WRITING BY ELECTRICITY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1849, 24 May 1888, Page 4

WRITING BY ELECTRICITY

The wonderful invention of writing by electricity at a distance of fifty miles is thus described :— " Ont of the top of a box, which Is about; the siza of an ordinary despatch fax, protrudes what h?s the appearance of a atylographlc pen. Thiß, however, is not a pen, but the handln of the ' transmitter,' and its lower end is fixed to a light braes perpendicular bar. Any motion given by the hand — you hold It just like a pen — to the handle of the transmitter is communicated by this bar to two series of carbon didca contained within the box, and after various adventures among the magnet?, e L c, ia carried again to the top of the box, where it is reproduced exactly by a small ink-holding pen, whose point rests on a white paper tape. A clockwork apparatus palls this tape along at a gentle pace, snd after a little practice you will find that it i« quite easy to move the handle cf the transmitter bo that the pen shall write legibly on the moving tape. Now, whatever ia written On the tape before you ia written simultaneously a mile off, or it may be fifty miles off, on a similar tape, by a similar Instrument at the other end of the wire. The instrument is very compact and apparently efficient." The inventor is Mr John Rjbertson, an American.