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BELL’S TELEPHONE. 
 
 The Electric Telephone Company, 
 
 115, CANNON STREET, E.C., 
 
 IS NOW READY TO EXECUTE ORDERS 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 Rental or Purchase of Telephones. 
 
 ESTIMATES 
 
 ARE ALSO FURNISHED 
 
 For the CONSTRUCTION of TELEPHONIC LINES. 
 
 Local Companies will be established in all the 
 principal Towns of the United Kingdom. 
 
 The public is hereby cautioned against purchasing or using 
 li cheap imitations of Bell's Telephone, as they are infringe - 
 ! ments of Professor Bell’s Patent, All makers, sellers, or users 
 j of such spurious instruments will be prosecuted to the full 
 extent of the law. 
 

 
 I 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 
 
& ijh 
 
 ftljc Qumu antr % Cclcpljom. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 “ Osborne, Jan. 16, 1878. 
 
 “My dear Sir, 
 
 “I hope you are aware how much gratified and 
 surprised the Queen was at the exhibition of the Telephone 
 here on Monday evening. 
 
 “ Her Majesty desires me to express her thanks to you 
 and the ladies and gentlemen who were associated with you 
 on the occasion. 
 
 “ The Queen would like, if there is no reason against it, 
 to purchase the two instruments which are still here, with 
 the wires, &c., attached. Perhaps you will be so kind as to 
 let me know to whom the sum due should he paid. 
 
 B 
 
 r n 
 
 “ I am, my dear Sir, 
 
 “ Very faithfully yours, 
 
 : “ Prof. Alex. Graham Bell.” 
 
 “ Thos. Bidduli>h.” 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 HISTORY OF BELL’S TELEPHONE 
 THE TELEPHONE OF THE FUTURE 
 
 THE UNITED STATES CENTENNIAL REPORT ON AWARDS 
 SALEM RESOLUTIONS 
 A NEW INSTRUMENT . 
 
 ELECTRIC* TELEPHONY 
 REPRODUCTION OF ARTICULATE SPEECH 
 A GREAT INVENTION 
 A GOVERNMENT CONTRACT 
 
 PROFESSOR BELL BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF ARTS 
 A NEW VOICE 
 
 TELEPHONES IN BARRACKS .... 
 
 W. H. PREECE, ESQ., ON THE TELEPHONE 
 THE TELEPHONE AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE 
 LAW TELEPHONES 
 A JOURNALISTIC LUXURY 
 'HESS BY TELEPHONE 
 NTERESTING EXPERIMENTS IN IRELAND 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 
 14 
 
 19 
 
 22 
 
 23 
 
 27 
 
 27 
 
 31 
 
 35 
 
 36 
 
 56 
 
 58 
 
 58 
 
 60 
 
 60 
 
 60 
 
 • 61 
 
 61 
 
Ylll 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 WHISPERING BY TELEPHONE 62 
 
 THE TELEPHONE AT COURT 63 
 
 THE QUEEN AND THE TELEPHONE 64 
 
 A SCIENTIFIC WONDER 65 
 
 LIFE SAVED BY TELEPHONE ....... 67 
 
 THE TELEPHONE AT THE HOUSE OF COMMONS . . . . 67 
 
 A TRIBUTE TO GENIUS 
 
 67 
 
THE 
 
 IISTOKY OF BELL’S TELEPHONE. 
 
 In 1849, Alexander Melville Bell, of Edinburgh, Scotland, 
 first published a system of symbols by which, scientists could 
 define and compare the sounds of all languages. In previous 
 alphabets the plan had been adopted of giving to each sound a 
 separate arbitrary character, so that as many characters were 
 required as there were sounds to be represented. Critical 
 analysis of several languages disclosed the fact that the known 
 elements of speech could be numbered by hundreds, while 
 theoretically they could be increased indefinitely. A universal 
 alphabet therefore seemed to be impossible from the large 
 number of characters required, and in 1854 the conference of 
 European philologists which assembled at the Prussian Em- 
 bassy in London, under the Presidency of Chevalier Bunsen, 
 for the purpose of framing a universal alphabet, abandoned the 
 matter as impracticable. In the same year Mr. Melville Bell 
 received from the Royal Society of Arts in Edinburgh a medal 
 for his discovery of a system of stenography, the characters 
 of which represented the positions of the human organs of 
 speech. Spurred on by the importance given to the subject 
 by the conference of philologists and by other scientists, 
 r g. Bell persevered in his work until 1864, when he produced 
 c system of symbols now popularly known as u visible 
 <3eeh.” Sir David Brewster, Alexander J. Ellis, Esq., Sir 
 paries' Wheatstone, Professor De Morgan, Prince Lucien Bona- 
 arfce and others were immediately attracted by'the simplicity, 
 ovelty and practicability of the new development, which was 
 piversally adopted for scientific and educational purposes. 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 In 1870, Mr. Bell accepted an invitation to lecture T^idFe^clie 
 Lowell Institute of Boston, United States, and tliere suggested 
 that the deaf and dumb might be trained to speak intelligibly 
 by means of his symbols. Impressed with the feasibility of 
 this idea, the Boston Board of Education prevailed upon 
 Alexander Graham Bell, the son of the inventor, to visit 
 America in 1871 and try the experiment. It was so successful 
 that the great majority of the institutions in the United States 
 for educating the deaf and dumb have adopted the system, 
 and hundreds of deaf mutes can now speak intelligibly. 
 On account of Mr. Graham Bell’s intimate knowledge of 
 the mechanism of speech, as demonstrated by his wonder- 
 ful success with the deaf and dumb, he was appointed, in 
 1873, Professor of Vocal Physiology in the Boston Univer- 
 sity. For many years Mr. Bell had been a profound student 
 in acoustics, the love of this branch of science seeming to 
 have been hereditary in his family, three generations having 
 devoted their lives to it. To this inherited study, and ten 
 years of elaborate experiment, is due what Sir William Thomson 
 rightly calls “ one of the most interesting of the scientific 
 inventions made in this century, or that has ever been made 
 in the history of science.” 
 
 There were Telephones before that of Mr. Alexander Graham 
 Bell, but those Telephones differed from Mr. Bell’s in the 
 same sense as a series of claps of the hand differs from the 
 human voice. They w^ere instruments in which, by electric 
 action, a succession of shocks was produced by suddenly stop- 
 ping and starting the electric currents. Mr. Bell conceived 
 the original idea of giving continuity to the shocks, and of 
 producing claps which w r ould be in simple proportion to the 
 motion of the air created by the voice, and of reproducing that 
 effect at the remote end of the telegraph wire, be that end : 
 or near, with a motion so nearly similar to the motion of 
 air caused by the voice as that not only is the articulation 
 the voice heard, but the different qualities of different voic 
 are distinguished. John Smith in London converses w r i 
 Thomas Jones in Liverpool as easily as though the distan 
 between them could be measured by a few yards of speakin 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 r 
 
 tube. No more time is required in the one instanced 
 the other. 
 
 The fall of an apple inspired the theory of gravitatiod 
 twitching of a frog’s leg led to the electric telegraph, 
 from equally small beginnings comes Mr. Bell’s Teleph 
 While carrying on experiments in regard to the relation 
 electricity and magnetism, Professor Charles Page, of Salem, 
 Massachusetts, investigated the production of sound by electric 
 current, and, in 1837, published the result of his researches in 
 an article entitled “ Galvanic Music,” which attracted so much 
 attention in America and Europe that numerous investigators 
 went to work to discover the cause of many curious electric 
 sounds. Mr. Bell’s own researches in electrical telephony 
 began with the artificial production of musical sounds. Striv- 
 ing to perfect his ingenious system of teaching, it occurred 
 to Mr. Bell that if, instead of presenting to the eye of the deaf 
 mute a system of symbols, he could make visible the vibrations 
 of the air, the apparatus might be used as a means of teaching 
 articulation. Experimenting with different instruments Mr. 
 Bell found great assistance from the phonautograph, which 
 had just been greatly improved by Mr. Maurey, a student of 
 the Boston Institute of Technology. He had succeeded in 
 vibrating by the voice a stylus of wood, about a foot in length, 
 which was attached to the membrane of the phonautograph ; 
 and with this he obtained enlarged tracings of the vibrations 
 of the air, produced by the vowel sounds upon a plane surface 
 of smoked glass. Mr. Bell traced a similarity between the 
 manner in which this piece of wood was vibrated by the mem- 
 brane of the phonautograph, and the manner in which the 
 ossiculse of the human ear were moved by the tympanum 
 membrane. This discovery led him to construct a phonauto- 
 graph modelled closely upon the mechanism of the human ear, 
 ailing to his aid Dr. Clarence J. Blake, a distinguished aurist 
 f Boston, who suggested the use of the human ear itself, and 
 repared a specimen for this purpose. The stapes were re- 
 oved, and, being lighter, a stylus of hay, about an inch in 
 ength, was attached to the end of the incus. Upon moisten- 
 the membrana tympani and the auriculas with a mixture 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 
 ne and water, the necessary mobility of the parts 
 ined, and upon singing into the external artificial ear, 
 us of hay was thrown into vibration, and tracings were 
 hed upon a plane surface of smoked glass passed rapidly 
 .erneath. While engaged in these experiments, Mr. Bell’s 
 ention was arrested by observing the wonderful disproportion 
 hich existed between the weight of the membrane and that 
 of the bones vibrated by it. “ If a membrane as thin as tissue 
 paper,” argued Mr. Bell, “ can control the vibration of bones 
 which, compared to it, are of immense weight and size, why 
 may not a larger and thicker membrane vibrate a piece of iron 
 in front of an electro-magnet ? If this be so, the complication 
 of steel rods, suggested by the harp arrangement, can be done 
 away with, and a simple piece of iron attached to a membrane 
 take their place.” Action followed thought. Employing 
 apparatus by which he had been producing undulatory currents 
 of electricity for the purpose of multiple telegraphy, Mr. 
 Bell attached a rod loosely by one extremity to the uncovered 
 pole of a magnet, and fastened the other extremity to the 
 centre of a stretched membrane of goldbeater’s skin. He sup- 
 posed that upon speaking in the neighbourhood of the mem- 
 brane it would be thrown into vibration and cause the steel 
 rod to move in a similar manner, thereby occasioning undula- 
 tions in the electrical current that would correspond to the 
 variations in the density of the air during the production of 
 sound ; and further, that the change in the intensity of the 
 current at the receiving end would cause the magnet there to 
 attract its rod so as to copy the motion imparted to that at the 
 sending end. Mr. Thomas A. Watson, Mr. Bell’s assistant, 
 declared, during the experiment, that he heard a faint sound 
 proceed from the instrument at which he listened, but Mr. 
 Bell was less fortunate. Persevering in his researches, Mr. 
 Bell at last determined to reduce the size and weight of the 
 spring attached to the diaphragm as much as possible, and 
 thereupon glued a piece of clock -spring, about the size and 
 shape of his thumb-nail, to the centre of the diaphragm. 
 This produced audible results, and on the model thus ob- 
 tained, Mr. Bell constructed his Telephone, which consisted 
 
 ! 
 
BELL S TELEPHONE. 
 
 a permanent magnet with a coil of wire round it 
 plate in front. The vibration of the voice caused tl 
 of the iron plate. That vibration produced a current < 
 tricity ; the current of electricity caused a variation of 
 in the magnet in the distant instrument; the variation 
 power in the distant magnet caused the iron plate in froni 
 the magnet to vibrate, and that vibration produced a souni 
 The voice was converted into electricity at one end, and elec- 
 tricity became voice at the other end. 
 
 Such was the instrument that Mr. Bell sent to the Cen- 
 tennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, where it attracted the 
 attention of electricians, and inspired the following official 
 report, signed by Sir William Thomson and others : — 
 
 “ Mr. Alexander Graham Bell exhibits apparatus by which 
 he has achieved a result of transcendent scientific interest — 
 the transmission of spoken words by electric currents through 
 a telegraph wire. To obtain this result, Mr. Bell perceived 
 that he must produce a variation of strength of current in the 
 telegraph wire as nearly as may be in exact proportion to the 
 velocity of a particle of air moved by the sound, and he in- 
 vented a method of doing so — a piece of iron attached to a 
 membrane, and thus moved to and fro in the neighbourhood of 
 an electro-magnet — which has proved perfectly successful. The 
 battery and wire of this electro-magnet are in circuit with the 
 telegraph wire and the wire of another electro-magnet, at the 
 receiving station. This second electro-magnet has a solid bar 
 of iron for core, which is connected at one end by a thick disc 
 of iron to an iron tube surrounding the coil and bar. The free 
 circular end of the tube constitutes one pole of the electro- 
 magnet, and the adjacent free end of the bar core the other. 
 A thin circular iron disc, held pressed against the end of the 
 tube by the electric magnetic attraction, and free to vibrate 
 through a very small space without touching the central pole, 
 constitutes the sounder, by which the electric effect is recon- 
 verted into sound. With my ear pressed against this disc I 
 heard it speak distinctly several sentences. ... I need 
 ^scarcely say I was astonished and delighted ; so were others, 
 including some judges of our group, who witnessed the experi- 
 
BELLS TELEPHONE. 
 
 /d verified with their own ears the electric transmis- 
 speech. This, perhaps the greatest marvel hitherto 
 d by the electric telegraph, has been obtained by appli- 
 of quite a home-spun and rudimentary character. With 
 ewhat more advanced plans and more powerful apparatus, 
 may confidently expect that Mr. Bell will give us the 
 eans of making voice and spoken words audible through the 
 electric wire to an ear hundreds of miles distant.” 
 
 Surprised by so enthusiastic a verdict, Mr. Bell returned to 
 his experiments with renewed energy, and on the 9th of October, 
 1876, there took place the first conversation ever carried on 
 by word of mouth over a telegraph wire. Telephones were 
 placed at either end of a telegraph line, owned by the Wal- 
 worth Manufacturing Company, extending from their office in 
 Boston to their factory in Cambridgeport, a distance of about 
 two miles. The company’s battery, consisting of nine Daniels 
 cells, was removed from the circuit, and another of ten carbon 
 elements substituted. Articulate conversation then took place 
 through the wire. The sounds, at first faint and indistinct, 
 became suddenly quite loud and intelligible. Mr. Bell in 
 Boston, and his assistant, Mr. Watson, in Cambridge, took 
 notes of what was said and heard, and the comparison of the 
 two records is most interesting, as showing the accuracy of 
 the electrical transmission : — 
 
 BOSTON RECORD. 
 
 Mr. Bell — What clo you think was 
 the matter with the instruments ? 
 
 Mr. Watson — There was nothing 
 the matter with them. 
 
 B. — I think we were both speaking 
 at the same time. 
 
 W. — Can you understand anything 
 I say ? 
 
 B. — Yes; I understand everything 
 you say. 
 
 W. — The reason why you did not 
 hear at first, was because there was a 
 relay in the circuit. 
 
 B. — You may be right, but I found 
 the magnet of my telephone touching 
 the membrane. 
 
 W. — I cut this relay out, and then 
 the sounds came perfectly. 
 
 B. — I hear every syllable. Try 
 something in an ordinary conversa- 
 tional voice. 
 
 CAMBRIDGEPORT RECORD. 
 
 Mr. Bell — What do you think is the 
 matter with the instruments ? 
 
 Mr. Watson — There is nothing the 
 matter with them. 
 
