It is a curious experience to watch for the first time the movements of a tiny Telautograph pen as it works behind a glass window in a japanned case. The pen, though connected only with two delicate wires, appears instinct with human reason. It writes in a flowing hand, just as a man writes. At the end of a word it crosses the t’s and dots the i’s. At the end of a line it dips itself in an inkpot. It punctuates its sentences correctly. It illustrates its words with sketches. It uses shorthand as readily as longhand. It can form letters of all shapes and sizes.

And yet there is no visible reason why it should do what it does. The japanned case hides the guiding agency, whatever it may be. Our ears cannot detect any mechanical motion. The writing seems at first sight as mysterious as that which appeared on the wall to warn King Belshazzar.

In reality it is the outcome of a vast amount of patience and mechanical ingenuity culminating in a wonderful instrument called the Telautograph. The Telautograph is so named because by its aid we can send our autographs, i.e. our own particular handwriting, electrically over an indefinite length of wire, as easily as a telegraph clerk transmits messages in the Morse alphabet. Whatever the human hand does on one telautograph at one end of the wires, that will be reproduced by a similar machine at the other end, though the latter be hundreds of miles away.

The instrument stands about eighteen inches high, and its base is as many inches square. It falls into two parts, the receiver and the transmitter. The receiver is vertical and forms the upright and back portion of the telautograph. At one side of it hangs an ordinary telephone attachment. The transmitter, a sloping desk placed conveniently for the hand, is the front and horizontal portion. The receiver of one station is connected with the transmitter of another station; there being ordinarily no direct communication between the two parts of the same instrument.

An attempt will be made to explain, with the help of a simple diagram, the manner in which the telautograph performs its duties.

These duties are threefold. In the first place, it must reproduce whatever is written on the transmitter. Secondly, it must reproduce only what is written, not all the movements of the hand. Thirdly, it must supply the recording pen with fresh paper to write on, and with fresh ink to write with.

In our diagram we must imagine that all the coverings of the telautograph have been cleared away to lay bare the most essential parts of the mechanism. For the sake of simplicity not all the coils, wires, and magnets having functions of their own are represented, and the drawing is not to scale. But what is shown will enable the reader to grasp the general principles which work the machine.

Turning first of all to the transmitter, we have P, a little platform hinged at the back end, and moving up and down very slightly in front, according as pressure is put on to or taken off it by the pencil. Across it a roll of paper is shifted by means of the lever S, which has other uses as well. To the right of P is an electric bell-push, E, and on the left K, another small button.

The pencil is at the junction of two small bars CC’, which are hinged at their other end to the levers AA’. Any motion of the pencil is transmitted by CC’ to AA’, and by them to the arms LL’, the extremities of which, two very small brushes ZZ’, sweep along the quadrants RR’. This is the first point to observe, that the position of the pencil decides on which sections of the quadrants these little brushes rest, and consequently how much current is to be sent to the distant station. The quadrants are known technically as rheostats, or current-controllers. Each quadrant is divided into 496 parts, separated from each other by insulating materials, so that current can pass from one to the other only by means of some connecting wire. In our illustration only thirteen divisions are given, for the sake of clearness. The dark lines represent the insulation. WW’ are the very fine wire loops connecting each division of the quadrant with its neighbours. If then a current from the [Pg 75]
[Pg 76]battery B enters the rheostat at division 1 it will have to pass through all these wires before it can reach division 13. The current always enters at 1, but the point of departure from the rheostat depends entirely upon the position of the brushes Z or Z’. If Z happens to be on No. 6 the current will pass through five loops of wire, along the arm L, and so through the main wire to the receiving station; if on No. 13, through twelve loops.

Before going any further we must have clear ideas on the subject of electrical resistance, upon which the whole system of the telautograph is built up. Electricity resembles water in its objection to flow through small passages. It is much harder to pump water through a half-inch pipe than through a one-inch pipe, and the longer the pipe is, whatever its bore, the more work is required. So then, two things affect resistance—size of pipe or wire, and length of pipe or wire.

The wires WW’ are very fine, and offer very high resistance to a current; so high that by the time the current from battery B has passed through all the wire loops only one-fifteenth or less of the original force is left to traverse the long-distance wire.

The rheostats act independently of one another. As the pencil moves over the transmitting paper, a succession of currents of varying intensity is sent off by each rheostat to the receiving station.

The receiver, to which we must now pay attention, has two arms DD’, and two rods FF’, corresponding in size with AA’ and CC’ of the transmitter. The arms DD’ are moved up and down by the coils TT’ which turn on centres in circular spaces at the bend of the magnets MM’. The position of these coils relatively to the magnets depend on the strength of the currents coming from the transmitting station. Each coil strains at a small spiral spring until it has reached the position in which its electric force is balanced by the retarding influence of the spring. One of the cleverest things in the telautograph is the adjustment of these coils so that they shall follow faithfully the motions of the rods LL’ in the transmitter.

We are now able to trace the actions of sending a message. The sender first presses the button E to call the attention of some one at the receiving station to the fact that a message is coming, either on the telephone or on the paper. It should be remarked, by-the-bye, that the same wires serve for both telephone and telautograph, the unhooking of the telephone throwing the telautograph out of connection for the time.

