IMPROVEMENTS IN TRANSMITTING AND RECEIVING COMMUNICATIONS BY MEANS OF ELECTRICITY
Year: 1862

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Frederick Collier Bakewell, of No. 6, Haverstock
Terrace, Hampstead, in the County of Middlesex, for the Invention
of "IMPROVEMENTS IN TRANSMITTING AND RECEIVING COMMUNICATIONS BY
MEANS OF ELECTRICITY."
Sealed the 16th June 1863, and dated the 22nd December 1862.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Frederick Collier Bake-
well at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 22nd December 1862.
I, FREDERICK COLLIER BAKEWELL, of No. 6, Haverstock Terrace, Hamp-
stead, in the County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the
said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN TRANSMITTING AND RECEIVING COM-
MUNICATIONS BY MEANS OF ELECTRICITY," to be as follows:-
This Invention consists in certain arrangements for facilitating the trans-
mission of autographic communications. A method by which such com-
munications may be transmitted was described in the Specification of a
Patent granted to me dated December 2nd, 1848, No. 12,352, and these
improvements have for their object to remove the difficulties which prevent
the practical operation of that Invention.
1st. By facilitating the regulation of the instruments.
2nd. By rendering the writing more distinct.
3d. By diminishing the effect of induction in submarine and underground
wires.

page_text: And, fourthly, by a method of writing the messages to be transmitted with
greater facility.
To effect the first object I employ a contact breaker at the centrals tation
to constantly transmit at regular short intervals currents of electricity
through any number of "peckers" connected with the autographic instru-
ments. These peckers bring into action local voltaic batteries and electro-
magnets to regulate all the instruments at the same time by retarding the
velocity of their movements at the same instant in the manner made known
in the before-named Specification.
This system of regulating the instruments may be applied either by means
of a separate line wire or the same wire may be used to regulate the
instruments and to transmit messages.
The second improvement consists in connecting a separate sensitive
electro-magnet with each transmitting instrument to reverse the action of the
electricity and make the style of the receiving instrument mark the paper
when the electric current is interrupted, so that the words written with a
non-conducting ink on a metallic surface appear dark in a light ground.
By the third improvement the induction is diminished by a pecker so
arranged as to reverse the direction of the electric current or turn it to
the earth as the style passes over each letter.
The fourth improvement consists in the use of frosted tin foil, whereon to
write the messages to be transmitted, the metal surface so prepared being as
readily written upon as paper.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Frederick Collier Bakewell in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 22nd June 1863.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, FREDERICK
COLLIER BAKEWELL, of No. 6, Haverstock Terrace, Hampstead, in the County
of Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Iler Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty second day of December, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, in the twenty-sixth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Frederick Collier Bakewell, Her special licence that I, the said Frederick
Collier Bakewell, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said Frederick Collier Bakewell, my executors, administrators,

page_text: and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to
time and at all times thereafter during the terin therein expressed, should
and lawfully might makė, usė, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN TRANSMITTING AND RECEIVING COMMU-
NICATIONS BY MEANS OF ELECTRICITY," upon the condition (amongst others)
that I, the said Frederick Collier Bakewell, 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 Inven-
tion, 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 Frederick Collier Bakewell;, do hereby
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is
to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement :-
My Invention consists of certain improved arrangements for facilitating
the transmission of autographic communications by electric telegraph. The
means by which such communications may be transmitted, so as to produce
a fac-simile of the writing at the receiving station, were described and
shown in the Specification of a Patent granted to me dated December 2nd
1848, entitled "Improvements in Making Communications from Place to
Place by Electricity," which Specification has been printed and is numbered
12,352, and I now refer to it for an explanation of the method by which copies
of writing may be transmitted by electricity.
.
My present Invention has for its object to remove the difficulties
which obstructed the practical application of that means of transmitting
messages.
My first improvement consists of a mode of regulating all the copying
telegraph instrunients on an extended system of communication'by means of
a single contact breaker at the central station, so connected with sensitive
electro-magnets, called "peckers" or "relays," at every station as to: make and
break contact at regular short intervals, and in this manner local voltaic
batteries may be brought into action, and all the telegraph instruments
be regulated to move synchronously at one uniform rate of speed. The
contact breaker may be of various kinds, but the one I prefer consists of
a train of wheels propelled by a weight with a regulating. fan, and on to
a: projecting arbor of one of the wheels a small. metal wheel is fixed which
is accurately divided into any required number of parts; the intervening

