Miscellaneous flfcetbofcs. 109 



over a metal roller or bed-plate. The trans- 

 mitting-operator worked his key precisely as 

 in sending an ordinary message by the Morse 

 system. The effect was to send currents 

 through the receiving-stylus chopped into long 

 or short marks, or the dots and dashes of the 

 Morse code, and recorded on the tape in marks 

 that were blue or brown, according to the 

 chemical used. A few lines were established 

 in this country on the Bain system, but it 

 never came into general use. 



A number of systems, called " automatic," 

 grew out of the Bain system. Bain himself 

 devised, perhaps, the first automatic telegraph. 

 The fundamental principle of all automatic 

 telegraphs depends upon the preparation of 

 the message before sending, and is usually 

 punched in a strip of paper and then run 

 through between rollers that allow the stylus 

 to ride on the paper and drop through the 

 holes that represent the dots and lines of the 

 Morse alphabet. Every time the stylus drops 

 through a hole in the paper it makes electrical 

 contact and sends a current, long or short, ac- 

 cording to the length of the hole. The object 

 of the automatic system was to send a large 

 amount of hu>ine through a single wire in a 

 short time. It does not save operators, as the 

 messages have to }>< prepared for transmission, 

 and then translated at the rereiv ing-end and 

 put into ordinary writing for delivery, 



