press, devised by George Clymer, of Philadelphia, in
1816, gained considerable distinction both in this country and in
England, where it was introduced in 1818. It differed from the
Stanhope in that the screw was dispensed with, the platen being
depressed by a combination of levers and lifted by the aid of a
weighted balance-lever.

The reduction of the hand-lever movement to its simplest and most
powerful form is now seen in the Washington hand press, devised by
Samuel Rust, of New York, in 1827. His patent was later purchased by
R. Hoe & Co., who made nearly seven thousand of these presses in
different sizes and still make many of a greatly strengthened pattern
for taking fine proofs from photo-engraved plates. Some of these
presses made before 1850 are still in use, and occasionally one hears
of a Washington hand press being used for printing upon handmade paper
an edition of a small and limited number of copies of a book. Of all
the hand presses, this is the only one that has survived to the
present day.

With the introduction of other means for applying power than the
hand-lever, a distinction came to be drawn between printing _presses_
and printing _machines_. The term "machine" might perhaps be more
appropriately used for the huge printing presses of the present day,
yet, as the first essential is the impression power, all other
features being subordinate, the term "press" is still the proper one
to apply, even to the