SPECIAL APPLIANCES.
Typewriling first patent for a typewriting machine was obtained in 174 by Henry Mill of England. The apparatus is not described, except that it was a device to write in printed characters one letter at a time, one after another. After the lapse of more than one hun dred and twenty-five years, an English patent was issued (1841) to Alex ander Bain and Thomas Wright, entitled "A Machine to Print Intelli gence at Distant Places." This was designed for what is now called a " printing telegraph." (See Vol V., p. 352.) The first American patent was issued in 1843 to Charles Thurber of Worcester, Massachusetts. Thurber's machine was slow and impracticable. In 1848, Fairbank was granted a patent for a machine, which consisted of several series or systems of vertical converging rods, each system being so adapted as to be pushed up and down vertically, like piston-rods, against a common imping ing point. On the upper end of each rod was the desired type. This machine was designed for printing colors on cloth, but it is classed with typewriters. In 1849 a French patent was taken out by Pierre Foucault, a blind man in the Paris Institute for the Blind. This machine printed embossed letters for the blind, and proved a success. In 1850, Oliver T. Eddy of Baltimore, Maryland, received a patent-right, but no model of the invention can be found, nor was any machine produced. American patents were issued in 1852 and 1854, and three in 1856. Between 1856 and 1866 several other patents were issued, but none of these inventions proved to be of munch practical value.
Remington first successful typewriter was invented and patented in 1868 by Christopher I,. Sholes (1819-189o) of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1866 lie was engaged in developing a new machine for printing the numbers or folios on the leaves of blank-books after such books were found. Upon a suggestion by Carlos Glidden for a machine to " write letters and words instead of figures," and the description in London Engineering of a machine called the " pterotype," which was invented by John Pratt of Centre, Alabama, but then residing in London, and which was designed to do just what Glidden had suggested, Sholes decided to try what could be done with the idea. Sholes invited Glidden to join in the effort, and subsequently, Samuel W. Soule was invited to join the enterprise, and thus they became associated. Early in 1867, Sholes began work on the machine, and in September of the same year, with the help and suggestions of his associates, there was finished the first machine on which letters were written; but notwithstanding that it worked successfully, so far as to write rapidly and accurately, trial and experience demonstrated it to be far short of an acceptable writing-machine. After repeated experiments with one device after another, the invention devel oped, until in the beginning of 1873 it was thought to be sufficiently per fected to warrant its manufacture. The machine was consequently sent to the factory of the Remingtons at Ilion, under whose careful supervision and the care of their skilled artisans improvement followed improvement until the apparatus embodied the first practical typewriter, which is now known as the " Remington " 128, fig. i).
Construction and Opera/jun.—The engraved types are on the ends of a series of steel bars, which are arranged in a circle, and so pivoted that they may vibrate on the pivots and all strike at the same point in the centre of and a little above the horizontal plane of the circle by depressing the key levers from the key-board. Directly over the point where the types all strike an inked ribbon is so drawn that every type strikes it in delivering an impression; each time a key is struck the ribbon automatically moves a slight distance, so that every type may strike it in a fresh place. Above the inking ribbon is a carriage which moves horizontally from right to left, and carries the paper; the paper is arranged to go under a cylinder or roller which acts as a platen for the inking ribbon and type, so that every time a key is struck a type is thrown up against the inking ribbon and carries it against the cylindrical platen, where the type leaves its impres sion on the paper. A spring pulls constantly against the carriage, held by a ratchet or trip, which lets go every time a key is struck and catches again; in the interval the weight pulls the carriage and paper along the space of one letter. As the carriage nears the end of its travel an alarm bell is struck to notify the operator; the carriage is then drawn back by a single motion of the hand to the initial point, and at the same time a ratchet and ratchet-wheel attached to the cylindrical platen are made to revolve the cylinder and move the paper the distance desired for a line space; the lines can be regulated to be close together or wide apart. The machine has thirty-nine characters, which by suitable manipulation can be increased to eighty. The following are the principal ones: a b c d e fghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJ KLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ&,;:.!?""r.'()— - $ i 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9, which are actuated by keys arranged in four "banks" or rows, as shown in the Figure. Each key has inscribed on it a letter or character; these correspond with the types on the type-bars, each one of which carries two types, capital and lower case, or other dupli cate signs, the one behind the other. When a capital letter is to be printed the depression of a key shifts the position of the cylinder so as to bring the second type in contact with the ribbon. By striking the key contain ing the desired letter, the corresponding type strikes the paper on the cylinder and prints the letter. When the pressure of the finger is removed from the key the type drops away from the paper, the carriage is released, and, by the action of the main-spring, is drawn forward just the width of a letter; then another key is struck, and so on, forming words and sen tences. The simplicity and speed of this operation are marvellous; an average writing speed of forty words per minute can easily be attained with practice, and expert writers have been able to reach a speed of from sixty to seventy words per minute.