attractive than the home supply, and they resolved to bring the two together. The plan of the new magazine contemplated a periodical larger than any then published, filled with the choicest selections and conducted with adequate resources of capital and of business sagacity and energy.

Fletcher Harper threw himself into the work with all the force of his nature and all his shrewd, practical energy. The old compositors—for the House, by liberality and mutual confidence, has retained the services of many men during their lives—recounted the excitement and the interest of preparing the early issues of the Monthly. Fletcher Harper brought copy into the composing-room, and often remained busy with the rest, supervising and arranging, until nine and ten o'clock in the evening.

It is almost incredible that within a period so comparatively short the monthly supply of brilliant and valuable periodical literature with which we are now so pleasantly familiar was totally unknown. And this invigorating and bountiful monthly feast is due in great part to the successful establishment of Harper's Magazine, and that success is in turn largely beholden to the insight and foresight and masterly energy of Fletcher Harper. His was the hand of Briareus that mainly shaped and molded this work, and no other individual can be named to whose masterful quality so much of the honor of the present high and happy condition of periodical literature in this country is to be ascribed as to Fletcher Harper.

The book-publishing part of the business had meanwhile steadily increased, and it was computed by a contemporaneous newspaper that "for several years prior to 1853 the firm had printed on an average twenty-five volumes a minute, averaging ten hours to the day."

This rapid growth of business required a corresponding increase in mechanical appliances. The brothers were equally quick to seize and cautious to test every new invention which promised to facilitate or enhance thej, value of their productions. "Prove all things; hold fast It to that which is good" was their motto, and not least j among the services which they rendered to mankind was \ their early introduction of improvements in the mechan- 1 ism of their trade. They were among the first to employ | steam as a motive power in the press-room, and theirs was tKe first house in Americano introduce extensively the then almost unknown art of electrotyping. Their Bible was the first illustrated work of any magnitude to be printed in this country on a power-press. Prior to 1844 illustrations were almost invariably printed separately from the reading matter, but with the introduction of electrotyping this extra presswork was avoided.

From the dingy little attic in Dover Street, where two or three hand-presses, worked by James and John in person, supplied all the orders obtained from city booksellers, the establishment had grown in 1853 to be the largest and most complete of its kind in the world, that of Brockhaus, in Leipzig, ranking next. It occupied five five-story buildings on Pearl Street and six on Cliff Street. Every operation necessary to the manufacture of a book was carried on within its walls.

Such in brief was the business of Harper & Brothers when, in December, 1853, an accident occurred, against which no reasonable precaution could have guarded them, and in a few hours the work of many years was almost or entirely destroyed.

The firm had already suffered by fire four times, in Dover Street, on Pulton Street, at 230 Pearl Street, and at 82 Cliff Street in 1842.

In 1842 a careless apprentice, in kindling a fire in the stove of the drying-room, ignited some papers which strewed the floor, and the flames communicated with sheets upon the drying-frames, and in a moment they were in a blaze. But the fire was soon extinguished with small loss. The brothers, however, accepted the warning and took prompt measures to guard against its recurrence. Their buildings were not fireproof at that time, but every precaution was observed which experience could suggest. No fires were allowed in the buildings except in the engineroom; every department was heated by steam, and gas burners were substituted for charcoal furnaces for heating the tools in the bindery.

To clean ink off the rollers in the press-room camphene was found to be the best medium, and for this process a small room had been selected on the third floor of the lower building in Pearl Street. It was lined throughout with zinc, and the rollers were taken in there from the adjoining press-rooms, cleaned and then returned to the presses. In this room, on Saturday, December 10, 1853, a plumber was at work making some repairs. He had occasion to use a light, and having lighted his lamp, he