Of the hundred and one uses to which electric wires are now appropriated—of the alarms, fire-calls, clocks, etc.—we need not speak. We must pass on to the Writing Machine (fig. 258) before we make mention of Mr. Edison’s inventions. The Writing Machine is as remarkable for the simplicity of its mechanism as for the facility and ease with which it can be used. It was invented by Remington, the American, whose name is so universally known in connection with a repeating rifle. He makes these writing machines in his own factory, where he associates them with rifles and sewing machines—implements for war and peace. The appearance of the Writing Machine may be easily perceived from the illustration (fig. 258), which is drawn to scale one-fourth of the actual size. It comprises a key-board, upon which there are forty-four keys or stops, including numbers from 2 to 9, the _i_ and _o_ of the alphabet serving for numbers 1 and 0, and all the letters of the alphabet arranged in the manner most convenient for manipulation. There are also the various accents and stops, with note of interrogation, etc. The flat ruler at the base of the key-board is struck when it is necessary to separate one word from another. In the interior of the apparatus every letter is attached to a small hammer, and corresponds to the pressure bestowed upon the notes, which are disposed in a circle. If A, for example, be touched upon the key-board, the hammer will bring A to the centre of the circle, and so every letter of the word will be, by such action, brought to the centre of the circle in succession. The paper upon which the letter is printed is wound upon a cylinder mounted upon a slide, as seen in the upper portion of the illustration. When the letter is pressed down on the key-board the corresponding hammer strikes against the cylinder, between which and the hammer is a ribbon prepared with a special ink. The letter being in relief like ordinary type is impressed upon the paper. The slide upon which the paper is mounted is so arranged as to move from right to left exactly a letter-breadth after each impression. Thus as every hammer strikes at the same spot a regular succession of letters are printed off, the paper moving with regularity. When the line is filled—that is, when the paper has moved across the cylinder—a bell rings, and a handle is moved by the operator who is thus warned. The lever moved brings the slide back again, and a new plain surface is ready to commence upon the cylinder moving upwards at the same time, and displaying the printed line. [Illustration: Fig. 258.—Remington’s Writing Machine.]