The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1900-07-26
A MARVELLOUS INVENTION.
zalmon c. sholes. Former Kenosba Boy
will Revolutionize Telegraphy.

will Revolutionize Telegraphy
In the world of invention Za1mon G..
Sho1es, a former resident of Kenosha,
has taken a leading place, for on last
Saturday Mr.. Sho1es gave to the world
an instrument which is destined to
revolutionize the telegraph business of
the world. The invention is the joint
work of Mr.. Sho1es and Alfred G. Gil
more, of Chicago, and is given to the
world only after FIVE years of tire1ess
labor. The invention is an instrument
which will transmit messages in type
written form from one Office to an
other. 1t is IN the shape of type
writer and is worked in such manner
that as the operator writes the mes
sage in one city it is turned out in the
same form in another city thousands of
miles away. The machine is exceed
ing1y simple and has long been the
dream of inventors. In the machine
the letters Of the typewriter are repre-
scented by dots and dashes produced by
electricity. At one end of the wire the
typewriter is set up and at the far end
of the wire the only service required of
the agent of the telegraph company is
to take the written message out of the
instrument and see that it is sent to
the person for whom it is intended.
Skilled electricians to keeplthe tele-
graph system in working order will
still be needed under the new methods,
but telegraph operators, as a skilled
class of employees, will have been in
vented out of existence.
The instruments in their present
perfected form represent five years
work on the part of the inventors.
They were recently tested over cir
cult of 265 miles of wire, belonging to
the Central Union Telephone Com
pany, connecting Bloomington,
Sprinfe1d and Peoria, and worked as
perfectly as they had on short dis
lance tests in Chicago. This week
Mr.. Sholes starts with the machines
for New York, and after long distance
tests he will take them to Boston,
where experiments over theasAt1antic
cables will be made. Then he will
consider that they are ready to put on
the market, and will offer them to te1e-
graph companies for daily use.
The great feature of the invention is
that while it receives and delivers it's
messages in the ordinary alphabet
spelling, it transmits them by the use of
the Morse te1egraphic alphabet of dots
and dashes. The transmitter turns
each letter, figure or punctuation
point into dots and dashes, and the re-
ceiver, which contains an instrument
called a "se1ecter," turns the dots and
dashes back into the ordinary signs.
In appearance the transmitting in
strument is much like Can ordinary
typewriter. IT contains, however, a
shaft, along which raised brass points
corresponding to dots and dashes are
grouped, and which is the"center of
the whole device. Each letter or sign
has it's own place on the. shaft, the
dots and dashes which compose it run
ming around the shaft in circle.
When one of the keys of the instru-
ment is pressed d contact brush, such
as is common in other electric instru-
ments, is brought into touch.with the
shaft at the point where7the cores
ponding letter isslocated.
Za1mon G. Sho1es is the son of G.
Latham Sho1es, formerly an editor of
the TELEGRAPH-CoURIE He was
born in Kenosha and spent much of
his early life here. His brother, Louis
SHOES, is now connected with the A.
D. Meise1bach company. Sho1es comes
of a family of inventors, his father
having been the inventor of the mod
ern writing machine. He was named
after the Hon. z. G.. Simmons of this
city.