on this paper with the style, producing an
embossment sufficient to be felt by the finger
of the blind pupil. The leather recovers its
former smoothness in a short time, and is
ready for further service.

Several other exhibitors displayed the
results of their ingenuity in this class of
invention. Thus M. Legrand, of Paris, had
type-plates to print in relief. M. Marchesi,
of Lodi, had a writing machine, producing
the characters in black or in relief; the
letters were formed with pin-points. Messrs.
Fehr and Eisenring, of Augsburg, had a
system of metal plates, with letters and
characters in relief, something similar to that of
Legrand. Mr. Hughes displayed a machine
for writing in raised characters without types;
a machine to write with a pen or pencil in
skeleton Roman capitals; a machine to practise
arithmetic by tangible characters; and a
machine for writing and copying music on
paper. Mr. Gall, of Edinburgh, one of the
most successful caterers for the Blind,
exhibited specimens of his triangular alphabet
as well as his writing apparatus. This
consists of a stuffed frame, on which the
paper is placed; a cover, with bars to guide
the lines; and small stamps, with the letters
formed of common pins, which are pricked
through the paper and read on the opposite
side. By means of certain register-points the
paper may be written or pricked on both
surfaces without confusion.

Nor did the various Institutions fail to
afford illustration of the modes in which their
useful labours are conducted. The Society
for Teaching the Blind to read whose asylum
is in Avenue Road, Regent's Park, exhibited
embossed books; cyphering boards, perforated
with square holes, in which simple types may
be placed; maps, in which cities, mountains,
rivers, and boundary lines are represented in
relief; geometrical boards; writing boards,
with provision for arranging the writing in
parallel lines; embossed music, in which the
characters are so shaped as to indicate the
duration as well as the pitch of each note,
thereby dispensing with the necessity for the
staff; and chess-boards and men, in which the
black squares are distinguished from the
white by being raised, and the black pieces
distinguished from the white by having
points at the top. The Edinburgh School for
the Blind, in like manner, exhibited many
ingenious contrivances; among which were
Dr. Foulis's tangible ink, which contains so
large a quantity of solid matter, as to leave
a tangible deposit on the paper; Foulis's
manuscript music notation, in which the
whole of the music characters can be
represented by common pins stuck into a pin-
cushion, with cords run through to represent
the staff; and Mr. Gall's system of arithmetic,
with which a blind person can easily make
calculations, by simply sticking a few pins
into a pillow or the seat of a chair.

In all these excellent contrivances there
is apparatus, more or less simple, by which
a blind person may obtain instruction in
various branches of knowledge: and there
is no reason why they should not all
continue to be employed. But now comes the
difficulty.  We may print our thoughts by
a hundred different contrivances; but in
what language shall the printing be effected?
A blind man may be taught to read; but in
what character, alphabet, symbol, or cipher,
shall the teaching be rendered ? These are
important questions.

The first book printed in relief for the
use of the blind was prepared by M. Haiiy,
at Paris, in one thousand seven hundred and
eighty-four. He tried various forms of letter,
and ultimately decided on an alphabet neither
Roman nor italic, but something midway
between the two, with the usual mixture of
capitals and small letters. He thus printed
or embossed a grammar, a catechism, and
other small books: stamping each leaf so
distinctly, that the protuberances could be
felt on the other side. It was afterwards
found that the letters wanted the sharpness
and permanence essential to their tangibility.
M. Haiiy was succeeded by Dr. Guillié
in the management of the Blind Asylum at Paris.
The latter modified the alphabet a little, and
printed about twenty expensive folio volumes
—which have since, in great part, been sold
as waste paper, on account chiefly of the
unreadableness of the embossing. Recently
ten or a dozen quarto volumes of useful
works, at five francs per volume, have been
prepared and published by M. Dufau, whose
system is at the present time the one adopted
in France.

After the adoption and gradual abolition of
several systems in Russia, Sweden, France,
Belgium, Prussia, Austria, and Switzerland,
small Roman type, with or without capitals,
is now in use in those countries for Blind
readers.

In England, Mr. James Gall, of
Edinburgh, about the year one thousand eight
hundred and twenty-six, produced a new
embossed alphabet. There were reasons,
satisfactory to his own mind, against the
adoption of the Roman or the italic or any
usual alphabet, and for the adoption of a
new and more angular form of letters. No
curves whatever were admitted into Mr.
Gall's alphabet. Some of the letters resembled
Roman capitals nearly, while others bore
a greater similarity to ancient Egyptian or
Assyrian letters. Mr. Gall considered that
his letters could be easily felt and read by
blind persons, a circumstance which seemed
to him so important as to neutralize all
objections on other grounds. His earliest book
was printed with wooden types; but he
afterwards employed types of metal. At first
his letters were smooth; but he subsequently
made them serrated or fretted, to render
them more tangible. He next printed a book
in small Roman, without any capitals, to