Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a printer and bookseller by trade, was inspired when he happened to read about the anatomy of the human ear in the course of his business. His phonautograph, invented between 1853-54, was constructed as an analog of the ear canal, eardrum and ossicles. Scott created several variations of the device. The functions of the ear canal and eardrum were simulated by a funnel-like horn or a small open-ended barrel with a flexible membrane of parchment or other suitable material stretched over the small end. A pig bristle or other very lightweight stylus was connected to the membrane, sometimes by an indirect linkage which roughly simulated the ossicles and served as an amplifying lever. The bristle traced a line through a thin coating of lampblack—finely divided carbon deposited by the flame of an oil or gas lamp—on a moving surface of paper or glass. The sound collected by the simulated ear and transmitted to the bristle caused the line to be modulated in accordance with the passing variations in air pressure, creating a graphic record of the sound waves.