IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR DRAWING
Year: 1862

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by George Davies at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 17th March
1862. A communication from abroad by Joséphin Soulary, of Paris,
France.
I, GEORGE DAVIES, of No. 1, Serle Street, Lincoln's Inn, in the County
of Middlesex, and No. 28, St. Enoch Square, in the City of Glasgow, Civil
Engineer and Patent Agent, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR DRAWING," (a communication to me
from abroad by Joséphin Soulary, of Paris, France,) to be as follows:
The apparatus (which the Inventor proposes to call the "stytograph") is
constructed in the following manner :-On a drawing board of the required
size a groove is to be cut at the top and bottom, at the edge of the wood, and
two horizontal rods or bars of steel, brass, or other metal are to be inserted
therein, and fixed at each corner to supports by means of a small screw, but
so as to leave them a certain amount of "play." On these rods are placed
two small guides or tubes of brass soldered to a piece of the same metal, in
which are placed upright two vertical parallel rods. In the centre of these
rods moves up and down a rod sliding above in the piece before named, at the
top of which is placed a style intended to follow the contour or form of the
object to be drawn. A small cap in which the lower end of the last named
rod is fixed, (and which itself, forms a slide on the two vertical rods,) carries
the pencil, which by means of a rack can be raised at will, and which rests
by its own weight on the paper. The style is fitted to a small support at a

page_text: distance from the moveable rod, it slides telescopically therein, and can be
raised and lowered at pleasure. An eye-piece mounted on hollow rods of brass
sliding one in the other or on thin blades of brass completes the apparatus.
An important arrangement of the apparatus consists in the employment of
two metrical scales, one placed against the upper face of the board in the
direction of the horizontal rod, and the other on the upper vertical rod, which
is itself graduated on the decimal system, or parallel to this rod on a metallic band
fixed at the two ends above and below to the vertical apparatus. A moveable
index placed on the upper sliding tube allows the pencil to mark on the
horizontal scale whilst the edge of the pencil cap itself forms an index on the
vertical scale. These arrangements make the instrument valuable to architects
who can with its aid make their sketches without recourse to the compass or
rule, straight, horizontal, and vertical lines being drawn by the simple movement
of the pencil with the exactitude of a square. In this mode of employing the
instrument the eye-piece and style are not required to be used. Painters and
draughtsmen also who require to make copies to a given reduced scale will
find this arrangement very useful. For taking panoramic views of any extent
the instrument is arranged as follows:-To one side of the board are fitted
rollers of light wood retained above and below by supports, and on which is
to be rolled endless paper. The rollers are divided into two pieces connected
together by metal rings, and between the joint of these two pieces the ends of
the sheet of paper are placed. The rollers are caused to revolve by a small
crank provided with a ratchet wheel...
By means of this arrangement when one view has been set out on the
paper the latter may be extended for a new view by rolling on to one roller
whilst it unrolls from the other. For this purpose the "stytograph" is mounted
on a foot capable of turning, which allows the operator to change the direc-
tion of the aspect without moving the foot or displacing the instrument. If
desired a small mariners' compass may be added for the purpose of taking the
relative bearings of various points in the panorama. The same instrument with
slight variations may be employed for the purpose of drawing or etching on
stone or metal, and may be used as a "camera lucida," a "camera obscura,"
a "pantograph," or a "diagraph."