all the styles connected with it.  By these impulses, produced by the will of the sender, the styles are driven upward with a quick motion, but with only sufficient force to be felt and located upon the hand by the recipient.  Twenty-six of these principal or primary wires are run from the teacher’s desk (there connected with as many buttons) under the floor along the line of pupils’ desks.  From each matrix upon the desk run twenty-six secondary wires down to and severally connecting with the twenty-six primary wires under the floor.  The whole system of wires is incased so as to be out of sight and possibility of contact with foreign substances.  The keys or buttons upon the desk of the teacher are systematically arranged, somewhat after the order of those of the type writer, which allows the use of either one or both hands of the operator, and of the greatest attainable speed in manipulation.  The buttons are labeled “a,” “b,” “c,” etc., to “z,” and an electric current over the primary wire running from a certain button (say the one labeled “a”) affects only those secondary wires connected with the styles that, when excited, produce upon the particular spot of the hands of the receivers the tactile impression to be interpreted as “a.”  And so, whenever the sender touches any of the buttons on his desk, immediately each member of the class feels upon the palm of his hand the impression meant to be conveyed.  The contrivance will admit of being operated with as great rapidity as it is probable human dexterity could achieve, i.e., as the strokes of an electric bell.  It was first thought of conveying the impressions directly by slight electric shocks, without the intervention of further mechanical apparatus, but owing to a doubt as to the physical effect that might be produced upon the persons receiving, and as to whether the nerves might not in time become partly paralyzed or so inured to the effect as to require a stronger and stronger current, that idea was abandoned, and the one described adopted.  A diagram of the apparatus was submitted to a skillful electrical engineer and machinist of Hartford, who gave as his opinion that the scheme was entirely feasible, and that a simple and comparatively inexpensive mechanism would produce the desired result.

[Illustration:  TOUCH TRANSMISSION BY ELECTRICITY.]

The matter now to consider, and the one of greater interest to the teacher of deaf children, is, Of what utility can the device be in the instruction of deaf-mutes?  What advantage is there, not found in the prevailing methods of communication with the deaf, i.e., by gestures, dactylology, speech and speech-reading, and writing?