converse with each other, and the greatest difficulty in the way of a
deaf-mute becoming a telegraph operator, that of receiving messages,
would be removed. The latter possibilities are incidentally mentioned
merely as of scientific interest, and not because of their immediate
practical value. The first mentioned use to which the device may be
applied is the one considered by the writer as possibly of practical
value, the consideration of which suggested the appliance to him.]

An alphabet is formed upon the palm of the left hand and the inner side
of the fingers, as shown by the accompanying cut, which, to those
becoming familiar with it, requires but a touch upon a certain point of
the hand to indicate a certain letter of the alphabet.

A rapid succession of touches upon various points of the hand is all
that is necessary in spelling a sentence. The left hand is the one upon
which the imaginary alphabet is formed, merely to leave the right hand
free to operate without change of position when two persons only are
conversing face to face.

The formation of the alphabet here figured is on the same principle as
one invented by George Dalgarno, a Scottish schoolmaster, in the year
1680, a cut of which maybe seen on page 19 of vol. ix. of the _Annals_,
accompanying the reprint of a work entitled "_Didascalocophus_."
Dalgarno's idea could only have been an alphabet to be used in
conversation between two persons _tête à tête_, and--except to a limited
extent in the Horace Mann School and in Professor Bell's teaching--has
not come into service in the instruction of deaf-mutes or as a means of
conversation. There seems to have been no special design or system in
the arrangement of the alphabet into groups of letters oftenest
appearing together, and in several instances the proximity would