IMPROVE- MENTS IN CONSTRUCTING AND USING ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHS.
Year: 1862

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Richard Laming, of 38, Priory Road, Kilburn, West
Hampstead, in the County of Middlesex, for the Invention of "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN CONSTRUCTING AND USING ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHS.
Sealed the 11th November 1862, and dated the 16th May 1862.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Richard Laming at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
16th May 1862.
I, RICHARD LAMING, of 38, Priory Road, Kilburn, West Hampstead, in the
County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN CONSTRUCTING AND USING ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHS," to be as
follows:-
By a new view of the nature and action of electricity, which for many years
I have experimentally investigated, and am now making publicly known in a
weekly journal called "the Electrician," I am taught, first, that the passage of
electricity along a telegraph conductor consists of two different kinds of
conducting action, which I have distinguished as true conduction and diffusive
conduction. Secondly, that while true conduction is what is desirable for the
transmission of signals, diffusive conduction is almost the sole primary cause of
those signals being retarded; and thirdly, that by circumstances external to
the conductor, the true conduction may be made to supersede the diffusive
conduction, either altogether or so far as is necessary for practical purposes:

page_text: This Invention consists of a combination of means for more or less perfectly
establishing the desirable kind of conducting action in a telegraph wire, and
avoiding that which is pernicious; they are as follows:-
Any line of conductor having been constructed as usual, or in some manner
suited to the requirements of its particular locality, there is to be interposed
between each of its extremities and the earth a signalling apparatus, and also
a source of electrical current in such a way that one of the sources shall
receive electricity from the earth, while the other delivers electricity into the
earth. If the electrical sources be arranged for intensity, their capabilities for
affording quantity must be kept down proportionately, the relation of intensity
to quantity being so regulated that no more electricity shall enter from the
plus source into the conductor than can be passed along it by true conduction,
under the conjoint influences of the minus source at one extremity, and the
plus source at the other. By this arrangement the conductor, while trans-
mitting the limited current, will never be in possession of more than its own
natural quantity of electricity, as much passing in á given time out of it at one
end as enters it at the other, by reason of the minus source being a receptacle
capable of receiving it under less resistance than it would experience by
remaining as a charge upon the wire, and acting from its surface by induction.
I propose to have the conductor of any practicable diameter, suited to the
requirements of each particular case; but the larger its diameter the greater
will be the quantity of electricity susceptible of being passed through it without
diffusive conduction, and to avoid diminishing that quantity the diameters of
the wires of the signalling instruments in connection should be large in
proportion; owing to the absence of diffusive conduction, several conductors
separately insulated may be introduced into the same external sheath.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Richard Laming in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
15th November 1862.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, RICHARD
LAMING, of 38, Priory Road, Kilburn, West Hampstead, in the County of
Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Sixteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, in the twenty-fifth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the

page_text: said Richard Laming, Her special licence, that I, the said Richard Laming, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Richard
Laming, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time
agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter
during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use,
exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,
the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
CONSTRUCTING AND USING ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHS," upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said Richard Laming, my executors or administrators, by
an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and
seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said
Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed, and
cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office, within six
calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters
Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Richard Laming, do hereby declare
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:-
This Invention consists in improving and better proportioning to one
another several parts of the electric telegraph, and in so using the combina-
tions as to accelerate the repetition of signals. The view of electrical action
which has suggested the Invention differs essentially from the prevailing
theories; but the purposes of my Specification will be attained if I make
clearly known how the Invention may be successfully practiced. It will,
however, be explanatory if, in the first instance, I mention some of the
principles acknowledged, or otherwise, on which I have founded it. These
are as follow:-
First, as regards the supply of electricity.-As the perfection of electro-
telegraphy depends upon the rapidity with which a certain quantity of
electricity can enter at one end of a wire, and make its way out at the other;
and as electricity cannot enter a wire quicker than it is supplied to it, the
rapidity of its supply by the voltaic batteries used in telegraphy is of primary
importance.
Electricity can be supplied by a voltaic battery more quickly first, as it is
in greater quantity accumulated upon it, ready to be discharged into the wire,
and less quickly as the quantity is greater which has to arrive through the
whole length of the battery to make up the total of what is required; and
secondly, as the portion which has to arrive can pass through the battery in

