TELEGRAPH 



5732 



TELEGRAPH 



in an ink bottle fixed at the side of the plate 

 over which the recording paper passes. 



The telautograph is one of the most useful 

 and accurate of all efficiency machines. It 

 transmits a message with speed and exactness 

 and is invaluable for recording and comparing 

 signatures in banks. It is extensively used in 

 hotels, department stores and other large busi- 



ness establishments to send messages to vari- 

 ous rooms or departments, and is very useful 

 in noisy places where the use of the telephone 

 is difficult. This instrument is also utilized for 

 writing messages on bulletin boards, visible to 

 large crowds of people, such as gather on elec- 

 tion days when political feeling runs high. It 

 was invented by Elisha Gray. 



.ELEGRAPH, tel' e graj, a device for send- 

 ing messages to a distant place by means of 

 signals which represent words or ideas, as dis- 

 tinguished from the telephone, in which spoken 

 words are reproduced at a distance. The word 

 telegraph means to write ajar off. . The electro- 

 magnetic telegraph has displaced all other forms, 

 hence the word is now understood to mean a 

 device in which electricity is used in the trans- 

 mission of signals to a distance. The electric 

 telegraph ranks as one of the greatest civiliz- 

 ing agencies the world has ever known. It has 

 revolutionized the means of communication. It 

 has brought widely-separated nations into the 

 relationship of near neighbors, making them ac- 

 quainted rapidly with all the arts of peace and 

 as thoroughly serving them in the business of 

 war. 



The Speed of Telegraphy. "As quick as a 

 wink" is a homely phrase for instant action, 

 but no human effort can match the telegraph 

 for instantaneous effects. A telegraph operator 

 presses his key in New York City; when his 

 instrument clicks in response to that pressure 

 a sounder at the other end of the line in San 

 Francisco will at almost the same indivisible 

 fraction of a second respond to the impulse 

 that has traveled the breadth of a great conti- 

 nent. When Queen Victoria died papers an- 

 nouncing her death were selling on the streets 

 of American cities thirty minutes after the 

 event and before the slower English editors 

 had printed the same information. The result 

 of a horse race in Havana is known to thou- 

 sands of sportsmen in all sections of America 

 before the winning horse is led off the track. 

 In early colonial days a Bpstonian wishing to 



get word to a man in New York might be able 

 to journey back and forth in possibly twenty 

 days. To-day he can call a messenger boy elec- 

 trically, send a telegram, and, barring human 

 delays, get an answer in about as many min- 

 utes, at a cost of a few cents. At daylight on 

 a morning in July, 1917, the English exploded 

 a dozen mines at Messines, Northern Belgium, 

 which they had planted under the Germans. 

 Before daylight across the western sea papers 

 containing the news were being delivered to 

 their readers. 



Such facts as these proclaim the marvel of 

 the telegraph. Because of it "a girdle can be 

 put- around the world" in a few minutes, and 

 the news of feast or famine, coronation or death 

 in India becomes a theme for congratulation or 

 sympathy in an hour in -the Western world. A 

 telegram has reached Sydney, Australia, from 

 New York City by direct wire in three seconds 

 an electrical impulse pushed through twelve 

 thousand miles of resisting wire, over moun- 

 tains and under oceans, in about the time you 

 need to walk twelve feet. 



Development. The first message over the 

 telegraph wire, between Washington and Balti- 

 more, in 1844, was "What hath God wrought?" 

 The marvel of that crude, first instrument sug- 

 gested powers almost supernatural, yet man 

 has taken these physical forces which he un- 

 derstands yet only in part and has employed 

 them to carry his message to the uttermost 

 parts of the earth. 



To accomplish this he has demanded almost 

 6,500,000 miles of wire, for his telegraph and 

 submarine cables enough wire to stretch 260 

 times around the world. Of the land lines the 



