This section is from the book "The Engineer's And Mechanic's Encyclopaedia", by Luke Hebert. Also available from Amazon: Engineer's And Mechanic's Encyclopaedia.
An instrument employed by artificers and draftsmen for drawing ellipses. It consists of a cross with two grooves at right angles to each other, and a beam containing two pins that are made to traverse in the grooves by the revolution of the bar; the bar carries a pencil that describes an ellipse.
 
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