 B. — I think. ... at the same time. 
 
 AY.— Can you understand anything 
 
 I say ? 
 
 B. — Yes; I understand everything 
 you say. 
 
 AV. — The reason why it did not 
 work at first was because there was a 
 relay in the circuit. 
 
 B. — You may be right, but I find 
 . . . .that my. . . .touches the mem- 
 brane. 
 
 W. — I cut the relay out, and then 
 the sounds came out perfectly. 
 
 B.— I hear every syllable. . Try 
 something in a conversational voice. 
 
BELL S TELEPHONE. 
 
 BOSTON RECORD. 
 
 AY.-Shall I connect their battery 
 in the circuit ? 
 
 B.— No; there is no necessity to 
 connect their battery in the circuit, 
 for the sounds come out quite loudly. 
 
 W. — I am now talking in quite a 
 low tone of voice. 
 
 B. — The sounds are quite as loud as 
 before, and twice as distinct. 
 
 W. — Cut out the battery, and then 
 talk. 
 
 B. — All right. I will cut out the 
 battery now if you will keep listening. 
 
 [Here an interruption occurred, and 
 
 B. — I thought you were going to 
 say something. 
 
 VV. — Is the battery cut out ? 
 
 B. — No, but I will do it now. 
 
 CAMBRIDGEPORT RECOl 
 
 AV. — Shall I connect their bafl 
 the circuit ? 
 
 B. — No; there is no necessit 
 putting their battery in the circui 
 the sounds come out quite loudly. 
 
 AY. — I am now talking in quite 
 low tone of voice. 
 
 B. — The sounds are quite as loud as 
 before, and quite as distinct. 
 
 W. — Cut out the battery, and then 
 talk. 
 
 B. — All right. I will cut out the 
 battery now if you will keep listening, 
 after a short time Mr. Bell said : ] 
 
 B. — I thought you were going to 
 say something. 
 
 W. — Is the battery cut out ? 
 
 B. — No, but I will do it now. 
 
 [Battery having been cut out, Mr. Bell continued,] 
 
 B. — Do you hear anything now ? 
 
 [Battery replaced.] 
 
 B. — Did you hear anything ? B.— Did you hear anything P 
 
 W. — No, not a sound. AY. — No, not a sound. 
 
 B. — Say something to me when I B. — Say something to me when I 
 
 cut out the battery again. cut out the battery again. 
 
 [Battery cut out,] 
 
 AY.— 
 
 W. — I could not hear a sound when 
 the battery was cut out. 
 
 [Battery replaced.] 
 
 B. — I fancy I heard a trace of your 
 voice. 
 
 W.— Shall I put on our battery to 
 see if it increases the effect ? 
 
 B. — I’ll tell you what we’ll do. 
 We’ll take off our battery and put on 
 theirs, as before. 
 
 B.— I fancy I heard a trace of your 
 voice. 
 
 W. — Shall I put on their battery to 
 see if it increases the effect ? 
 
 B. — I’ll tell you what we’ll do. 
 We’ll take off our battery altogether 
 and put on theirs, as before. 
 
 [The company’s battery having been placed in circuit, faint and indistinct 
 sounds were heard at the Boston end, and then came the intelligible sentence.] 
 
 W.— Is our battery off ? 
 
 B . — [V er y indistinc t — unintelli- 
 gible.] 
 
 W. — Is our battery off? 
 
 B. — Yes, our battery is off. What 
 have you been doing ? The sounds 
 were quite soft at first, but now they 
 are quite loud. 
 
 B. — Shall I put on our battery 
 again ? 
 
 \^Y. — [Indistinctly heard.] That 
 very indistinct. Put on our 
 |ttery. 
 
 [Original battery replaced.] 
 
 B.— We may congratulate ourselves B.— We may congratulate ourselves 
 
 f)on a great success. on our great success. 
 
 AY.-— That was very indistinct. Put 
 on our battery. 
 
BELL S TELEPHONE. 
 
 BOSTON RECORD. 
 
 Both batteries are on now. 
 er sentence heard indistinctly.] 
 -Repeat the last sentence. 
 
 -Both batteries are on now. 
 
 I understood that before, but I 
 uugdt you said something else. 
 
 W. — Bemove their battery, please. 
 
 B. — All right; our battery is the 
 only one on now. 
 
 AY. — I have put battery cells on 
 here. 
 
 B. — How many cells have you there ? 
 
 AY.— S — i — x — six. 
 
 B. — Please whisper something to me. 
 
 AY. — [Sound of the whisper clearly 
 audible, but the utterance unintel- 
 ligible.] 
 
 B. — 1 could hear you whispering, 
 but could not understand what you 
 said. 
 
 AY.— Perhaps we have got the bat- 
 teries opposed to one another. Had 
 you not better reverse your battery 
 and see what the matter is — or rather 
 what the effect is ? 
 
 B. — I will try the effect of reversing 
 my battery. 
 
 CAMRRIDGEPORT RECORD. 
 
 AY. — We deserve success. Both bat- 
 teries are on now. 
 
 B. — Repeat the las£ sentence. 
 
 AY.— Both batteries are on now. 
 
 B.— I understood that before, but I 
 thought you said something else. 
 
 AY. — Reverse your battery, please. 
 
 B. — All right; our battery is the 
 only one on now. 
 
 AY. — I have six Daniells cells on 
 here. 
 
 B. — How many cells have you on 
 there ? 
 
 AY. — S — i — x— six. 
 
 B. — Please whisper something to me. 
 
 AY. — I am now whispering. 
 
 B.—I could hear you whispering, 
 but could not understand what you 
 said. 
 
 AY. — Perhaps we have got the bat- 
 teries opposed to one another. Had 
 you not better reverse yours, and see 
 what the effect is P 
 
 B. — I will try the effect of reversing 
 my battery. 
 
 [Battery reversed.] 
 
 B. — Is this any better ? B. — Is this any better P 
 
 AY. — That sentence was accompanied AY. — Much fainter, accompanied by 
 
 by that curious crackling sound. that curious bubbling sound. 
 
 B. — Yes, I hear it too. 
 
 B. — AYhat time is it by your watch ? 
 
 [Battery again reversed.] 
 
 AY. — AYhat are you doing ? I have 
 
 not heard anything except for 
 
 quite a while. 
 
 B.—I asked you what time it was 
 by your watch. Perhaps you hear me 
 better now, because I have reversed 
 the battery again. 
 
 AY. — My battery is now cut out. 
 
 B. — Don’t you think we had better 
 go home now r 
 
 AY. — Yes ; but why does your talk- 
 ing come out so much fainter now ? 
 
 [Mr. Bell here placed the magnet of 
 
 AY. — AYhat are you doing ? I haven’t 
 heard anything except that bubbling 
 sound for quite a while. 
 
 B. — I asked you 
 
 because I 
 
 AY. — My battery is now cut out. 
 
 B. — Do you think we had better go 
 
 home ? 
 
 AY. — Yes ; but why does your talk- 
 ing come out so much fainter now ? 
 
 ! telephone nearer to the membrane ] 
 
 B. — Because I had moved the magnet 
 further away from the membrane. 
 
 AY. — That was very much more 
 distinct. 
 
 B. — AYill you try to understand a 
 long sentence if I speak right on ? 
 
 AY. -I will. 
 
 B. — Because I moved the majghet 
 further away from the membrane J 
 AY. — That was very much 
 distinct. 
 
 B. — AYill you try to understand a 
 longer question if I speak right ojJ 
 * AV.— I will. 1 
 
BELLS TELEPHONE. 
 
 BOSTON RECORD. 
 
 B. — A few minutes ago I heard a 
 fire-engine pass by the door. I don’t 
 know where the fire is, but the number 
 of the box is 196. 
 
 AY. — The time by my watch is five 
 minutes past ten. Had I not better 
 go into Boston ? 
 
 B. — Yes. I think it is time to stop 
 now. 
 
 AY.— Shall I go to Exeter Place ? 
 
 B. — Yes ; but look in here on your 
 way, in case I have not gone. 
 
 AY. — Let us talk conversationally 
 without noting. 
 
 CAMBRIDGEPORT RECOR 
 
 B. — A few minutes ago I hei* 
 fire-engine go past the door. I d 
 know where the fire is, but the nunu 
 of the box is 196. 
 
 AY. — The time by my watch is fi 
 minutes past ten. Had I better no 
 go into Boston ? 
 
 B. — Yes. I think it is time to stop 
 now. 
 
 AY. — Shall I go to Exeter Place ? 
 
 B. — Yes ; but look in here on your 
 way, in case I have not gone. 
 
 w. — Let us talk conversationally 
 without noting. 
 
 Conversation was then carried on for about half an hour 
 with the utmost freedom, and the experiment closed. 
 
 The first public exhibition of the Telephone was given in 
 Salem, eighteen miles from Boston, on the evening of February 
 12th, 1877, before an audience of 500. The wires were 
 brought into the hall of the Essex Institute, and Mr. Watson, 
 with assistants, was stationed in a house in Boston, ready to 
 communicate with Mr. Bell in Salem. After a brief lecture 
 
 by the inventor, an intermittent current was sent from Boston, 
 which caused a noise from the Telephone very similar to that 
 of a horn. The Morse telegraph alphabet was sent by musical 
 sounds, and could be heard throughout the hall. A telephonic 
 organ was then put into operation in Boston. “ Should Auld 
 Acquaintance be Forgot ” and “ Yankee Boodle ” were heard 
 and applauded. At this point Mr. Bell asked Mr. Watson for 
 a song, and “ Auld Lang Syne ” came from the mouth-piece 
 of the instrument almost before his words were ended. Later 
 
 Mr. Watson made a speech to the audience, which was heard 
 thirty-five feet distant. Mr. Watson was asked if he heard 
 the applause. The answer came, “ I was not listening. Try 
 again.” The applause was given, and its receipt was at once 
 acknowledged in Boston. 
 
 The results of the experiments were “ telephoned ” to the 
 Boston Globe , and the despatches constitute the first ever sent 
 to the public press by this novel agency. 
 
 On the 4th of May following, there were strange scenes in 
 the Boston Music-hall. Going to the small telephone box, 
 with its slender wire attachments, Mr. Bell coolly asked, as 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 h addressing some one in an adjoining room, “Mr. 
 .tson, are you ready ? ” Mr. Watson, five miles away in 
 merville, promptly answered in the affirmative, and soon 
 as Lear d a voice singing “America.” Then followed the 
 ortuguese Hymn, to the amazement of a hashed audience. 
 Going to another instrument connected by wire with Provi- 
 dence, forty-three miles distant, Mr. Bell listened a moment, 
 and said, “ Signor Brignoli, who is assisting at a concert in 
 the Providence Music-hall, will now sing for us.” In a 
 moment the cadence of the tenor’s notes rose and fell, the 
 sound being faint, sometimes lost, and then again audible. 
 Later, a cornet solo, played in Somerville, was very distinctly 
 heard. Still later, a three-part song floated over the wire 
 from the Somerville terminus, and Mr. Bell amused his 
 audience exceedingly by exclaiming, “ I will switch off the 
 song from one part of the hall to another, so that all can 
 hear.” Shunting music coming over a wire forty-three miles 
 long, as though it were a railway train ! This shunting was 
 done effectively through a central telephone suspended in the 
 middle of the hall. Not long after, the Telephone was put to 
 a remarkable test at Newhaven, Connecticut, in a company in- 
 cluding members of the faculty of Yale College. The wires 
 were extended from a Telephone through several apartments 
 into a room where sixteen persons stood in two ranks. The 
 first person in each rank took the end of one wire, and the 
 eighth person in each touched wires attached to the magnet 
 of a second instrument, the tones of the voice being sent 
 successfully through these sixteen human bodies without any 
 perceptible shock. At the Newport torpedo station, in Rhode 
 Island, speaking has been carried on through a line, including 
 five miles of submerged cable and an equal length of land 
 wire. Siemens’ resistance coils weve added, 2,000 ohms at a 
 time, until 12,000 ohms were introduced in the circuit with- 
 out interfering with the transmission of speech. The import- 
 ance of this test will be understood w T hen it is remembered 
 that the resistance of the Atlantic Cable is equal to 7,000 ohms 
 only. The experiments at Newport were continued by the 
 addition of a total resistance of 30,000 ohms, but beyond 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 n 
 
 12,000 olims the sound was found to diminish in intensity. 
 Mr. Bell states that the maximum amount of resistance 
 through which the undulating current will pass, and yet 
 retain sufficient force to produce an audible sound at the 
 distant end, has yet to be determined. In the laboratory he has 
 conversed through a resistance of 60,000 ohms. The longest 
 length of practical telegraph line spoken through thus far is 
 600 miles. 
 
 At Montreal five Telephones were recently attached to one 
 end of a line ten miles in length, while a single Telephone was 
 connected with the other end. Speaking and singing from 
 the single Telephone were heard simultaneously by five lis- 
 teners at the instruments in Montreal, and questions put 
 indifferently through any of the five Telephones were imme- 
 diately answered from the other end of the line. Again, in 
 the same town, a line extending from one private house to 
 another had one Telephone at one end and three Telephones at 
 the other. Two of the three were held by singers, while the 
 person holding the third stood on the sounding-board of the 
 piano. The combined effect of vocal duet and instrumental 
 accompaniment was distinctly heard through the single Tele- 
 phone at the other end of the line. At Hamilton, Canada, 
 nine Telephones were placed on the same circuit, on a line con- 
 necting three private houses. Speaking or singing from any 
 one of the Telephones came distinctly to all the listeners at 
 the other houses on the circuit. “ Auld Lang Syne ” and “ Old 
 Hundred,” sung at the same time at two of the houses, were 
 heard simultaneously at the third. On holding a Telephone 
 against the sounding-board of a piano at one house, the music 
 was enjoyed by six listeners at the other houses. On one 
 occasion an attempt was made to speak at a distance of 125 
 miles, but the wire in running beside numerous other busy 
 wires stretched on the same poles, gathered up the myriad 
 sounds into a din that filled the Telephone with the click and 
 clang of a boiler-maker’s rivetting shop. The voice was 
 drowned in consequence. The Telephone seems to defy dis- 
 tance, but requires a comparatively silent line ; because of 
 this fatter fact, it has been feared that it could not be prac- 
 
 | 
 
 u. OF ILL LiB. 
 
12 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 ticable over any wire having other wires for neighbours ; but 
 an eminent electrician, Mr. Preece, of the Post Office, has dis- 
 covered a means by which this serious obstacle is entirely 
 overcome. 
 
 The first practical application of the Telephone was made 
 in May, 1877, by the Water Board of Cambridge, Massa- 
 chusetts, who established telephonic communication with the 
 waterworks at Fresh Pond in order to facilitate the sending of 
 messages. Now more than 500 houses in New England hold 
 telephonic communication, and more than 6,000 Telephones 
 are in operation in the United States. Gentlemen in their 
 libraries give orders to clerks in their offices, fire brigades 
 have called the Telephone into requisition, and it is used ex- 
 tensively in the mines of Pennsylvania, Nevada, and California. 
 In fact, the invention has passed out of the region of specula- 
 tion, and ingenious minds are constantly finding new work for 
 it to do. Its application in diving is an accomplished fact. 
 The size of the Telephone-box is of no consequence, and a 
 complete instrument may be made not larger than the palm of 
 the hand. This is easily attached to the diver’s armour in 
 a way to allow him at any time to speak with his assistants 
 above. 
 
