MILLION HAMMER BLOWS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21215, 22 December 1930, Page 11

MILLION HAMMER BLOWS.

WORLD OF THE BUND. MAKING BRAIDLB MAPS. - work more than x,000,000 - hammer blows by expert embossers, has been expended by the National Institute lor the Blind on (be preparation of a school geography for blind boys and girls. The book U one dealing with the British Isles, In the “ Human Geography ” series, and although of modest size in the printed edition it occupies seven large volumes, weighing 231 b, when transcribed Into Braille, ■ llfl ps aad diagrams are an Important lea tore of the work, and it was on these that the Inetitate'ij late embosser spent the last three year, of his life. At the time of his death last year ho had completed only 114 of the 120 needed to iilus : trate the book, and another mechanic had then to b» trained lo emboss the remaining six. The work U expressing the illustrations in such a way that they could be readily understood by blind children demanded specialist treatment. In any Braille picture a line U actually a line of dots; but in the case of these diagrams the lines varied in thickness, and bad therefore to be formed of bigger or smaller dots respectively. A coastline, for example, was usually heavier than one indicating the boundary of a county, and the “tint” of dots indicating the sea had to bo shown lighter than that intended to indicate mountain ranges. More than 80 sizes of punches were needed to express these varying degrees of “ colour.” At least three blows with the embossers' hammer were required to make each dot, and, as the ordinary diagram contains between 3000 and 5000 of these dots, It is evident that the embossers must have struck more than 1,000,000 hammer blows in the course of their Work on this one book.