He then presses the lever S towards the left, bringing his transmitter into connection with the distant receiver, and also moving a fresh length of paper on to the platform P. With his pencil he writes his message, pressing firmly on the paper, so that the platform may bear down against an electric contact, X. As the pencil moves about the paper the arms CC’ are constantly changing their angles, and the brushes ZZ’ are passing along the segments of the rheostats.

Currents flow in varying intensity away to the coils TT’ and work the arms DD’, the wires FF’, and the pen, a tiny glass tube.

In the perfectly regulated telautograph the arms AA’ and the arms DD’ will move in unison, and consequently the position of the pen must be the same from moment to moment as that of the pencil.

Mr. Foster Ritchie, the clever inventor of this telautograph, had to provide for many things besides mere slavish imitation of movement. As has been stated above, the pen must record only those movements of the pencil which are essential. Evidently, if while the pencil returns to dot an i a long line were registered by the pen corresponding to the path of the pencil, confusion would soon ensue on the receiver; and instead of a neatly-written message we should have an illegible and puzzling maze of lines. Mr. Ritchie has therefore taken ingenious precautions against any such mishap. The platen P on being depressed by the pencil touches a contact, X, which closes an electric circuit through the long-distance wires and excites a magnet at the receiving end. That attracts a little arm and breaks another circuit, allowing the bar Y to fall close to the paper. The wires FF’ and the pen are now able to rest on the paper and trace characters. But as soon as the platen P rises, on the removal of the pencil from the transmitting paper, the contact at X is broken, the magnet at the receiver ceases to act, the arm it attracted falls back and sets up a circuit which causes the bar to spring up again and lift the pen. So that unless you are actually pressing the paper with your pencil, the pen is not marking, though it may be moving.

As soon as a line is finished a fresh surface of paper is required at both ends. The operator pushes the lever S sideways, and effects the change mechanically at his end. At the same time a circuit is formed which excites certain magnets at the receiver and causes the shifting forward there also of the paper, and also breaks the writing current, so that the pen returns for a moment to its normal position of rest in the inkpot.

It may be asked: If the wires are passing currents to work the writing apparatus, how can they simultaneously affect the lifting-bar, Y? The answer is that currents of two different kinds are used, a direct current for writing, a vibratory current for depressing the lifting-bar. The direct current passes from the battery B through the rheostats RR’ along the wires, through the coils working the arms DD’ and into the earth at the far end; but the vibratory current, changing its direction many times a second and so neutralising itself, passes up one wire and back down the other through the lifting-bar connection without interfering with the direct current.

The message finished, the operator depresses with the point of his pencil the little push-key, K, and connects his receiver with the distant transmitter in readiness for an answer.

The working speed of the telautograph is that of the writer. If shorthand be employed, messages can be transmitted at the rate of over 100 words per minute. As regards the range of transmission, successful tests have been made by the postal authorities between Paris and London, and also between Paris and Lyons. In the latter case the messages were sent from Paris to Lyons and back directly to Paris, the lines being connected at Lyons, to give a total distance of over 650 miles. There is no reason why much greater length of line should not be employed.

The telautograph in its earlier and imperfect form was the work of Professor Elisha Gray, who invented the telephone almost simultaneously with Professor Graham Bell. His telautograph worked on what is known as the step-by-step principle, and was defective in that its speed was very limited. If the operator wrote too fast the receiving pen lagged behind the transmitting pencil, and confusion resulted. Accordingly this method, though ingenious, was abandoned, and Mr. Ritchie in his experiments looked about for some preferable system, which should be simpler and at the same time much speedier in its action. After four years of hard work he has brought the rheostat system, explained above, to a pitch of perfection which will be at once appreciated by any one who has seen the writing done by the instrument.

The advantages of the Telautograph over the ordinary telegraphy may be briefly summed up as follows:—

Anybody who can write can use it; the need of skilled operators is abolished.

A record is automatically kept of every message sent.

The person to whom the message is sent need not be present at the receiver. He will find the message written out on his return.

The instrument is silent and so insures secrecy. An ordinary telegraph may be read by sound; but not the telautograph.

It is impossible to tap the wires unless, as is most unlikely, the intercepting party has an instrument in exact accord with the transmitter.

It can be used on the same wires as the ordinary telephone, and since a telephone is combined with it, the subscriber has a double means of communication. For some items of business the telephone may be used as preferable; but in certain cases, the telautograph. A telephone message may be heard by other subscribers; it is impossible to prove the authenticity of such a message unless witnesses have been present at the transmitting end; and the message itself may be misunderstood by reason of bad articulation. But the telautograph preserves secrecy while preventing any misunderstanding. Anything written by it is for all practical purposes as valid as a letter.

We must not forget its extreme usefulness for transmitting sketches. A very simple diagram often explains a thing better than pages of letter-press. The telautograph may help in the detection of criminals, a pictorial presentment of whom can by its means be despatched all over the country in a very short time. And in warfare an instrument flashing back from the advance-guard plans of the country and of the enemy’s positions might on occasion prove of the greatest importance.