page_text: less time. So far as electro-telegraphy is concerned, chemical action on the
elements of a voltaic battery is only a substitute for electrical conduction, and,
therefore, not absolutely necessary; it is also evanescent and costly, whereas
'conduction is permanent and inexpensive.
The quantity of electricity that may rest accumulated at the plus end of a
battery, of given nature and number of elements, is greater as those elements
are larger in working area; and so also, after its discharge, is the further
quantity that can pass through the battery in a given time. If the nature and
area of the elements be given, then a larger quantity may rest accumulated,
as they are more numerous in series, the electricity being less distributed, and
consequently more intense in its action, than in the case of an equal
quantity accumulated by a shorter series of larger area; and the arrival of the
after quantities through the battery will be made slower by the increase
in series.
The quantity of electricity that may be accumulated by increasing the
number of voltaic elements in series is limited in submarine telegraphy by the
prejudicial effects of intensity in injuring the insulator of the conducting wire.
And when the accumulation is made by increasing the area of the elements
any surplus that is over and above what can be at once discharged into the
conducting wire at an existing intensity, is ready at hand to follow as quickly
as it can be admitted.
A given quantity of electricity at once discharged into a wire will place
itself upon it in the same manner, whether it has been accumulated at the end
of a battery in a concentrated state, by a great number of elements of
small area, or in a less concentrated state by reason of a larger size of
elements, fewer in number; but when an after current is allowed also to flow
into the wire more quickly than it can pass out at its further end, then the
distribution of the electricity upon it will not be alike in the two cases, the
concentration upon the wire being greater when caused by elements more
numerous in series.
Secondly, as regards the conduction of electricity.-The moving force
governing the velocity of the entrance of electricity into a wire (other things
being equal), is as the intensity of the electricity entering, and that intensity
varies as the square of the quantity it is causing to enter simultaneously.
The intensity being given, the quantity of electricity that a wire of given
nature can receive simultaneously by its end is in proportion to its sectional
area, therefore with a given number of elements in series giving a certain
amount of intensity (other things being equal), the diameter of the wire
determines the limit beyond which any increase in the area of the elements

page_text: will not increase the quantity of electricity received simultaneously into the
wire. The increase and decrease in the quantity of electricity that can pass
through a wire by reason of variation in intensity, are not to be confounded
with the decrease and increase of the resistance to motion of electricity along
it, for while the power to convey is independent of the length of the conductor,
resistance varies in the ratio of its length. A long wire can receive into one
of its ends more electricity than can pass along to leave it by the other end,
because the moving force diminishes with the length in a more rapid ratio
than the resistance to motion. The quantity of electricity that can pass out
of the end of a wire of given nature and unequal diameters is determined by
its smallest sectional area. Electricity while being conducted through a wire
tends to suffuse itself over its surface to act inductively upon any surrounding
matter, the suffusion and induction are facilitated by mobility of the electricity
external to, and, immediately around the wire, and therefore it is greater in
proportion to the proximity of uninsulated conducting matter in which elec-
tricity is quite free to move.
DIRECTIONS FOR PRACTICING THE INVENTION.
The way in which the Invention based upon the above named and other
principles consistent with my theory of the definite nature of electrical attrac-
tion is to be carried out is as follows:-The conductor of a telegraph, being
made and insulated in any approved manner, is to be connected with the earth
at one end through a voltaic battery, presenting to it a plus or positive pole,
and at the other end through a similar voltaic battery presenting to it a minus
or negative pole, a signalling instrument being as usual always in circuit at
the receiving station. Care is to be taken that the conductivity of the whole
line from earth at one end to earth at the other, including all interposed coils
of instruments, should be equal to that of the main wire itself, any falling short
of it being attended by a sacrifice of effect. In the case of submarine cables I
prefer to have the number of the voltaic elements that are arranged in series as
great as may be consistent with safety to the particular insulators surrounding
the wires, and which will depend upon the nature and thickness of those
insulators, and if the area of the elements be proportionately greater, it is
unnecessary to use in the cells anything but brine, or some other liquid, capable
of acting as a conductor without containing agents, that act as solvents upon
either of the associated. metals, which in such cases should have but one-
eighth of an inch or so of liquid between them. The number of voltaic
elements that are to be used in series, and the exciting fluid as well as the
diameter of the conductor being all determined on, the next thing to be done

