A NEW OR IMPROVED SYSTEM OR MODE OF TELEGRAPHING ON BOARD OF STEAM SHIPS, AND IN THE MEANS OR APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREFOR ALSO APPLICABLE FOR OTHER VESSELS AND PURPOSES
Year: 1868

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Bernhard Hellwag at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
10th August 1868.
1, BERNHARD HELLWAG, presently residing in Greenock, in the
County of Renfrew, North Britain, Chief Engineer of the Hamburg and
American Steam Ship; Company, do hereby declare the nature of the
said Invention for "A NEW OR IMPROVED SYSTEM OR MODE OF TELEGRAPHING
ON BOARD OF STEAM SHIPS, AND IN THE MEANS OR APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREFOR
ALSO APPLICABLE FOR OTHER VESSELS AND PURPOSES," to be as follows, that is
to say:
This said Invention has reference to and consists mainly in a new
or improved telegraph for use on board of steam ships and other vessels,
for giving tangible and audible signals for most of the prompt and
important commands or orders by an arrangement of index or bell (or
it may be gong), or both at the same time, worked in the steering house
or within sight and hearing of the steersman, and another in the engine
[Price 8d

page_text: room placed within sight of the engineer when "handing" the engines,
and within hearing in a part or near the engine room, each arrangement
worked by a duplex set of cylinders and pistons and connections or
gearing from and by a corresponding arrangement placed on the bridge,
or other convenient station, near where the commanding officer prefers
to attend to the ship and give his orders, and where he can either work
the apparatus himself or see it done by the action of a simple hand wheel
or lever for each. The corresponding small cylinders on each side, star-
board or port (when they are laid as preferred horizontally or side by side
and "fore" and "aft "), of each set at the opposite ends or stations are
directly connected between the backs of their pistons by small close tubes
or pipes, filled with fluids as little compressible or elastic as possible,
wherefore liquids are preferred which will not soldify or expand or contract
much by heat or cold of the atmosphere, where the apparatus is to be used,
or by the slight pressure required to work it.
And the Invention further consists in the construction and use of very
similar arrangements of telegraph for giving return messages that the
orders have been executed, or automatically showing at the bridge station
the position of the rudder, by the direct connection of the gearing of the
index and pistons of their respective set of cylinders to the rudder post and
engine shaft.
"
Under one modification and adaptation of the said Invention as
applied for a "steam ship telegraph' the two small cylinders (of
about an inch in diameter and twelve inch stroke) at each end of
one line of telegraph are secured to a portable plate parallel to each
other, and at such a distance apart that toothed racks formed on the
inner sides of each piston rod gear and work tangentially into a small
spur wheel (of about five inches in diameter and three-fourths of an
inch broad and three-eigths pitch) placed between them close up to
the open front end of the cylinders, revolving in the plane of their axis
on a spindle at right angles thereto in bearings fixed to the plate, the
outside of each piston rod working into a slide or antifriction roller
guide, opposite the centre or at the back of where they gear with the
wheel to retain them in proper working order for actuating the
wheel or being actuated by the wheel. The pistons screwed to the
inner end of the rack rods are preferred to be long (two or three
inches), made perfectly air or leakage tight by numerous rings of
leather tightened up by a screw, cup leather, and washer at the

