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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a sheet of paper, and with the stylus trace the letters of the usual 

 alphabet, rounding the angles and neglecting the connections. The 

 relief of the cords permits the letters to be made of equal height. 

 After a short period of training, lines of letters can be written in 

 intaglio for the blind man to read, by turning the paper over, in 

 relief. If any difficulty is met in writing inversely, let it be done 



Fig. 4.— Styluses. 1. Austrian hollow styluB. ?. Stylus for the Goldherg tablet. 3. Ballu's stylus 

 with an effacer. 4. Another model by Ballu, with a wooden iflfacer. 5 and 6. Common models. 

 7. Danish form. 



in the regular order, and the blind reader, who has been accus- 

 tomed to reverse his Braille characters, will have but little diffi- 

 culty in making them out in their inverse shape. 



Among other systems of writing for the blind, the most im- 

 portant is the English system, invented by Moon in 1847, and in 

 which the first journal for the blind was printed. The signs are 

 composed of points set very close together, or of lines in relief, re- 

 producing simplified forms of ordinary letters. The Braille system 

 has been introduced into England by Dr. Armitage, and is spread- 

 ing in the English colonies. Germany, where the usual writing 

 printed in relief was formerly used, definitely adopted the Braille 

 system in 1879. It has been introduced into Russia and the 

 Scandinavian countries. It is used exclusively in Italy, Belgium, 

 ■end a part of Switzerland, and has been adopted in a few schools 

 in the United States for music, while for the alphabet it has been 

 modified or other systems are used. 



The raphigrajjli is a machine devised by Braille and Foucault 

 to facilitate communication between the blind and seeing people. 

 It consists of a key-board with ten keys ending in needles and act- 



