THE WRITING TELEGRAPH. A Description of a Marvellous English Invention.

Te Aroha News, 26 November 1887, Page 3

THE WRITING TELEGRAPH. A Description of a Marvellous English Invention.

Although automatic telegraphy ha 3 long been known, it has not, so far as we are aware, proved a commercial success, owing to the circumstance that the instruments used in conducting it are expensive, the system slow, and the synchronism unreliable. In this system the messages me iirot written with insulating ink on tinted paper, and fed into instruments whereby they are transmitted. At the other end they are re- ' ceiveel on chemically prepared paper, but the messages soon fade. A very pronounced improvement upon this system was made by Mr E. A. Cowper, C. E., some few years since in his writing telegraph. Hero the movement of a pen at tho sending station inti'oduccd varying resistances into two electric circuits connected with the receiving station. The varying currents acted upon two electro-magnets at tho latter station, and caused them to impart movements in two directions at an angle to each other to a receiving pen, which was > made to reproduce the writing formed by the sending pen. Mr Cowper, however, was not alone in his invention of the writing telegraph, for, as not unfrequently happens, another diligent worker was busy in the same direction and at the same time. This was Mr J. Hart Robertson, an American electrician, -who, without being aware of Mr Cowper's invention, produced an instrument on the same plan. Ho found, however, that it involved heavy expense in operating, and, pushing his research further, he in course of time produced an improved instrument). This is the writing telegraph which we recently saw in successful operation in the American Exhibition. The principle involved consists in changing the strength of the electric currents by tho movements of the pen when writing, varying the pressure on a series of carbon disks included in the circuits. By this means simplicity! greater speed, and the utmost accuracy in reproduction are secured. Both Mr Cowper's and Mr Robertsons inventions have become the property of the Writing Telegraph Company of New York, In this apparatus the transmitter consists of two series of carbon disks placed at right angles to each other in a hard rubber receptacle. Each pile of disk has a screw follower for adjusting the normal pressure of the disks on each other. A rod carrying the pen or stylus is pivoted at its lower end, and has pressure points opposite the piles of disks. Tho operator manipulates the stylus or pen as in writing, although he can only move the point of the stylus over a small circumbcribcd area. As the .stylus describes the various letters the pressure points are pressed against the carbon disks, and as this pressure is increased or diminished, varied currents are sent into the lines to the receiving magnets, which cause the receiving pen to reproduce every movement of the pen of the writer at the transmitting station. The receiving instrument consists of two electro-magnets set at light angles to each other. At the point where the poles would reach if extended is a rod for carrying the armatures. Near where the rod is pivoted at the bottom a spiing wire is inserted, so that its armatures can easily and quickly respond to the varying attraction of the electro-magnets. The armature rod extends above tho table and carries the recording pen. Each machine is both a sender and a receiver, and the working of the system is most simple. The operator at the sending station uses the stylus as a pen to form imaginary letters, words and sentences — in short to write. He sees the writing produced by the recording pen in ink en a slip of ordinary paper riband, which slowly passes before his eyes. At the receiving end the operator sees precisely tho same tiling going on, for the written message is being reproduced by the little pen, line for line, in perfect fac-simile, on a slip of paper passing before him. We thus have a really beautiful system of written messages and one which is already working commercially in the United States, where it is taking the place of the telephone with marked success. Instead of repeated shouting and comparative publicity of the telephone, the message is written by the sender and the visible answer received in perfect j quiet. But should tho surroundings be noisy it matters not*, for the little pen silently writes away regardless of noise of any kind. The writing at both ends has all the characteristics of the writing of the sender, and the message constitutes a record which cannot be disputed, and is therefore invaluable to business men. There is a fac-simile record at each end, and neither of them can be altered without detection. The invention is at once ingenious and practical, and is the completed expression of the longcherished desire to produce a writing telegraph.