Mr. Poulsen has made an instrument of a different type to be employed for the reception of an unusually lengthy communication. Instead of a wire coil on a cylinder, a ribbon of very thin flat steel spring is wound from one reel on to another across the poles of _two_ electro-magnets, which touch the lower side only of the strip. The first magnet is traversed by a continuous current to efface the previous record; the second magnetises the strip in obedience to impulses from the telephone wires. The message complete, the strip is run back, and the magnets connected with receivers, which give out loud and intelligent speech as the strip again traverses them. The Poulsen machine makes the transmission of the same message simultaneously through several telephones an easy matter, as the strip can be passed over a series of electro-magnets each connected with a telephone. THE TELAUTOGRAPH. It is a curious experience to watch for the first time the movements of a tiny Telautograph pen as it works behind a glass window in a japanned case. The pen, though connected only with two delicate wires, appears instinct with human reason. It writes in a flowing hand, just as a man writes. At the end of a word it crosses the t’s and dots the i’s. At the end of a line it dips itself in an inkpot. It punctuates its sentences correctly. It illustrates its words with sketches. It uses shorthand as readily as longhand. It can form letters of all shapes and sizes. And yet there is no visible reason why it should do what it does. The japanned case hides the guiding agency, whatever it may be. Our ears cannot detect any mechanical motion. The writing seems at first sight as mysterious as that which appeared on the wall to warn King Belshazzar. In reality it is the outcome of a vast amount of patience and mechanical ingenuity culminating in a wonderful instrument called the Telautograph. The Telautograph is so named because by its aid we can send our autographs, _i.e._ our own particular handwriting, electrically over an indefinite length of wire, as easily as a telegraph clerk transmits messages in the Morse alphabet. Whatever the human hand does on one telautograph at one end of the wires, that will be reproduced by a similar machine at the other end, though the latter be hundreds of miles away. [Illustration: _By kind permission of The Telautograph Co._ _The Telautograph. The upper portion is the Receiver, the lower (with cover removed) is the Transmitter._]