"Seeing by Telegraph",
The Times, London, 24 April 1880, p.12
Cet article est publié dans le Times du 24 avril 1880, juste en dessous de la lettre de Middleton, "Seeing by telegraph. To the Editor of The Times".
L'article est une version écourtée de l' article "The diaphote", paru en première page, le 14 avril 1880 de l'hebdomadaire York House Papers et qui propage en Angleterre le canular du diaphote de H.E. Licks.
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We have long produced movement, heat and light by electricity, and of late we have fallen into the way of speaking, writting and drawing by telegraph. But now, it seems, we are to see by means of what is truly the magic wire. A Dr. H.E. Licks, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, has invented an instrument which he calls the diaphote, and which has the power of showing, in a mirror at one end, the image of any object placed in front of a corresponding mirror at the other end. These mirrors are composed, the one of selenium and ebromium, and the other of selenium and iodide of silver, - substance very sensitive to light and heat.Each mirror is, moreover, built up of a number of small plates, and the corresponding couples are connected by separate wires. The receiving mirror is placed in a camera, and receives from a lens the pictures of any desired object. The various graduations of light and form failing on the plates of the mirror set up by variations in the electrical currents traversing the connecting wires. These variations cause changes in the plates composing the reproducing mirror, wich thereupon exhibits an image of the object. A public exhibition of this ingenious instrument took place very recently at Reading, in the United States. The receiving mirror was taken down to a room below the hall in which the spectators were assembled, and various objects, such an apple, a penknife, a dollar, a watch, part of the printed handbill &c., were successively placed in front of it, and immediately became visible to the audience ; and whre, at length, the head of a live kitten was thus seen by telegraph, the enthusiasm of all present was wrought up to frenzy. This read well, and in the interests of science we hope it is all true. We remember, though, that a year or so ago some experiments of an analogous nature was tried in the South of France, and an opinion was expressed that it might soon become possible to take photographs of objects at a distance, by means of electric currents and sensitive mirrors. York House Papers.