4 io SECTION MECHANICS. 



Very early in the history of telegraphy, in the year 1837, a year that 

 was prolific of telegraphic invention, Morse, in America, conceived the 

 idea of recording the signals sent by the current. His first notion 

 was to have a style which would make a mark as the paper passed the 

 needle, and his first signals were of this character, representing the 

 numerals. He formed a telegraphic dictionary, and by simply accord- 

 ing to each word a certain number, messages were sent by sending a 

 series of numbers. The first message ever sent was " 215," " success- 

 ful ;" "36," "experiment ;" "2," u with ;" "58," "telegraph ;" and the 

 first instrument employed registered its signals by a lead pencil. 

 Then, finding that the lead rapidly wore out, he passed to a common 

 pen, which he found great difficulty in keeping supplied with ink. 

 From that he proceeded to the common carbonic paper, and lastly he 

 arrived at a common Morse embosser, where the marks are recorded 

 by the indentation of dots and dashes upon paper. We have here a 

 form of the Morse embosser that was used generally in England up 

 to the year 1853, and you will find that upon this piece of paper are 

 recorded in raised characters the dots and dashes that form the 

 alphabet. Now, in the first place, the pressure on the paper, and the 

 form of these characters upon the paper, means a certain amount of 

 work done by the current. It required pressure ; it required force to 

 make these impressions ; and, more than that, the constant reading of 

 a white strip of paper, whether merely by a shade or ridge, or by the 

 marks made, became very tedious to the eye, and it was at once 

 apparent that any means which would overcome this difficulty would 

 be a great improvement. Accordingly, an Austrian of the name of 

 John, in the year 1854, produced this instrument that we see here, 

 recording the marks by permanent lines of ink. This very speedily 

 as soon, in fact, as it reached the prolific house of Siemens received 

 that finishing touch which genius and skill always impart to works of 

 this class, and we soon had produced the instrument you see here, 

 known all over the world as Siemen's Direct Writing Morse Inker. 

 Here you will find the words recorded in permanent ink upon a strip 

 of paper. 



Another Recorder is also on the table Bains's Chemical Recorder. 

 It differs from the others in recording its signals by the same power 

 which electricity exented in Sommering's that is, by the decomposi- 



