Mr. Frank C. Young, who was in the printing business, also tells of similar experiments which he carried still further.[46]
Having provided some twenty-five sheets of paper of different qualities and thicknesses, each was cut into sixteen pieces. Selecting a common half tone cut which measured exactly 100 × 69 mm. and dampening the sheets of paper to different degrees of wetness I proceeded to impress the cut on each sheet, using a common roller proof press. After the printed sheets had been allowed to dry it became a matter of a good millimeter gauge and careful measurements of the printed impressions, not the paper.
... Hardly two sheets of the whole lot were identical in size, nor was I able to formulate any table as to how much or how little or which way of the paper shrinkage would occur. The only general rule which seemed to come out clearly was that thin paper would invariably shrink more than thick. In many of the sheets the difference was barely noticeable, while, on the other hand, such measurements as 96 × 68, 97 × 68½, 99 × 67½, 98 × 68 mm. were fairly common, and one sheet, after several very careful measurements, was undeniably 95½ × 69 mm., thus showing a shrinkage of 4½ per cent, one way and none at all the other. This was very thin laid linen paper.
Contrary to all expectations, more than one impression measured more than either the cut or those printed on dry paper, one on thin wove paper being fully 101 mm. long.
Looking back now at Mr. Castle's tables,[47] we find his greatest variations in length amount to ¾ mm. in 22 mm., or roughly 3½%, and in width 1 mm. in 18 mm., or roughly 5½%—results entirely within bounds according to Major Evans' and Mr. Young's experiments, and doubtless settling once and for all the reason of the "three distinct varieties in design" of Mr. Brouse.
As for the paper actually used for the printing of the 10d. stamp, we find it a hard, white wove variety varying very much in thickness from a very thin, almost pelure quality, through which the design is quite plainly evident, to a medium and finally a considerably thicker quality. The pelure paper seems naturally to be the one on which the greatest variation in dimensions occurs, the long and broad size of the stamp coming principally on the thicker paper,[48] which is supposed to shrink the least upon drying and therefore keeps the printed impression nearest the size of the plate impression. The long and narrow impression, being the commoner variation, was prob
ably due to the paper being fed to the press the same way of the "grain" as a rule, while the short and broad variation, which is much scarcer, occurred by an occasional sheet of paper being fed the other way of the "grain." That paper has a "grain" is readily proved by tearing a piece in one direction and then tearing it at right angles to the first tear; one will be found much easier of accomplishment generally than the other, and this "grain" doubtless has its due effect in the amount of shrinkage in one way or the other upon drying a dampened sheet.
One further variety we have to record in the 10d. stamp, this being a "shifted transfer" variety similar to that occurring in the 3d. value. In this case we find the letters A D A and S of "Canada Postage," and P E N of "Pence" showing a distinct doubling at the bottom, the transfer roller evidently having been set a little too high at first and a very slight impression made on the plate. The stamp has not been seen in a pair to prove its character absolutely, but it bears all the ear-marks of being a proper plate variety and not due to a careless impression when printing.