and Description of the Eidograph. 421 



King and the Academy. In this state it was taken up by Adams 

 (the father of George) the English Instrument-maker, who gave 

 it nearly the form it has at the present day. Montucla having 

 said that the preface to Scheiner's book is very curious, I 

 was desirous to see the work. It must be rare, for I could 

 not find a copy in any of our Edinburgh public libraries. At 

 length I found one in the Catalogue of the University Library 

 of St Andrew's, from which, by courtesy, it was lent to me. I 

 found the preface, or rather the first chapter, very curious indeed. 

 I have shewn to several friends, members of this Society, a trans- 

 lation of it, who entertain the same opinion ; and it has been sug- 

 gested, that in this communication, in which I propose to de- 

 scribe an instrument for a like purpose, I may not improperly 

 give the most interesting part of Scheiner's own account of his 

 invention. 



Translation of a part of the first Chapter of Scheiner's work, enti- 

 tled " Pantographice, seu Ars delineandi res quaslibet per Pa- 

 rallelogramum lineare seu Cavum, Mechanicum* mobile," &c. 



" Being, in the year 1603, a professor in the celebrated Ger- 

 man Academy at DiUingen, where I taught in general polite 

 literature, but sometimes also mathematical science, I contracted 

 a friendship with an excellent painter named Georgius, a man 

 lame and deformed, from whom I learned some secrets of the 

 arts and of nature, and communicated some discoveries of my own 



in return. 



" This person boasted to me of possessing an admirable inven- 

 tion, namely, a compendious method of delineating any object, 

 most easy, sure, and speedy to practise ; so that whoever would 

 take a drawing from any original, did it by regarding the origi- 

 nal alone, without needing to look at the copy he made, and yet 

 without erring in his delineation by one hair's-breadth. He de- 



3h 2 



