+ 
On the Electric Telegraph of Prof. Morse. 57 
stroke the paper, kept running with uniform motion above it. 
The attraction of this armature is due to the netism induced 
in mm, by the current passing through a circuit, consisting of a dis- 
nt battery, the helices m m, and two conducting media continu- 
ing from w w to the battery poles—when this circuit is broken and 
the magnetism discharged from mm, a spring withdraws the arma- 
ture. Now were the wire composing one part of this cireuit bro- 
ken in any part, and its ends repeatedly brought into contact, the 
armature would vibrate in precise accordance with these motions, 
This breaking and closing is accomplished by the key, (fig. 3, 
K,) the pen of the telegraph, whose operation is obvious: as it is 
depressed, so is the armature, each at the same instant, practically 
irrespective of the length of the circuit. Hence, a uniform mo- 
tion being given to the paper, the key being kept down, the ar- 
mature depressed, and the pen raised, a continuous line is impress- 
ed on the paper. If the key be thrice quickly depressed, three 
dots are in like manner impressed. An alphabet of combinations 
of dots and lines is thus easily produced from the dexterous man- 
ipulations of the key. The sole use of the wheel-work repre- 
sented in the figure, is to give the paper a steady onward motion. 
Nhe wheels are driven by a weight regulated by a fly, and libe- 
tated or stopped by a “break” originally acted upon by the pen 
lever, now controlled by the operator’s hand. | This “ break,” in- 
geniously releasing the clock-work during the motion of the lev- 
er, has with the bell been dismissed as a neat contrivance, whose 
utility the telegraphic business has not yet sanctioned. 
Every variety and change, preserving the original idea and re- 
lation of electro-magnet and pen lever, has been tried in the con- 
struction of “registers.” In some the levers are perpendicular, 
in others horizontal, while in one form, a shaft playing horizon- 
tally through a tube carries, at one end the pen, at the other the 
armature. But of these instruments the least complicated are 
erred, so accurately constructed as to give the paper a per- 
fectly uniform and rectilinear motion, allowing of its being sa" 
peatedly indented with the telegraph characters in parallel lines,” 
and so adjusted with reference to the lever that no accident can 
tisplace the steel point from its appropriate groove. 
The register, thus briefly described, with the battery and con- 
ducting wires, forms the sum of a popular description of Morse’s 
graph. A clear idea of their relations is enough to convince 
one of the beautiful simplicity of the invention, nor is it improb- 
able that such an application of the electro-magnet had often 
tk ROE PROS a cee 
ia is a very essential requisite of a good register, 
the rollers, and being adjustable to ime Tent oF left, direct the course of the paper 
with such accuracy, that it may be rewritten fifteen times in para 
~eiTument represented here does not exhibitthem- 
Serigs, Vol. V, No. 13.—Jan., 1848. 8 x 
