154. Other ways have been thought of to secure
the same end. The most convenient is that we shall
call corbeille-d-bec (basket with a beak), which consists
in adapting to the basket an inclined piece of wood in
the position of the bowsprit of a vessel. Through a
hole pierced in the end of this stick or beak a pencil
is passed, long enough for the point to rest on the
paper. The medium having his fingers on the edge
of the basket, the whole machine is moved, and the
pencil writes as in the above case, with this difference,
that the writing is, in general, more legible, the words
separated, and the lines are not so spiral, the medium
easily taking the pencil from one line to another.
Dissertations of several pages are obtained in this
way as rapidly as with the hand.
