SIR WILLIAM THOMSON’S SIPHON RECORDER.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 96, 30 January 1872, Page 3

SIR WILLIAM THOMSON’S SIPHON RECORDER.

This invention is the great telegraph novelty of the day. The reading of the signals is effected by means of a siphon of capillary glass tube, about two inches long, the shorter end of which dips into a dish of ink, while the larger hangs down in front of a paper strip moved forward by clockwork. The miniature glass siphon is connected by a very fine aluminium wire, with a coil suspend'd between the poles of an el .ro-magnet, and is moved backward as it ia deflected to the right or left. To persuade a camel to get through the eye of a needle would, remarks the English Mechanic , under ordinary circumstances, net be a more difficult feat than to get ink through the capillary tube under ordinary pressure, but it is actually ejected in a tiny stream from the lower end of the siphon, by the simple and ingenious expedient of keeping the ink electrified to a high tension. It is a well-known fact that, when any liquid is electrified, its particles repelling each other, it is enabled to flow through the finest orifice ; and this fact, judiciously taken advantage of by Sir William Thomson has enabled him to produce a frictionless pen point. The electrification of the ink in the reservoir is done by a rotating electrophorus or replenishes kept in movement by an electro-magnetic machine.— Public Opinion.