page_text: extreme inner end (or other suitable packing), behind which the
back end of each cylinder is attached by a ground screw coupling
soldered to one end of the small metallic tube (by preference copper
of about three-eighths of an inch in diameter) carried along at the
sides below the deck, or other convenient part, which connects and
closes it in with its corresponding cylinder of the two at the other
end of the line, constructed and fitted in the same manner, all so
that when the space in the two cylinders on each side behind the
pistons and their respective long tubes between them is filled with
the fluid, any "radial" or "angular" motion given to the spindle of
the rack wheel at one end of the single telegraph line or instrument
being actuated is instantaneously imparted to the spindle of the wheel
at the other end with greater accuracy and certainty, and with little
more exertion of force than is required to overcome the friction of
working the small pistons and their said simple connecting and working
parts, as the one piston is drawing the fluid while the other is pushing
it in their respective tubes at the end or instrument being actuated,
or station from which the message or indications are being com-
municated, which draws and pushes the respective pistons at the
other end or station so as to turn their rack wheel and spindle
to the same extent and angle. Thus when iudexes or pointers are
attached to the spindles of the rack wheels (or to other spindles
geared to them) so set and worked over indicating or dial plates
divided into any desired number of equal or corresponding degrees,
divisions, or parts, lettered and numbered the same at the opposite end
stations to correspond and suit to the particular purposes and orders
desired to be conveyed.
In the general arrangement of this telegraph for a steam ship
three of the said instruments are screwed up by their plates to the
under side of the bridge, having the spindles of their rack wheels
working in journal bearings up through the centre of the bridge in
a transverse row, bound together near the top by a corresponding
brass rail or chamber, the whole forming an elegant stand surmounted
by the enlarged ornamental heads fitted with the indexes and dials
at a proper height to be seen and actuated. The dials of the two
side columns and instruments for telegraphing direct to the steering
house and receiving the confirming message from the rudder itself
are arranged and divided exactly alike on horizontal round dials, with

page_text: the index hands fixed on the top end of their spindles so as to be
at zero in a line forward from the spindles, and having divisions on
each right and left side of them marked and indicating the number of
degrees to starboard and port it is desirable to indicate to the steersman
(as, say, every five or ten degrees) on the similarly set and divided
index and dial of the corresponding instrument secured in the steering
house. The spindle of the instrument on the bridge for so giving these
commands of putting the helm to port or starboard to any one of the
precise degrees of angle desired is effected by a short horizontal spindle
and small pair of bevel wheels inside the column, with a hand wheel
near the top of the column in front or other equivalent mechanical
arrangement. The return indications of the position and change of
the rudder having been made is shown by the index and dial on the
top of the other outside column, by the instrument connected with
it secured by preference to one of the decks close beside the rudder
shaft, which is connected by a crank or eccentric pin fixed to it by
a detachable ring or otherwise, and a counecting rod from this pin to
a pin in the side of a segmental spur wheel fulcrumed on a stud between
the cylinders, and working into a wheel corresponding to the rack
wheel below it on the same spindle (or by any other equivalent direct
mechanical connection of levers or wheels), all so connected and set
that the spindle of the rack wheel (which may or may not have a
dial and pointer for inspection and corroboration) will be turned in
the desired equal or proportional manner fixed upon and set off and
marked on the indicating dials, and indicated by the pointers of the
instrument at the bridge and in the steering house. And when desired
at certain points, as whenever the transmitting index is to be moved
at the bridge or when every ten degrees of change is made on it or by
the rudder to the spindle of the rack wheel to which it is directly
attached, the spindle of the index in the wheel house may be made
to actuate the hammer of a bell by a disc fixed on it with pins at the
points and divisions in it corresponding to points where the audible
intimations are desired to be given, and the same at the return recording
instrument on the bridge to call the attention of the captain or officer
in command to the changes of the rudder, and two strokes might be
made when the rudder was required to or had been changed to "hard a
port" or "starboard." The dials and pointers for the centre instru-
ment and column at the bridge and the one in connection with it
in the engine room might be graduated and placed in all respects the

