Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1877 — Mr. Pickering’s Great invention. [ARTICLE]

Mr. Pickering’s Great invention.

Loktkg Pickering, one of the editors and proprietors of the Evening Bulletin and the Morning Call of San Francisco, who has just received a patent for an arrangement by which in a few minutes an entire newspaper page maybe telegraphed, was in the city a few days ago, and gave a Tribune reporter some additional facts in regard to his invention and the purposes for which it is designed. Mr. Pickering is about sixty years of age, and his invention is the result of several years of earnnest study. His attention was directed to the subject of telegraphy from his experience of the great cost of telegraphic dispatches for ihis papers. “Papers must have news,” said Mr. Pickering, “anAwe found that it cost a good deal to get it, so that I was led to devise, if possible, some cheaper method.” And he believes that he has at last succeeded. “By this method,” he continued, “ a page of the New York 'Tribune can be transmitted to Chicago in twenty or thirty minutes.” “ And what about the cost of sending so much matter?” “ Scarcely anything at all,” replied Mr. Pickering—"only the use of the wires for a few minutes.” The inventor then explained that the Western papers would now be able to make arrangements with the publishers of Eastern journals to have all the news sent them very cheaply by the flew process of transmission. The difference in time would enable this to be done the more readily. It would be possible, too, for the New York journals, if they so desired, to get out editions in the Western cities by having printers there, since the copy is delivered directly from the instrument in such form that it can be handed to them. In course of time, Mr. Pickering thought, it would be possible to have a facsimile of the London Times sent over, but at present the current on the Atlantic cable was too feeble to transmit a message by means of his process. It will prove of value, in certain contingencies, to the Associated Press also. An agent of the Associated Press said yesterday that it was often desirable to delay sending messages until all the facts in a case could be ascertained, and then to send it at once. This he thought the new process would enable one to do, and thus avoid sending statements that are contradicted in later reports. It will be very serviceable, too, in telegraphing Presidents’ messages, as they could be sent entire, and not in small sections as hitherto received. When questioned as to the value of his process in the transmission of private messages, Mr. Pickering explained that probably it could not be used to advantage for this purpose. It was designed exclusively for the benefit of newspapers which receive long messages at once. He said, however, that as no telegraph operators are required at either end of the line by his method of transmission, and the message is delivered already printed, there might be an advantage in using it for private messages. The stereotype plate, of which it is desired to send a sac simile., is placed upon a cylinder capable of rapid revolution. By a very simple process, the depressions between the letters are filled with a non-conducting material, and the cylinder and plate are then changed with electricity.—lF. Y. Tribune.