 Although Mr. Bell has been but a few months in England, 
 his invention has already commanded the attention it deserves. 
 There has been telephonic communication between this island 
 and Jersey, between Dover and Calais, between Dublin and 
 Holyhead. Business houses are similarly connected with 
 private residences, and on the 5th of November some remark- 
 able experiments were made at the Prescot Colliery of the 
 Wigan and Whiston Coal Company, near Liverpool, under 
 the personal superintendence of Sir William Thomson. In 
 these experiments 600 yards of ordinary electric wire were 
 used, the ends in one instance being at the bottom of the pit, 
 while the other ends to which the tubes or trumpet-like orifices, 
 which resemble ordinary stethoscopes, were attached, were 
 brought into the office of the company, which is some distance 
 from the pit’s mouth. While one of the Government colliery 
 inspectors and others went to the bottom of the pit, the 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 13 
 
 i majority of the audience remained in the office. Complete 
 success crowned the first experiment, which was merely to test 
 the Telephone as a means of communication. Questions 
 asked in the office were answered instantaneously from the 
 pit. Even the cheering of the colliers at a distance from the 
 instrument was distinctly heard ; and those at the lower instru- 
 ment stated that they not only heard the messages forwarded, 
 but also the buzz of animated conversation. The instrument 
 was then applied to the indicating overhead the anemometer 
 below. Up to the present time the rate of the current of air 
 in the passages of the mine could only be known by reading 
 it off: the register of the anemometer. By means of the Tele- 
 phone the registry may be tested at any moment by a person 
 above the mine. Deceit becomes impossible. It has been a 
 common practice to remedy insufficient ventilation merely 
 when the men have warning that an official is about to 
 descend the shaft. The registration above is attained by 
 having the air measurer always connected with a Telephone, 
 and so adjusted that after a fixed number of revolutions the 
 instrument may act on a spring which vibrates against the 
 Telephone, and setting it in action, enables the overseer above 
 ground to know at what rate of current the air is running in 
 the mine. This was done to the complete satisfaction of Mr. 
 Hall, the inventor of the anemometer. It was proved at the 
 same time that the Telephone used to register the ventilation 
 could be also used for communication with all parts of the 
 mine by the same wire. Given one wire and the requisite 
 number of Telephones, and a perfect record can be obtained 
 of the quantity of air going into a mine, as well as perfect com- 
 munication be established between the surface and the interior. 
 It is hardly possible to conceive a greater benefit to colliers 
 than this discovery entails. 
 
 During the experiments Sir William Thomson gave a short 
 lecture on the Telephone to a double audience — one being in 
 the mine and the other in the office — expressing his amaze- 
 ment at the great improvement which the instrument had 
 undergone since first tested by him at Philadelphia in the 
 presence of the Emperor of Brazil. If such admirable results 
 
14 
 
 bell's telephone. 
 
 have been accomplished by the Telephone while, according to 
 the inventor, it is still in embryo, what may not be hoped from 
 the future ?- — Reprinted , with additions , from “ The Times ” of 
 November 16, 1877. 
 
 THE TELEPHONE OF THE FUTURE^ 
 
 (AN INTERCEPTED LETTER.) 
 
 „ London, February , 1878. 
 
 Dear Ella,— The moment the Telephone reached England, 
 Bob and I went to see it, and we’ve had it on the brain ever 
 since. When the Western pioneer returned home to find th^t 
 the Indians had burned his cabin and scalped his wife and' 
 seven small children, he remarked, “ This is tew ridiculous ! ” 
 My dear, this is precisely the effect made on the unregenerate 
 mind by a first interview with the Telephone. The old* pro- 
 verb, “ Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus ” is turned 
 topsy-turvy, for a mouse brings forth a mountain ! I sat 
 down before a table on which stood a very small desk, at. the 
 top of which was an electric bell. On both sides of the desk, 
 depending from iron arms, was a small pear-shaped wooden 
 instrument, bearing a strong family resemblance to the stetho- 
 scope. The small end of each instrument was connected with 
 a telegraphic wire. I was in the presence of the Telephone. 
 “ Is this all?” I asked. “All!” exclaimed the superinten- 
 dent. “Isn’t it enough, provided the object be attained? 
 Isn’t simplicity a charm in inventions as well as in people ? 
 Would you feel happier if the Telephone were the size of a 
 steam-engine ? Before you say another word, touch that 
 electric bell, put one telephone to your ear and the other to 
 your mouth.” Feeling quite crushed at being so sat upon, I 
 obeyed orders, and straightway I heard an unknown voice 
 exclaim, — 
 
 “ All right; what do you want ? ” 
 
 “ Who. are you ? ” I asked. 
 
 “ I’m every inch a man, and by your voice I know that my 
 questioner is a lady.” 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 15 
 
 ' “ How far away are you ? ” 
 
 “ Half a mile.” 
 
 “ Will you whistle ? ” 
 
 “ Certainly.” 
 
 Sure enough, I heard with the utmost distinctness, “ Whistle 
 and I’ll come to thee, my lad.” 
 
 “ Capital,” I said. “Now a song, if you please.” 
 
 .Didn’t I laugh when my unknown acquaintance sang, 
 
 “ Thou art so near and yet so far ! ” 
 
 “ Why did you laugh ? ” asked the Invisible, at the con- 
 clusion of his song. 
 
 “ Did you hear me ? My mouth was some distance from 
 the Telephone.” 
 
 ./ “ I heard you perfectly. Now hear me breathe.” 
 
 When that breath came to my ear I was startled, Ella. 
 Then we whispered to each other, and finally the Invisible 
 exclaimed, “Just one more experiment,” and he kissed me! 
 
 I heard him. I can’t say honestly that this final experiment 
 was as satisfactory in its results as the ordinary way of per- 
 forming the operation. It is not likely to supersede old- 
 fashioned osculation, but faute cle mieux, it will serve. I am 
 quite sure the young King of Spain resorted to it recently 
 when, forced to leave Aranjuez and return to Madrid, he 
 communicated telephonically with his fiancee. 
 
 Would you believe it, Ella? Three weeks later, when I 
 next interviewed the Telephone, the Invisible, who had never 
 seen me, and had only heard my voice during the short con- 
 versation I have repeated, began to laugh, and said, “I had 
 the honour of kissing my fair questioner three weeks ago.” 
 .This proves the wonderful delicacy of the instrument, and 
 how impossible it will be to practise deception through it. 
 Since then I have heard four-part singing, “sounding like 
 distant music on the water,” to borrow the happy expression 
 of the Duke of Connaught, who was delighted with the effect. 
 It’s a singular fact that part singing which is by no means 
 true, comes out beautifully at the distant end of the Tele- 
 phone. Electricity has so exquisite an ear that it seems to 
 harmouise all differences. It will be a good idea for im- 
 
16 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 presarios to pass all their doubtful singers through the Tele- 
 phone. They will never be out of tune, no matter how flat 
 or sharp they start. Then, Ella, I’ve heard a solo and 
 pianoforte accompaniment, with every note and word as 
 audible as possible ; I’ve heard bugle playing fifty miles dis- 
 tant that was charming, and I’ve heard an organ 130 miles 
 away ! Now I’m prepared for the deluge, or whatever Nature 
 pleases. It’s impossible to be surprised any more. Before 
 long we shall sit down, fold our arms, and let electricity do 
 everything for us. We’ll go to bed and get up by electricity ; 
 we’ll eat by electricity, and be saved the bore of knives and 
 forks. We’ll write by electricity, and see by the same 
 means. Yes, you needn’t open your eyes. I’ve just read of 
 the electroscope, the province of which is to transmit waves 
 of light by electricity. Combine it with the Telephone, and 
 while two persons, hundreds of miles apart, are talking to- 
 gether, they will actually see each other ! Won’t this be fun? 
 If your lover happens to be an amateur photographer, he’ll 
 take your picture, my dear, across the ocean ! Only let 
 electricity circumvent the Atlantic, and I’m its slave for life. 
 
 Professor Bell is quite a young man. He can’t be more 
 than thirty-six, and both Bob and I think him handsome. 
 He is tall, well made, has dark hair, very expressive hazel 
 eyes, and a mobile mouth. Eluent in conversation, he makes 
 an interesting lecturer, and if he has as much energy as 
 inventive ability, will soon make such improvements in the 
 Telephone as to cause even his own hair to stand on end. It 
 is in him. 
 
 People ask what the Telephone is good for. Almost every- 
 thing, it seems to me. Banks are connecting their various 
 branches ; and that enterprising paper, the Daily News , has 
 telephonic communication with the House of Commons. The 
 instrument is used in mines, in diving, in connecting fire 
 brigade and police stations. It will be admirable for coast- 
 guard service, for ships, for communication on the battle-field. 
 Just think of it ! A man with a Telephone and a coil of wire 
 can go up in a balloon, inspect the enemy’s position, and give 
 instant information to whoever is at the earth end of the wire. 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 17 
 
 Then in domestic life, I foresee the day when Telephone 
 stations will be as frequent as telegraphic stations now are, 
 and every house will be connected with the nearest station. 
 When a lady wishes to go shopping, or to make purchases for 
 the house, she will ask the stationmaster to connect her wire 
 with Whitel j, or Parkins and Gotto, or Madame White‘, or 
 the butcher, or the baker. Thus from the depths of a com- 
 fortable armchair will she give her orders for the day. If 
 she wishes to visit Mrs. Brown, she’ll ask to be put in circuit 
 with the dear creature, and the two will pull all their friends 
 to pieces without the bother of taking a cab or ordering out 
 the ever-un willing coachman/ Indeed, opera, theatre, and 
 everything in general will be turned on like gas and water. 
 For lovers the Telephone must be a sweet boon. Instead of 
 serenading one’s innamorata in cold or rain, with the proba- 
 bility of exciting the ire of Paterfamilias, the modern swain 
 seated in his study, arrayed in dressing-gown and slippers, 
 will play his plaintive flute into the Telephone, and she, com- 
 fortably in bed, will listen and return sweet thanks. It’s 
 quite a mistake to imagine that shouting is necessary in order 
 to be heard through the Telephone. The more natural and 
 conversational the tone the better. Clear enunciation is the 
 most important requisite. 
 
 Telephones have not yet been ordered [for churches, my 
 dear, but I’ve no doubt they soon will be. I suggest that half 
 a dozen churches now suffering under an exposition of sleep, 
 unite on one preacher of power and eloquence. This preacher 
 can speak from any one of the churches, or, if it suit him 
 better, from his own study. The introduction of the Tele- 
 phone will thus systematize public worship to a degree never 
 before contemplated, and also promote economy, no mean con- 
 sideration in these hard times. Choirs as well as preachers 
 may be reduced. Five out of six can be dismissed, and organs 
 can be sold for useless lumber. The quarrels of inharmonious 
 musical committees can be brought to a peaceful conclusion, 
 and the lion and the lamb unite in telephoning their chorus of 
 thanksgiving. All that need be done in the churches where 
 minister and choir are not personally present, will be to have 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 the sexton stir the fire and the vestrymen take up the collec- 
 tions. If members of any of these congregations desire 
 to remain at home, they can tap the clergyman’s wire and 
 take their gospel with their matutinal coffee. In fact, they 
 can have their cake and eat it too. Heretofore this has been 
 considered impossible. Tyndall’s lectures at the Royal Insti- 
 tution can be heard simultaneously throughout the provinces ; 
 so may concerts. As to operas and theatres where sight is 
 almost as necessary as hearing, the Electroscope, combined 
 with the Telephone, will render visits to London unnecessary. 
 Of course there will be telephonic as well as gas and water 
 meters, and every household will be taxed according to the 
 amount of “Patti,” “Our Boys,” “Diplomacy,” “ Monday Pops,” 
 or “Royal Institution” consumed. Metropolitan newspapers will 
 employ persons to read their articles to distant subscribers, so 
 that the expense of printing and mailing copies will be done 
 away with. And when it comes to the House of Commons, 
 Ella, won’t there be a revolution ! Every anxious constituent 
 in the provinces will have his parliamentary wire and private 
 electroscope, so that he can not only hear but keep his eye 
 on his special member, and Londoners who want to hear 
 debates won’t be obliged to beg for admission to a stifling 
 atmosphere. This will be heavenly for us women, who at 
 St. Stephen’s are cooped in a bird cage. Cabinet ministers, 
 instead of making the long journey to Balmoral, will have the 
 honour of communicating telephonically with the Queen who 
 may even open Parliament in this manner. Diplomatic cor- 
 respondence will be abolished, ambassadors will talk a sign 
 language to their governments, and navies will not dance into 
 the Dardanelles for the pleasure of dancing out again, as flag- 
 ships will have a coil of wire attached to the nearest telephonic 
 station and so receive counter-orders in time to be spared the 
 expense of harlequinades. All these modern conveniences are 
 clothing life with new interest, and if somebody will only dis- 
 cover a way to induct the whole human race with common 
 sense, being born will cease to be a bore. 
 
 Your telephonically attached friend, 
 
 Puss. 
 
 Miss Ella Ghaham, Fifth Avenue, New York, ILS.A. 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 19 
 
 THE UNITED STATES’ CENTENNIAL REPORT ON 
 AWARDS. 
 
 Philadelphia, 1876. 
 
 The United States Centennial Commission has examined 
 the report of the judges and accepted the following reasons , 
 and decreed an award in conformity therewith : — 
 
 Philadelphia, December 26, 1876. 
 
 REPORT ON AWARDS. 
 
 Product — Graham Bell’s electric Telephone and multiple 
 Telegraph. Name and address of exhibitor — Alexander 
 Graham Bell, Salem, Mass., U. S. 
 
 The undersigned, having examined the product herein 
 described, respectfully recommends the same to the United 
 Centennial Commission for award for the following reasons, 
 viz. : — 
 
 The idea of an electric Telephone, or apparatus for trans- 
 mitting sound to a distance by variations of electric current 
 through a wire, has been for many years before the world, and 
 has been realised in several ways, differing considerably in 
 details, as the appliances at two points of the circuit for pro- 
 ducing the variations of electric current and for deriving 
 perceptible effects from them. An extension of this idea to 
 some kind of electro-phonetic telegraphy was inevitable, even 
 though no one had thought it might or could lead to prac- 
 tically useful results ; but the idea of a multiple electro- 
 phonetic telegraphy, transmitting simultaneously several 
 different musical notes, and using intermissions of these (like 
 intermissions of currents in so many separate wires), for 
 the simultaneous and independent transmission of different 
 messages by one wire, is a very fine invention of high scien- 
 tific character, promising splendidly useful practical results. 
 
 This invention is claimed by Mr. Graham Bell, and he is 
 entitled to full credit for it, even though, as I believe is the 
 case, it has been also independently invented by others, both 
 in England and America. 
 
 A very well worked- out realisation of it is given in Mr. 
 Bell’s apparatus, now exhibited. A great practical advantage 
 of the electro-phonetic multiple telegraph over other methods 
 
20 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 of multiple telegraphy through one wire is, that no adjust- 
 ment is required for varying conditions of the line to render 
 the non-interference among the different messages perfect. 
 Another even more important practical advantage is, that it 
 is indifferent between what points of the line and in which 
 directions the different messages are being sent. The dif- 
 ferent messages can, in fact, be transmitted from any different 
 points of the line, and each may be read at all other stations 
 (whether stations from which others of the messages are 
 being sent or not) with practically perfect non-interference. 
 Another important advantage is, that earth- currents and 
 lightning discharges will never disturb the signalling. 
 
