A cyclograph is an instrument for drawing arc

Arc (geometry)

In geometry, an arc is a closed segment of a differentiable curve in the two-dimensional plane; for example, a circular arc is a segment of the circumference of a circle...

s of large diameter circle

Circle

A circle is a simple shape of Euclidean geometry consisting of those points in a plane that are a given distance from a given point, the centre. The distance between any of the points and the centre is called the radius....

s whose centres are inconveniently or inaccessibly located, one version of which was invented by Scottish architect and mathematician Peter Nicholson

Peter Nicholson (architect)

Peter Nicholson was a Scottish architect, mathematician and engineer. Largely self-taught, he was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker but soon abandoned his trade in favour of teaching and writing...

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Description

In his autobiography, published in 1904, polymath Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era....

 eloquently describes his own near re-invention of Nicholson's cyclograph while working as a civil engineer

Civil engineer

A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...

 for the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway

Birmingham and Gloucester Railway

The Birmingham and Gloucester Railway is a railway route linking Birmingham to Gloucester in England.It is one of the world's oldest main line railways and includes the famous Lickey Incline, a dead-straight stretch of track running up the 1-in-37 gradient of the Lickey Ridge...

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