History of the Typewriter

—179— will be seen, it consists of a keyboard having twenty keys, ten on each side of the central space-bar, arranged in fives in each of the two banks. Moreover, there is a shift-key, which varies the position of the paper in order to print figures and signs. Several keys may be depressed at once, and as a rule, little more than a single effort is necessary to print any word. y Fig. 135. The printing is by ordinary characters instead of arbi- trary signs, but in the case of phonetic pairs, such as FV SZ KG, etc., the sign printed is a new one, formed of a combination of its primitives, and such sign stands foi either one or the other character. Life, therefore, is written the same as live, and so on. In French shorthand, it is found that this dual significance does not materially affect the question of legibility, but the efforts of earlier short- hand inventors in this country, who essayed the construc- tion of systems upon a similar basis, would not seem to indicate the adaptability of the Stenophile to the repre- sentation of English with any degree of legibility. (4). Machines for the Use of the Blind. We have in several places in this volume pointed out how the earlier efforts of typewriter inventors were directed to the discovery of some means whereby the sightless were to be enabled to commit their thoughts and wishes to