the last few years were furnished through the courtesy of the Postmaster-General.

year.

It is noticed in general, that there is an increase in all departments of the intelligence transmission service from the earliest dates. The number of pieces of mail sent during 1896 was 5,693,000,000 which is the greatest amount ever sent in a single The greatest number of telephone messages on record for a single year is 757,000,000 in 1895. The largest number of telegraph messages was sent in 1893 and amounted to 66,000,000. Thus the greatest number of telegraph messages as compared with telephone messages is in the ratio of 1 to 112. The greatest number of pieces of mail is in the ratio of 86 to 1 as compared with telegraph messages, or in the ratio of 71⁄2 to 1 as compared with telephone messages. It is also seen that the cost of the mail service of the United States in 1896 was $90,626,000, or about $1.25 per capita. The greatest receipts for any year of the American Bell Telephone Company were in 1895 $16,400,000, about 25 cents per capita, while the greatest receipts of the Western Union Telegraph Company were in 1893 $24,978,000, about 35 cents per capita.

It appears therefore that the people of the United States pay for a telegraph service of about one-eighty-sixth the amount, about one-fourth of that paid for the entire mail service of the United States. It also costs one-and-a-half times as much for telegraph service as for the telephone service, although the number of telephone messages is about eleven-and-a-half times. as great.

A conclusion to be drawn from the above general data seems to be that the people are willing to pay more in proportion for a kind of service like that of the telegraph than any other. From the point of serving the people, as well as from a business standpoint, it appears that improvement in this class of intelligence transmission is at present much to be desired. The present state of the art of telegraphy points to improvements along the line of automatic machine transmission.

It is of interest to inquire what effects a system of telegraphy capable of sending continuously 3,000 words a minute would have on the existing methods. To take a single example of the business between New York and Chicago, where about 40,000 letters are carried daily, it would require but two lines in continuous operation to handle the entire business. At present it takes three days to receive a business reply between New York and Chicago. This transmission by machine telegraphy could be

accomplished easily the same day. It is thought that an effect of this would be to increase business transactions to such an extent that the total volume of intelligence transmitted would be augmented, rather than to diminish the business now done by existing methods.

The class of business which such a system would probably at first obtain would be the less urgent telegraph business of greater volume, such as the Associated Press dispatches and newspaper press reports. Among the possibilities is the simultaneous publication of the same newspaper in different parts of the country. For example, in an edition of a daily paper having twelve pages and eight columns per page, making ninety-six columns in all, there are less than 185,000 words. At the rate of 3,000 words per minute it would only require about an hour to transmit the entire contents of the paper. This calculation furthermore assumes that the whole paper is uniformly printed in fine type. It would require a single operator, working by hand and averaging twenty words per minute, over six days of twenty-four hours each to send this amount.

The system proposed in this paper is especially adapted to meet the demands of this class of business; for the great flexibility of the alternating current as employed, permits if necessary considerable amounts of power to be transmitted over the line which may be used for making simultaneous manifold copies of the same dispatches in each of widely separated cities. manner each of the several newspaper company subscribers in each city receives the identical service with the minimum delay, since each copy received is an original. Each additional subscriber to this service represents no appreciable expense to the company, since it requires but another receiving needle. Furthermore, the use of the alternating current permits the line to be used quadruplex at very rapid speeds, that is, four entirely different dispatches may be sent over one wire at the same time, two in each direction, and any number of copies of one or all the dispatches may be received independently at the same time.

In addition to the above it is practicable to employ the line for a system of the ordinary quadruplex telegraphy at the same time. In trial experiments in the laboratory, particular instructions. were given to the operator of the Morse instrument to observe if possible when messages were being sent by the alternating current, and absolutely no effect was detected.

The objection may be urged, that it is already difficult to handle the business at the present rate of operation of the Wheatstone

system, and if the instruments worked faster it could not be handled. This objection is undoubtedly a real one in some cases, and it is partly this fact which indicates that it may be easier to inaugurate new methods than to attempt to adapt the new rapid transmitters to the present methods.

A telegraph office of the future will probably present a different appearance from that which may now be seen in any of the large cities. At present in operating the Wheatstone system in this country, sending to long distances at the rate of 150 to 200 words per minute, both those who prepare the sending tape and those who translate the receiving tape are employés of the telegraph company and are near the sending and receiving instruments. If it requires about ten men to prepare tape, and as many more to translate it for a single instrument operating at 150 words per minute, it will require twenty times this working force for one of the rapid machine transmitters. Evidently changes would be required in the present methods to handle this business.

