The Democratic advocate., 1893-04-01
The Telautograph.

The New York correspondent of the
Philadelphia Ledger, under date of March
21 says:-The telautograph is the name
Of an invention almost as wonderful as the
phonograph, and which may prove to be
as useful as the telephone. Members of
the press were invited this afternoon to
inspect the invention, at the offices, No. 80
Broadway, of the Gray National Telauto-
graph Company, of which General T. NJ.
Logan is President All of those who in
spected the telautograph went away salts
fed that they had seen an invention which
will rank, as a marvel, with the telegraph,
the telephone, the cable, the electric light
and the phonograph. Whether it will
have as wide an application as the tele-
phone remains to be seen. This will de-
pend largely upon the liability of the ma
chimes to get out of order, and upon
whether the public, after trial Of both
methods, would finally decide that it is
better to write than to speak their messages.
The telautograph, however, is not necessa-
rily rival of the telephone. There is a
large use for both machines. 1t would
seem, however, to make the Morse alpha
bet useless. The telautograph is writing
telegraph. A man sits down at his desk
in New York and writes message to a
friend in Philadelphia. The latter re-
ceives the message in an exact fac simile
of the handwriting of the sender. This
operation requires no skilled labor Any
one who can write can send message,
and, provided there is an electric wire con-
Meeting them and two transmitters and
receivers, two persons can carry on cor
respondence, though thousands of miles
apart and every stroke Of the pen will be
exactly and instantaneously reproduced
over that distance. The structure of these
instruments seems to be remarkably simple
In the transmitter an ordinary lead pencil
is used, near the point of which two silk
cords are fastened at right angles to each
other These cords connect with the in
strument, and, following the motions of the
pencil, regulate the current impulses which
control the receiving pen at the distant
station. The writing is done on ordinary
paper - five inches wide-conveniently
arranged on roll attached to the machine
A lever at the left is SO moved by the hand
as to shift the paper forward mechanically
at the transmitter, and electrically at the
receiver. The receiving pen is capillary
glass tube placed at the junction of two
aluminium arms. This glass pen is sup
piled with ink which flows, from reser-
voir, through a small rubber tube placed
in one of these arms. The electrical i'm.
pulses, coming over the wire, move the pen
of the receiver simultaneously with the
movements of the pencil in the hand Of
the sender. As the pen passes over the
paper an ink tracing is left which is always
a fac simile of the sender's motions, whether
in the formation of letters, words, figures
signs or sketches. 1t follows, therefore
that every movement of the sender is repro
duced by the receiving instrument, so that
it is just as easy to send free hand por
trait or other drawing by electricity as il
is to send the dots and dashes of the Morse
alphabet. This was demonstrated at today's
trial While the transmission was over ;
short distance, being between instruments
placed in adjoining rooms, the principle
was clearly shown, and there can be little
doubt that, at least as far as the human
voice can be transmitted over telephone
the telautograph can be worked. Among
the advantages claimed for the telautograph
is the fact that both sender and receiver
have records Of every message and reply
There can be no mistake. The sender
cannot complain of errors-there is his
message in black and white, Then, SO
long as there Is receiving instrument, it
makes nc difference whether there is re-
ceiving person present or not. The mes
sage can be sent the same, and will be
found by the receiver when he reaches his
Office, as If he had just got the communities
ton through the mails. The telautograph
works noiselessly and insures secret service,
and the line cannot be SO tapped as to steal
a message, The telautograph is the inven-
ton of Professor Elisha Gray, already made
famous by his other electrical inventions.
It is easy to see to what wide uses this
invention can be put, provided the machine
can stand the test of hard practical and
continuous work. It takes years of expe-
rience to make an expert telegraph oper-
ator, but this machine, which can be worked
by child, may dispense with the necessity
of his services. 1t may be said to make
the Western Union Telegraph Company
independent of its thousands of skilled Ia
borers. To newspaper man the possibil-
tiles Of the telautograph is a subject Of
absorbing interest By its use he could
send his own dispatches, and they would
reach his newspaper In his own handwrit-
ing, with paragraphs, punctuation, quota
tion marks, spelling and all, just as he wrote
his copy. Then he could transmit his
sketches the same as written words, and
pictures of fire in Chicago, actually drawn
on the spot, could be sent to New York SO
as to appear iu the next days paper. But
of course, all this depends on how the tel