IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH APPARATUS
Year: 1862

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Charles William Siemens, of No. 3, Great George
Street, Westminster, in the County of Middlesex, for the. Invention of
'IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH APPARATUS."-Partly a communica-
tion from abroad by Dr. Werner Siemens, of Berlin, in the Kingdom of
Prussia.
Sealed the 14th November 1862, and dated the 22nd May 1862.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Charles William Siemens
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
22nd May 1862.
I, CHARLES WILLIAM SIEMENS, of No. 3, Great George Street, West-
minster, in the County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH APPARATUS," to be as
follows:-
This Invention consists in communicating codes of signals by particular
mechanical agency, by which great rapidity and accuracy of transmission is
obtained.
In the Specification to former Letters Patent, granted to me and bearing
date on or about the 25th day of February 1859, No. 512, I described an
arrangement wherein types were employed, having elevations or depressions
representing the letters or signs to be transmitted, which types were arranged
in a row or in rows, and acted consecutively upon a contact lever in connection
with a galvanic battery or other source of constant currents of electricity, so as

page_text: to cause it to make and break contact with the recording instrument, thereby
producing signs exactly corresponding with the form of the types.
In the present Invention the arbitrary succession of signals constituting a
letter, number, or sign, is represented by a type or by types, which is or are so
formed that on being passed along against a contact lever a series of currents
are passed through the line wire, which currents are produced by a magneto-
electric machine or other apparatus that produces a regular succession of
currents, the same being moved in such a manner by the same mechanism
which imparts motion to the types, that at the moment when the type com-
pletes the line wire circuit a positive or negative- current, such as may be
required, is produced and transmitted through the line wire.
The manner in which the relative motion of the type and the apparatus pro-
ducing the currents is effected, as also. the manner in which the type is caused
to act upon the contact lever, so as to transmit or intercept the successive
currents produced, may.be variously modified. Thus, the apparatus employed.for
generating the successive currents may, be a magneto-electric. inductor, similar
to that for which Provisional Protection was granted to me on or about the.
10th day of September 1856, No. 2107, or to that described, in the Speci-
fication of the before-mentioned Letters Patent already granted to me, and
motion may be communicated to the type by the moving part of such appa-
ratus, or any other apparatus by, which successive currents are generated, may
be employed, the moving part of which is actuated by the same mechanism
that moves the type. The type may be formed with projections, or, depressions
of a peculiar form; or; in place of having projections and depressions, they
may be formed with alternate surfaces of conducting and insulating material,
and may serve themselves to conduct the requisite currents to the contact
point, or they may be formed of flat pieces or bands of suitable material,
baving perforations corresponding with the signals to. be produced. The
receiving instrument may be either a recording or Morse instrument, or a
relay, or any other suitable instrument of known construction for receiving
signals.
A suitable method of practically carrying out the above-described Invention
is as follows:-For generating the currents I employ by preference a magneto-
electric inductor, such as was described in the Specification to the berein-
before mentioned. Letters, Patent already. granted to me, which inductor I
attach to the table of a framework, carrying a crank shaft, fly wheel, and a
treadle motion resembling that of an ordinary lathe; the inductor is provided
with a rotating armature, which is by preference placed in a horizontal
position,, and has a rapid rotary motion imparted to it from a pulley on the

page_text: crank shaft by means of a strap passing round one end of the armature. On
the other end of the armature is formed a screw thread or worm, which is put
in gear with a rack formed on the under side of composing sticks, having
grooves in which the type is set up, which composing sticks are arranged to
slide in a groove, or between guides on top of the table. By this arrangement
for every revolution of the armature the composing stick is advanced a distance
equal to the pitch of the teeth of the rack; and as the exact relative position
of the type in the composing sticks to the teeth of the rack on the same is
insured by small projections on the back of the type passing into grooves
formed in the composing stick, or vice versa, the projections or depressions of
the type are passed underneath and act upon the contact lever or levers,
serving to transmit the intermittent currents to the receiving instrument, and
will cause the same to make or break contact with the contact point exactly at
the moment when the revolving armature is in one particular position, thus
causing the current generated at that moment to be either transmitted or
intercepted, according to the letter or sign to be recorded or indicated. To
insure the complete message represented by type-set up in several composing
sticks being transmitted in the proper continuous manner, I form at the front
end of each composing stick a hook, which engages on to a stud fixed to the
back end of the composing stick which it is to follow, and thus unite two or
more of them in the exact required relative position. Instead of arranging
the type in a single row in the composing sticks, I sometimes forni them in
two or more rows; and instead of communicating the rotary motion of the
armature to the composing sticks in the manner before described, I sometimes
employ wheelwork or link motion for this purpose. Instead of arranging the
type in composing sticks, I sometimes fix the same upon endless revolving
bands or chains, or upon cylinders, having a rotary motion imparted to them.
Or I fix the type spirally upon cylinders, to which both a rotary and an end
motion is imparted, or 'I arrange the same in any other suitable manner by
which the exact before-mentioned relation between the motion of the type and
the generation of the currents may be insured. Each separate type is by
preference made to represent a separate letter or other sign, having the parti-
cular letter or sign which it represents marked upon it in ordinary characters,
so that the messages can readily be set up in the composing sticks, bands, or
cylinders, even by persons who are not acquainted with the conventional form
by which such letters or signs are represented.