Science & Progress.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 67, 16 September 1893, Page 2 (Supplement)

Science & Progress.

THE TELAUTOGRAPH. It Transmits Instantaneously a Facsimile of Handwriting: to a Distance. In the accompanying cuts are illustrated $he telautograph, invented and perfected by professor Elisha Gray of Illinois. As its fiiime implies, this instrument enablesnne to transmit instantaneously a facsimile of Iris handwriting to a distance. An ordinary pen or pencil is employed. As it moves a pen at the other end of the line moves simultaneously and forms the letters and Iwords in precisely the same way. Whatever is written at one end of the circuit is rejproduced in facsimile at the other.

1 The instruments shown illustrate the transmitter, Fig. 1, and the receiver, Fig. 2. iAn ordinary lead pencil is used, near the |point of which two silk cords are fastened at right angles to each other. These cords (connect with the instrument, and following the motions of the pencil regulate the curtent impulses which control the receiving pen at the distant station. The writing is none on ordinary paper — 5 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 hiechanically at the transmitter and electrically at the receiver. The transmitter has an ample arm rest to facilitate writing, fehowu in the foreground. j The receiving pen is a capillary glass faibe placed at the junction of two aluminium arms. This glass pen is supplied with ink (which flows from a reservoir through a pmall rubber tube placed in one of these brms. The electrical impulses coming over the wire move the pen of the receiver siinulItaueously with the movements of the penbil in the hand of the sender. As the pea passes over the paper an ink tracing is left, which is always a facsimile of the sender's knotions, whether in the formation of letters, words, figures, signs or sketches. j The receiver is a very compact, handBomely finished instrument. The pen arms fere covered with glass, and all of the workIng parts are under cover, so that there is femall liability of their being affected by klirt or impaired from extraneous causes.

! THE RECEIVER. I By having the two instruments separated much greater simplicity is obtained, the are sturdily built, and the use*' has fche advantage of having his own message on one blank and that of his correspondent bn another, which facilitates filing. The [industrial World, to which thanks are due tor the foregoing illustrated di. .ription of the telautograph, says that it is destined to monopolize the private line business of the (country. Requiring no operator at either tend of the line, it will stand without a rival \n this department of electrical communication. AVettinff Coal. .. The scientist asserts that there is no {economy to be gained by wetting coal, beicause, if the water is decomposed, it will require as much heat to effect the decomposition as is yielded by the reunion or combustion of the gases. There would rather, he teays, be a loss, from the fact that the steam or vapor into whith the water would be ronverted, whether dissociation took place or not, would convey heat away on its pas»age to the stack. On the other hand, the man who is constantly handling soft coal Will tell you that it burns better and goes • further if judiciously moistened, and he knows it. An explanation has been suggested in the fact that wetting retards the mmediate and violent distillation jtrhich Eqllows the introduction of new fuel and ;hat under these circumstances decomposition takes place in the furnace, where the fsheetsget enough heat anyway, and the reunion or combustion of the dissociated gases take place farther along in their pasfeage to the stack, where the heat can be better applied. In other words, the water, jby its decomposition, takes heat from the furnace and by its subsequent combustion distributes it over the heating surface of the boiler to better advantage than if it jwere concentrated under the first fire sheet. Recent experiments, too, have shown that ft considerable quantity of aqueous vapor is becessary to facilitate the union of furnace gases with the oxygen of the air. Power Suggests that it may be to this fact, rather than to the extra flow of air induced, that the steam jet owes its efficiency as a smoke preventer. .Assaying Ore. , For the benefit of readers who live in mining districts and are desirous of analyzing a piece of ore suspected of containing (silver these directions are given in The Horological Review: "Should the piece be an argentiferous galena or lead bearing silver ore, mix 300 grains of the pulverized ore with 'JOO grains carbonite of soda and 30 jrains charcoal. Set it in a crucible on a furnace, melt, take off, give a few taps to settle the metal, let cool and remove the button. Then reaneltthe button in a porous supel made of bone dust, which absorbs the lead, leaving the pure silver." I Waterproof Glue. A scientilic authority advises when waterproof glue is wanted to dissolve of gum sandarac and mastic each s,'i drams in a half pint of alcohol and 5 1..' drams of turpentine. Place the solution in a glue boiler over the fire and gradually stir into it an equal quantity of a strong hot solution of glue and isinglass; strain while hot through II cloth. Or to plain glue solution add bichromate of potash; ou exposure to the air it becomes waterproof. The Highest Towers. The Eiffel tower in Paris, which is 984 feet high, is the highest tower in the world, while the Washington monument, which is 555 feet high, is the highest in the United States.