Handwriting and drawings made with Caselli's autographic telegraph

Caselli's autographic telegraph transmitted facsimiles, drawings and handwriting. The dispatch was written with insulating ink on tin foil scanned by a stylus. At the reception point, a needle moved across paper coated with a chemical solution ; the electric current produced a chemical reaction revealing the sent message. Two regulating chronometers between the transmission and the reception stations synchronised by electromagnets drove the styluses' movement. The price of a transmission was set at a prohibitive 20 centimes per square centimetre and just two lines were installed; the device was unsuccessful and the system abandoned. "Nowadays," one of the inventor's obituaries said, "the only place you can find Caselli's telegraph is in museums, where it serves as a memorable example of the fate that befalls ingenious inventions when they do not meet a real need." There is no way he could have known that the Pantelegraph was the fax machine's forerunner.