page_text: is to ascertain the minimum relative size that should be adopted for the voltaic
elements, and which will vary with each of the above particulars. This.may
be done practically in the following manner: A galvanometer, with its coils
constructed with wire similar in nature and-sectional area to those of the main
conductor, or of some other wire equal to it in conducting power being interposed
at one end between the conductor and the earth, while at the other end between
the conductor and the earth a voltaic battery is placed with the number of
elements finally to be used, but of larger dimensions than will be required; the
voltaic couples are to be progressively immersed in the liquid of their cells
until a depth be found beyond which no further immersion will add to the
deflection of the galvanometer. If the elements provided for the purpose be
insufficiently large to afford that limit, we may in effect give them a greater
area by adding an equal number of others connected with them in the manner
known as quantitatively. The two batteries that are to form parts of the
telegraph are to be constructed with elements at least equal in working area
to the unusually large surfaces that will be thus indicated, and being placed in
position, together with the signalling instruments to be employed, either directly
or by means of relays, the telegraph will be in a condition for use. The object
to be attained by thus adjusting the areas of the elements to their numbers in
series, and to the size of the telegraph wire, may on the foregoing principles of
electrical action be thus explained. If anything short of the maximum indi-
cated for the due area be used, a proportionate number of elements in series
will not be adding their quota to the conductively of the wire on its first
receiving the discharge of the battery, while they will be adding to the obstruc-
tion opposed to the arrival of the after current towards the wire.
When a telegraph conductor is to be submerged in water it is to be pre-
pared for its destination by surrounding it with such organic materials, vege-
table or animal, in a fibrous condition, as may be made insulating by drying,
while still retaining tensile strength, and maintained in that condition by
immersion in a hot bath of insulating cement composed of such materials as
resin, shellac, and pitch, with tallow, oil, or tar mixed in such proportions as
to be penetrating while hot and hard, but not brittle when cold, and perfectly
made free from water by boiling.
The material that I prefer is hemp, and for sake of strength and to avoid
kinking in the paying out of the cable, it is best put around the conductor in
the form of successive layers of yarns or small lines, each layer, except the
first, with a slow spiral to be crossed by the one immediately succeeding it.
The yarns or lines are first to be exposed to an atmosphere heated to about
212 degrees of Fahrenheit, until they are made so perfectly dry as to be unable

page_text: to discharge a gold leaf electroscope, and then, while still hot, drawn through
the bath I have indicated, while just hot enough to be quite fluid. Instead
of a separate drying, the yarns or lines may be deprived of their moisture by
boiling in the bath itself, but the strength would become thereby impaired.
As some of the yarns or lines leave the bath they are to be closed in a circular
layer longitudinally around the conductor by passing with it through a conical
hole in a steel plate, or by other mechanical means. A second set of yarns or
lines are to be closed by torsion around the first, a third set around the second,
and thus onward until a rope be formed of any required size, the spirals being
alternately right handed and left handed in equal number and with an equal
amount of twist. The insulating rope or core being thus formed may be
further consolidated by passing through grooved rollers, or by other mechanical
means. To increase the specific gravity of the cable as much as may be
needed, and at the same time its tensile strength, a layer of iron or steel wires
of any desired diameter is next to be placed longitudinally around the insu->
lating core, and kept in close contact with it by a serving of hemp lines or.
yarns imbued with the same sort of cement. The diameter of the core will be
limited by considerations of cost and stowage, but the larger it can con-
veniently be made the better it will serve the purposes of this Invention.
The cable may be modified in construction by substituting for the innermost.
layer of dried and cemented hemp a cylinder of gutta percha or of caoutchouc,
or some of their compounds, a serving of inert matter being interposed
between it and the cemented hemp if they be of natures to act chemically
upon one another. To guard the insulating core of cemented hemp from
contact with water, it may be surrounded by hermetically sealed caoutchouc.
vulcanized on its external surface or not, or by thin lead, or the core may be
wound round by an overlapping band of vulcanized caoutchouc put on upon
the stretch, or by some other elastic material which need not be an electrical
insulator provided it be impervious to water, and which may have its overlaying
edges compressed closely together by the superincumbent pressure to which it
will be subjected. If it be necessary to prevent chemical action between the
cemented hemp and the surrounding water-proof material, a serving of canvas
or other inert matter may be interposed, and if the wires be not suppressed to.
give place to lead, a similar serving may be put immediately under them, they
being protected from the action of the water by hemp and cement as above
described, or by other known means.
There are two ways of using the improved telegraph :-First, the battery at:
the receiving station is to be permanently retained in the line of conduction
from earth to earth, and the signals made by alternately breaking and making.

