WRITING TELEGRAPH.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1825, 27 December 1879, Page 3

WRITING TELEGRAPH.

The ingenious writing telegraph invented by Mr E. A. Cowper, C.E., is to be exhibited at the conversazione of the Briti-h Association at Sheffield. _ Before noticing the results of its working it will be desirable to describe the apparatus in general terms. We may premise that the invention enables a person to write at a distant station many miles away, just as though he were present there himself, without requiring the use of any special signals, codes, or signs to spell each letter, as is now the practice, and without the assistance of any person to translate the signals as received. The apparatus consists of a transmitting and a reoording instrument, placed in electoral communication, one being at one station and one at another. At least this is the arrangement at present under trial, but in carrying it out practically, which is now being done, there will be a combined transmitting and receiving instrument at each station, so that messages ca i be transmitted in either direction, which at present they cannot be. The principle of the invention consis s in communicating at all times to a writing pen placed in the recording instrument, the exact position of a pencil used by the operator at the transmitting instrument through two line wires. In other words, it means that the latitude and longitude of the pencil are continually given, the vertical position of the being communicated by one wire and its horizontal position by the other. The pencil has two light contact rods jointed to it, and one of these slides over the edges of a series of contact plates having various resistances interposed between them and the line wire. _ The second rod slides over a second set of similar plates connected with the other wire, and at the receiving instrument eac i of these wires actuates its own needle. These two needles, which are placed at right angles to each other and are provided with light springs are so arrang'd that they actuate a writing pen, to which ink is constantly supplied. This pen moves up or down and backward or forwards in exact obedience to the motions of the pencil which is guided by the operator at the transmitting instrument. The message is written by the sender on a strip or riband of paper, which passes under his hand, being unwound by clockwork. The message —which is literally written by him at the receiving station—is produced by the pen there on a slightly smaller scale than in the pencil original, and upon a similarriband of paper, moved under the pena l so by clockwork. The message when completed at the receiving station is cut off a-:d sent to its destination, while that at the transmitting end can be preserved as a record. This Apparatus, which is in every respect a perfect writing telegraph, has lately been brought thoroughly under the test of practical experience on the South-Western railway, and has been working between the Waterloo and Woking Stations, a distance of 26J miles. The receiving instrument is placed at the former and the transmitting instrument at the latter station, and messages have been transmitted for practice as well as the regular line messages, which were presented during the time the new apparatus was at work Various distances have been worked through requiring a few cells more or less in the batteries to accommodate the power to the work. Thus the simple distance of 26J miles to Woking has always been worked through, but on some d ys resistance coils of wire to make up 62i miles and on others 99i miles have been added to increase the work the apparatus had to do. In every case the writing has been good and perfectly legible, and the working of the apparatus in every way satisfactory. It was found that the induction of the other telegraph wires is no way interfered with the working of the writing-telegraph. It could not be perceived when a message was being written, and when the instrument was stand ng and the pen drawing a straight line induction was only feebly indicated by a very slight unsteadiness in the line, which varied in thickness at times about one-half. The invention is finding favor with practical men, and the new double instruments, we understood, will shortly be at work