Morning journal and courier., 1883-02-13
How Cable Messages arc Received.
From the Scientific American

Until the fore part of November the French cable, having it's terminus at North Eastman, Mass, employed the fash system of signaliz- ing Now the cable is worked duplex on the Sterns system, using an automatic recorder by which the messages are received in ink on a narrow slip of paper.
 By the system which has been displaced the messages were spelled out by flashing rays of light back and forth across standard line, the right and left flashes corresponding with the dots and dashes of the ordinary tel egraphic alphabet.
 In this system the light is flashed by re- Aection from an extremely light mirror, which is turned to right and left by the op- posing influence of positive and negative inn pulses This system hss the advantage of being operated with very slight impulses, but also the disadvantage of leaving no perma- nent record.
 To secure the latter very important end, the recording instrument has been adopted. The press dispatch announcing the change states that in the new record the ink is dis charged by the agency of electricity being now similarly employed in the recording in- struments used at Hearts Content, the New foundland station of the Anglo American company's cables.
 A recent visitor to the Hearts Content de- scribes as follows the method of receiving messages at that point "The recorder is @
 
 circle of fine wire; and attracting a small metallic coil The coil is hung between the magnet poles, and by light lever and a thread almost es fine as the strand of a cobweb is connected with delicate siphon hung in little reservoir of ink. The ink is electrified, so as to produce repulsion of the particles, making it flow more readily through the siphon, which outside is about the size of alarming needle, and the inte- rior tube scarcely larger than hair. The lower end of the siphon rests against paper tape playing perpendieularly through rollers The whole machine is almost of gossamer fneness and hexibility, so as to minimize the electric strain necessary for working the cable.
 Iet us imagine now that coming message has been sienalled from far across the ocean at Valentia The operator at first opens the simpIe machinery that works the brass roll CTS On the center of the tape, as It passes between the rollers, the slphen at first marks only a straight line. Suddenly the line line, sverves to the right or left The mes sage has started and the end of the siphon has begun it's record. Worked by two keys, and positively or negatively electrified. the coil swings the siphon point now to one side, now to the other. along the tape. Respon- siye to the trained hand of the operator, the iIament of ink marks out on one notch, two aotches, three notches, then suddenly it may De high elevation or depression until the delicate line traced on the tape looks like the iny outline of mountain range. But it is range whose every hilltop, peak and valley, l mean an alphabetical symbol to the tele- 1 yrapher's eyes. The recorder is the inven- | ion of the famous electrician, Sir William | Thompson. How delicate an interpreter it is | nav be referred from the fact that ten jars | york 1. 800 miles of cable between Valentia | md Hearts Content, while twenty-five jars | ,f the same electric power would be needed | Q work $50 miles of land wire, in other | words, the recorder is more than twelve times | E efficient for it's purpose as the ordinary l Horse instrument. The recorder traces its | haracters on the tape about as fast as . slow | ,ennan copies letter. Besides it's delicacy # work, the recorder, as it's name imports, las the name of leaving the record of the message.