The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-24 00:00:00

AUTOMATIC TELEGRAPHS.

The systems of telegraphic transmission in actual
use are limited to a code of signals representing the
letters of the alphabet, which happen to be the same
or similar to those employed in several other lan-
guages of continental Europe. Nevertheless, when
a message is to be received in a foreign language, it
is necessary, in order to prevent mistake, that the
employe should be well acquainted with the lan-
guage in question. However considerable might
be the collective acquirements of a staff of telegra-
phists, it is probable that a missive couched in
Hebrew, Arabic, or Sanscrit, might be the occasion
of considerable difficulty in translation and retrans-
lation before its transmission to a distance could be
effected. We do not here allow that the word
impossibility" should interfere with the legitimate
employment of the electric telegraph. But what
could we say to the antiquary who, in hot haste to
discover some hidden meaning, should bring to us
the hieroglyphics from an ancient tombstone for
transmission to some distant Champollion—intelli-
gible to him alone ? Should we not have to refuse
also the naive request of the young lady with the
piece of music, a sonata or an aria, for her dear
friend at St. Petersburg ? And this poor man,
defrauded to the extent of some few thousands by
the absconded delinquent whose unmistakeable por-
trait, sketched in outline by the heliograph, he
presents for immediate transmission to the Belgian
police authorities ? Certainly here we should have
to confess the present limits of our telegraphic art ;
which can transmit to a distance intelligence and
thought expressed in words, represented by the
letters of our alphabet, but not any pribouillages
that can be made upon paper or metallic foil. But
we might also bring to mind that many years ago
an English inventor of the name of Bakewell pro-
posed a system for transmitting autograph commu-
nications, which also was applicable to the repro-
duction of any thing that can beinscribed on paper.
In connexion with the subject we might also re-
member the name of M. Lucy Fossaricu, and, of
late, we should have heard of that of the Abbe 1
Caselli, the inventor of the pantelegraph.
Few of our readers would require to be informed
that by means of a telegraph wire and an accurately
synchronous clockwork movement at two distant
stations, it is both possible and easy to reproduce,
with mathematical exactitude, the characters which
may be traced at the transmitting station with a
non-conducting material upon a conducting strip of
metal in connexion with the line wire. Providing
the conditions as to wire and synchronous move-
ment remain perfect, the arrangements to this effect
are sufficiently simple. A metallic paint connected
with the battery transmits the current through the
conducting strip of metal and to the line wire, so
long as the circuit is not broken by the contact of
this metallic point with the lines traced in insulat-
ing ini. At the receiving station a chemical
change is produced by the electrical agency upon a
prepared strip of paper, traversed by a metallic point
in connection -with the line wire. At each interrup-
tion of the current the chemical action, which causes
a coloured line to be traced upon the paper, is ar-
rested. The synchronous movement of the metallic
foil, and of the prepared paper, causes the effect of
each interruption, occasioned by the insulating ink
upon the former, to be produced upon the latter
when the two stylets are in exactly the same rela-
tive pasition in regard to the surfaces which are re-
spectively traversed by them in a series of lines in
close proximity to each other. The characters are,
therefore, reproduced in white upon a coloured
ground. The result is sufficiently wonderful, occur-
ring as it does with great rapidity, to have occa-
sioned the encomiums bestowed upon the Italian
inventor by the Emperor of the French. But the
system is by no means new, and, we believe, ori-
g nated with our own countryman. It is stated
that the arrangementsoftheAbb
the
eCasevlliibrfaotriz-
curing isochronism, by means of
of two pendulums, are peculiarly perfeet;butthitosies
not asserted, on the other hand, that
of Mr. Bakewell were defective. no complete
success of the experiments which were made at
Florence appear to have been due in a great mea-
sure to the perfection of the instruments constructed
by M. Froment ; but we have little doubt that,
without interfering in any degree with the points
of novelty which may be peculiar to the Pantele
graph, our Henleys, Elliotts, and Britzains might
vindicate at the forthcoming International Exhibi-
tion our claim to an invention which, whether ap-
plicable or not in a practical point of view, is justly
regarded as one of the most beautiful applications
of electrical science. .Elec no t • '
an.