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The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

Romance of the Typewriter 183 In 1857 another forward stride was recorded through the ingenuity of Dr. S. W. Francis, a wealthy medical practitioner residing in New York. In this typewriter a piano-hammer action was introduced, the types, which were nested in a circle, being thrown to the common centre. The machine executed some very fine work, but was too intricate to command any commercial value. But it brought the realisation of Henry Mill’s dream a decided step farther, because, in a crude form, many of the essential features of the typewriter were embodied, such as the travelling carriage moving to and fro from line-end to line- end and placed above the type, together with the alarm bell to indicate approach to the end of the line, blank key for spacing, and other minor details. But the turning-point in the evolution of the type- writer undoubtedly came with Pratt’s machine, owing to its subsequent influence upon Sholes, Soule, and Glidden. Several of these were built, one of the improved types being preserved in the South Kensing- ton Museum. In this machine, built in 1866, there are thirty-six symbols, corresponding to the capital letters and numerals, mounted in three rows of twelve each upon a vertical type roller. This arrangement, it may be mentioned, gave rise to the type-wheel classification, indicating those typewriters in which the type is mounted upon a wheel. The paper was inserted together with a sheet of carbon paper. When the key was depressed the corresponding letter upon the type-wheel was brought into position, and a smart tap imparted by a hammer striking through the carbon left an imprint of the letter upon the paper. Upon the release of the key the paper moved forward auto-