IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHS
Year: 1865

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Harry Whiteside Cook at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 10th March
1865. A communication from abroad by Gaetano Bonelli, of Turin, in
the Kingdom of Italy.
I, HARRY WHITESIDE COOK, of Angel Court, Throgmorton Street, in the
City of London, Gentleman, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHS," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to improvements in the Chevalier Bonelli's well
known system of typo-telegraphy, by which improvements he is enabled to
obtain with one wire and in other respects the same apparatus, many of the
advantages he obtained by the use of several wires, the message however
being printed in symbols instead of Roman characters, as is the case when
several wires are used. The symbol types are fitted to the instrument in
precisely the same manner as the ordinary Roman type when such are used,
and the apparatus is worked in the same manner.
The signals are produced on prepared paper by means of an electric current
transmitted through the form of moveable metallic types or characters, which
are connected with a conducting wire, or with the earth, and passed under

page_text: two teeth connected with different poles of two batteries, the two remaining
poles of the batteries being connected with the earth if the type be connected
with the line; or with the line if the typé be connected with the earth, and so
arranged that when the type comes in contact with either of the aforesaid
teeth a circuit is completed through the line, which at the receiving end is
connected by means of the receiving instrument with the earth. The present
Invention (always using one wire only) substitutes a second line of dots
for the dashes of the Morse system, thus forming a symbolic alphabet,
and ensuring great rapidity and correctness in the transmission of the
message:
The types used for the purposes of the present Invention are provided at
one end; or on the side, with letters of the ordinary characters, and at the
other with the conventional symbol; consisting of an arrangement of dots
which it is intended to produco on the prepared paper at the receiving
station. The types are set up with the ordinary characters uppermost,
so that the message may be read before the types are placed in the
telegraphic apparatus, and thereby all risk of mistakes may be prevented.
The types are then turned over, and the symbols will be transmitted by the
telegraphic instrument:
The use of two batteries at the transmitting station renders possible the
production of two lines of dots at the receiving station in the following
manner-The arrangement of parts above described being made at the
transmitting station, the prepared paper at the other end is laid on an insulated
conductor and passed under two teeth, the one connected with the earth and
the other with the line. It will now be seen that if a point on the trans-
initting type comes in contact with the tooth connected with one battery, a
positive current will be sent down one of the teeth resting on the paper at the
receiving station and up the other; but if the contact at the transmitting
station be made by means of a point coming into contact with the tooth
connected with the battery, a current will be sent in the opposite direction,
that is to say; down the tooth at the receiving end up which it passed in the
other case; and as only a positive current passing down a tooth into the paper
will produce a mark; the dots will be produced by the one or the other of
these points; according as the contact at the transmitting end was made by a
point in the line passing under one tooth or in that passing under the other;
by this means the required symbol will always be reproduced at the receiving
station.
But in order to ensure greater clearness and certainty in the production of
the marks; the Inventor purposes to adopt a battery arrangement, such that

page_text: the line shall be always maintained in a state of dynamic equilibrium. This
arrangement of battery is well known to electricians. This arrangement of
dynamic equilibrium will replace the system of counter-currents used when
the system is marked with several wires.