IMPROVEMENTS IN COMMUNICATING INTELLIGENCE BY ELECTRICITY
Year: 1851

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ALFRED
VINCENT NEWTON, of the Office for Patents, 66, Chancery Lane, in the
County of Middlesex, Mechanical Draughtsman, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Third day of February, in the fourteenth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Alfred Vincent Newton, Her especial license, full power, sole privilege and
authority, that I, the said Alfred Vincent Newton, my exors, adñors, and
assigns, and such others as I, the said Alfred Vincent Newton, my exors,
adors, or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to
time and all times during the term of years therein mentioned, should and
lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the
Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in all Her Majesty's Colonies and Plan-
tations abroad, and in the Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, and
Man, an Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN COMMUNICATING INTELLIGENCE BY
ELECTRICITY," being a communication from abroad; in which said Letters
Patent is contained a proviso obliging me, the said Alfred Vincent Newton,
by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, particularly to describe
and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and what-manner the same is
to be performed, and to cause the same to be inrolled in Her Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately after

page_text: the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same,
reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Alfred Vincent Newton, do hereby declare that the nature of the said Inven-
tion, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, is particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following description thereof, reference
being had to the Drawings hereunto annexed, and to the letters and figures
marked thereon (that is to say) :-
-
The apparatus forming the subject of the present Invention is termed by
the Inventor an electrepode (i.e.) electric-word-road, and the species of lan-
guage or form of communication he designates electrep (i.e.) electric-word.
The principle or substance of this Invention or improvement as communicated
to me by my Foreign Correspondent consists in the use of such parts or
arrangements of apparatus as will allow two or more persons, by the agency of
electricity, to send or receive signals or intelligence by one common wire of
communication or main conductor, whilst the rapidity or closeness in the
order of succession of the signals, together with the indefinite short time the
main conductor is in actual use in conveying or transferring the signals or
electric action, shall be such, that all the persons so employed in these tele-
graphic operations can be continually and simultaneously occupied in like manner
as if each one of them had a distinct wire of communication all the time
waiting for or appropriated to his particular use. By this Invention, the
same practical telegraphic results are obtained through the agency of one
wire or main conductor, as in the varieties of the electric telegraph before
known or used would require several distinct wires of communication.
According to this improved plan of working, the wire of communication
or electric conductor may be considered as a public word road or an
omnitelegraphic way, when, in contradistinction, the conductor, as hereto-
fore used, may be considered a private word road or a unitelegraphic way.
In addition to the ability to allowing divers parties simultaneously to
telegraph at will either all in the same or in contrary directions over or
along one wire of communication, this improvement enables each one of the
operators so employed to have and to use as many distinct short wires or
accessory conductors, all related to the main conductor, as the operators may
desire to have separate signals, whereby the facility of making and receiving
or recording signals or intelligence is greatly increased. Thus, for example,
suppose that ten men at each end of the wire of; communication all using the
same wire of communication connecting the distant places, their practical
telegraphic facilities would be greater than could be had by the old system if

page_text: these twenty men had twenty different wires of communication in place of one
only such wire, and would be as great as could be had by the old system if
each of these twenty men had as many such wires as they might desire to
make or receive different signals. Allowing twenty-five signals to be made.
and twenty-five to be received for each one of these twenty men would require
one thousand separate wires or main conductors in order to accomplish what
by the new system requires only one such main conductor, aided by one
thousand short wire or accessory conductors or signal-making and signal-.
receiving wires, which need be of but a few inches in length severally, or so
long as to be able to reach to or be systematically put into electric relation to
the respective ends of the main conductor or wire of communication, or other
wise by motion be successively brought into electric communication with, and
so momentarily forming in succession portions of, the conductor by which the
electric current or line of inductive action is established, maintained, or broken
from time to time.
.
It may be stated that this improvement rests upon taking advantage of
the circumstance that, practically speaking, no sensible portion of the time
employed in working the telegraph is expended in the actual transmission
of the electric influence which is the medium or agent of the communications,
but that it is due to the operation of making or recording the signals. One
wire reaching between the distant places is therefore capable of being the
instrument of transmitting an indefinite number of different signals in a second
of time, provided that suitable adaptations are made to enable so many
different signals to be separately placed upon one end of the main conductor;
and received or recorded at the other end of the conductor in an intelligiblo
manner.
There are an indefinite number of methods of applying to practice this
improvement, differing more or less in kinds of apparatus used and in modi-
fications of electrical action applied, but all are substantially the same improve-
ment, inasmuch as their action would be to set apart distinct and small and
successive fractions of a second or other period, and assigning and applying
such small fractions of time to different uses or for different persons, so that
although many persons should all simultaneously be employed in using one
common wire of communication, yet all the signals so transmitted by it may
be successive, the rapidity of the electric conduction admitting, by this Inven-
tion, the divers signals to be transmitted successively along the wire, and yet
so quickly the one after the other as to give a like practical result as if they
were simultaneously transmitted by the wire or main, conductor.
A convenient mode of applying this improvement to practice, and for

