The use of the Arabic character also corresponds very nearly to the geographical limits of the Mohammedan religion. Seven languages written in this character are represented, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Sart, Urdu, Malay and Tartar. Of all the languages now written on the typewriter, the Arabic group presented the gravest mechanical difficulties. The Arabic character, as written, is not subject to any of the usual rules. It has in its complete alphabet over one hundred individual characters; it writes backwards, i.e., from right to left; the characters are written on the line, above the line and below the line, and they are of various widths, requiring full spacing, half spacing and no spacing at all. Here indeed was a medley of problems well calculated to tax ingenuity to the limit, and the Arabic typewriter is a crowning triumph of mechanical skill. The Hindu group shows the ancient Sanscrit and four modern Hindu vernacular languages written in the same character, which is known as Devanagari. These vernacular languages are Hindi, Marawari, Magadhi, and Marathi. The Hindu vernacular machines, especially the Marathi, are having a considerable sale today among the native princes and potentates of British India. The Japanese (Katakana) sample is interesting mainly as a curiosity. It does not write the complete Japanese language--only the syllabic system known as Katakana. This is read from right to left in perpendicular columns. In order to write this character on the horizontal lines of the typewriter, the type are laid on their faces and, in reading, the lines are held in perpendicular position. After reviewing this formidable list of eighty-four languages, the question naturally arises, "Are there any written languages that it does not include?" Yes, there are, and this collection of typewritten samples has steadily grown until it now includes more than 150 languages, while the number of different non-Roman characters now written on the typewriter has increased from eight to twenty. There are two important languages, however, which still lie outside the pale of the writing machine. These are the ideographic languages, Chinese and Japanese. The ancient Japanese language was originally phonetic, but the syllabic signs are now commonly intermixed with ideographic characters of Chinese origin. Chinese is a strange language. It has no alphabet or phonetic signs--only ideographs. These ideographs are literally word pictures, and there is a separate picture for every word. There are from 40,000 to 50,000 of these ideographs, and to write each one at a single stroke would require a typewriter with many thousands of keys. Can the problem ever be solved of writing this language on a practical typewriter? Some inventors claim they have already solved it. It seems hard to credit, but the typewriter developments of the past and present warn us not to call anything impossible that is demanded of the writing machine.