Illustration depicting the manipulator component of a dial telegraph. Devised by French watchmaker Louis-François Breguet, the dial telegraph used electric current to rotate the needle around the dial of a receiver, which was divided into 26 slots. The starting position at the top, noted by a cross on both the manipulator and receiver, left room for 25 letters and, at the end of each word, the needle would return to the starting position. Some versions, as in the case of this illustration, omitted the letter W while others omitted the letter J.