page_text: illustrating the principle of the Invention, may be understood by referring to
the accompanying Drawing, forming part of this my Specification, wherein are
shewn two pendulums supposed to be actuated by clockwork or other suitable
means, which two pendulums are made to vibrate as nearly as possible together
in position and in time of vibration. At station A is the standard pendulum or
chief station in reference to station B or other dependent telegraphic stations.
D, D, are the pendulum rods with their balls or weiglits. E, the prolonged end
of the pendulum rods, which should be much longer in proportion than repré-
sented in the Drawing. F, slight springs united to the prolonged end of the
pendulum rods. P, R, P, and. P, S, P, are two grooves or pathways so made as
that the springs F shall fall into the groove P, R, P, when the pendulum
makes the vibration, going from left to right, and shall fall into the groove
P, S, P, when making the vibration, going from right to left. C, C, C, is the
main conductor or wire of communication connecting the two telegraphic
stations A and B together. a, a, are ground plates and ground wires. At K,
station A, there are metallic points' over which the spring F passés, touching
the surface each vibration, which points are connected with the conductors L
and a. The groove P, R, P,'at station B, is of metal and in electric communi-
cation with L and a. The springs F, in moving in either of the grooves
P, R, P, or in the groove P, S, P, of station A, is kept in its path by an
insulated or non-conducting guide. is a Leyden jar, prime conductor of an
electrical machine or galvanic pile, kept constantly charged or capable of
giving a great number of visible sparks or electric pulsations per second on
making or breaking the electric circuit or line of inductive action. The
wire C, C, C, has a metallic connection with the upper end of the pendulum
rods which are also metallic, as well as their prolonged terminations. In this
condition of things whenever the spring F, at station A, passes over K, K, in its
vibrations, there will be an electric communication or circuit from 2 to K,
through L, x, to the ground at station A, also from to the metallic groove
P, R, P, at station B, and to the ground there provided, the pendulum at
station B is making its vibration from left to right, when the pendulum at
station A carries its spring F over the conducting point K at K. On the left
hand side of the standard pendulum there are two metallic faces near together,
by this arrangement it can be known at station B when the pendulum at
station A is in motion, and the position of its vibrations exactly determined, so
that the pendulum at Brean be from time to time set in motion, accelerated, or
retarded, in order to maintain that degree of synchronism in the action of the
pendulums and similarity in positions which are necessary for the success of
the telegraphic operations. When the pendulum at B is correctly timed in

page_text: its motions there will be visible two sparks on the left-hand side, and one
spark on the right-hand side of the conducting groove at K, K, station B,
equally distant from the centre of vibration, but when this pendulum is not in
its proper position or motion, these sparks can be seen at other places along
the groove. H 1 and H 2 at both stations are signal making wires, and G 1
and G 2 at both stations are signal receiving wires. These signal wires are to
be supposed as numerous in each set as the number of different signals desired
to be used, say not less than the letters of the alphabet. A smaller number
is shewn in the Drawing for distinction sake. All the signal receiving wires
reach into the groove or pathways P, S, P, in such a manner that the spring F
shall touch and slide over the flattened faces or ends of these wires in suc-
cession each time the pendulums move from left to right. The signal-making
wires on the contrary stand a little off out of the groove or pathway, but are
intended to be mounted so that each may be raised by the pressure of the
I finger, and brought into the line of the grooves or pathway, to be touched by
the spring F, when the pendulum swings from left to right. All these signal
wires are united by one end to the conductor L, L, but are free and inde-
pendent at the other end. The free end of the signal-receiving wires may
have a width of half an inch, more or less, where F passes over them. The
corresponding ends of the signal-making wires may be but an edge or line, so
that the signal-making wires can be touched by F but for a moment, whilst
the signal-receiving wires will be touched for a sensible time by F in passing
over them. Under these circumstances, if any one of the signal-making
wires H1, at station A, be touched and brought into contact with the
end F of the vibrating pendulum, à conducting circuit or electric current will
be established for the moment through the whole system of conductors, for at
that moment the corresponding pendulum at station B will be in front of the
group of signal-receiving wires H 1 of that station, therefore from the electric
circuit existing for that moment of contact there would be a spark visible
upon the flattened end of that one of the signal-receiving wires which
corresponded to that one of the signal-making wires at the other station
which may
have been pressed upon and brought into the pathway of F. All
these signal wires in each set being marked by and signifying the different
letters of the alphabet, &c., it is obvious that if the left-hand wire of each set be
marked a, the next b, next c, &c., &c., then should a, b, or c of a signal-making
group H 1, station A, be pressed upon and touched by F. This act will be
known at station B by the appearance of a spark on the end of that one of
the signal-receiving wires a, b, or c of group H 1, station B, corresponding to
that wire which may have been so touched at station A. Thus at will can any

