NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

NO CLXXXVII. DECEMBER, 1865.-VOL. XXXII.

NOR one hundred and eighty-six consecu- | have taken place in the corps of Editors. Now most half a human generation-we have issued has been introduced; but no one has died. Of the successive Numbers of HARPER'S MAGA- the Editors who now conduct the various deZINE. By "we" are designated the Proprie- partments no one has occupied his present potors and Publishers, who planned the enter-sition less than eight years. The Contribuprise, and under whose constant supervision it tors, exclusive of the thousands who have furhas been conducted; the Editors who have car-nished the anecdotes and reminiscences embodried these plans into execution; the Contribu- ied in the "Editor's Drawer," number about tors who have furnished the materials for the three hundred. Here many changes have ocwork; and the various Artists and Artisans curred. Some old names have disappeared, who have put these into shape. There have many new ones have been introduced. But been singularly few changes in the persons com- one who looks at the Table of Contents preposing these departments. The Harper & fixed to each half-yearly volume will find not Brothers" of Number I. are the same as those a few of the same names recurring from year of this Number CLXXXVII. Some changes to year. The number who have died is re

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.

VOL. XXXII.-No. 187.-A

markably few. Of the printers and engravers, many have worked on every Number since the first.

each sheet is printed on both sides, they contain more than 31,000 acres of printing.*

It is proposed in this article to describe the The Magazine was successful from the outset. entire series of operations through which each Of the first Number 7500 were at first printed. of these Numbers has passed until it comes in Within six months the number had reached its perfect shape before the reader. In showing 50,000. The average circulation, taking all "How the Magazine is Made," we also describe the Numbers from the first, has been somewhat in fact the manner of making a book, the promore than 110,000-in all, fully twenty and a cesses throughout being essentially the same. quarter millions of copies. They would weigh In the present case all these operations are more than 5000 tons, of 2000 pounds. They performed in one establishment and under a would measure nearly 2000 cords. They would single roof, so that they can be described in build a solid wall ten feet high, two feet thick, their natural order. and almost two and a half miles long. They would make a solid pyramid one hundred feet square at the base, and more than seventy-five feet high. The Numbers, laid side by side, would cover 208 acres, or make a pavement two and a half feet wide, and nearly sixty miles long. The separate sheets would cover a path two and a half feet broad, and 4400 miles long. They would carpet almost 16,000 acres, and as

Among the deceased contributors to the Magazine, notable for the number or the value of their contributions, are W. M. Thackeray, G. P. R. James, Calvin E. Phileo, John B. Hagany, Stephen A. Douglas, Fitz James O'Brien, William E. Sewall, and Alice B. Haven.

The Printing and Publishing Establishment of Harper & Brothers occupies a somewhat irregular plot of ground extending through from Franklin Square in Pearl Street to Cliff Street, with a front on each of about 120 feet, and a depth from street to street of about 170, covering in all ten city "lots," equal to about half

These statements are given, approximately but very nearly, in round numbers. Any one who chooses to verify the calculations will find the necessary elements in the following data: Each Number weighs 8 ounces, and has a superficial area of 65 square inches. A sheet contains 520 square inches; each Number, including covers, has 9 sheets. To fill the space of a cubic foot requires 80 Numbers,

The floor of this main story was up

most all the space, and darkening what was not filled. There was no known means of making the flooring of the main story strong enough to support stories above, without sacrificing a great portion of the space. For examples of fire-proof buildings before the iron-age, one needs but to look at the building at the corner of Wall and Nassau streets, once used for the Custom-house, and now used as the Sub-Treasury, and the Old Merchants' Exchange, now the Customhouse, on Wall Street. The architect of the former building gave up a third of the space to utterly useless porticoes, and in the latter case, besides giving up much space to the great portico, constructed the walls and windows in such a manner that nearly half of the rooms must be artificially lighted during a great part of the day. Each of these buildings covers about the same ground as does the Harper Establishment; each has a far more favorable site, having three sides instead of two opening upon the street; each of them cost from eight to twelve times as much in building; neither of them is more absolutely fire-proof; neither is practically stronger-since the absolute strength of any structure is only that of its weakest point; and both together do not contain half the usable room of the Harper Establishment; and, moreover, neither of these costly public buildings presents a finer architectural appearance than the Franklin Square front of this purely private structure.

