IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHS, AND IN THE APPARATUS CONNECTED THEREWITH
Year: 1859

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Charles Wesley Smith at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 28th July
1859.
I, CHARLES WESLEY SMITH, of the Town of Evans, County of Erie, and
State of New York, Electrician, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHS, AND IN THE APPARATUS
CONNECTED THEREWITH," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates, firstly, to an improved system or mode of preparing
despatches for transmission through telegraphic wires.
Secondly, to a peculiar arrangement of apparatus whereby both the positive
and negative currents may be recorded directly upon chemically prepared
paper, without the intervention of a local circuit.
Thirdly, to a peculiar construction and mode of paying out submarine
cables.
And, fourthly, to a peculiar code of electric telegraphic signals.
In carrying out the first part of this Invention it is proposed to employ
metal pins, permanently fixed in a strip of wood or other suitable material,
which pins can be so changed in position as to make contact or not at pleasure.
These pins act mechanically upon springs suitably arranged, so as to establish
electrical connection between the poles of the battery and the line wire, as it
is further proposed by this Invention to record both positive and negative
signals, either two rows of pins are used or one set employed, so arranged in
the latter case that by suitably changing the position of the pin it may be
made to transmit either a positive or a negative current.

page_text: In carrying out the second part of this Invention I arrange the electrical
connections in such a manner that whilst the positive current flows from the
style through the chemically prepared paper, and into the feed roller beneath,
the negative current will flow from the feed roller through the paper into the
style, or as the negative current is simply a reversed positive current, it in
reality passes through the paper in the same direction as the positive current.
This may be effected in two ways; first, by the use of a combination of
permanent and electro-magnets, which act in such a manner as to divide the
currents, directing the positive one to one style, and the negative one to the
other style; second, in sending the currents always upon both styles, and so
arranging the electrical connections that the one style shall record only the
positive currents, and the other the negative currents.
Under the third head of this Invention it is proposed to surround the con-
ducting wire or wires of submarine cables with a lapping of thread and
varnish, over which a coating of gutta percha is applied, which is again
covered by a lapping of rope spun from hemp or other suitable material,
which last-mentioned lapping is covered with a second layer of gutta percha,
the whole being finally enclosed by an external covering of small iron wires
By this means a superior insulation is obtained at a less expence than here-
tofore, whilst the specific gravity of the cable can be regulated at pleasure
during its manufacture. In order to prevent or counteract the twist of cables
during the process of paying out, it is proposed to put a reverse twist in the
cable during the operation of coiling it on board.
The fourth and last head of this Invention consists of an arrangement by
means of which all the words in common use in business are represented
by single letters and by arbitary combinations of two or more of the letters of
the alphabet, such letters and combinations of letters being arranged in the form
of a printed code of signals, the words being placed opposite their corresponding
letters or combinations of letters. In working these codes, the messages are
translated into the code before transmission, and then from the code back
again into ordinary language at the receiving station.