A TELEGRAPH OR APPARATUS FOR CONVEYING INTELLIGENCE BY NIGHT OR BY DAY
Year: 1809

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, the Honor-
able JOHN LINDSAY, (late Lieutenant-Colonel in His Majesty's Seventy-first
Regiment), of Grove House, Edgware, in the County of Middlesex, send
greeting.
WHEREAS His. most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
Ilis Letters Patent under the Great Seal of His United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Thirtieth day of May,
in the forty-ninth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said John
Lindsay, my executors, administrators, and assigns, His especial licence, full
power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said John Lindsay, my execu-
tors, administrators, and assigns, should and lawfully might, during the term of
years therein expressed, make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales,
and the Town of Berwick upon-Tweed, and also in all His Majesty's Colonies
and Plantations abroad, my Invention of "A TELEGRAPH OR APPARATUS FOR
CONVEYING INTELLIGENCE BY NIGHT OR BY DAY;" in which said Letters Patent.
tliere is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said John Lindsay, by an instru-
ment in writing under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six
calendar months after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by
the saine, relation being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: -NOW-KNOW YE,-that-in-compliance with the said proviso, I, the said.
John Lindsay, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly described
and ascertained as follows, that is to say:-
My telegraph or apparatus doth principally consist in a part or framing,
provided with three balls or objects, or five lamps or lights, one or more of
which is to be exhibited in its place during the time of making one signal
combination to denote a letter of the alphabet, or number, or other subject
previously agreed upon and understood; and also in another part or piece,
which is moveable upon an horizontal axis, disposed in the line of communica-
tion as nearly as may be, in consequence of which the said last-mentioned
part or piece is made to perform its revolutions or movements in the plane of
a circle facing the observer, or as nearly as may be at right angles to the line
of communication; and the said part or piece, which I call the traveller, doth
serve, by its relative positions with regard to the balls, objects, or lights, to
make and compleat the combinations which denote letters of the alphabet, or
numbers, or other subjects, as before mentioned. The said traveller is a piece,
of any fit or suitable shape or figure, to serve as an index, and admit of its
positions being easily distinguished through a telescope, and I do give the pre-
ference to the shape or figure of a triangle, having one angle considerably
acute, and the other angles equal to each other, or nearly so, and I do attach
or fix the same to or upon the said horizontal axis in such a manner that the
plane thereof shall face the observer, and the acute angle or point thereof
shall, when the axis is made to revolve, pass near the said balls, objects, or
lights, which for that purpose are disposed (with the exception of a .central
light when used) at equal distances from the axis, one of the said balls,
objects, or lights being placed directly over the said axis, and one to the right,
and the other to the left of the said axis, and upon a level with the same, and
one of the said lights being placed directly beneath the said axis; and I do in.
the day time make use of balls or other objects capable of being made to dis-
appear by removing or folding up, or turning edgeways the same, according to
the methods usually practised; and I do in the night time make use of lamps
or lights fed and maintained by oil or any other unctuous or combustible
matter in the solid, fluid, or gaseous state, according to the methods of illumii-
nation which are well known and applied, the light of which lamps or lights is
aided and strengthened by the use of thick chrystal lenses, the outer circle:
being convex and the inner a flat surface, the power of which lenses I further:
strengthen by means-of-reflectors or without,-as-circumstances-require;-but-
where the distance on which a telegraph is to work is short, I use.flat glass,

page_text: and the said lamps or lights are made to disappear or become invisible when
required by removing or extinguishing the same; or, in preference, for the
most part, by masking or covering the same by shutters or other opake pieces,
slided or interposed between the said lamps or lights and the eye of the
observer. And further, I do, in the night time, affix to the traveller, or to an
appropriate arm for that purpose, one or more lamps or lights, which doth in
consequence become capable of describing a circle, similar to that described by
the point of the traveller, and the said light, which I call the travelling light
or lights, doth serve in the night, by its relative positions with regard to the
other lights, to make and complete certain combinations of the same nature
as are effected in the day time by the traveller. And I do further declare that
the general framing of my said telegraph or apparatus, and the gear for
working the same, may be constructed and made in a great variety of forms,
and of different materials, which it is not needful to describe, because the nature
of the construction itself, and the local or other conveniences of the army,
garrison, or place at or in which the telegraph may be required, will suffi-
ciently indicate the same to any workman of moderato skill, who will readily
determine such lines or pulleys, or stops or sliders, or other simplo pieces.
of machinery as may be required; and I do build, place, or affix my said
telegraph or apparatus, either permanently or for temporary use, upon or to
houses and other buildings, or to military waggons, in which other important
conveniences may at the same time be united, or to ships and other floating
structures; and in low flat countries, where the position of the telegraph may be
such as to make it impracticable to elevate the samo above the visible horizon,
I do place or dispose a white curtain or surface on the side where the horizon
may be defective or wanted, in order that the telegraph may be projected
thereon, and rendered more completely distinguisable; and in case the visible
horizon should be higher than the telegraph in both directions, out and home,
I do then place a double set of balls or objects, namely three, duly placed on
cach side of the said curtain or surface, and I do use two travellers, that is to
say, one on each side of the curtain or surface, upon the same axis, which, by
precisely similar changes of position, do transmit the required intelligence.
And lastly, with regard to the nature and extent of the signs capable of being
produced by my said telegraph or apparatus, I do declare the same are so
numerous that the different combinations afforded by placing the point of the
traveller, or the travelling light or lights, either upon the same level with the
axis, or immediately above or beneath the axis, are sufficient to afford signs for
the letters of the alphabet and the nine digits either by day or by night; and that
in case it should at any time be thought necessary to add to the number of signs,

page_text: by appropriating some of them to sentences of frequent recurrence, other com-
binations, equally numerous, may be had from positions in which the point of
the traveller or the travelling light or lights, shall or may be placed in four
other different positions obliquely above or below the axis, and also by using a
circular shutter occasionally in the broad end of the traveller, in an angle of
forty-five degrees direction with regard to the perpendicular, that is to say, at
the half interval between the several positions first herein described. And in
order that the positions of most frequent and preferable use may be the better
understood, I have annexed hereunto certain Drawings, in which the small
circles denote balls, objects, lamps, or lights which do not move along with the
traveller or travelling light, and others which move with the day traveller, and
the small stars or asterists denote the travelling light itself, and the triangle
denotes the traveller, and the point or dot in the centres of each of the square
compartments, which include or contain the respective figures or combinations,
denotes the place of the axis. The several combinations, for day and night
signs, are regularly numbered (except the four exhibiting oblique positions of
the traveller and travelling light or lights, but they may all be used to denote
letters, numbers, sentences, or any other objects of communication at pleasure.
In witness whercof, I, the said John Lindsay, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Twenty-eighth day of November, in the year of our Lord
Qua thusand eight hundred and nine.