an acre. Upon this are erected two buildings, | tical use. one fronting on each street, with a court-yard held by a series of arches and columns, filling albetween, which, besides other purposes, serves to give light and air to the rear of each building. The Cliff Street building is the manufactory; the Franklin Square building contains the offices and warerooms. These buildings were erected in 1854, on the site occupied by the structures consumed by the fire which, on the 10th of December, 1853, destroyed the works which had gradually grown up during thirty years, sweeping away in three hours property worth a million of dollars. In reconstructing the establishment usefulness was the first consideration. It should be fire-proof, for it was to contain property to a large amount. It must be strong, for every part was to be filled with massive machinery and heavy stock. It must be well lighted and ventilated, for men and women were to perform work in every part. All the space must be available, for a great deal of work was to be done within it It must, moreover, be handsome, for the Proprietors wished that the external form should indicate the intrinsic value. These conditions could be attained only by making iron enter more largely into every part of the construction than had ever before been attempted. The main front on Franklin Square is built wholly of iron. It consists of five stories, aboveground, each having 21 handsome columns, the interspaces wholly of iron. The side and rear walls are of stone and iron. To gain a firm foundation for this heavy structure it was necessary to go down nearly thirty feet below The whole interior structure of both buildthe surface of the street. This space was util-ings is supported upon a series of iron columns, ized by throwing it into two subterranean stories-a cellar and sub-cellar. This front is elaborately ornamented, and presents one of the finest façades in the city.

The Cliff Street building is of brick, rising six stories above-ground, with a basement below. The monotony of a blank wall of such large dimensions is broken by flat pilasters reaching from top to bottom, by arching the upper windows, and by a heavy cornice. Following the line of the streets, each front presents a slight curve; that on Franklin Square convex, the other concave.

The essential features of both buildings are to be found in the interior construction; especially in the adaptation of iron to the support of the floors of the different stories. Hitherto no fire-proof building had been built which contained more than a single story wholly available for any prac

rising from story to story. From column to column in each story extends a girder composed of a cast iron arch, and a wrought iron tension-rod. This rod, about the size of a man's arm, is dovetailed at each end into the head of a column; the arch, of which it forms a part, can only be broken down by a weight at the top sufficient to pull this rod asunder. The iron which composes this arch is cast into shapes which not only economize material by putting it just where wanted, but present an ornamental appearance.

Across the top of these arches are placed a series of beams of rolled iron to support the floors. These beams, shaped much like the rail of a railroad, lie four feet apart. The floors consist of a series of low brick arches turned from beam to beam. These are laid dry, grouted, and then filled up level with cement on the upper side,

tween the different stories. The only way of in every State of the Union, in the British access to the upper stories is by a circular iron Provinces, in the West Indies, in almost every staircase contained in a round tower in the country of Central and Southern America; in centre of the court-yard. Iron bridges reach nearly every part of Europe; in Siberia, China, from this tower to the different floors. Each Japan, and India; in Africa, Arabia, and the floor is in effect an isolated fire-proof apartment, Holy Land. Our indefatigable and ubiquitous containing nothing combustible except the fur- correspondent Ross Browne, alone, has written niture and stock. Little of the stock is "haz- and sketched for us in Juan Fernandez andardous." Paper, indeed, when lying loose is Jerusalem, in Damascus and Salt Lake City, easily burned; but when packed closely to- | in Idaho and Iceland, in Nevada and Norway, gether in books or bundles, it will not burn un-in Russia and Arizona, in Germany, Spain, less surrounded by more combustible matter. Italy, Algiers, Poland, and California, and in When the rubbish was removed, weeks after various places intermediate. We should at no the great fire, piles of books and paper were time be surprised to see him coming back, found among the still smouldering ruins uncon-loaded with drawings and MS. from the North sumed and injured only by water and smoke. Moreover, should a fire take place any where, an apparatus is provided by which the room can be at once flooded with steam from the boilers. It is believed that in no case could a fire spread from one room to another. The cost of insurance is therefore reduced to a minimum, by the rates being the very lowest, and because it is thought necessary to insure for only a small proportion of the entire value of the property.*

