Notices sur les modèles, cartes et dessins relatifs aux travaux des ponts et chaussées réunies par les soins du Ministère des travaux publics
A French government catalogue of models, maps and drawings for public works and road-and-bridge engineering, issued by the Ministry of Public Works for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1878. The pictures are nomographs (graphical calculation charts) with dense grids, diagonal lines and numbered scales, showing how engineers read values off printed charts. A designer might take from them the look of precise technical diagrams built from fine rules, labelled axes and crossing guide lines.
