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The minor features of the recorder have been simplified by other inventors of late; for example, magnets of steel have been substituted for the electro-magnets which influence the swinging coil; and the ink, instead of being electrified by the mouse-mill, is shed on the paper by a rapid vibration of the siphon point.
The siphon is, of course, in a mechanical sense, the most delicate part, but, in an electrical sense, the mouse-mill proves the most susceptible. It is essential for the fine marking of the siphon that the ink should neither be too strongly nor too feebly electrified.
When the atmosphere is moderately humid, a proper supply of electricity is generated by the mouse-mill, the paper is sufficiently moist, and the ink flows freely. But an excess of moisture in the air diminishes the available supply of EXALTED electricity. In fact, the damp depositing on the parts leads the electricity away, and the ink tends to clog in the siphon.
As the paper moves over the pulleys a delicate hair line is marked, straight when the siphon is stationary, but curved when the siphon is pulled from side to side by the oscillations of the signal coil. It is to the mouse-mill that me must look both for the electricity which is used to electrify the ink and for the motive power which drives the paper.
The electrician soon learns to diagnose and prescribe for this, his most valuable charge. At Aden, where they suffer much from humidity, the mouse-mill is or has been surrounded with burning carbon. At Malta a gas flame was used for the same purpose. At Suez, where they suffer from drought, a cloud of steam was kept rising round the instrument, saturating the air and paper.
That entering the mouse-mill becomes transmuted in part into the mechanical motion of the revolving drum, and part into electricity of a more intense nature into mimic lightning, in fact, with its accompaniments of heat and sound. That entering the signal magnet expends part of its force in the magnetism of the core.
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