page_text: sigual or letter be sent from station A to station B, and during the operation.
of signal making by one person at station A to another at station B, by the use
of the wires H' at each station. It will now be seen that another person or
the same person at station B can telegraph in reply to station A by making use
of the set of wires G 1 of each station in a manner similar to that in which the
wires H1 before described, were used. Suppose that the time of a double
vibration of these pendulums is equal to the time necessary for conveniently
making and observing a signal, then, by the use of the four sets of signal wires.
above named, a person may send to or receive signals from or between tho
stations A and B reciprocally, or four persons may be continually and simulta-
neously employed in making and receiving signals at each station. The use of
these signal wires referred to as able to employ four persons in continual tele-
graphic intercourse will in no way interfere with the simultaneous employment.
of two or four other operators using the other signal wires on the right-hand
half of the vibrations marked H and G2; so also by lengthening out the
ends of the pendulum rods, or increasing the angular motion of the pendulums,
more space or places may be had for carrying out a larger number of tele-
graphic operations indefinitely.
It has been said that the pendulum at station B may be kept adjusted to the
motions of the regulating pendulum by the appearance of sparks at K, K, but
this synchronism may be more perfectly maintained by using any of the known
or suitable forms of electro-magnets, by which two pendulums or a system of
pendulums have been or can be made to vibrate together; and in the above
illustration the electric spark from an electrical machine has for simplicity
been chosen as the visible signal; but should it be desired to make signals by
the hydro-electric current, and the deflection of a needle, then each one of the
signal-receiving wires, before uniting with the common conductor L, may be
lengthened out sufficiently to form the coil of a galvanometer, then the current
passing through any one of these wires can make itself known, or a signal be
so given by the deflection of the needle of the galvanometer belonging to that
particular signal-receiving wire so signalized, or in like manner these
prolonged signal-receiving wires may each one enclose a bar of iron in place
of a magnetic needle, so as to have an electro-magnetic and keeper belonging
to each one of these wires; then the passage of the current through any of the
wires may give magnetism to the bar, or actuate the magnet or its keeper,
from which motion these signals may be perceived or recorded, and printed in
any convenient form.
In the above explanations I have illustrated the nature of the Invention,
by shewing its action in connection with two telegraphic stations; but it is

page_text: obvious that divers stations and complex systems of telegraphic lines of com-
munication can be established on the same general principle. It will also
be understood that this Invention is susceptible of an indefinite number of
modifications or forms as respects the apparatus employed in carrying it
into use; only such therefore has been indicated as may be necessary for the
distinct understanding of the characteristic quality or nature of the Invention,
separating and distinguishing it from all other electric telegraphs.
I do not claim any particular mode of obtaining the synchronism of the
vibrations, nor confine myself to vibrations or particular form of motions to
produce the like effect, nor to the use of any particular means for obtaining
the electric action, nor to the kinds of signals, signs, marks, or recording, nor
particular modes of arranging the apparatus. But what I consider as new,
and desire to claim under the above in part recited Letters Patent, is
rendering available the conducting power of electric telegraph wires, so that
they may transmit one or more electric currents (in the same or opposite
directions) during the time that must necessarily elapse between the trans-
mission of succeeding signals which have reference to one and the same
communication.
In witness whereof, I, the said Alfred Vincent Newton, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this First day of August, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-one.