The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1905-02-04
MARVELLOUS MACHINE
INSTRUMENT THAT TRANSMITS
10000 WORDS AN HOUR.
Kilograms Turned Out from Machine
in ENTHUSIASTICALLY Aids
Process of Recording
Letters.

London.-The' average person can
write about 80 to IS words a minute.
la good typist can turn out about dou-
bile that amount.
There was exhibited at q hotel here
the other day a telegraph instrument
that can transmit messages n write
them out in the most legibie OF HAND
writing at the rate of more tina 4O,0oO
words an hour.
This is the latest, and, it would seem,
the greatest marvel of electric teleg-
raphy.
The fastest Geographic instrument at
present in operation Is the Wheatstone
automatic, which transmits kilograms
from city to city at the rate or zOO 10
1850 words a minute. But messages
when sent by this system still have to
Ebe translated from the Morse tele-
graphic language into ordinary IAN
iguage, and this can be done only at
ordinary writing speed. The new Pol
llak-Virag telegraph instrument trans
mits messages at nearly four times the
speed. and delivers them direct from the
instrument written in the plalnest Oh
ordinary copy book handwriting.
How it is done is a technical marvel
that takes an electrical expert to grasp
completely. but roughly simplifed he
system is a commonplace
First, the message to be transmitted
lis converted into Geographic dots n
FLASHES on a pe%rforator that looks like
an ordinary typewriter. This perforator
punches in a slip of paper a complicated
series of holes that correspond N cleo
trical impulses to the form of letters.
BY passing this slip over a series OF
%icylinders. electric wav find their way
through the prepared holes, quick as a
lightning flash, and are transmitted IN
simultaneously to the other end or the
wire, however far it is, and come out
in the same sequence in which they en-
tered. The manner in which the letters
are recorded is the marvel.
Photography is called in. The cleo
trio waves are conveyed to a little mir
,ror. and they make the mirror move IN
two Observation-Disclosures and vertical.
Electric light is focused on the mirror,
and then directed from it to a slip OF
sensitized paper.
The mirror moves only about the hun
,dredth part of a millimeter, and the ex-
posure of the sensitized paper is only
about the thousandth part Of a second,
but the lightning flash is quicker, and,
though the eye cannot follow the writ
ing. yet it appears plain as a pikestaf,
and without the possibility of an error,
lat the rate of almost Is words a Sec
lond.
The two motions-vertical and horl-
,zontal-with the motion OF the paper
being drawn before the finger of light
supply all the motions of handwriting
If produced slowly they would, of course,
lbe angular, but the speed makes them
practically curved. Developing and fl
ing the photographed message takes ten
seconds, so that the written message is
received ten seconds later than its trans
mission.
The system is so fast that it is really
ahead of the age. Very few towns, lei
alone individuals, want to telegraph
40, 1000 words an hour. Indeed, Austria
Hungary, the nome of the inventors
while enthusiastically indorsing the
invention, could not make use of it, be-
cause no two telegraph Offices in the en-
pire have enough work to keep it 60
going. They would have to save up tele-
grams for a week to keep the instru'
ment going ten minutes.
1t ought to prove Of immense value In
transmitting speeches from out-Qf-the-
way places, where few wires exist.