page_text: spaces being filled with boxwood, or ivory, or other non-conducting substance
to form a smooth even surface, on the circumference of which an insulated
metal spring presses. The wheel and the spring being connected with a
suitable voltaic battery and with the line wire, an electric current is
transmitted through the wire each time that the metal surfaces touch, and
it is interrupted each time that the metallic contact is broken as the wheel
revolves.
Such an arrangement is shown in the accompanying Drawing, Figure 1,
in which a represents the metallic wheel divided on its circumference ;
b, is the insulated spring pressing upon it; c is another spring that presses
against the axis of the wheel to ensure metallic contact; and d, d, are the
wires connected with the voltaic battery and with the line wire.
Electric contact may also be made and broken by means of two metal springs
tipped with platinum, each being insulated from the other, and contact being
made when they are pressed together by projections at equal distances apart
on the wheel.
As the action of making and breaking contact is to be maintained
continuously at the central station, the mechanism of the train of wheels
must be so arranged that the contact making and breaking wheel may
continue to rotate for any .convenient number of hours before the impelling
weight runs down. The rapidity with which the successive transmissions of
electricity are made will depend upon the speed at which the telegraph
instruments are to be worked, and the number of times they require to be
regulated during each revolution of the cylinder to produce steady synchro-
nous movements in all. About ten separate contacts per second is the number
of successive transmissions that I prefer when the cylinders make one revolu-
tion in two seconds.
The uniform synchronous movement of all the instruments in action is pro-
duced in the following manner :-The telegraph instruments are made as exactly
alike as possible, and each one consists of a train of wheels propelled by a
weight, accelerated velocity being prevented by the resistance of the air to a
rapidly rotating fan. On the arbor of one of the wheels near the moving
power the cylinder is fixed on which the messages are transmitted or received.
On the arbor of the next wheel in succession, or farther removed from the
moving power, as convenient, and outside the framework of the train of
wheels; a light wheel, which I call the regulator, is fixed, having a projection
on its circumference to act as a detent. The armature of an electro-magnet
is suspended from a pivot in such a manner that the back part of it, which
is covered with leather may bear against that projection, being pressed

page_text: against it by a spring, so as to check the motion of the regulator until the
electro-magnet attracts the armature and releases the detent.
The mode of action will be seen on reference to the Drawing, Figure 2.
The regulator is shown at e;f, is the projection or detent on its circumference ;
9 is the armature suspended from the pivot h, and drawn towards the regulator
by the spring i, the bearing of the armature being regulated by the stop
k, by turning the screw of which the detaining power of the armature is
increased or diminished; m is the electro-magnet which is actuated by a
local battery. The degree of pressure against the detent is further regulated
by the screw which increases or diminishes the strength of the spring. The
electro-magnet is placed so, close to the armature as just to liberate the detent.
The impelling weight and the size of the fan are so regulated as to produce
a greater velocity than the speed at which the cylinder is intended to rotate,
and the effect of the regulator, when the electro-magnet is in action, is to
uniformly retard the mechanism.
Suppose, for example, the stated motion of the cylinder to be one revolution
in two seconds, and that when not retarded it would make one revolution and
a half in the same time, then if the contact breaker brought the electro-magnet
into action ten times in one second, the result of twenty successive small
retardations would be a steady continuous movement at the rate prescribed.
In adjusting the instruments the bearing of the armature against the
detent should be so regulated that the retarding action of the detent may be
brought to bear at each revolution of the regulator.
The regulator instead of having only one projecting detent may have two,
or more, at exactly equal distances apart, but in that case it must be attached
to the arbor of a wheel nearer the cylinder, if the same rate of speed is to be
maintained.
In my former Invention the armature of the electro-magnet was brought to
bear directly on the detent, but the continued variations in the power of a
voltaic battery cause irregularity in the pressure, which difficulty is overcome
by employing the electro-magnet to withdraw the pressure of a regulated
spring.
Having thus described the first part of my Invention I will now. explain
the mode of operation. Suppose a governing wire connected with the contact
breaker, and through which intermittent currents of electricity were con-
tinuously transmitted, was extended from London to Glasgow, and all the
intermediate stations were in connection with it. When a message was to be
sent to any one of those stations or from one station to another, the clerk at
the station to be communicated with, having received a signal through the

