The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1885-06-26
ANOTHER TRIUMPH.
TYPOGRAPHY REvolUTloNlzED AND
THE TELEPHONE suppLANTep.
any One Capable of Manipulating Type
writer May Easily Transmit and Re-
ceive Messages Over Tele-
graph Wire Details.
New York world.l

NEW York World.l l
A new application of electric science has
been made here that promises to go far
toward revoiutionizing telegraphy and SUD-
planting the telephone in popular favor. 1t
is nothing less than the discovery Of means
by which body capable of manipulating
an ordinary type-writing machine may,
with equal ease, rapidity, and precision,
send and receive messages over a telegraphic
wire. Should this invention do all that is
claimed for it, and, indeed that it seems
fully capable of, there seems to be no good I
reason why the places of expert Morse tel.
egraphers may not be filed everywhere by
girls, clerks, expressmen, station agents
and other non-experts, so at once re-
ducing greatly to the public the cost of tel
egraphy and increasing facilities by the es.
Establishment Of at least 40, 900 new telegraph |
offices throughout the country in places |
where they have not heretofore been. For |
reasons best known TO the company control |
ling this most important invention its opera
tons have until now been kept a secret |
The office and operating rooms, have been
carefully guarded against reporters, and
the men interested have been as close
mouthed as if it had been political mystery
instead OF step in progressive science that
they were concealing However, the writer
found means to be present at series Of ex-
ceedingly interesting tests of the practica-
bility of the new system, which constituted
an entirely private exhibition.
The distinguishing features of the new sys-
tenn, are the entirely novel transmitter and
receiver employed. Those two instruments,
although put near together here upon a ia
, BILE, have between them about hundred
miles of ordinary telegraph wire coiled about
the room, through which their connection Is
| made. In point of fact the transmitter and
the receiver are exactly alike, the same ma
chine serving for either use as required. Is
| front is almost the same as the keyboard Of
! q caligraph or typewriter, the letters of the
aphabet and the numerals are in high relief
| Behind this is vertical column, around
which blank paper is placed and by a
simple mechanical device moved up line by
line as desired. The paper almost touches
the lettered face of tho wheel A small ink
ing roller governed by a spring supplies
color to the lettered wheel Inside toe
column is small hammer that strikes the
paper against whatever letter may be
directly before it and so prints it upon the
surface of the paper. All that seems simple
enough.
The mystery is below, in the intricate and
delicate electrical attachments which vart
on>ly graduated currents are led over the
thirty eight or forty wires from the keys Il
the printing apparatus, and at the samG
time IT, q connected instrument far away K
| record both simultaneously and with perfec
accuracy on every key that is struck. Th'
wire connecting the instrument is single
| l,,t ada1af tad fttFr
pass along it without confusion, but ever
meet in opposite directions at the same time
This was fully demonstrated in the tests
The touching of key instantly produced
D letter upon the paper of both instrument;
b | and letter after letter followed as rapidly a
q skillful typewriter operator could touc
= the keys until many messages had been e'
changed 1t was observed that the wheels
when retrogreSsion in the order OF the alpht
bet was necessitated, whirled clear back
a fixed point each time, as the wheel OF
"goIJ and stock Indicator" instrument doe
but it moved with, much greater rapidit
and SO little affected transmission that fort
10 fifty words per minute were easily sen
by a person who was not at all an exper
in and received automatically at the other en-
of the line without errors.
One of the gentlemen connected with II
new enterprise-one, by the way, Of hie
| standing as a practical electrician-sa
7 concerning the novel invention: "The di
tinctive advantages claimed by this syste
over all other Geographic, telephone al
nc TIVE writing Instruments are in its simp
and inexpensive construction and the eass
he | operating it. Any person who can read CT
e. transmit and receive messages through 1t
"a correctly as could the most experienced e
pert usingithe Morse instrument. II is as RAP
as 1t is accurate, and all messages by it
# ing automatically printed, both at t
"A point of transmission and that of receptio
IS they can be received with safety and rel
klity in the absence as well
to the presence of the recipiel
The recording of messages at both poiI
precludes all questions of errors in transm
sion. 1t cannot be read by sound, and
consequently the only method for preservi
privacy in electrical communication 1t
at once a stock indicator, telephone, a
type printing telegraph For railroad a
express companies, bankers, brokers, IN
chants, and all commercial purposes
being ad Unstable to any system OF wire co
municatlon and capable of working W
any number of tributaries-it Is or lnestl
able value. 1t is not verbal telephone,
will supersede that instrument by sllen
and rapidly recording all messages VI
paper. There are no formidable compli
tions in its construction, and 1t Is regart
= by expert electricians as wonder
achievement.