p. 714 | THE TELAUTOGRAPH by The Altruist

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 18, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 45.

THE TELAUTOGRAPH.

By The Altruist

THIS is a writing telegraph. A man sits down at his desk in St. Louis and writes a message to his friend in New York. The latter receives the message in an exact facsimile of the handwriting of the sender. This operation requires no skilled labor. Anyone who can write can send a message, and providing there is an electric wire connecting them and two transmitters and receivers, two persons can carry on a correspondence, though thousands of miles apart, and every stroke of the pen will be exactly and instantaneously reproduced over that distance.

The structure of these instruments seems to be remarkably simple. In the transmitter an ordinary lead pencil is used, near the point of which two silk cords are fastened at right angles to each other. These connect with the instrument, and, following the motions of the pencil, regulate the current impulses which control the receiving pen at the distant station. The writing is done on ordinary paper—five inches wide—conveniently arranged on a roll attached to the machine. A lever at the left is so moved by the hand as to shift the paper forward mechanically at the transmitter, and electrically at the receiver.

The receiving pen is a glass tube placed at the junction of two aluminum arms. This glass pen is supplied with ink, which flows from a reservoir through a small rubber tube placed in one of these arms. The electrical impulses, coming over the wire, move the pen of the receiver simultaneously with the movements of the pencil in the hand of the sender. As the pen passes over the paper, an ink tracing is left, which is always a facsimile of the sender's motions, whether in the formation of letters, words, figures, signs, shorthand writing, drawing, or pictures.—The Altruist.