THE PANTELEGRAPH.

Southland Times, Volume 1, Issue 501, 25 June 1866, Page 3

THE PANTELEGRAPH.

(From Galignani.)

We have several times had occasion to mention the Abbe Casailii's wonderful invention, by which he had not only transmits from one place to another the words of a despatch, but the very handwriting of the person who sends it. As this new telegraphic system is now beginning to receive a practical application on a large scale, a description of the apparatus may not be uninteresting to our readers. Imagine a cast irou frame shaped like an A, and a pendulum suspended from its apex. At each foot of the frame there is an electromagnet, through the action of which the pendulum, which is two meters in length, oscillates between them, according as an electric current passing from one to°the other. About the middle of the shaft of the pendulum there is a sort of arm or cam, which at each oscillation causes a lever fixed to the cross-bar of the Ato describe a circular arch. At the end of each oscillation, this lever twice meets a clink and spring work fixed to the same cross-bar. At the first stroke the metallic vibration is interrupted, and at the second a fork is set in motion, the prong of which alternately act on the teeth of a ratch. wkich is thus forced to turn, and is so doing communicates motion to an endless screw cut into its own shaft. This endless screw causes two small chariots to move simultaneously ; each chariot carries a tine steel point or stylus. Now, as in virtue of the endless screw, these two points move uniformly in the same direction — the progress of the one not differing from that < f the other even by a hair's breadth— it follows that whatever stroke will be described by the one, will be imitated with mathematical exactness by the other. Now, suppose a metallic plate to be placed under each point, these plates being curved like the circular are described by the points, then, after a certain number of oscillations of the pendulum, these points in moving along will have described upon the plates as many parallel lines infinitely close to each other as there have been oscillations, until the whole surface of the plates has been gone over. The plates are iv direct communication with the ground by means of chains ; one of the plates we will call j the transmitter, the other the recipient. The sender of a despatch writes it with . common ink on a sheet of tinned paper; and plates it on the transmitter. On the recipient we place a sheet of chemical paper, impregnated with a solution of cyanide of potassium. Let us now set the apparatus in motion. The current being established, so long as the point of the transmitter only touches upon the tin the electric fluid will escape into the earth ; but no sooner does it meet the ink of the writing, which is a non-con-ductor, than the fluid, not finding an escape there, will seek it along the wire which connects the two together. Thus the point which works on the chemical paper of the recipient will produce a blue stroke ou the latter for every black stroke on the despatch ; for steel in contact with cyanide of potassium, and under the influence of a positive current produces blue. Hence, supposing the despatch to have been written in black in Paris and transmitted to Lyons, the correspondent at the latter place will receive, in blue, the exact fac simile of the sender's handwriting. An order to pay a certain sum may be transmitted with perfect safety.