page_text: "
same as the former, having the pointer at stop corresponding to
zero of the former or steering dials, and have the first, second, and
third divisions to the right or to the left of "stop" (as in some other
engine telegraph dials) to indicate " easy," "half speed," and "full
speed" either "ahead" or "astern" or otherwise as preferred. Under
this Invention the head of the column on the bridge might be made
in the form of rather more than the half segment of a hollow cylinder
with a segmental 'slit round its central part over the crown, through
which a hand lever works or turns, fixed on a horizontal transverse
spindle turning in its blocks in the axis of the cylinder, to which
or to the central column they are fixed. This spindle has a large
vertical bevel wheel working into a small pinion on the top of the
vertical spindle of the rack wheel in the centre of the column, all
so set and arranged that the handle is lying at zero in its extreme
normal position, nearly horizontal, and the pointer of the corresponding
dial at its zero point low down to the left side of a vertically placed
round dial, graduated to five divisions up, round, and down to a cor-
responding low position to the right, marked respectively on two circles
behind the pointer at the same points 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and "stop and
ahead," "astern," "slow," "half speed," and "full speed," all cor-
responding to similar divisions, figures, and words marked on the
different side of the slit for the motion of the lever in the crown
of the engine house transmitter on the bridge from zero at the for-
ward end to full speed at the stern end of the segmental slit. Thus
if the handle is brought "aft' to the first division on the slit it
brings the index or pointer on the engine house dial to the double
command to stop" or "ahead," the former to be understood and
executed if the engines are working, and the latter if not working at
the time, and the first pin in a disc on the spindle of the index and
rack wheel round so as to strike the bell-crank lever for actuating
the hammer of the gong or bell to give one stroke, which answers
like the first position on the dials to the said two commands ("stop
and "ahead") and the return message from the engine room that the
order has been received and obeyed is given by the engineer or an
attendant turning back the index to the zero point again, so as to
bring back the handle of the instrument on the bridge to its normal
zero position after every message by a lever handle fixed on the
spindle outside the dial set in the opposite direction to the index, so
as to be out of the way of all the graduations.
As the actuating
"
"'

page_text: lever of the gong
is loose in the backward direction, the pins do not
sound the gong except when turning forward to give an order, which
it does by a pin in the disc every time the pointer passes a division,
namely, giving the second stroke when it reaches "astern," three by
the time it reaches "slow," and four strokes when at "half speed,"
and a fifth stroke when the index is brought round to number five,
and "full speed" at its extreme left of the dial in the engine room
and the handle quite "aft" and nearly horizontal at the bridge
respectively.
A second part of this Invention consists in a positive and automatic
return message or "tell-tale arrangement of two pneumatic spring
and packed buffer headed pistons (somewhat of the construction used
for other ordinary purposes instead of bells in hotels and some steam
ships) secured to a small plate in the same axial line, with their buffer
heads toward each other wide enough to admit one lateral flat arm of
a sliding rod or bar to pass freely between them. The bar slides in
guides formed at the ends of the plate or frame against which the back
ends of the cylinders "abut," and to which small copper or other tubes
are secured and led or conducted to small vertical cylinders furnished
with light easy working or reciprocating convex or mushroom headed
pistons placed one on each side of the centre column and between it and
the two outside ones in the cross rail or chamber at top of stand, all so that
when the plate with the cylinders is secured transversely close to the crank
shaft of the engines above or below it the second lateral arm on the sliding
bar opposite to the first (will nearly touch the shaft and) a tooth or stud
secured in it will strike or push the buffer piston into its cylinder every
forward revolution, and vice versa every back revolution of the engines
will cause the tooth to push in the buffer piston of the opposite cylinder,
which will compress the air in their respective tubes and raise their
small knob-headed pistons from the rail of the stand on the bridge, and
so show the captain or officer in command (direct by their own motion)
how many revolutions per minute the engines are making either "ahead"
or "astern."
"
Although the first part of this Invention is only described for giving
messages or orders on board and for the working of steam ships, it will
be evident that they are also applicable for other sailing and war ships for
the steering and the working of their guns and batteries for the simul-
taneous or concentrated and prompt and accurate working of the same by

