Public domain
Model of an Optical Telegraph
From the collection of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Model of an optical telegraph with code. The telegraph consists of a wooden board with five different cut-out shapes in a row, which can be covered with vertically moving wooden shutters; their movement is controlled by weights in the frames. The code is supplied twice: once on a piece of paper at the bottom of the telegraph board, once on a separate white-painted plank. The code gives the signal combinations for the letters of the alphabet.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam’s own descriptionCredit lineModel of an Optical Telegraph. c. 1795 - c. 1816. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Public domain.