1862 - Telegraph Using the Bain System via the Boston & Vermont Telegraph Co.

Description

1862 - Telegraph Using the Bain System via the Boston & Vermont Telegraph Co.
1862 - Telegraph Using the Bain System via the Boston & Vermont Telegraph Co.
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Description
A FRIEND ANNOUNCES HIS UPCOMING VISIT VIA THE BOSTON & VERMONT TELEGRAPH COMPANY
Telegraph message with cover sent from Camden, Maine to Vernon, Vermont.  J. L. Lee.  Camden, Maine to Vernon, Vermont: March 20, 1862.
Telegraph message on Vermont & Boston Telegraph Company letterhead enclosed in an illustrated Vermont & Boston Telegraph Company envelope that features an American eagle posing in front of a pair of cherubim or putti spinning the earth as bolts of electricity spring from their fingers. The letterhead records that the telegram was sent from Camden to Mr. Addison Meiltieau (?). No postal markings as after the telegraph was received in Vernon, it would have been carried to the local address.
The message announces the sender’s expected arrival day in Vernon.
The Vermont and Boston Telegraph Company was founded in 1848 and eventually stretched between Boston, Massachusetts, and Montreal. It used the Bain telegraphy system, a rival of the one developed by Samuel Morse until it was acquired by [a bigger telegraph system] in 1866 .  [ebay won't allow me to mention the big telegraph because they think doing so somehow encourages buys not to use their payment system; stupid ebay.}
The Bain system employed a chemical telegraph." The novelty was the receiver, it consisted of a disc of paper moistened with a potassium ferrocyanide and ammonium nitrate solution and resting on an iron plate, on which a stylus traced a spiral as the iron plate was turned by clockwork. Whenever a current flowed, and only a very small current was required, electrolysis caused the formation of iron ferrocyanide, or Prussian blue, and a mark was made on the disc. It looked much like a record player of many years later. Bain even constructed a new code of dots and dashes which was purposely different from the Vail (Morse) Code. At least one Bain character found its way into the later Morse Code, as well as his numbers.
Later Bain telegraphs used a paper strip instead of the disc, and an iron stylus instead of the iron plate. Potassium iodide could also be used as the chemical, in which case electrolysis would free iodine, and make a brown stain instead of a blue one.
Bain originated automatic sending with a perforated paper tape in 1846. Apertures in the form of dots and dashes were made in the tape, which was run between a conducting brush and roller. Electrolytic reception was very fast, since there was no mechanical or electrical inertia. However, the inconvenience of maintaining a moist tape led to its disuse (“Bain, House and Other Telegraphs” at Calvert’s The Electromagnetic Telegraph online).
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