All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

i82 All About Inventions of levers of the desired character rose to the common centre, and, gripping the paper, embossed the character. About the same time as Beach was carrying out his experiments, a French inventor, Pierre Foucault, who was a pupil of the Institution for the Blind in Paris, devised a machine with a curved keyboard which printed raised letters very successfully. When the letter had been embossed the paper was moved forward a space to receive the succeeding character, the action being effected by aid of a rack and pawl. This machine received a greater meed of attention than many of its contemporaries, several being built for blind institutions, and it attracted considerable attention at the Hyde Park Exhibition of 1851. Although the idea of writing mechanically was somewhat diverted from its original sphere between the years 1833 and i860 by the introduction of the telegraph and laudable attempts to improve the facilities for the convenience of the blind, attention was recalled to the business side of the idea by the work of another American investigator, Charles Thur- ber, of Worcester, Massachusetts, who devised an ingenious typewriter in 1843. This machine, although slow in operation, proved capable of doing very satisfactory work. It is worthy of notice because it embodied a feature to be found in every modern machine—letter spacing by automatic means through the movement of the paper carrier. Although this typewriter was more promising than any of its pre- decessors, it failed to arouse commercial enthusiasm. Only one machine survives as a monument to Thur- ber’s genius, and this is now carefully preserved in an American museum.