Northern tribune. [volume] (Cheboygan, Mich.) 1875-1885, 1879-04-12
improvements in Telegraphfng.
From the Chicago Times. -'

The newspapers are publishing ac
counts of a new improvement in tele
graghy, whereby rapidity in transmlS.
sion is to be vastly augmented, and the
cost propOrtiOnately lessened. Theynew
system promises to send one thousand
words "A minute, with the further promise
that the expense viii not be much great
er than that which attends the carrying
Old OF correspondence by post. Many
other equally startling results are an
nounced, and which, If true, will reduce
the cost of collecting news for the news
paper press to figure but little more
than the cost of getting it together.
What is asserted with reference to this
so-called discovery may or may not be
true; if a pure invention, however, it
may be safely asserted as being simply a
little in advance Of what will be sure to
happen within very brief period. One
may be permitted to judge something OF
the future by what has occurred i'm the
past. The use of the electric telegraph
for the transmission of news is an in
yention within the memory OF men who
have not yet reached more than middle
age. Nearly all the prominent
characters connected with the labor of
giving this work to the world are still
living. And yet, within a generation,
the advance has been absolutely beyond
calculation. The earth is almost literally
Melted with wires; and the bottom of the
Atlantic ocean and the great inland seas
are covered with electric wires. The
simple Morse machine for transmitting
has been improved on, and reproduced
in score of different forms, each of
which meets some particular want in the
work of sending messages. Automatic
transmission, whereby one can send
a fac-simile of picture or a letter, has
long been in operation. Almost stimuli
tane0usly an American and an English
inventor have given publicity to a pro-
cess whereby what man writes with an
electric pen is reproduced in c-simile
ten or q thousand miles away. 80.
Chicago has given to the world quad
ruplex transmission, whereby the capac.
ity is increased four.fOld. 1t has also
given the world the telephone, or at
least has aided materially in the produce
ton of the colossal results connected
with the sending of vocal utterances,
Gray, Bell and Edison may all be credit
ed with equal honor and glory in this
marvellous result, although the main in
terest with the public is with the dis
cOYery and not especially with the dis
coverer. Herein has telegraphy-for the
telephone is merely branch i'm the sys-
tenn of communicating by, electricity
made O material advance, Much ofwhat
was formerly communicated by the com
paritively slow process of ). tie Morse
plan is now sent with the same f; Gil q,
that one carries on an ordinary CONVEX
sation.
From the original instrument opera
ting with dots and dashes over two wires
between Washington and Baltimore IT,
the receiving by sound, and then he
duplex and quadruplex system, and
thence to the telephone, is a long adj.
vance, beyond question; but there is no
reason to suppose it is any greater than
will be made within the next ten or fif-
teen years. All that is promised i'm the
way of rapid and cheap transportation is
not only possible, but probable. AS far
as we have advanced, there's every rea-
SON to suppose that i'm the matter of tel
egraphy we are simply on the threshold.
The day will come-in fact has come
when man, with the aid OF electricity, can
communicate anywhere with the same
ease and rapidity that now attends an
ordinary conversation. This applies to
limited distances; and its Improvement
will consist in the ObliteratiOn of dis
lance, and the cheapening of the ma
chinery employed in the transmission.
1t is not at all a matter of extravaganza
fancy to believe that some day soon the
houses of congress will have an immense
tympanum whose vibrations will CON-
muricate to every great newspaper Office
i'm the land each word of every debate:
and that it will be taken by shorthand
writer's i'm the various offices asldelivered.
One needs go but little further and