It is thought that a telegraph company of the future will fulfil a somewhat different function from the present ones. The company will own its wires and rights of way as now, but the tendency of the offices proper will be to transmit and receive letters already prepared rather than to undertake the preparation of the letters as well. The income of the company will be derived from the rent of its lines at a fixed price per minute, or a fixed price per hundred words. The service of the telegraph office then becomes like that of the post office, its duty being to receive and deliver letters already prepared, as the post office does. The difference between the two offices is in the manner in which this is accomplished. The telegraph office becomes a post office which employs an electric current in a copper wire to carry its letters instead of a railroad train. The advantage in point of speed of delivering letters by the former method is apparent. Instead of requiring twenty-four hours to deliver letters between New York and Chicago, it will require but a few hours at most, and make it possible to receive a reply the same day. It is probable that such a system would take more business from the present postal system than any other; for when telegraph letters can be sent at reasonable rates comparable with postage, in a few hours instead of many days, a certain amount of present post office business will be diverted. More than this, when business can be done with greater facility than at present, the total volume of business will undoubtedly be increased, because transactions may take place in a day which formerly required a week.

It would be to the interest of such a company to seek that class of less urgent business now done by correpondence, rather than the class handled by the present telegraph companies, where the highest speed of delivery is expected. If one trunk line becomes established between large business centers, it will draw business from a surrounding area. For instance, if a line were established between New York and Chicago, and a person in Albany desired to communicate with Chicago or points beyond, it would be quicker to send the letter to New York for transmission over the trunk line to Chicago, and then by rail to its destination, than to send directly by rail from Albany. With a few trunk lines in successful operation it would not be long before they would be multiplied.

It is understood that these telegraph letters are sent by mail in envelopes in the usual manner, except that the envelope contains the prepared message ready to be sent through the transmitter, and thus the telegraph office becomes relieved of the preparation of the letters which is not strictly a part of its business. When the system comes into general use, business offices will have their own perforators, and it will become necessary for the operator to learn the telegraph alphabet as a part of his preparation as a stenographer and typewriter. The three-key perforating machine is comparatively inexpensive, but undoubtedly a machine could be devised at an early date, as an attachment to the present typewriter, for the purpose of perforating letters at the same time that they are being written by the typewriter in the usual way. This could be constructed to operate by the use of electromagnets, and can be attached to a typewriter without interfering in any way with its operation. No extra power would be required, for this can be derived from an electric current which operates the attachment. The writing may be perforated at the present rate of speed of typewriting without the operator having any knowledge of the telegraph alphabet as far as perforating is concerned. This machine will cost more than the three-key perforator, but it would in a short time more than pay for the difference in cost on account of the great gain in speed, and also because it prints a copy of the letter which may be kept on file. Before these perforators are introduced into common use it will be necessary to establish offices in the immediate vicinity of the terminals of the trunk lines, to prepare letters for persons furnishing printed or written copy, as well as to furnish a printed translation when desired of letters received from the central office. The opportunity to obtain a cheaper rate for prepared

letters will act as an inducement to those employing a stenographer to add a perforator to their offices.

Concerning the daily correspondence of the large business houses between cities which are the terminals of the trunk lines, it might be an advantage for them to have exclusive use of the line for a certain number of minutes daily at a certain fixed time of day, by subscribing and paying an annual rental to the company. Knowing definitely at what hour the mail would be dispatched daily, it would then be possible for each house to send by messenger its daily mail already prepared for transmission to the general transmission office, where it could be placed in boxes prepared for the subscribers, to be taken out and transmitted when its time arrives. The distribution at the receiving end of the line could be accomplished as now by the regular mail service.

In the limited use of rapid automatic intelligence transmission at present, the sending and receiving records are made upon prepared paper in the form of tape. In the larger volume of business which is being considered here, it does not seem certain that tape would be the best form for the sending and receiving paper. It would be an advantage to have the letters received upon sheets of paper with the dots and dashes arranged in parallel lines. Besides facilitating the reading, this form would be more convenient for mailing. It would also easily permit reference to any part of the letter at a glance. The amount of paper required by the use of sheet form instead of tape would be reduced, which is an item of importance where such a volume of business is being handled. Sending and receiving from the sur

face of a cylinder seems entirely practicable.

Another point which must be considered is whether with these systems, the induced currents from neighboring wires along the line or from any other cause will affect the legitimate signals materially, as has been at times the case with the Wheatstone system. In reply to this it can be said that these receivers for telegraphy are not necessarily more senitive to small currents because they are rapid. On the contrary, they may be made to require as much current as is found desirable to rid them of the effects of outside influences, and at the same time retain the property of quick action in response to currents of the proper magnitude. In this connection it may be said that the utility of a single line wire becomes so great that more attention will be given in the future to the line construction and maintenance. If millions of dollars are invested in the construction of a single