The Romance of Modern Invention: Containing Interesting Descriptions in Non-technical Language of Wireless Telegraphy, Liquid Air, Modern Artillery, Submarines, Dirigible Torpedoes, Solar Motors, Airships, &c. &c.Williams, Archibald
Science
The Romance of Modern Invention: Containing Interesting Descriptions in Non-technical Language of Wireless Telegraphy, Liquid Air, Modern Artillery, Submarines, Dirigible Torpedoes, Solar Motors, Airships, &c. &c.
Williams, Archibald
Inventions
The Telephonograph is the invention of Mr. J. E. O. Kumberg. The
message is spoken into the telephone transmitter in the ordinary way,
and the vibrations set up by the voice are caused to act upon a
recording stylus by the impact of the sound waves at the further end
of the wires. In this manner a phonogram is produced on the wax
cylinder in the house or office of the person addressed, and it may be
read off at leisure. A very sensitive transmitter is employed, and if
desired the apparatus can be so arranged that by means of a
double-channel tube the words spoken are simultaneously conveyed to
the telephone and to an ordinary phonograph, which insures that a
record shall be kept of any message sent.
The _Telegraphone_, produced by Mr. Valdemar Poulsen, performs the
same functions as the telephonograph, but differs from it in being
entirely electrical. It contains no waxen cylinder, no cutting-point;
their places are taken respectively by a steel wire wound on a
cylindrical drum (each turn carefully insulated from its neighbours)
and by a very small electro-magnet, which has two delicate points that
pass along the wire, one on either side, resting lightly upon it.
As the drum rotates, the whole of the wire passes gradually between
the two points, into which a series of electric shocks is sent by the
action of the speaker’s voice at the further end of the wires. The
shocks magnetise the portion of steel wire which acts as a temporary
bridge between the two points. At the close of three and a half
minutes the magnet has worked from one end of the wire coil to the
other; it is then automatically lifted and carried back to the
starting-point in readiness for reproduction of the sounds. This is
accomplished by disconnecting the telegraphone from the telephone
wires and switching it on to an ordinary telephonic earpiece or
receiver. As soon as the cylinder commences to revolve a second time,
the magnet is influenced by the series of magnetic “fields” in the
wires, and as often as it touches a magnetised spot imparts an impulse
to the diaphragm of the receiver, which vibrates at the rate and with
the same force as the vibrations originally set up in the distant
transmitter. The result is a clear and accurate reproduction of the
message, even though hours and even days may have elapsed since its
arrival.
As the magnetic effects on the wire coil retain their power for a
considerable period, the message may be reproduced many times. As soon
as the wire-covered drum is required for fresh impressions, the old
one is wiped out by passing a permanent magnet along the wire to
neutralise the magnetism of the last message.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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