The Telautograph.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XIX, Issue 6045, 10 September 1894, Page 4

The Telautograph.

One of the most interesting of the exhibits at the recent conversazione of the Royal Society, London, was Elisha Gray's telautograph. It has been minutely tested by several practical men, with results which incline them to think that if certain defects could be remedied, this latest of the applications of electricity has a great future. For the present, however, its power of transmittal is so short as to render it of little importance in despatching replicas of drawings. In America there is, we believe, a line 14 miles in length, over which " telautograms" have been sent; but that is, of course, unless under certain military or other contingencies, of little value to the man in a hurry. Its principle is that an outline drawn by one stylographic pen on the transmitter is automatically followed by another on the receiver. The second outlines seem rather feebler than the first, and as the pen cannot well leave the paper, shading is out of the question. What is more, mistakes cannot be corrected, and as the pen is attached to a couple of stiffly drawn wires, the drawing, which requires a very expert hand, is necessarily very cramped. This difficulty, it is hoped, may be got over, and, indeed, is surmountable by the drawing being executed beforehand, and traced over line by line with the telautographic pen. Still, unless the drawing can be transmitted with something of the ease, and, at all events, for a distance approximating to that which is abridged by the telegraph, the new instrument, ingenious though it is, if not new in principle, must for the present remain, _ what so many electrical appliances are, little better than a scientific toy.