United States or Taiwan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I write you a hasty line to say, in the first place, that I have overcome all difficulties in regard to a portrule, and have invented one which will be perfect. It is very simple, and will not take much time or expense to make it. Mr. S. has incorporated it into the specification for the patent.
We have tried the experiment of sending a pretty full letter, which I set up from the numbers given me, transmitting through two miles of wire and deciphered with but a single unimportant error. "I am staying out to perfect a modification of my portrule and hope to see you on Tuesday, or, at the farthest, on Wednesday, when I shall tell you all about it.
The drawings, I find on enquiry, would cost you from forty to fifty dollars if procured from the draughtsman about the Patent Office. I have, therefore, determined to do them myself and save you that sum." The portrule, referred to above, was a device for sending automatically messages which were recorded permanently on the tape at the other end of the line.
"If you can possibly get the circular portrule completed before we go it will be a great convenience, not to say an indispensable matter, for I have just learned so much of Wheatstone's Telegraph as to be pretty well persuaded that my superiority over him will be made evident more by the rapidity with which I can make the portrule work than in almost any other particular."
Please, therefore, not to proceed with the type or portrule as now constructed: I will see you on my return and explain it in season for you to get one ready for us. "I find it a most arduous and tedious process to adjust the specification. I have been engaged steadily for three days with Mr. S., and have not yet got half through, but there is one consolation, when done it will be well done.
At last every detail had been attended to, and in a postscript to a letter of April 28 he says: "We sail on the 16th of May for Liverpool in the ship Europe, so I think you will have time to complete circular portrule. Try, won't you?" Arrival in England. Application for letters patent. Cooke and Wheatstone's telegraph. Patent refused. Departure for Paris. Patent secured in France. Earl of Elgin.
Word Of The Day