 Mr. Graham Bell’s apparatus includes an ingenious and 
 effective instrument for automatically making and breaking an 
 electric contact every time one of his telegraphic musical 
 notes commences and ceases to sound. Thus his multiple 
 telegraph may be made self-recording (after the Morse or 
 Bain method), or may be worked forward by relay through 
 greater lengths of line than imperfectness of the insulation 
 allows to be worked in one circuit. 
 
 Mr. Bell showed me in action two of these electro-phonetic 
 relays, recording quite independently the transmission of in- 
 dependent messages by two musical notes in one wire. In 
 addition to his electro-phonetic multiple telegraph, Mr. 
 Graham Bell exhibits apparatus, by which he has achieved a 
 result of transcendant scientific interest — the transmission of 
 spoken words by electric currents through a telegraph wire. 
 To obtain this result, or even to make a first step toward it — 
 the transmission of different qualities of sound, such as the 
 vowel sounds — Mr. Bell perceived that he must produce a 
 variation of strength of current in the telegraph wire as 
 nearly as may be in exact proportion to the velocity of a 
 particle of air moved by the sound ; and he invented a 
 method of doing so — a piece of iron attached to a membrane, 
 and thus moved to and fro in the neighbourhood of an electro- 
 magnet, which has proved perfectly successful. The battery 
 and wire of this electro-magnet are in circuit with the tele- 
 graph wire and the wire of another electro-magnet at the 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 21 
 
 receiving station. This second electro- magnet has a solid bar 
 of iron for core, which is connected at one end by a thick 
 disc of iron to an iron tube surrounding the coil and bar. 
 The free circular end of the tube constitutes one pole of the 
 electro-magnet, and the adjacent free end of the bar-core the 
 other. A thin circular iron disc, held pressed against the 
 end of the tube by the electro-magnetic attraction, and free to 
 vibrate through a very small space without touching the 
 central pole, constitutes the sounder by which the electric 
 effect is reconverted into sound. With my ear pressed against 
 this disc, I heard it speak distinctly several sentences. First 
 of simple monosyllables, “ To be or not to be ” (marvellously 
 distinct) ; afterwards sentences from a newspaper, “ S. S. Cox 
 has arrived” (I failed to hear the “ S. S. Cox,” but the “ has 
 arrived,” I heard with perfect distinctness). Then “ City of 
 New York,” “ Senator Morton,” “ The senate has passed a 
 resolution to print one thousand extra copies,” “The Americans 
 of London have made arrangements to celebrate the 4th of 
 July.” I need scarcely say I was astonished and delighted ; 
 so were others, including some other judges of our group, 
 who witnessed the experiments and verified with their own 
 ears the electric transmission of speech. This, perhaps the 
 greatest marvel hitherto achieved by the electric telegraph, 
 has been obtained by appliances of quite a home-spun and 
 rudimentary character. With somewhat more advanced plans, 
 and more powerful apparatus, we may confidently expect that 
 Mr. Bell will give us the means of making voice and spoken 
 words audible through the electric wire to an ear hundreds of 
 miles distant. William Thomson, Judge . 
 
 Approval of group judges : — 
 
 J. E. Hilgard, James C. Watson, H. K. Oliver, F. A. P. 
 Barnard, J. Schudmayer, E. Levasseur, 0. F. Kupka, Ed. 
 Favre Perret, Chas. E. Emery, Joseph Henry. 
 
 A true copy of the record : — F. A. Walker, Chief of Bureau. 
 
 Given by order of the United States Centennial Com- 
 mission : — A. T. Goshorn, Director-general. 
 
 J. B. Hawley, President. 
 
 J. L, Campbell, Secretary. 
 
22 
 
 bell's telephone. 
 
 SALEM RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 At a meeting of the Essex Institute, held at its rooms, 
 Salem, Mass., U.S.A., February 19, 1877, the following reso- 
 lutions introduced by Mr. A. C. Goodell, jun., were unani- 
 mously adopted : — 
 
 Resolved, That we tender our cordial thanks to Professor 
 Alexander Graham Bell, and to his associate, Mr. Thomas 
 Augustus Watson, of Salem, for the wonderful and profoundly 
 interesting experiments so successfully performed by them at 
 Lyceum Hall on the evening of the 12th instant ; and to the 
 Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, who generously per- 
 mitted the use of their wires between Salem and Boston ; and 
 to Miss Anastasia L. Molloy, who operated the telegraph on 
 that evening. 
 
 Resolved, That the experiments we have witnessed satisfac- 
 torily demonstrate the feasibility of conveying articulate sounds 
 by means of magneto-electricity ; and we find that this method 
 possesses advantages over the ordinary electric telegraph in 
 the following particulars : 
 
 First, in the simplicity and cheapness of the mechanism 
 employed. 
 
 Second , in dispensing entirely with batteries. 
 
 Third, in avoiding the necessity of employing skilled 
 operators. 
 
 Fourth, in the apparently great motive force of the mag- 
 neto-electric currents employed, and (according to the evi- 
 dence exhibited by Professor Bell) in the fact that resistance 
 is, by this means, so far overcome or avoided as to encourage 
 the belief that, practically, no difficulty may be expected, from 
 that source, in the longest circuits. 
 
 Fifth , in the rapidity of communication by the Telephone, 
 and in the ease with which it insures accuracy by admitting 
 of instantaneous vocal repetition from either end of a tele- 
 phonic line. 
 
 Resolved, That the discovery that the vibrations of a con- 
 ducting membrane or plate set in motion by the human voice 
 can be so delicately and forcibly communicated to a corre- 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 23 
 
 sponding membrane at tbe opposite end of an electric circuit, 
 as to produce articulate sounds of exactly tbe same timbre, 
 quality, pitch, and relative strength, appears to us one of the 
 most marvellous discoveries of the age ; and the practical 
 embodiment of this discovery, in the Telephone, constitutes a 
 most curious and remarkable invention ; and we deem it espe- 
 cially noteworthy that these were not accidental, but the result 
 of profound study of the science of acoustics, and a conse- 
 quent inference that currents of electricity might be made to 
 vary in intensity in the exact ratio that air varies in density 
 when affected by sound. 
 
 Resolved, That we deem it a signal honour to have been 
 privileged to witness the first public operation of this wonder- 
 ful instrument, at a meeting, a report of the proceedings of 
 which was sent abroad as the first public message by the Tele- 
 phone. 
 
 Resolved, That we are gratified to learn that these experi- 
 ments are to be repeated in Salem ; and to them, as at once 
 instructive and astonishing, we invite the attention of the 
 public. 
 
 Resolved, That these resolutions be communicated to Pro- 
 fessor Bell and to Mr. Watson by the Secretary ; and offered 
 to the press. 
 
 A true copy from the records. 
 
 George M. Whipple, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 A NEW INSTRUMENT. 
 
 “ The account given by the Boston Daily Globe of the work- 
 ing of a new instrument or apparatus called the Telephone, 
 makes it appear that sound may now be transmitted over 
 long distances — up to a limit of something like twenty miles 
 — as easily as sense, or at least information, has been trans- 
 mitted for some time past. You may call out to a friend 
 eighteen or twenty miles off with the certainty, provided you. 
 call to him through or along the Telephone, of making your- 
 self heard and of enabling him even to distinguish and recog- 
 
u 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 niso your voice. On tlie other hand, the Telephone cannot 
 be used for addressing offensive or tiresome remarks to an 
 unwilling hearer. Telephony, like scandal, requires two per- 
 formers, one to talk, the other to listen. The Telephone, then, 
 is an eminently peaceful invention, and incapable of being 
 turned to any bad purpose except indeed that of lying. 
 False news may, and no doubt will, from time to time be 
 sent by Telephone as now by telegraph. But the risk of 
 attempting to circulate deceptive intelligence will probably 
 be somewhat increased by the fabricators being required to 
 call out his falsehoods at the moment of transmitting them ; 
 while correspondents, acting in good faith, will have new 
 guarantees against fraud. One important purpose for which 
 it is difficult, and often impossible, to use the electric tele- 
 graph is that of getting money transmitted. Under present 
 arrangements it sometimes happens that a London banker re- 
 ceives a telegram from a customer abroad demanding by the 
 next post a certain sum. Such a request cannot be complied 
 with, since there is no possibility of verifying the applicant’s 
 signature. The banker’s correspondent may, of course, be 
 instructed by telegraph to pay to such a person a given 
 amount ; but the question of identity still remains an obstacle, 
 and one which, in the case of timid, old-fashioned financiers, 
 cannot be got over. A traveller, however, whose money has 
 run out will, under the new Telephonic system, have merely 
 to shout to his banker until the banker shouts to his corre- 
 spondent to pay such a sum to such a person, who has just 
 had the ear of the bank, and who is waiting at such a place. 
 Telephony will, it is true, need a little development before 
 such results as these can be obtained. The new invention is 
 still in its infancy. But as perfect voice-messages can already 
 be sent a distance of twenty miles, we may confidently look 
 forward to the time when Telephony, as a means of rapid 
 communication, will take its position side by side with tele- 
 graphy, to which it will doubtless for many uses be preferred. 
 Many an epicure before starting for Paris would gladly order 
 his dinner by word of mouth ; and this, by means of a per- 
 fected Telephonic system, might easily be done. Even now 
 
BELL S TELEPHONE. 
 
 25 
 
 Telephonic despatches are sent along a line not much shorter 
 than the distance from Dover to Calais ; and these first ex- 
 periments, we are told, are merely to be looked upon as estab- 
 lishing the practical success of -an invention which seems 
 destined to revolutionize electric telegraphy.’ 
 
 “ It seems that the first newspaper despatch 1 sent by a 
 human voice over the wires ’ was published in the journal 
 which describes this remarkable achievement. The despatch 
 consisted of a report, 110 lines long, of a lecture delivered at 
 Salem, eighteen miles from Boston, by Mr. Graham Bell, ex- 
 plaining his ‘ Telephone, or apparatus for transmitting speech 
 sounds and musical sounds of all kinds through the electric 
 telegraph wires by means of the vibrations of the armature of 
 a permanent magnet.’ Sir William Thomson, at the Glasgow 
 meeting of the British Association, last year, spoke in the 
 highest term of the Telephone. But until the 13th of last 
 month it had only been used for experiments — as for sending 
 musical notes and songs, both notes and words — from Boston 
 to Salem, and from Salem back to Boston. Some of these 
 preliminary trials were astonishing enough; for the songs 
 telephoned — if we may coin the word — from Boston were not 
 only heard, but loudly applauded at Salem, so that a musical 
 critic at Salem was able to send by Telephone, for publication 
 at Boston, an account of the effect caused at Salem by the 
 Boston music. 
 
 “ In a commercial point of view, the success of the Telephone 
 ought, indeed, to be very great. For what are called ‘ affairs 
 of the heart ’ it will no doubt be greatly in request. A tele- 
 gram, couched for the most part in a sort of nigger-English, 
 for which a desire to keep within the regulation twenty words 
 is the only excuse, is not the sort of communication that 
 should pass between lovers. What would not a devoted 
 admirer give for as many words as the object of his affection 
 might be able to call out within a given time ? What, above 
 all, would he not be ready to pay for the privilege of hearing 
 the very voice of the loved one ? Private Telephones at so 
 many hundreds a month might easily be let to persons about 
 to marry ; and the inexperienced, credulous as to the duration 
 
26 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 of human passion, might even be tempted to take them by the 
 year. In this latter case the use of the private Telephone 
 would often revert to the company, or to the Government 
 department by which Telephony may be taken in hand, long 
 before the expiration of the term bargained for. Concert- 
 givers and the enterprising class of musical agents will of 
 course try to establish some sort of central establishment for 
 the making of vocal and instrumental music, whence, as from 
 a reservoir, it would be turned on, now in this, now in that 
 direction, according to the requirements of subscribers. It is 
 to be feared, however, that in connection with such a specula- 
 tion as we have now in view, a certain amount of deception 
 would be practised. A great many pretended connoisseurs 
 recognise singers less by their voice than by their personal 
 appearance ; and the manager of the music- works or ‘ Central 
 Harmonic Institute,’ as it might be called, would not care to 
 transmit the strains of an Adelina Patti at a cost of something 
 like one shilling a note, when a much cheaper and coarser 
 style of warbling would give equal satisfaction. What Herr 
 Wagner calls ‘ absolute music ’ would become more absolute 
 and more abstract than ever ; and it would often no doubt be 
 found, in the use of vocal music, that the singing lost much 
 by being separated from the singer. Naturally the Telephone 
 will be employed for military purposes ; and a commander-in- 
 chief, when he has once learned to use it, will be able to 
 address the generals subordinate to him as freely and as 
 effectively as though they were, in the ordinary sense of the 
 words, within hail. Should the Telephone of one army fall 
 into the power of the army opposing it, awkward results 
 might no doubt ensue. The possibility of playing fatal prac- 
 tical jokes, by means of a captured Telephone, might, in a 
 measure, be guarded against— as by entrusting all telephonic 
 work to some one man who should be easily recognisable by 
 a peculiar voice. It will be quite sufficient, however, if the 
 Telephone should fulfil all that is expected of it in connection 
 with the arts of peace. What the Telephone has already done 
 is marvellous enough. It is something to have transmitted, 
 verbally and vocally, by the Telephone a despatch 110 lines in 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 27 
 
 length ; 1 this wonder/ in the words of the Boston Daily 
 Globe , ‘ being accomplished in a time not much longer than 
 would be consumed in an ordinary conversation between two 
 people in the same room,’ and in such a manner that the 
 person who listened to and wrote down the message, as it 
 reached him, ‘ could easily recognise the voice at the other 
 end.’ ” — Daily News , March 9th, 1877. 
 
 ELECTRIC TELEPHONY. 
 
 “ On Wednesday, the 81st ult., the Society of Telegraph 
 Engineers convened a special general meeting, for the purpose, 
 as was gracefully put by its President, Professor Abel, C.B., 
 E.R.S., in his introductory remarks, of according to Professor 
 Graham Bell a welcome to England, and at the same time 
 affording the members of the Society an opportunity of 
 hearing from him the nature, history, and development of 
 what may well be called one of the most interesting dis- 
 coveries of the age. 
 
 “ The lecture hall of the Institution was crowded to over- 
 flowing, the gathering being one of, if not the, largest known 
 since its opening. Amongst those present were Professor 
 Tyndall, F.R.S., Professor Stokes, M.A., E.R.S., Professor 
 Huggins, E.R.S., Dr. Hugo Muller, Professor Hirst, F.R.S., 
 Dr. Frankland, F.R.S., Professor Grote, Lieutenant- Colonel 
 Elies, General Younghusband, C.B., F.R.S., Sir James Stokes, 
 K.C.B., R.E., General Holland, Colonel Hay, R.A., Colonel 
 Alderson, R.A., and many others of well-known reputation.’’ 
 — Engineering , November 9th, 1877. 
 
 REPRODUCTION OF ARTICULATE SPEECH. 
 