page_text: transmitting wire in the usual manner would place the relay and local battery
in circuit with the governing wire and the copying telegraph instrument when
started would be regulated by the detent on the regulator at exactly the same
intervals as the instruments on any other part of the line, and if they were
all placed in action they would rotate exactly at the same rate, and synchro-
nously. With cylinders six inches in diameter, making one revolution in two'
seconds, ordinary writing may be thus transmitted at the rate of upwards of
seventy words per minute, and short hand symbols at the rate of one' hunded
and fifty' words per minute.
A second part of my Invention' consists in the use of a small electro-magnet
with thick. wire coils and a very light armature, arranged as a "relay,"
but actuated with a local voltaic battery, for the purpose of reversing the
action of the electricity on passing through the message transmitted, so that
the style on the receiving instrument may mark the paper when the style of
the transmitting instrument passes over the varnish, and not when it
rests upon the metal. The transmitting style is connected with one pole of
the local battery and the cylinder with the other pole, the transmitting battery
and the line wire being connected with the armature of the electro-magnet and
with the stop against which it springs back.
By this means, each time that the style rests on the metal surface of the
message the connection with the line wire is broken by the electro-magnet
withdrawing the armature from the stop, and it is renewed when the style passes
over the varnish writing and the armature springs back again, and the action is:
thus reversed through the line wire.
Another part of my Invention consists of a means of diminishing, the effect s
in the copying telegraph of what is called "induction" on the passage.
of electricity through submarine or underground wires, by reversing the
direction. of the electric current or by turning it to earth. This is also effected
by the use of a small electro-magnet brought into action by a local battery
connected in the manner before described with the transmitting style and a
with the cylinder. In this case, however, a more complicated arrangement
is required and it will be best understood by reference to the Drawing
Figure 3. Two small pieces of platinum n, o, are attached to the ends of the
light armature p of the electro-magnet m. They are insulated from the
armature and from each other, and one of them is connected with the line a
wire and the other with the earth. When the magnet is not in action these
pieces of platinum rest on the two stops r, s, and they are drawn against two
similar stops r, s', when it is. The stops r, r¹, are connected together and
are insulated from the stops s, s', which are also connected as shown by the

page_text: dotted lines. The stops r, r¹, are connected by the wire t, with the copper
pole of the voltaic battery, and the stops s, s', are connected by the wire w
with the zinc pole, or the reverse. It will be seen from the arrangement
figured, that when the armature rest upon the stops r, s, the electric current
will pass from the copper pole of the battery to the earth, and is returned
through the line wire to the stop s, and thence to the zinc pole. When the
armature is drawn to the magnet, the direction of the electric current is
reversed, for then the copper pole is connected with the line wire and the
zinc pole with the earth. These reversals of the electric current take place
very rapidly as the magnet is successively brought into action by the passing
of the metal style over the surface of the letters. The connection of the
electro-magnet with the local battery is made in the usual manner.
Another part of my Invention consists in facilitating the writing of the
messages to be transmitted by using for that purpose a frosted tin foil, the
surface of which being deprived of its polish receives the ink readily,
and common writing ink, thickened with gum may be used instead of
varnish.
Having thus described and shown the nature of my Invention, and the
niode of its operation, I claim the arrangements of each of the distinctive
parts named for effecting the objects herein-before specified.
In witness whereof, I, the said Frederick Collier Bakewell, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Twenty-second day of June, in the year of
our Lord 1863.
FRED. COLLIER BAKEWELL. (L.S.)