1-158-901 - Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Images

Caselli's pantelegraph of 1865, (c1870). Invented by the Italian Giovanni Caselli (1815-1891), this precursor of the Fax machine was used on some French railway lines from 1865-1870. At the sending station the dispatch was written or drawn on a sheet of metallized paper in thick insulating ink and placed on a curved plate. At the receiving station a sheet of paper impregnated with potassium ferrocyanide was placed on a plate and a stylus produced an image on the impregnated paper. From Les Merveilles de la Science (The Wonders of Science) by Louis Figuier. (Paris, c1870).