WRITING-MACHINES FOR THE BLIND. 



647 



been invented in which the writer traces with a pencil the char- 

 acters of the usual alphabet, assisting his pencil by guides pierced 

 with openings. In the German system of Heboid, the letters are 

 written in squares that are notched in each side. In the English 

 Moon tablet, which is composed of narrow strips of wood glued 



Fig. 3.— Games for the Use op the Blind. 1. Portress. 2. Go bang, 'd and 4. Pawns. 5. Chess. 

 6. Checkers. 7 and 8. White and black checker-pieces. 9 and 10. Needles for the blind (much 

 magnified). 



upon cloth, the strips serve as rulers, or guides, along the edge of 

 which the line is written, each one being rolled up when the line 

 is finished, to give place to the next strip at the proper interval 

 for the next line. Pencil-writing has likewise been studied by 

 Guldberg in Denmark, Galimberti in Italy, and Bourgougnon in 

 France. Valentin Haiiy devised a method of pencil-writing by 

 placing the paper upon a frame, in the interior of which were 

 stretched parallel cords of catgut ; between these cords may be 

 traced signs of corresponding height. In Duphan's instrument 

 narrow strips of cardboard are pasted at equal distances upon a 

 thicker sheet. The paper having been placed upon this widely 

 furrowed tablet, the blind writer feels with the point of his pencil 

 the edges of the strips that are in relief. 



None of these systems, however, permit the blind man to revise 

 what he has written. A writing in relief is what is wanted, which 

 should be readable by seeing persons not initiated in the Braille 

 system, and which the blind man too could trace and read with 

 facility. Such a system is provided in the stylography which the 

 Count de Beaufort has invented (Fig. 2, No, 8). The apparatus, or 

 stylograph, is of the simplest character, and can be made at home 

 by almost any one. Cover a sheet of paper with a piece of thick 

 cotton cloth ; stretch this sheet over a series of parallel horizontal 

 wires or cords about four millimetres apart ; place upon this tablet 