page_text: contact between the conductor and the battery at the sending station, on both
of which occasions electricity will flow in the direction from the plus battery
to the minus one. The electrical charge in the conductor during the cessation
of contact will be either plus or minus, according as the receiving station is
that where the plus or where the.minus pole of the battery is situated, and if
that period be sufficiently long, the charge will equally pervade the whole
length of the wire and -not progressively become less towards one end as in
ordinary cases. On the other hand, during the continuance of contact, one
half the wire will be charged plus, and the other half minus, both charges
diminishing to nothing at the middle point of the conductor. On the sup-
position that so long time is given that the full effect of the batteries becomes
established, the quantity of electricity entering and leaving the wire will be no
greater than if one battery were used in the ordinary manner, while the electro-
motive force urging it into motion will be doubled, which, so far as what is
called resistance of the conductor is concerned, will be equivalent to a
shortening of the distance between the stations to one-half. But, as the
charge has never to return upon its course to become discharged, the 'filling
and emptying of the conductor of a cable need not both be waited for, small
quantities of charge issuing at the signalling station sufficing to actuate the
signalling instruments at the receiving station and causing the intervals
between those issuings to be proportionately short.
The second way of using the telegraph is as follows:-The battery at the
receiving station being left permanently between the conductor and the earth,
the signals are to be made by putting the end of the conductor at the sending
station into communication alternately with the voltaic battery there placed
and the earth. The flow of electricity will be as in the former case in the
same direction, whether the sending end of the conductor be in battery contact
or uninsulated; but the charge on battery contact instead of being sometimes
wholly plus and at other times wholly minus as before, will be always plus on
one half of the conductor and minus on the other half, and the discharge by
uninsulation at the sending station will leave the conductor with either a plus
or minus charge as the electrical character of the distant pole may determine;
its maximum of distribution being at that pole and progressively declining to
nothing at the uninsulated end.
With a telegraph constructed and used in either of the ways I have denoted,
the number of voltaic elements in series may be lessened if occasion should
arise, to make a reduced intensity desirable, while the dimensions of the
elements are left unchanged; on the other hand, to increase considerably the
number of the elements without at the same time enlarging their area in due

page_text: proportion, would have the effect of adding to the conducting power of the
wire without giving it a corresponding quantity of electricity to conduct. We
may usefully increase the area of the elements while their number in series
remain unchanged, for though we should thereby augment the quantity of
electricity available for conduction beyond the power of the conductor to
receive it as a sudden discharge from the battery, the excess would be ready
to follow immediately as a current without any expenditure of time for its
passage through the whole length of the series of elements.
I claim as my Invention with respect to the electric telegraph generally,
the adjustments of its parts to one another, which I bave described, and also
using either or both ends of a telegraph with its parts so adjusted in the way
specified, or with such modifications as may embody my Invention, but I do
not claim the simple application of the opposite poles of two batteries at the
two ends of a line wire when unaccompanied with the adjustments to the wire
of the voltaic elements and of the coils of instruments, opposite poles having
already been so applied, though for a different purpose.
And with respect to marine electric telegraphs in particular, I claim the
constructing and using of subaqueous telegraph cables with conductors im-
mediately surrounded by insulators of dried organic materials in a fibrous
condition saturated with insulating cements. Also constructing and using
subaqueous telegraph cables in which the insulation and the tensile strength
are conferred either wholly or in part by dry organic materials used in a
fibrous condition. Also the application and use of tubes of caoutchouc, and of
lead, and of servings of vulcanized caoutchouc, and of other coverings that are
sufficiently impervious to water, for keeping dry insulators of subaqueous
telegraph cables composed of dried hemp and insulating cements, and that
depend for their efficiency upon an artificial dessication which perhaps they
might not otherwise so perfectly maintain.
In witness whereof, I, the said Richard Laming, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Fifteenth day of November, One thousand
eight hundred and sixty-two.
RICHARD LAMING. (L.S.)