R. A. Daly — Machine-Made Line Drawings. 227 



Art. XVIII. — Machine-Made Line Drawings for the Illus- 

 tration of Scientific Papers; by R. A. Daly. 



It is safe to say that the majority of persons, who from time 

 to time publish scientific papers, are seriously hampered in the 

 preparation of text illustrations by the difficulty and expense 

 entailed in the tedious drawing of map, section or diagram. 

 Comparatively few authors can command the services of 

 skilled draughtsmen or have themselves the requisite training 

 to produce satisfactory line drawings. Yet the desirability of 

 greatly increasing the proportion of such illustrations in the 

 thousands of scientific articles published each year is manifest. 

 That clearness, precision and conciseness in the exposition of a 

 theme are generally enhanced by the use of abundant, appro- 

 priate diagrams is as evident as that the blackboard is the con- 

 stant friend of the teacher of any branch of natural history or 

 philosophy ; the printed page needs its blackboard. 



Ideally, the author should himself be able to make the 

 original drawing quickly, neatly and artistically. The usual 

 execution of drawing with the pen is, to the average author, 

 discouragingly slow and expensive, not always neat, and still 

 less often artistic. The following note relates to some experi- 

 ments made to increase rapidity and neatness in the production 

 of line drawings by the use of a machine. At the outset the 

 experiments were, for obvious reasons, planned without any 

 idea of rivalling the artistic work of the pen in a skilled hand. 

 The aim has been to secure economy of time in execution and 

 clear-cut precision of legend for the drawing. In both these 

 respects enough success has been attained to warrant the 

 recommendation of the machine method to geologists, geogra- 

 phers and others who desire to prepare useful text illustrations at 

 a minimum cost of labor. Some experimental drawings were 

 made and published in the Bulletins of the Museum of Com- 

 parative Zoology at Harvard College, vol. xxxviii, 1902, pis. 

 11, 12 and 13; in this Journal, August 1903, pp. 118 and 

 120 ; and in the American Geologist, August 1903, p. 66. The 

 machine there used was an ordinary Underwood typewriter 

 fitted with a black record silk ribbon. 



Recently the Hammond Typewriter Company of New York 

 has constructed, for the Geological Survey Department of 

 Canada, from the writer's specifications, a typewriter provided 

 with a carbon ribbon and with ninety special characters designed 

 for the preparation of line drawings to accompany geological 

 and geographical papers. The same machine can be similarly 

 used for statistical, engineering and other diagrams of a more or 



