420 Prof. Wallace on the Invention of the Pantograph^ 



trical and Graphical Essays," by George Adams, printed in 1791, 

 I found it described under the name of a Pantographer. Adams 

 says, " I have not been able to ascertain who was the inventor 

 of this useful instrument. The earliest account I find is that of 

 the Jesuit Scheiner, in a small tract entitled, Pantographice, 

 sive ars nova delineandi." 



Adams must either never have looked into Scheiner' s book, 

 or assuredly must have forgotten what is in it : Montucla, h) 

 his Histoire des Mathematiques, says expressly that Scheiner 

 was the inventor. In enumerating this learned Jesuit's wri- 

 tings, he mentions his work called Pantographia, in which, he 

 says, the construction and use of the Pantograph is described ; 

 and he adds, " that, independently of his other writings (which 

 Montucla did not highly esteem), the invention of this instru- 

 ment alone ought to have given immortality to his name." 



Besides this notice of Montucla, and Scheiner's own book, 

 I have met with no other recorded testimony that he had the 

 merit of being the inventor of the Pantograph, although such 

 may exist. 



There is an instrument, exactly the same as Scheiner's, de- 

 scribed and figured in a folio work on Geometry and Perspective 

 (of which there were various editions), by Samuel Marolois, 

 who must have been his contemporary. There is also a figure 

 and description of a like instrument in a small book called Thau- 

 maturgus Mathematicus, printed in 1651 ; but in neither are we 

 told who was the inventor, nor is even a name given to the instru- 

 ment, although I have no doubt it was that of Scheiner's in- 

 vention. 



I see it described in B ion's treatise on Mathematical Instru- 

 ments (edit. 1723), where it is called the Pentagraph : and again, 

 in the History of the Academy of Sciences for 1793, where it is 

 called the Pantograph ; still the inventor is not named. In this 

 last mentioned work, some defects in its construction are pointed 

 out, and improvements suggested by Langlois, Engineer to the 