 “ To what is aptly termed the undulatory system of currents 
 of electricity, is due the consummation of the articulating 
 Telephone. Like all other successful applications, now that 
 success has attended its use, and now that its aptitude has 
 been explained and demonstrated, we see that in the employ- 
 
28 
 
 bell’s .telephone. 
 
 ment of this form of electric current alone it is possible to 
 obtain the results which the long-continued researches of Pro- 
 fessor Bell have led up to. In addressing the Society of Tele- 
 graph Engineers, he pointedly directed the attention of his 
 audience to what he designated these primary varieties of tele- 
 phonic currents, viz., intermittent, pulsatory, and undulatory. 
 We know what an intermittent current is. It is the alternate 
 flow and cessation, or the presence and absence of the current 
 along a given wire. Pulsatory currents are described as 
 sudden or instantaneous changes in the intensity of a con- 
 tinuous current, that is, a wire is traversed by a continuous 
 current of an intensity of, say, 5. At an instant this intensity 
 is increased to, say, 10. Graphically this is represented by a 
 line of, say, one quarter of an inch in thickness, which repre- 
 sents the normal continuous current. At the point where the 
 intensity is raised to 10, the thickness of the line becomes 
 suddenly that of half an inch, and this continues so long as the 
 increased intensity continues, and as soon as it is lowered to 
 the normal power the line again suddenly drops to its normal 
 thickness. Thus the sudden increase and decrease of these 
 pulsatory currents would give us the figure of a line suddenly 
 increased in thickness, according to the value of the increased 
 intensity, at various distances governed by periods during 
 which the increased current is in operation. From this the 
 undulatory current differs very materially. If we cast a stone 
 into still water, we observe the disturbance caused by it to 
 result in a series of waves which are gradually reduced in 
 volume till they are absorbed and die away. A tone uttered 
 in air has a similar effect; it puts the air in its immediate 
 vicinity in motion, creating a series of waves, the shape or 
 formation of which is governed by the force, or volume of the 
 sound, in the same manner as the volume of the ripple on the 
 water is governed by the weight and force of the stone which 
 disturbs it. These waves of water, or waves of air, are undu- 
 latory, and serve well to describe what is meant by the form 
 of undulatory currents to which is due the production of the 
 articulating Telephone. 
 
 “So far success has not attended the efforts of those who 
 
BELL S TELEPHONE. 
 
 29 
 
 have sought to employ the galvanic battery current for ar- 
 ticulating purposes. Its varying power would necessitate 
 frequent adjustment of the diaphragm in the neighbourhood 
 of the magnet produced by it, whilst if employed for sending 
 impulses , direct to the distant point, its action would be 
 that termed intermittent, and the result a series of vibra- 
 tions of equal power, so that no approach to articulation 
 would be possible. Each word uttered causes a series of 
 vibrations in the air, but these vibrations are not abrupt, but 
 of a modulated form, rising and falling, as has been repre- 
 sented like ripples on water. The only means which has yet 
 been suggested for obtaining electrical action similar in charac- 
 ter is that employed by Bell in his latest form, viz., currents 
 produced by an armature placed in front of a permanent 
 magnet. In the Telephone the diaphragm is the armature. 
 Assume that in a certain position it is at zero. Move it 
 an infinitesimal part nearer the magnet, and you alter the 
 magnet’s magnetic field ; and if around the pole of the magnet 
 is wound a coil of wire, a current will be set up in that wire 
 for every fresh position assumed by the armature. The power 
 of this current depends upon the rapidity of movement of the 
 armature. If the movement is slow, a corresponding low 
 current will be excited in the coil, and pass to the distant 
 station ; if it is rapid the current generated will be corre- 
 spondingly of greater power and intensity. Hence the currents 
 evolved are dependent upon the motion of the armature, whilst 
 the motion of the armature is dependent upon the formation 
 of the wave of air which presses upon it. Thus, then, the 
 voice sets in motion the air in the neighbourhood of a Tele- 
 phone ; the motion thus set up disturbs the diaphragm, by 
 which currents corresponding in intensity and duration to the 
 wave impinging upon the diaphragm are set up, reproducing 
 a corresponding action in the instrument at the distant station, 
 which in its turn emits sound corresponding to the currents 
 generated at the transmitting end of the wire. 
 
 “The invention carries with it the stamp of well-directed and 
 meritorious research. It establishes a new era in telegraphy, 
 and even as it stands, in its present embyro form, it has before 
 
30 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 it a large and useful field. That it will supersede many of the 
 present form of telegraph instruments, requiring in their most 
 simple arrangement a certain amount of technical instruction, 
 and hence the attendance of one or more qualified persons to 
 carry on communication, is patent to all. That it will open 
 up a means of communication which has practically been 
 closed to many for want of that very technical labour is also 
 clear, whilst in many other ways it will find a home. In fact, 
 its field is that of the human voice. Wherever that is required 
 to be employed between points sufficiently far apart to prevent 
 absolute conversation by word of mouth alone, there will the 
 Telephone come into requisition. Requiring no skilled labour, 
 no technical education, easy to maintain, and cheap of con- 
 struction, it may lay claim to a large share of public support. 
 
 “ Independent of this, we may look for its employment in 
 other useful spheres. It was but a few days since Sir William 
 Thomson obtained some very useful and practical results from 
 it in connexion with an anemometer placed in one of the shafts 
 of a coal mine, by which the supply of air passing into the 
 shaft was indicated above ground. It has been employed in 
 numerous mines in Cornwall and other places for communica- 
 tion between portions of the underground workings and those 
 above ground, and it is reported that in one case the miners 
 were so impressed with its value to them that they resisted its 
 removal. 
 
 “ Another useful field for it is that of submarine exploration. 
 With a w T ire woven into the air-tube of a diver’s dress, and a 
 simple provision for the instrument, the diver may make 
 known to those above not only his own wants, but may report 
 from his position the nature of things around him, and 
 receive instructions from those directing his movements, to 
 all intents and purposes, as though they were conversing in 
 the same room. 
 
 “ In military and naval evolutions it will prove of the utmost 
 value. The staff officer will no longer need the services of an 
 experienced clerk — no longer need he fear the divulgence of 
 his general’s plans, or of any portion of them. To him the 
 communication can be made direct, by night or day, with or 
 
BELL S TELEPHONE. 
 
 31 
 
 without light ; by the call of a bell his attendance is secured, 
 and then all he has to do is to speak and listen. In naval 
 tactics outlying boats may hold communication by a light 
 cable with their commanding officer ; whilst a network of 
 telegraph may be spun round our coast from coastguard station 
 to coastguard station, and proceedings be reported, from or to 
 any point, at almost any moment. The coastguardsman on 
 duty may strike his wire at any given spot on his beat, and 
 call for aid, or report suspicious circumstances at will, and 
 obtain aid ofr instructions without leaving his post. It is diffi- 
 cult to perceive a more useful application for it than this, and 
 doubtless it is one which will commend itself to the proper 
 authorities. 
 
 “ So delicate is the instrument, that Professor Bell relates on 
 one occasion, when trying some experiments with it, he was 
 able to maintain communication with another person when 
 standing upon a dry board, his foot touching merely a blade 
 of grass, the current passing to earth through his body and 
 by means of this single blade of grass. The amount of resist - 
 mice through which it will work is practically illimitable: It 
 is not too much to expect that it will be found of considerable 
 service for testing the physical condition of the human frame, 
 a point to which medical men are already giving attention. 
 That it is as delicate as the stethoscope there can be little 
 doubt, and the day may come when, by its aid, a medical man 
 in the provinces may confer with his more learned brother in 
 the metropolis, and jointly test the condition of an invalid 
 whose state is such as to forbid removal.” — Engineering , Nov. 
 16 , 1877 . 
 
 A GREAT INVENTION. 
 
 “ A great change has come over the conditions of humanity. 
 Suddenly and quietly the whole human race is brought within 
 speaking and hearing distance. Scarcely anything was more 
 desired or more impossible. Few, indeed, can fill a room of 
 any size, or even make themselves well heard anywhere ; and 
 th ear itself is the weakest and most treacherous of our facul- 
 
32 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 ties. The eye enjoyed an invidious superiority over the sister 
 organ. Not to speak of its celestial achievements over other 
 worlds, or of the kingdoms of the earth it could see in a 
 moment of time, it encroached successfully on the domain of 
 the ear, by beacons, and telegraphs, and all kinds of signals. 
 Some of us may remember the line of telegraphs from the 
 Admiralty to Portsmouth, throwing their arms wildly about 
 ten minutes sometimes, while the bewildered clerks were turn- 
 ing over the leaves of their key Or spelling a word. A storm 
 or a fog, or nightfall, would interrupt the message, and there 
 it slept till next day, no matter its importance or its urgency. 
 The railway seemed to compensate for this, but with the rail- 
 way came all the accidents and delays of personal agency. 
 Then, about a generation ago, came the electric telegraph, too 
 great a boon to be lightly spoken of, but even more divested 
 of the charms that sweeten and assist communication than the 
 old letter-writing. The writer might be known and loved in 
 his letter, which could not help being characteristic ; but the 
 telegram was the dry bones of correspondence. Gushes, sighs, 
 tears, sallies of wit, and traits of fondness do not stand the 
 ordeal of twenty words for a shilling, and the frigid medium 
 of unsympathetic clerks. All at once the telegram is found to 
 be a barbarous makeshift, fit for business purposes, or mere 
 messages, in which names, figures, places, and dates are all 
 there is to be transmitted. For any higher or tenderer pur- 
 pose the Telephone is to take its place. While we are talking 
 about it, and hearing of its performances at scientific meetings, 
 the Americans are bringing it rapidly into use. Already 500 
 houses in New York converse with one another ; 3,000 Tele- 
 phones are in use in the United States; they are used by com- 
 panies and other large concerns wherever the works are some 
 way from the office, in waterworks, pits, and mines. Friends 
 on the opposite sides of a broad street converse as if in one 
 room. The known tone and inflections of the speaker, a whis- 
 per, a cough, a sigh, a breath can be heard. The little inci- 
 dents of human utterance which it takes a wakeful ear to 
 detect, aided by the eye and by familiar acquaintance, arc 
 found to pass along miles of wire, many of them under the 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 33 
 
 earth or sea. Silent as the medium may he, and dead as it 
 seems, the sound comes out true. A hundred miles of galvanic 
 agency becomes only one imperceptible link between two 
 human mechanisms. 
 
 The Telephone will prove a 
 severe test of both our speaking and our listening powers. 
 The household wire, it appears, need not be monopolized, or 
 be at the mercy of one inefficient listener. Half-a-dozen 
 Telephones, with their respective wires, can be attached to 
 the same main wire, and as many ears applied. When it 
 was found, now about fifty years ago, that tubes would convey 
 the human voice sufficiently a hundred yards or more, it was 
 immediately suggested that an honest and attentive body of 
 Christians could stay at home on a rainy Sunday without 
 being deprived of public ministrations. They might sit by 
 their fireside, lend a willing ear to the end of a speaking 
 tube, and hear the sermon delivered at the other end of the 
 street. The voice, however, would not ramify to the desired 
 extent. The electric current will ramify to at least a con- 
 siderable extent. The very idea of such a use being made of 
 it, improbable and even ridiculous as it is, suggests its con- 
 venience for many ordinary and secular purposes. The 
 objection to a telegraphic system ramifying itself into every 
 parish and every good house in the kingdom has hitherto 
 been the fact that in very few households is there one who 
 could read or work the instrument. That objection is now 
 likely in time to be entirely removed. Everybody who has 
 an ear can hear a Telephone, and everyone who has a tongue 
 can speak into one. All that is wanted is a much-required 
 improvement in our listening and speaking powers, with, of 
 course, some considerable improvements in the Telephone. 
 But the last point, however necessary, is simply a case of 
 supply and demand. If wanted, the Telephone will be 
 brought to the same pitch of perfection as telescopes, watches, 
 sewing machines, photography, lucifer matches, locomotives, 
 breechloaders, heavy ordnance, and many other things that 
 within living recollection were either very clumsy affairs or 
 not even yet invented. A time is coming when everybody, 
 
31 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 we presume, will carry his own Telephone about with him. 
 Wherever he goes he will be able to step into a telegraph 
 office, apply his own wire to the public wire, and hold a 
 private conversation with a wife, or a son, or a customer, or 
 a political friend, at the end, without the intervention of a 
 public servant. He will pay by the minute. The wire, it is 
 stated, must be a quiet one, for it is apt to pick up stray 
 sound. On the other hand, it is now announced that a 
 remedy has been found for this, and that a wire thus encum- 
 bered can be cleared of strange utterances before it comes to 
 the Telephone. Perhaps the use of underground wires, now 
 on other accounts much insisted on, may be found a more 
 effectual remedy. 
 
 “ The discovery has come happily just at the time when there 
 had arisen a dreary feeling that we had arrived at the end of 
 original discoveries, and had nothing to do but work out 
 our old ones. It is true we have been penetrating continents, 
 sounding the deep sea, hunting matter down to molecules, 
 finding perfume in filth, dyes in dirt, and food in refuse. It 
 is also true that the annual catalogue of new facts in Science 
 has been stated to amount to a thick, closely-printed volume. 
 But these are not matters that concern everybody, at least 
 directly. They do not revolutionize the world. What the Tele- 
 phone promises is hardly short of this. There is no reason 
 why a man should not hold conversation with a son at the 
 Antipodes, distinguish his voice, hear his breathing, and if the 
 instrument be applied as a stethoscope, hear his heart’s throb. 
 Next to seeing — nay, rather than seeing — what would parents 
 give to hear the very voice, the familiar laugh, the favourite 
 song, of the child long separated by a solid mass 8,000 miles 
 in diameter ? The telescope is only a prolongation of the eye, 
 and the Telephone is only a second ear. For some time there 
 has been a prophetic idea that a speech ought to be able to 
 report itself. There is now no difficulty in the matter, except 
 that the Telephone will be only too true, and will serve the 
 orator and the public only too well. Will the Telephone be 
 able to convey the singing of our birds to the less vocal tropical 
 regions, the breaking of the surge, or any other of Nature’s 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 35 
 
 sweet or wild utterances ? Will it bring to our metropolis 
 the dreadful sounds of the bombardment or the battle-field ? 
 But what next ? There is hardly anything conceivable that 
 may not be hoped for, if not, indeed, expected. We have only 
 to look back the length of an ordinary lifetime and consider 
 how much the world has advanced in that period to form a 
 fair estimate of what is in store for our successors. The 
 world has not exhausted itself ; mind has not done all its 
 work ; Nature teems with fresh wonders ; time has more 
 children yet to come. When shall we store and distribute the 
 manifold bounties of Nature running to waste ? When shall 
 we counteract the uncertainty of the elements P When shall 
 we penetrate the mystery of the winds ? Shall we ever cover 
 the whole earth with fertility and verdure ? Shall we not 
 only combat, but extirpate disease, as some diseases have, in 
 fact, disappeared ? To come down to the improvement of 
 existing means, when shall we bring railway travelling to the 
 perfection of speed, comfort, and safety ? All these are mere 
 mechanical problems. The greatest perfection is not so im- 
 probable as the railway itself was only fifty years ago. In 
 none of these matters has mankind yet made so serious and 
 persistent an endeavour as to be sure that the failure is not in 
 itself, rather than in the work to be done. They seem im- 
 possible ; so did the idea of the Telephone but the other 
 day .” — The Times , Nov. 19th, 1877. 
 
 A GOVERNMENT CONTRACT. 
 
