His new method of making books being perfected, Mr. Ruggles next invented an entirely new map for the blind. It was made with a raised character, similar to his type; but arranged with such combinations that, at a trifling cost, he could produce a succession of maps of any size. Maps made in this way were never before known, and the Perkins Institute immediately issued, from this plan, an “Atlas” of the United States, and also a “General Atlas.” It would, by most persons, be thought impossible that separate type could be so contrived as to admit of their being arranged in such a manner as to produce a map of any country and then to use the same type to make a map of any other country. Yet all this was perfectly accomplished by this new invention--every piece of type matching its neighbor with miraculous cunning, while following the crooked lines and angles, or graceful curves of rivers, coasts, and islands, with which such works abound. He next produced the plates for a book on geometry, on a plan similar to his maps. These works proved very valuable and interesting to the blind--for with them they could pursue their studies without the assistance from seeing persons, which, before this, was necessary. In 1838 this gentleman went to Philadelphia, and established one of his powerful presses for printing for the blind in the Institution in that city; and a year or two later placed another press in the Institution for the Blind in the State of Virginia. The perfect success of his method for reducing the size and expense of books for the blind, inaugurated a new era in the history of this kind of work, and the books were rapidly multiplied throughout this country and Europe. On the opposite page is given a specimen of the types referred to, and which are now used for printing for the blind: the face, or white part of these letters, being raised in their books about one fortieth part of an inch above the surface of the paper. [Illustration: RAISED TYPE FOR THE BLIND] Steel-plate and copper-plate printing, together with the lithographic process, are modern inventions; but our limits confine us to glance only at a part of the processes used in the preparation of books.