page_text: one commander at the look-out and object sighting point, having one of
these lines of improved telegraphs to each battery for each class of com-
mands with their dials large at the battery divided into degrees, as one
for showing the angle to which the guns are to be " trained," and one for
"distance graduations," and a third for time of firing, which latter
might in some cases be done by the former telegraph caused to strike
a gong or bell at a sufficient interval after the elevating signal had been
given to enable the men to be ready to fire; and these arrangements
would also be equally applicable for shore and fort batteries, and for other
purposes where prompt and accurate simple commands were required
to be transmitted, as for signalling some distance from railway termini
and junctions to pointsmen and drivers of trains, the audible indications
of striking different sounds of bells and gongs would be particularly
useful in the dark, fogy, or winter weather by the disc pins on the
spindles. The fluid or liquid is filled in or fed in when its loss takes
place by leakage, absorption, or otherwise at the back end of one or
both of the cylinders at the highest level of the instrument on the
bridge into the space of each close connected line of tubes between the
two pistons by a branch and any good working inlet valve, such as the
hollow cylindrical slit and wedge-ended india-rubber valve which opens
and shuts easily and perfectly with little pressure, placed close to the
cylinder supplied by a conducting tube from a vess el some little distance
above the instrument containing enough of the liquid to ensure the
space and tube between the pistons being always filled automatically
by the opening of the valve when the actuating piston is drawing, and
by the valve closing when it is pushed; or instead of the valve a small
cock may be used opened and closed by hand when it is desired to
introduce fresh fluid to fill the space, or in some cases a small hole or
holes may be made through the front part of the cylinder, just in front
of or close behind the cup leather of its piston when at its extreme out-
ward stroke, having a supply pipe outside, or the holes might be formed
through the piston or its rod and supplied from the end of the cylinder
behind the cup valve, which would always completely fill the space at
any time when desired by bringing back the piston to this extreme
back stroke for that purpose, which would ou going forward to its proper
working position act as its own closing valve as well as piston and shut
off the supply inlet. When fluids are employed which have some little
elasticity they may be introduced into the said space under pressure by
having a pipe of a sufficient height to give the desired pressure, or any

page_text: for the same purpose.
Although a double set of cylinders, pistons, and tubes have been
described as actuating the revolving rack wheel and index of each single
line of telegraph and all forming the same, this being preferred, yet
still it will be understood that a single pair of cylinders and their con-
necting tube may also be made to answer, having a weight, cord, and
pulley, or spring, or only the weight of the pistons and their rods and
pressure of the atmosphere, to keep the pistons up against the fluid
in each cylinder to ensure the steady and regular working of the
instrument (particularly in the "negative" reaction or back stroke of
the piston actuated through the pulling or drawing of the fluid, in which
latter arrangement the cylinders might be placed vertically with their
pistons working into the upper ends, and it may be remarked that
the indexes or pointers may be attached to the piston rods, and made
to be reciprocated by these in a straight slot over a rectilineal dial,
having the pointer and divisions or names on each side of the slit
should any of these arrangements be preferred, and the said pointers,
whether actuated by the spindles of piston rods, of these improved
arrangements of cylinders and tubes having the enclosed space filled
with fluids of the least elastic kind, and which are least affected in their
density by atmospheric temperatures, actuated by the positive pu hing
action of the piston, ma; be made to act and indicate over the forms
and arrangements of dials which have been used for the same and like
telegraphic purposes heretofore. Reflecting or other construction of
good lamps, such as those usually employed for lighting binnacle com-
passes and other dials on board ship," is mounted over or in front
of each dial at night or in dark weather of these improved instruments,
so as to light them up and shown the action and position of their indexes,
and when desired the divisions with degrees, numbers, or words indica-
ting the messages could be formed or shown on a transparent dial in
black and white or in colours, by the light of the lamp shining or
reflected through it from the under side or back, with an opaque dial
or plate fixed on the spindle or reciprocating rod (when straight dials
are used) respectively as an index, having a space equal to one of the
divisions to be shown or lighted cut out of it and brought round over
the particular space or order on the said dial to be given, instead of
the pointer usually employed, or vice versa the dial might be made

page_text: to move over the hole in the plate as a fixed index, and which improved
telegraphs as a whole are more simple, convenient, durable, and less
liable to get out of order than those of equal power and facility hereto-
fore in use for the same purposes.