 “ Colonel W. H. Reynolds has just concluded a contract with 
 the English Government, by which the Post Office Department 
 has adopted the bell telephone as a part of its telegraphic 
 system. In a recent telephonic experiment in connection with 
 the cable, 21f miles long, between Dover and Calais, there was 
 not the slightest failure during a period of two hours. Though 
 three other wires were busy at the same time, every word was 
 heard through the Telephone, and individual voices were dis- 
 tinguished. This important experiment was conducted by 
 
 D 2 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 36 
 
 Mr. J. Bourdeaux, of the Submarine Telegraph Company.” — 
 The Times , Nov. 23rd, 1877. 
 
 PROFESSOR BELL BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF ARTS. 
 
 November 30 , 1877 . 
 
 Telephony is receiving at the present time a great deal of 
 attention from men of science all over the world, and it is my 
 intention to-night to try and give you a short account of the 
 means by which sound can be produced at a distance by 
 electrical means. There are probably many here present who 
 may recollect the early Telephonic experiments made in this 
 country by the late Sir Charles Wheatstone. These experi- 
 ments were repeated, and, perhaps, improved upon, in 
 America, by Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian Institute, 
 and others. I may direct your attention for a moment to 
 one of these earlier Telephonic experiments in America. Two 
 pianos were placed, one on each side of the road. A long 
 deal rod was taken across the street, from the window of one 
 house to that of the other, and the two ends of the rod were 
 connected to the sounding-boards of the pianos. Under 
 these circumstances, when a person played the piano in one 
 house, the piano in the other house seemingly played by 
 itself. The vibration of the sounding-board was communi- 
 cated mechanically through the long wooden rod, and, at the 
 other end of this wooden circuit, the sounding-board of the 
 other piano was set into vibration, and the strings of the 
 piano, which were in unison with those of the first one, were 
 thrown sympathetically into action, and produced music. 
 
 Another Telephonic experiment that I shall direct your at- 
 tention to may be seen going on in the streets of London on 
 almost any day. You may see persons in the streets ex- 
 hibiting what is called the Telephone, consisting of a small 
 membrane with a thread or a string attached to the end of it, 
 and at a distance of one hundred yards or so there is another 
 membrane. The two membranes are united by this thread or 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 37 
 
 string, and if you talk to one of these membranes it is thrown 
 into vibration, and that vibration is mechanically communi- 
 cated through the string to the other, and the sound is pro- 
 duced in the other membrane. But there is a difference be- 
 tween the early Telephonic experiments and those I wish to 
 direct your attention to to-night. If you observe for a moment 
 the modus ojperandi of the thread Telephone, you will see that 
 there are two membranes which control one another’s action 
 through the vibration of a string. One of these membranes 
 is forced to vibrate ; it pulls the other by the string and 
 releases it, and the two vibrate together. In this case, then, 
 the sound is mechanically conducted along the string, but in 
 electric telephony the sound is not communicated along the 
 wire at all. It exists in the wire as a current of electricity, 
 which produces, de novo , the vibration of a sound at the re- 
 ceiving end of a circuit. 
 
 In examining the means by which sound can be electrically 
 produced, I would direct your attention to several distinct 
 species of what may be called Telephonic currents of elec- 
 tricity. For this purpose I will have the lights lowered, and 
 a graphical representation of those currents will be thrown 
 upon the screen. I distinguish three varieties of Telephonic 
 currents, which I will designate intermittent, pulsatory, and 
 undulatory. You have these three varieties shown in the 
 three lines of the diagram, the upper one being the inter- 
 mittent, the second, the pulsatory, and the third the undu- 
 latory. The horizontal line indicates the zero of the cur- 
 rents, and the dark lines are impulses of electricity. When 
 these lines are above the zero they indicate positive impulses, 
 when they are below, they indicate negative impulses of elec- 
 tricity. The vertical thickness of the electrical line from the 
 zero indicates the intensity of the current at the point ob- 
 served, so you will see that the characteristic of an inter- 
 mittent current is the alternate presence or absence of elec- 
 tricity from the circuit. The characteristic of the pulsatory 
 current is a pulsatory change in the intensity of the con- 
 tinuous current ; but the undulatory current, to which your 
 attention will be chiefly directed to-night, is a continuous 
 
38 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 current of electricity, the intensity of which varies gradually, 
 and in a manner proportional to the varying velocity of a 
 particle of air. 
 
 The three radical varieties of Telephonic currents may be 
 sub-divided into direct and reversed currents, or those in 
 which the impulses are all of one kind, either positive or 
 
 Direct. 
 
 A. Intermittent; B. Pulsatory; C. Undulatory. 
 
 A. Intermittent; B. Pulsatory; C. Undulatory. 
 
 negative, and those in which the impulses are reversed or are 
 alternately positive and negative. You may still further 
 discriminate varieties of direct currents accordingly as the 
 impulses are all positive or negative. You may have a posi- 
 tive intermittent, or a negative or reversed intermittent cur- 
 rent, so that you have nine varieties of Telephonic currents. 
 
 So far as I have been able to find, all previous experi- 
 menters in this branch of science have used intermittent or 
 pulsatory currents in their attempts to produce sound, and I 
 believe that I am the first to conceive of the employment of 
 undulatory currents, whereby not only a noise or musical 
 sound may be produced electrically, but sound of any kind — 
 
bell’s telephone. 39 
 
 the timbre of the sound as well as the pitch and force of it 
 being preserved. 
 
 The question will naturally rise in your minds, how can 
 these currents of electricity be produced ? It will be my 
 object to-night chiefly to speak of the undulatory current and 
 the means of producing it ; but I may here state that I have 
 not yet been able to produce a true undulatory current, and 
 the methods which I shall show you to-night are only ap- 
 proximately undulatory. I shall pause, then, first, to consider 
 one of the means by which intermittent currents of electricity 
 can be produced, and I will have thrown on the screen an 
 illustration of an apparatus devised by Helmholtz, consisting 
 of a tuning-fork placed between the poles of an electro- 
 magnet; a platinum wire attached to one of the prongs of the 
 tuning-fork dips into a cup of mercury, thus completing a 
 voltaic circuit. So long as the platinum wire touches the 
 mercury a current of electricity traverses the circuit, passes 
 through the fork, and then through the electro -magnet, and 
 so to the other pole of the battery. Under the circumstances, 
 so long as the circuit is closed, the soft iron core of the electro- 
 magnet attracts the prongs of the tuning-fork, and the result 
 is that the prongs are separated : the result of that is that the 
 platinum wire is lifted out of the mercury ; the moment it 
 leaves the mercury the circuit is broken, the current of elec- 
 tricity ceases, the magnetism of the magnet ceases, the attrac- 
 tion of the iron core ceases, and the fork springs back by its 
 own elasticity. Hence, the moment the platinum wire touches 
 the mercury again, the prongs are again attracted apart, 
 and are again released, so that the result is that the fork is 
 thrown into continuous vibration, and at every vibration it 
 makes and breaks the voltaic circuit, thus causing an inter- 
 mittent current of electricity. 
 
 The means by which a musical tone can be produced by 
 means of this intermittent current of electricity will be shown 
 in the next illustration, which is a fork, also arranged by 
 Helmholtz, by which one tuning-fork is made to communicate 
 its vibrations to another fork of the same pitch, by means of 
 an electrical current conveyed through a wire. By the use of a 
 
40 
 
 bell's telephone. 
 
 resonator placed in front of the second fork, you can reinforce 
 the sound and make it louder or softer, by opening or closing 
 the orifice of the resonator. An arrangement by Helmholtz 
 will next be shown, by means of which a number of tuning- 
 forks are set in simultaneous vibration by the action of one 
 fork dipping into mercury, so that you have a large number 
 of musical tones produced simultaneously from these forks. 
 Helmholtz made a very remarkable experiment with these 
 forks, varying their loudness by resonators, so as to combine 
 the musical tones in different proportions, and the result was 
 that he was enabled to copy the timbre of sound. He was 
 able to produce by this external reinforcement of the forks 
 the effect of certain vowel sounds, for instance, oo or ah, 
 different forks being reinforced in different degrees. 
 
 I shall now show you the diagram of an apparatus for the 
 production of an approximately undulatory current of elec- 
 tricity. I have here a harp of steel rods attached to the poles 
 of a powerful permanent magnet, and the same arrangement is 
 repeated at the other end of the circuit. Between the rods of this 
 harp we have at each end an electro-magnet. We know that 
 when we move a magnet in the neighbourhood of an electro- 
 magnet, we induce in the coils of the electro-magnet a current 
 of electricity, the intensity of which is proportional to the 
 velocity of the motion of the magnet ; and not only so, but 
 the kind of current, or its polarity, depends on the direction 
 of the motion of the magnet. If I move my magnet down- 
 wards, I produce, say, positive electricity ; and then, on the 
 other hand, if I move it upwards, I produce negative electri- 
 city, so that it is evident to you that, when we vibrate a per- 
 manent magnet in front of an electro-magnet, we produce a 
 reversed current in the electro-magnet, and the intensity of 
 the current is proportional to the velocity of the moving body. 
 Hence, we have our undulatory current of electricity. This 
 undulatory current may be utilised to produce a sound at the 
 distant end of the current in the following way. Let us sup- 
 pose, for instance, that we have these two harps, that we pluck 
 with the finger one of these rods ; it vibrates, and produces a 
 certain musical tone. In vibrating, we have an undulatory 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 41 
 
 current of electricity produced, which traverses the circuit 
 and passes round the coil of the distant electro-magnet. What 
 is the result there ? The result is, that this electro-magnet 
 alternately attracts and repels the rods about it, the positive 
 current attracting, and the negative current repelling them ; 
 so that when an undulatory current traverses it we have a 
 succession of positive and negative impulses, and the soft iron 
 core alternately attracts and repels the rods above it, and the 
 rod which is in unison with the one agitated at the other end 
 will be thrown into vibration. So that, if you were to play a 
 tune upon this harp, the corresponding rods at the other end 
 would be thrown into vibration, and the tune would be repro- 
 duced. But you will observe that the vibration of this harp 
 is not communicated through the wire mechanically ; as in 
 the case of the piano experiment that I have referred to ; but 
 the vibration of the rod creates or induces a current of elec- 
 tricity, which current traverses the wire — of course, with the 
 speed of electricity — and will go to any distance, so that 
 instead of having one of these pianos on each side of the road 
 you may have them hundreds of miles apart, and a telegraph 
 wire between them, and play one piano, and the other will 
 appear to play by itself. 
 
 If I were to show you Helmholtz’s apparatus for the artifi- 
 cial production of vowel sounds, you would see that certain 
 timbres of sound were produced by causing the tuning-forks 
 to sound simultaneously, with different relations of force. By 
 the arrangement just described we can cause certain of the 
 rods of the harp to vibrate with certain relations of force. For 
 instance, if I pluck one of these rods very forcibly, the current 
 of electricity produced will be very intense, because the inten- 
 sity of the current depends on the velocity of the moving 
 body. Hence, when you vary the amplitude of the vibration 
 you vary the intensity of the current. Accordingly, if you 
 pluck one of the rods very forcibly, you will have an intense 
 current produced, and the corresponding rods will be thrown 
 into vibration forcibly, but if you pluck the rod gently a feeble 
 current will be produced, and the rod at the other end is 
 thrown into vibration feebly. If you sound a number of 
 
4 2 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 these rods simultaneously, with different relations of force, 
 you will find the rods of the corresponding harp thrown into 
 vibration, with corresponding relations of force. So that if 
 you can produce a vowel sound by vibrating simultaneously a 
 number of these rods, you can transmit a current of electricity 
 which will produce the same sound from the harp at the 
 other end of the wire. If you sing into a piano, keeping the 
 pedal down so as to leave the strings free to vibrate, you will 
 find that not only is the pitch of your voice echoed back to 
 you from the piano, but also an approximation to the quality 
 of the vowel. If you sing ah or oo you will find an approxi- 
 mation to these sounds produced from the piano. And the 
 theory shows that if the piano had a very much larger number 
 of strings to the octave, we should have not an approxima- 
 tion but a facsimile of the vowel sound. When you sing 
 the sound into the piano, certain of the strings are set in 
 vibration sympathetically by the voice, with different degrees 
 of amplitude, and the result is that you have these strings 
 going on vibrating after the voice has ceased, with the result 
 that the force and the vowel sound is echoed back. 
 
 The next illustration shows you my first form of articu- 
 lating Telephone. If you had a large number of steel rods 
 to the octave, and were to speak in the neighbourhood of 
 such a harp, the rods would be thrown into vibration with 
 different degrees of amplitude, producing currents of elec- 
 tricity, and would throw into vibration the rods at the other 
 end with the same relative amplitude, and the timbre of the 
 voice would be reproduced. 
 
 However, there are still simpler methods of producing un- 
 dulatory currents of electricity, and the best way of showing 
 you the method of producing the required current will be to 
 trace the various steps by which the present Telephone has 
 grown from the apparatus I have just shown you. 
 
 You will observe the effect produced upon the line of wire 
 by the vibration of two of the rods of the harp I have 
 spoken of ; and in the next illustration I show you the effect 
 of vibrating a number of permanent magnets simultaneously 
 over an electro-magnet. 
 
bell's telephone. 
 
 43 
 
 [Professor Bell here described in detail, and showed by a 
 diagram, the result of the combined vibrations of two notes 
 forming a major chord, the ratios of the vibration being as 
 five to four, and the resultant curve being the algebraic sum 
 of the two.] 
 
 The effect is, when you vibrate more than one of these rods 
 simultaneously, to change the shape of the electrical undula- 
 tion, and a similar effect is produced when a battery is 
 included in the circuit. In this case the battery current is 
 thrown into waves by the action of the permanent magnets. 
 Hence, you will see that the resultant effect on the current of 
 a number of musical tones is to produce a vibration which 
 corresponds in every degree to the moving velocity of the 
 air. Suppose, for instance, you vibrate two rods in the harp, 
 you have two musical notes produced ; but of course if you 
 pay attention to a particle of air, it is impossible that any 
 particle of air can vibrate in two directions at the same time ; 
 it follows the resultant form of vibration. One curve would 
 show the vibration of a particle of air for one musical tone, 
 the next one for another, and the third the resulting motion 
 of a particle of air when both musical tones are sounded 
 simultaneously. You have, by this apparatus, the resultant 
 effect produced by a current of electricity, but the same re- 
 sultant effect could be produced in the air. 
 
