Agustin de Betancourt’s Telegraph: Study and virtual reconstruction

The transmission of information has gone through various stages of evolution throughout its history. A stage before that of the electric telegraph was the so-called aerial/optical telegraph. It was developed towards the end of the 18 century and was in service until the middle of the 19 century. Chappe’s system was widely used in France, and was the first to be in consistent use. However, a new and technologically superior system was developed soon afterwards which superseded it. Its inventor was Agustín de Betancourt, considered by some authors one of the founders of the Theory of Machines and Mechanisms, who, together with the distinguished clockmaker Breguet, presented it to the French Authorities in the turbulent decade of the 1790s. This article presents a historical review of this telegraph and analyses its technical characteristics. It presents analytically, numerically and graphically some of the statements made about the telegraph, and corrects other subsequent observations. Lastly, a detailed reconstruction of the telegraph is made using different advanced CAD techniques, which provide an accurate static and dynamic view of each of its parts.