Pole, or from China, Persia, Tartary, or any other part of the globe.

But within the establishment the work commences in the Editors' Room. It is the business of the editors to provide or furnish matter, literary and artistic. They write certain articles, each in the main in his own department. If they want a paper on any special subject they know just where to apply for it. About half of the contents of the Magazine are made up in this way. The remainder is selected from the mass of matter sent in by various correspondents, who are or wish to be contributors. Fifteen papers a day, long and short, is perhaps a fair average of the number which come in this way. The editors read, consider, and compare these, selecting as many as they can use of those which they judge to be the best. A hundred circumstances come in to influence their decision. There must be variety in each Number, so that readers of every class may each find something to his taste. There may

The court-yard is entered by an archway through the Cliff Street building. It serves as a place for the reception and delivery of all heavy goods, leaving the streets themselves wholly unobstructed by drays, boxes, and bundles. All packages are raised and lowered through a hoistway containing a movable platform carried up and down by the steam-engine. This "Steam Paddy" is a laborious workman. There is scarcely a moment in which he is not traveling up and down with a load varying from a few pounds to a ton and a half; but the heavi-be in their files a number of papers of the same est of these loads is not equal to half his strength. general character and subject. Probably only He is a careful fellow too. He has made fully one of these can be used. A paper may be 30,000 trips without ever meeting with an ac- well written while the subject is not of interest; cident injuring life or limb. It is hardly possi- the subject may be good but the execution ble for him to do so, for should the pulley or faulty. Length has much to do in the case. wire cable give way, the platform would be in- There are just so many pages to be filled and stantly arrested by other parts of the machinery.no more. Then there is an almost infinite So much for the edifice in which the Magazine is made. The apparatus used and the mode of operations will appear as we proceed.

number of questions to be answered, either personally or by letter. One wants to know the "general terms with contributors." AnStrictly speaking, the work of "making the other wishes to reply to some article to which Magazine" begins with the authors who write he takes exception. More than fifty replies and the artists who sketch. Papers have been were sent in or proposed to Mr. Douglas's pawritten and drawings made for the Magazine per on "Popular Sovereignty." Another has Since the foregoing was written Charles H. Haswell, written or is writing a novel, which he wishes Esq., the eminent Consulting Engineer, and Surveyor of run through the Magazine and afterward be Steamers for Underwriters, was desired to examine and re-issued in book form." Others who propose port upon these buildings; his report is as follows:

"I have visited and examined the buildings comprising

your establishment upon Franklin Square and Cliff Street, and having given the matter a full consideration, I submit as follows: 1. The risk of a fire occurring within any of the buildings, under existing arrangements, is so very remote as to be quite inconsiderable.-2. The effect of a fire occurring external to any of your buildings would not necessarily endanger the security of them or any part of them.-3. In the event of a fire occurring within any part of your establishment, or of being communicated to it from without, I can not recognize the probability of its extend

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traveling wish to write descriptive papers upon every part of the globe. And so on, ad infinitum. All these matters must be attended to by the members of the editorial corps, who, one by one, sift out the useless manuscripts and the unavailable propositions. Those which may possibly be of use are handed to the Managing Editor, who makes the final choice.

A few hints may be of use to correspondents.

ing beyond the immediate location of its origin or of its Every manuscript should be clearly and legibly

communication."

written. In proper names, technical words, and