On the 150th anniversary of the US transcontinental #telegraph, my #telegraphy blog the Peninsula Telegraph-Recorder

An interview with Nikola Tesla by John B. Kennedy Colliers, January 30, 1926 via:proccupations

History of the U.S. Telegraph Industry

Jesse McKinley, NY Times, 13 July 2011 ¶ Morse one night a year, at old RCA station at Point Reyes (formerly KPH "marine Morse station") ¶ "Experts in the form said the secret was to never count the dots and dashes, but to listen. // 'You had to think of it as a rhythm,' Mr. Martini said. 'You had to kind of be a musician.'” ¶ lovely gallery, ten images ¶ and two lovely audio clips, including traditional signoff "We wish you fair winds and following seas."

Compressed for Morse, compressed to better the odds
this first, flimsy signal might send sense across ocean
unbroken, I type just WYSSA, which you know means
All my love darling in this telegraph of foreseen
longing.

Women Telegraph Operators : Emma Hunter

History of the Atlantic Cable & Submarine Telegraphy ; examples of raw siphon recorder copy, also cleaner signals having been processed by a WU regenerator

chapters on the Wheatstone A.B.C., Hughes, Baudot and Murray (automatic and multiplex) systems pp 398-519

article by Maximilian Foster in World’s Work (August 1901) : 1195-1199
perforated tape driven, not yet multiplex, other than if using “Morse quadruplex system”. four photographs, including two of (presumably) Donald Murray.

The Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 47 (1911) : 450-529
Builds on his “Setting Type by Telegraph” (1905); analytical and practical. good account of press messages (463-466), newspaper private wires (466-467), even “counting words in telegrams (473-477)

The Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 34 (1905): 555-608 ¶ beautiful presentation.
“The simplicity of these machines and the saving of wire cost depend on the fewness and simplicity of these signals. It is in this reduction in the number and the simplification of signals that there will be found to lie not only the fundamental distinction between the telegraph and the telephone, but also the fundamental criterion of all telegraph systems...” (557); Mr Judd in discussion, “but when the hideous code words...”; automatic typesetting by telegraph is discussed at 593, including obstacles; the President (at 607-08) remarks, “I have never seen before that the demonstrator absolutely took the instrument to pieces before the audience and put it together again — and then worked...” ¶ numerous images of "code"

a boom in telegraphic code books that reduced both common and complex phrases into single words. Dozens of different codes were published; many catered to specific occupations and all promised efficiency.

by Ellis Parker Butler, opens to entertaining passage on encyclopedias and telegraphs… ¶ elaborated from a story — "How the Compendium of Universal Knowledge Secured a Maid for Mrs. Tarbro-Smith" — that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post (March 25, 1905); the story (and the book) illustrated by May Wilson Preston ¶ see the compendious http://www.ellisparkerbutler.info/ ¶ he seems to have been fortunate in the illustrators of his books — Ethel Hayes!

Be sure to look at the background and silhouetted wires in this shot. See the comment, "That's one of the most amazing collections of overhead wires I've ever seen on Shorpy. I'll bet that it has a lot to do with the business on the ground floor of our featured building."

— elementary telegraphy, telegraphy, telegraph repeaters, power equipment (Scranton: International Textbook Company, 1913) ¶ opens to pp58-59, showing example of a siphon recorder message (also block signal presentation of the cable morse alphabet)

I come to Galton in connection with "ekphrastic telegraphy," a concept that broadly covers coding and telegraphic communication of visual information. The Galton intersection includes his fingerprint identification (and potential for code), and his system to describe images by cipher. He captures the entire profile of a Greek girl in 343 small circles, described by a cipher of 271 letters, of which 79 letters suffice to describe the complex shape of her eye in profile : URkkk kklll mSVap ponmn mmlmm mlmlm llmZZ VnTnn mnmmm mmmlm mmnZZ Tjjjj jjkke chmmn mnun [sic] ononZ . ¶ find on this site his “The Just-Perceptible Difference” Proceedings of the Royal Institution 14 (January 27, 1893)