 In order to show you the resultant vibration of the air from 
 different sounds, I shall put another illustration on the screen. 
 This shows, not the variation of intensity of a current of 
 electricity, but the variation of the velocity of a moving 
 particle of air ; and the curves now on the screen represent 
 graphically the movements of air for certain vowel sounds. 
 They have not been theoretically calculated, but are actually 
 tracings produced by the voice itself. Of course, we all know 
 the instrument entitled the phonautograph, and these curves 
 were drawn by an improved form of phonautograph. There 
 was a cone into which you spoke, which condensed the air 
 from your voice ; at the small end of the cone, you had a 
 stretched membrane, which vibrated when a sound was pro- 
 duced, and, in the course of its vibration, it controlled the 
 
44 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 movement of a long style of wood, about 1 ft. in length, and 
 these curves were drawn by the style upon a surface of smoked 
 glass, which was dragged rapidly along. I myself uttered the 
 vowels that are here shown, viz., e , ay, eh, ah, aah ; these 
 vowels were sung at the same pitch and with the same force, 
 but you will observe that each is characterised by a shape of 
 vibration of its own. In fact, when you come to examine the 
 motion of a particle of air, there can be no doubt that every 
 sound is characterised by a particular motion. It struck me 
 that if instead of using that complicated harp, and vibrating 
 a number of rods tuned to different pitches, and thus creating 
 on the line of wire a resultant effect, we were at once to 
 vibrate a piece of iron — to give to that piece of iron not the 
 vibration of a musical tone, but to give it the resultant vibra- 
 tion of a vowel sound, we could have an undulatory current 
 produced, directly, not indirectly, which would correspond to 
 the motion of the air in the production of a sound. The 
 difficulty was, however, how to vibrate a piece of iron in the 
 way required. The following apparatus gave me the clue to 
 the solution of the problem in the attempt to improve the 
 phonautograph : — I attempted to construct one modelled as 
 nearly as possible on the mechanism of the human ear, but 
 upon going to a friend in Boston, Dr. Clarence J. Blake, an 
 aurist, he suggested the novel idea of using the human ear 
 itself as a phonautograph, and this apparatus we constructed 
 together. It is a human ear. The interior mechanism 
 is exposed, and to a part of it is attached a long style 
 of hay. Upon moistening the membrane and the little 
 bones with a mixture of glycerine aud water, the mobility of 
 the parts was restored, and on speaking into the external 
 artificial ear, a vibration was observed, and after many experi- 
 ments we were able to obtain tracings of the vibration on a 
 sheet of smoked glass drawn rapidly along. Many of those 
 were very beautiful, and I am sorry I have not any of them 
 here to-night to show you, but as it is foreign to our subject, 
 it is, perhaps, as well. I would merely direct your attention 
 to the apparatus itself, as it gave me the clue to the present 
 form of Telephone. What I wanted was an apparatus that 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 45 
 
 should be able to move a piece of iron in the way that a 
 particle of air is moved, by the voice. It struck me in the 
 course of these experiments that there was great disproportion 
 between the tissue of the membranes and the bones that were 
 moved by the membranes, and that if such a thin and delicate 
 membrane could vibrate a mass of bone, so disproportionate in 
 size and weight, perhaps a membrane might be able to vibrate 
 a piece of iron in the way required. I therefore constructed 
 a second form of articulating Telephone, founded on the first 
 apparatus by which I was, at the time of these experiments, 
 producing undulatory electricity for the purpose of producing 
 musical tones. It was similar to the rods shown you before, 
 except that instead of being attached to a permanent magnet 
 it was attached to one pole of an electro-magnet, and mag- 
 netised by means of a battery current. A current being 
 passed through the coils of the magnet this piece of iron 
 became magnetic, and a rod attached to one pole would of 
 course become magnetic also, as if attached to a permanent 
 magnet, so that, on vibrating this rod in any way whatever, 
 the battery current was put in operation, and the correspond- 
 ing rod at the other end thrown into vibration. I therefore 
 took this apparatus, and instead of clamping the rod firmly, it 
 was attached loosely to one extremity of the magnet, and the 
 other end was attached to a stretched membrane of goldbeater’s 
 skin ; and the same at the other end. The idea was that on 
 speaking to this membrane, it would be thrown into vibration, 
 and cause the vibration of the piece of iron — that in fact the 
 iron would follow the motion of the membrane, that is, of the 
 particles of air ; it would, therefore, induce an undulatory 
 current of electricity, the intensity of which would vary 
 with the motion, and at the other end the intensity of the 
 magnetic attraction would vary in a similar way ; so that the 
 piece of iron at the other end, being attracted and repelled in 
 a varying manner, would be thrown into vibration, copying 
 the motion of the first, and it in turn would cause the motion 
 of a second stretched membrane, which would move the air in 
 the neighbourhood, and we should thus have a sound pro- 
 duced. The idea was, that not only would the two pieces of 
 
46 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 iron vibrate together, but the form of the vibration would be 
 the same, so that on speaking in the neighbourhood of one 
 membrane we should have a fac-simile of the sound produced 
 at the other end. The apparatus was constructed, but the 
 results were rather unsatisfactory. My friend, Mr. Thomas 
 Watson, who assisted me, however, asserted that he 
 could hear a very faint sound proceed from the second mem- 
 brane when I spoke in the neighbourhood of the first. En- 
 couraged by this fact, I varied the apparatus in a number of 
 ways, and eventually produced three distinct forms of appa- 
 ratus, which were exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition. 
 I came to the conclusion that this piece of iron was probably 
 rather too heavy to be set in vibration by the membrane, and 
 I therefore made it as light as possible ; in fact, I took a piece 
 of steel spring, only about the size of the pole of the electro- 
 magnet itself, and glued it to the centre of the membrane. 
 Upon constructing two of these instruments, there was no 
 mistake at all that articulate speech was produced ; but it 
 was of a very imperfect nature. When a person spoke or 
 sung into one of these instruments, you could distinctly hear 
 the tones of the speaker’s voice at the other end, and could 
 recognise that there was articulation there, and when you knew 
 the sentence that was uttered, you could recognise the articula- 
 tion, and it seemed strange that you could not understand what 
 it was at first. The vowel sounds seemed to be copied very 
 fairly, but the consonant sounds were entirely alike. 
 
 Another form of apparatus constructed at this time for pro- 
 ducing an undulatory current, I have a photograph of, but it 
 is a different size to the others, and cannot be thrown on the 
 screen. It consists of one portion of the apparatus turned 
 horizontally ; attached to the membrane of gold-beater’s skin 
 is a little, bit of cork carrying a platinum wire, which dips into 
 a cup containing water. We know that water offers an enor- 
 mous resistance to the passage of an electrical current. If 
 you place two wires in water, separated by a slight distance, 
 the resistance offered by the water is very great ; but if you 
 bring the wires nearer together, the resistance becomes less 
 and less, so that the current of electricity becomes stronger 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 47 
 
 and stronger, and when the two wires can be put in actual 
 contact the resistance of the water may be ignored altogether. 
 Hence you can see that by vibrating two wires to and fro in 
 a liquid of high resistance ^included in the circuit, the battery 
 current can be thrown into waves, and the resulting current 
 may be considered as approximately undulatory ; and with 
 this form of apparatus I was able to produce articulate sounds. 
 But it was no improvement on the first. I produced the effect 
 of articulate speech by vibrating the conducting wire in this 
 way in pure water, in water acidulated with dilute sulphuric 
 and other acids, in salt and water, and in a number of other 
 liquids. I also produced the same effect by vibrating a solid 
 of high resistance in a liquid of low resistance. Instead of a 
 platinum wire dipping into water, I had plumbago dipping 
 into mercury. The plumbago offered a good deal of resistance 
 to the passage of the current, but as it dipped into the mer- 
 cury it offered less and less, and by having a very small piece 
 of plumbago vibrating in the mercury, the current was varied 
 in a manner approximately undulatory, and articulate effects 
 were produced when this apparatus was used as a receiving 
 instrument. 
 
 I found, however, that the best means I could devise for 
 producing an undulatory current was the apparatus I will now 
 show you, but it did not serve well as a receiving instrument, 
 and I was therefore led, after many experiments, to construct 
 another form of receiving instrument, keeping this for trans- 
 mission. 
 
 This [a diagram of the instrument was thrown on the 
 screen] is one of the forms shown in the Centennial Exhibition. 
 On speaking into this, and listening to the other, articulate 
 sounds were heard very distinctly. 
 
 The next illustration shows the form of receiving instrument 
 to which I was led. It consists of a hollow box of iron, with 
 the electro-magnet inside, and a thin diaphragm of iron laid 
 on the top as a lid. Upon resting the ear closely against this 
 diaphragm, articulate sounds were very clearly perceived 
 when the first instrument, as shown at Philadelphia, was used 
 as a transmitting instrument. I was so convinced, from these 
 
48 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 experiments, that the inductive method of producing an undu- 
 latory current was the best method, that I determined to vary 
 the construction of the first form of apparatus, ar d I gradually 
 varied the size and power of my magnet, and the size and 
 thickness of the iron spring attached to the membrane, and the 
 size of the coil. I found, as I diminished the size of the coil, 
 the resulting sound at the other end became very much louder ; 
 in fact, I found there was no advantage in using a coil that 
 extended beyond the centre of the magnet. Indeed, there is 
 very little difference, in effect, between a coil of that size, and 
 a mere flat spiral placed once routid the magnet. The im- 
 portant point is to cover the pole of the magnet. Every 
 succeeding turn adds resistance, without increasing materially 
 the loudness of sound. I varied the power and size of the 
 magnet by varying the power and size of the voltaic battery 
 employed to magnetise it, and found that very little effect was 
 produced by diminishing the power of the battery. In fact, 
 the effect of articulate speech was produced from the receiving 
 instrument when the battery was entirely removed from the 
 circuit. In that case the only source of power would be the 
 residual magnetism of the iron bar, and that showed that the 
 only use of the battery could be to magnetise the iron bar ; 
 so, in subsequent forms, I dispensed entirely with the voltaic 
 battery, and used a straight bar of iron magnetised steel. In- 
 creasing the size of the iron plate attached to the membrane, 
 a very large increase in the loudness of the sound resulted, 
 until finally I had a plate of iron almost as large as the mem- 
 brane itself. By this, dispensing with the membrane alto- 
 gether, perfect articulation was, for the first time, obtained, 
 and in this form, which differs very immaterially from the 
 present form, you have a plate of iron vibrated by the voice, 
 in front of a permanent magnet with a coil of wire around it. 
 
 On varying the size and thickness of the permanent magnet, 
 it is found that wonderfully little difference is produced by 
 magnets of very different force, and on varying the size, dia- 
 meter, and thickness of the iron plate, wonderfully little differ- 
 ence is produced. The chief difference is a peculiar effect on 
 the quality of the voice. I have produced distinct articula- 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 49 
 
 tions from iron plates all the way from 1 in. in diameter up to 
 2 ft., and from in. to § in. in thickness. In fact, if you 
 take an ordinary Morse sounder, and use that as a receiving 
 instrument, using a battery current to magnetise it, if you 
 place the armature of the Morse sounder close against your 
 ear, articulate sounds are produced from it. This shows very 
 distinctly that the effect is probably molecular rather than 
 anything else, and the vibration of the plate as a whole mars 
 the effect. One of my best forms of instrument was con- 
 structed on this model, but I had the cavity completely filled 
 with a pad, to prevent the vibration of the plate as a whole, 
 and it articulated beautifully. When the pad was taken out, 
 a peculiar effect accompanied the articulation — a drum- like 
 effect, due probably to the vibration of the plate as a whole. 
 In fact, I can describe very distinctly the effect produced by 
 varying the size of the plate. Suppose we keep the plate 
 of uniform thickness, and vary the diameter, commencing 
 with a small plate, we have articulation .perfectly distinct, but 
 it sounds as if you were speaking with a cold in your head ; 
 a purely nasal quality accompanies the sound. ISTow, keep 
 the thickness uniform, but enlarge the diameter, and as you 
 do so the nasal effect wears away, until, with a certain 
 diameter, you obtain a very good quality of voice. Keep on 
 enlarging it, and a coarse, hollow, drum- like effect is produced, 
 and when you have it very large it sounds as if you had your 
 head inside a barrel — a kind of reverberating sound. So 
 keeping the diameter of the plate uniform and varying the 
 thickness, commencing with a very thin plate, you will have 
 the same drum-like effect. Kow, as you gradually thicken the 
 plate, you have the effect disappearing. Then you get articu- 
 lation, and as you go on increasing the thickness you have 
 that peculiar nasal quality produced, so that it is probable that 
 the fundamental pitch of the plate itself has a great deal to 
 do with the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the electrical 
 articulation, but the size or thickness does not seem to impair 
 the distinctness of the articulation itself. You see there is a 
 peculiar form of mouthpiece for concentrating the air on the 
 plate. I made one experiment of rather a striking nature, 
 
50 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 viz., I omitted entirely tlae cavity in the mouthpiece. The iron 
 plate was glued solidly at every point against a block of wood, 
 and I talked against the surface of the block, so that there 
 was an inch of wood between my mouth and the iron plate. 
 Yet I was able to carry on a conversation with a man three 
 miles away. I will now show you the last form of apparatus, 
 and it differs very little from the previous one. [Professor 
 Bell here explained in detail, by the aid of the illustrations, 
 the form of instrument.] 
 
 The effect of reversing an undulatory current is to strengthen 
 and weaken the magnet, and the result is that the plate is 
 attracted in a varying manner, and the plate at the receiving 
 end vibrates in a similar manner to the one at the transmit- 
 ting end, and so a similar sound is produced. You, therefore, 
 have the voice of the speaker converted into electricity here, 
 and at the other end of the circuit you have the current of 
 electricity re-converted into sound. No voltaic battery is used 
 in this form — nothing but the magnet itself. I may here state 
 one defect of this current. I have stated that I have not yet 
 discovered the means of producing a strictly undulatory cur- 
 rent. It frequently happens that, for practical purposes, the 
 current is sufficiently undulatory to produce, at the other end, 
 the effect of articulate speech, but the current produced in 
 the coil is not strictly proportional to the velocity of the 
 motion of the plate, as was pointed out to me by my friend 
 Professor Cross, of the Institute of Technology at Boston, for 
 there is another effect produced depending on the proximity 
 of the iron plate to the pole of the magnet. If it be moved 
 with a certain velocity, and the plate is very near the pole 
 of the magnet, the effect produced would be very much 
 greater than if it were farther away ; so that you have the 
 approximation or the separation of the two affecting the 
 result. In fact, when the plate vibrates towards the pole, 
 the current produced is too strong, and when it goes 
 from the pole of the magnet it is too weak, so that the effect 
 is not strictly an undulatory current. If the amplitude 
 of the vibration of the plate is very great the defect is 
 magnified, but if it is lessened the effect more nearly ap- 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 51 
 
 proximates to tlie undulatory character. Hence the curious 
 effect, that soft speaking is much more distinct than loud 
 speaking. If you shout or roar into the Telephone, you have 
 the sound produced at the other end very loudly ; but a dis- 
 criminating ear will recognise that the articulation is not so 
 distinct as when you speak more softly into the instrument. 
 However, theory shows one way in which the defect can be 
 remedied. Suppose we have alternate impulses going along 
 the wire, and that, when the plate comes towards the magnet, 
 we have a positive current produced, and when it goes away, 
 a negative current. The coil may be so arranged that, when 
 the positive current traverses it, the magnet will be strength- 
 ened, and it will then attract the plate with greater force ; 
 and thus, when the first plate approaches the magnet, the 
 other will do the same, and thus the defect will be magnified. 
 But we may also arrange the coil so that, when the first plate 
 approaches the magnet, the other will recede from it, and 
 thus the effect I have spoken of will be neutralised. 
 
