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One of the several telegraph operating rooms of the Paris Central Telegraph Office before 1870. Over 100 operators were employed here and it was equipped with over 170 telegraph instruments. These included 45 Samuel Morse receivers which produced the incoming messages in Morse code format on a paper strip, and 25 printing telegraphs made by David Hughes which printed out messages in conventional alphabet characters onto a paper strip. It also incorporated a piano keyboard transmitter. The Office had a Pantelegraph telefax machine designed by the Abbe Giovanni Caselli for sending and receiving written script as well as drawings. (KEYSTONE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/SHEILA TERRY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY)