Noctograph

The Noctograph is a 1806 and patented in London marketed by Ralph Wedgwood device that made ​​it possible to write at night or in blindness. The name is composed of " nox, noctis " = Latin for "night" and " graphein ", Greek " Write " for.

Operation

A sheet of paper was impregnated with ink and clamped after drying in a box or frame in the middle between two white sheets. The writer had only with a stylus on the upper white sheet " review" ( press better) and by the underlying carbon sheet, the font on the white lower leaf was visible. So he had to write not - as was customary - a spring dive into an inkwell.

Use

Practical application of Noctograph was probably mainly in blind people he made ​​it easier to take notes and participate in the correspondence. So used as the blind British adventurer and travel writer James Holman such a device to take notes on his travels. These formed the basis of his detailed travel reports.

Also the use of Noctographen by the equally blind American historian William Hickling Prescott, who wrote most of his books by means of such a device became known.

With the success of the fountain pen and the ballpoint pen of the Noctograph lost rapidly in importance.