 This leads me to a very curious point in the use of the 
 Telephone, viz. : that you can control the phase of a vibration 
 by specially arranging the coil. You can take two Telephones 
 and arrange them so that, while some person makes a musical 
 tone into the receiving instrument, the phases of vibration 
 of the plates shall be identical or opposed. Sir William 
 Thomson, a few days ago, made an experiment of this kind 
 with me in Glasgow, and we found that the Telephone is a 
 beautiful instrument for illustrating the interference of sound. 
 If you arrange the instruments so that you have the phase of 
 vibration the same, and then place your ear to the instrument, 
 you can perceive the sound approximately doubled in in- 
 tensity ; but arrange them so that the phases are opposite, 
 and there is a “ dead spot ” — silence is produced at one point. 
 I never heard interference of sound so beautifully illustrated 
 as in that experiment, and there is no doubt that many uses 
 can be made of the instrument in acoustics, from the fact of 
 our being able to control precisely the relative phases of two 
 vibrating bodies. The experiments made with this Telephone 
 a few days ago by Sir W. Thomson have demonstrated the 
 
 e 2 
 
 u. of i«-L LIB* 
 
52 
 
 BELL S TELEPHONE. 
 
 fact of an interference in the perception of sonnd. For in- 
 stance, take two instruments, one vibrating in a certain 
 phase, and the other in a phase nearly, but not quite, the 
 same. Place one to one ear, you perceive the sound on that 
 ear alone. Place the other to the other ear, and you perceive 
 it on that ear alone. Place them to both ears at once, and 
 you can arrange the phases of vibration so as to make both 
 tympanic membranes act at the same time, or vibrate in a 
 different manner ; and there is a curious difference in the per- 
 ception of the sound. It cannot be described, but it is some- 
 thing of this kind. You place the instrument to each ear in 
 that way ; where the phases are identical, you have a single 
 sonnd, and you may localise the sound say on the surface of 
 the two ears, but when the phases of the vibrating plates are 
 reversed, the locality of the perception seems to change, and 
 it seems as if you heard the sound at the back of the head, 
 instead of at the surface of the ear. Moreover, if you take 
 two distinct circuits, and have one Telephone on one circuit, 
 and one on t^e other, and have a musical tone produced from 
 one Telephone, which is almost, but not quite, in unison with 
 that produced from the other, you have beats. 
 
 We know that if two organ-pipes, for instance, were 
 vibrating in this room, the pitches of which were adjusted in 
 that way, we should be cognisant of beats, illustrating the 
 interference of sounds of that sort. Sir William Thomson 
 writes me that he has shown that the same effect is produced 
 in the sensation of sound, for, placing one plate to one ear and 
 the other plate to the other ear, so that each ear perceived only 
 one sound, the same effect of beats was produced, showing very 
 conclusively the interference in the sensation of sound itself. 
 
 The next illustration shows the way in which the Tele- 
 phone can be employed for the actual purpose of conversing 
 at a distance. It is preferable to employ for this purpose two 
 Telephones, one in front of the mouth, and the other at the 
 ear, for it has been found that when one Telephone alone is 
 employed, it constantly happens that persons separated by 
 miles of distance speak at the same time or listen at the 
 same time, and by placing one Telephone to the ear and 
 
bell’s telephone. 53 
 
 the other to the month, conversation at once becomes 
 practicable. 
 
 Of course the question will naturally arise, how far can it 
 be possible to use the instruments ? That as yet we do not 
 know. The limit has not been found. In laboratory experi- 
 ments no difficulty has been found in using an apparatus of 
 this construction through a circuit equivalent to 6,000 miles. 
 In this instrument we have a powerful compound permanent 
 magnet. The longest actual wire I have been able to experi- 
 ment upon has been 258 miles in length, and no difficulty 
 was experienced so long as the other parallel wires were not 
 in operation. The instrument is wonderfully sensitive to 
 inductive influences, and when you use a wire upon the poles 
 with other wires you have the benefit of the other messages 
 that are passing along the other wires on the Telephone. 
 However, means have been discovered very recently by which 
 the inductive influence of other wires can be overcome and 
 neutralised, so that I hope we may have the instrument in 
 use upon circuits of all lengths. I do not know that there 
 are any other points that I should like to mention to you 
 to-night, excepting a new application that is shown here to 
 a diving apparatus. Inside the diver’s helmet you place a 
 Telephone of convenient structure, and in the place of using 
 a separate telegraph wire, we use the wire that is coiled up 
 inside the breathing pipe. In every breathing pipe of course 
 there must be a coil of wire, in order to withstand the pres- 
 sure of the water, and that wire we find can be used for the 
 purposes of the Telephone, so that the wire inside this pipe 
 is connected with the Telephone inside the diver’s helmet, 
 and the earth connection is simply made by attaching the 
 other wire to the helmet itself, which is in contact, outside, 
 with the salt water. I had the pleasure of conversing with 
 a diver yesterday, with perfect success, at Messrs. Siebe and 
 Gorman’s, in a tank. He heard every word I said, and I was 
 able to understand every word he said ; and when I told him to 
 come up, by word of mouth, he obeyed me. I do not know that 
 there are any other points of interest to you, but I shall be very 
 happy to attempt to answer any questions that may be put. 
 
54 
 
 bell's telephone. 
 
 Discussion. 
 
 Mr. S. Ford asked what was the difference between this 
 form of Telephone and that shown at the Queen’s Theatre 
 some time ago by Mr. Yarley ; also whether the time was 
 increased before the sound was received according to the 
 length of the wire. 
 
 Professor A. Gr. Bell said the Telephone of Mr. Yarley was 
 similar to his only in name. There was no similarity what- 
 ever between the ingenious apparatus devised by that gentle- 
 man for producing musical tones, by the action of intermittent 
 currents of electricity and pulsatory currents, and his own 
 apparatus for producing the timbre of a sound by utilising 
 undulatory currents of electricity. There had been numbers 
 of Telephones brought before the notice of the public, but 
 all previous Telephones had consisted merely of methods for 
 producing musical tones, and he believed his was the first 
 which had been constructed, in which the timbre of the sound 
 was copied. In reference to the other point, he might state 
 that no difference had been observed in the time required for 
 transmitting sound. In conversing with his friend, Mr. 
 Watson, when he was in New York and the latter in Boston, 
 he put questions to him through the Telephone, and instantly 
 the answer came back as though they were in the same room, 
 instead of being separated by 258 miles of actual distance. 
 The speed was the speed of electricity, not the speed of 
 mechanical vibration. 
 
 Mr. J. Scott Russell, F.R.S., said he did not rise to put 
 any questions, but to express what he felt sure was the feeling 
 of many present of extreme gratitude to the lecturer. There 
 was probably no one who felt that debt more deeply than he did. 
 The paper had taught some doctrines wonderfully wider and 
 grander than even the interesting doctrines of the Telephone, 
 and taught them that the electric wave which went through 
 the conducting wire was a wave, as was well said, not of 
 mechanical force, but a wave of ethereal force, meaning the 
 impalpable atmosphere through which the waves or electric 
 force were transmitted at present by electric cables from 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 55 
 
 England to America, and this same electric, atomic, or 
 ethereal force was propagated at a uniform velocity, whatever 
 was its nature, through a given wire or channel. But if, 
 instead of this electric wire, h6 were to take a great channel 
 of water 100 miles long, and then to take, instead of the 
 plate of iron, or drum, a large plate of iron moved by a 
 mechanical force — much like that which moved the drum of 
 the ear — the force which he put into one end of the water 
 channel would carry to the end of the 100 miles an exact 
 copy and measure of the force which he had put into it at 
 this end. This existed in air, in water, in electricity, and in 
 ether, and it was one and the same law which governed all. 
 The same propagation through the same ether brought the 
 rays of the sun’s light from the sun to the earth, and the 
 same carrier wave brought from the other side of the globe, 
 from the oceans there, which were disturbed by the attraction 
 of the sun and moon, those waves all round the coasts which 
 were called tides. All these phenomena, from the tides and 
 the wind to the rays of light and to the sounds of the Tele- 
 phone, were the motion of one simple phenomenon, the carrier 
 wave, the wave of translation. In conclusion, he begged to 
 move a hearty vote of thanks to Professor Bell. 
 
 The Chairman said that at this late hour he would not 
 detain the meeting with more than a very few words. It w r as 
 evident to all that they were witnessing the beginning of an 
 invention destined to produce enormous benefits in our social 
 condition. In one sense it was an infant invention, but in 
 another it was evident that it had made great steps towards 
 maturity. It was a principle in the progress of inventions 
 that the first attempts at producing any great result were far 
 more complicated than the form ultimately adopted ; the pro- 
 gress of modern invention essentially consisted of simplifica- 
 tion. This had been illustrated in this lecture, the first 
 instrument described being extremely complicated. Professor 
 Bell was aware that he had a complicated effect to produce, 
 and could not suppose at first that it was producible by very 
 simple means ; but having gone through the process of sim- 
 plification to a great extent, there was no doubt the invention 
 
56 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 had gone a long way towards maturity. It seemed as if the 
 only thing left to he done was to increase the intensity of the 
 effects, so that a whole room should he able to listen to the 
 sounds produced, then, for instance, those who could not get 
 in to-night might have assembled in a room over the way and 
 heard the lecture. If they thought of the beginnings of the 
 discoveries on which electric telegraphy depended in other 
 branches, such as the discovery of the motion of the needle, 
 or Faraday’s discovery of induced currents, it seemed ex- 
 tremely probable that the exertions of Professor Bell and others 
 who might take up the work would result in increasing very 
 greatly the effects which they had perceived to-night, even if 
 there was not much room left for further simplification in the 
 means. Mr. Scott Russell had already expressed the general 
 feeling of thanks to Professor Bell, and he would only put the 
 resolution. The resolution was carried unanimously. 
 
 A NEW VOICE. 
 
 “ The nineteenth century seems destined to throw more light 
 on the marvels of electricity than all preceding ages. The 
 latest discovery is that of Alexander Graham Bell, a Scotch- 
 man by birth, and an American citizen by adoption, who has 
 literally succeeded in making iron talk. The telephone is 
 a singularly simple electric apparatus, through the medium of 
 which the human voice or the tone of an instrument generates 
 the electric current, and reproduces itself in all its charac- 
 teristics of pitch, intensity, and quality hundreds of miles 
 away. Mr. Bell’s instrument both sends and receives sounds. 
 It consists of an ordinary electro-magnet, mounted before a 
 membrane of steel in a sounding box, and connected with a 
 telegraph wire. It can be used in connection with a battery, 
 transmitting music from a telephonic organ by means of small 
 steel points touching the reeds of the instrument, and each 
 communicating with a wire. Thus are produced musical 
 tones and chords at the receiving end of the wire used. Its 
 distinguishing achievement, however, requires no battery. 
 To convey the tones of the human voice, however, the instru- 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 57 
 
 ment is disconnected with the battery, and the circuit is made 
 through the earth 
 
 “Owing to the extreme sensitiveness of the telephone it 
 has been difficult at times to hear conversation when adjoin- 
 ing wires were at work, but this serious drawback can be 
 overcome, and the latest experiments by cable between Calais 
 and Dover make no such charge against the telephone, even 
 when its wire was unprotected. The cable is 21 § miles long, 
 the copper resistance being over 236 B. A. units ; and during 
 two hours of conversation in English and French there was 
 not the slightest failure. The operator at the telephone could 
 distinctly hear the signals by the three other cable wires, and 
 when only one of the three wires was working he could de- 
 cipher the Morse signals and read a message passing from 
 Glasgow to Paris. Yet when all three wires were busy 
 the telephone wire was easily and clearly distinguishable 
 above the click of the signals. Voices were recognised on 
 both sides of the Channel, and a woman’s voice was known at 
 once. In experimenting on a line three quarters of a mile 
 long, this same operator arranged a feeble-toned musical box 
 under the receiver of an air pump, the top of the receiver 
 being open. Upon this opening was placed the telephone, and 
 every note came out clearly at the other end of the wire. 
 While testing the telephone through the cable the same 
 means were not obtainable, but by simply holding the instru- 
 ment to the mouth of the musical box the notes were audible 
 across the Channel — not so perfectly, however, as on the 
 shorter line. One young lady burst out laughing the moment 
 she put the telephone to her ear, exclaiming with delight, 
 ‘ Some one is whistling, Tommy, make room for your 
 Uncle ! ’ Breathing could not be heard in consequence of the 
 continued pecking caused by induction from the other wires, 
 but the writer has heard breathing half a mile distant, and a 
 distinguished physician present at the time expressed his firm 
 belief that the telephone would become a valuable agent in 
 tracing out all diseases connected with respiration. The 
 stethoscope has found a powerful ally .” — Manchester Guardian , 
 Dec. 3, 1877. 
 
58 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 TELEPHONES IN BARRACKS. 
 
 “ The telephone is being rapidly introduced into the various 
 military establishments, not only in the capital and its neigh- 
 bourhood, but also elsewhere in Germany. At Dresden one 
 of the new instruments has been arranged between the com- 
 mandant’s office and the arsenal and barracks of the rifles, 
 about 800 yards distant. An already existing telegraph wire 
 is utilised, from which wires are further led to telephones in 
 four rooms in the barracks. The apparatus is reported to act 
 perfectly, conversations being carried on without the slightest 
 difficulty. In Austria, also, experiments, the result of which 
 is stated to have been exceedingly satisfactory, have been 
 made in Vienna, with the telephone .” — Pall Mall Gazette, Dec. 
 28, 1877. 
 
 W. H. PREECE, Esq.,* ON THE TELEPHONE. 
 
 “ . . . . At present, the apparatus in use for*field tele- 
 
 graphy is the ordinary Morse recording apparatus, which 
 records its messages in the ordinary dot and dash alphabet, 
 understood only by the initiated, supplemented by a sounding 
 instrument, which appeals, by a similar foreign language, to 
 the ear. Thus, to convey intelligence from one point to 
 another, a message has to be written down on paper, it has 
 then to be translated by a telegrapher into the Morse language, 
 which has to be re -translated at the distant end into the 
 ordinary written language, and then read by the recipient. 
 These operations are subject to error, and have not secured 
 faith in their reliability. Is there any commanding officer 
 here present who would not wish such an uncertain agent in 
 a very warm place ? Those who were present at the Autumn 
 Manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain know how to value its services. 
 
 * Vice-President of the Society of Topographical Engineers, and Member of 
 
 Institution of C ivil Engineers. 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 59 
 
 It is unquestionable that the telegraph has not inspired con- 
 fidence, and this is due as much to its natural uncertainty as 
 to the want of knowledge of the tool that is used. Accuracy 
 in the transmission of orders is the sine qud non of a military 
 telegraph. We know of one .great disaster that arose from a 
 mistake. ‘ Some one has blundered.’ It was the very last 
 thing determined upon in our late Ashantee War, and the 
 rapidly collected materials drawn from the Post Office stores 
 w r ere despatched at the last moment, by passenger train, and 
 stowed in the officers’ baggage room. Yet we have the 
 authority of Sir Linton Simmons for saying that the opera- 
 tions in that war could not have been carried on as they were 
 without its assistance, and that it was productive of very 
 great economy to this country by shortening the expedition 
 and enabling the greatest amount of benefit to be derived 
 from the materials and means that were placed at the disposal 
 of the General in command. 
 
 “ Now, the telephone will place in the hand of every officer 
 an instrument which will transfer the actual words and tones 
 of his own voice to his correspondent at any reasonable 
 distance. I have spoken distinctly, at various distances up 
 to ninety miles, and I have been able to recognise, with 
 absolute certainty, the voices of different people at sixty- seven 
 miles. It will solve ^e moot question as to the best form of 
 instrument for military telegraphs, about which there is much 
 
 diversity of opinion How far the telephone can be 
 
 utilized for naval purposes remains to be seen. Wherever a 
 wire can extend, there can the voice be sent. In com- 
 municating between the bridge and the wheel, between the 
 turret and the engine room, between the look-out and the 
 officer of the watch, it ought to be useful. For diving opera- 
 tions it is invaluable. In torpedo operations and range- 
 finding it may prove useful. Probably no instrument that 
 has ever been devised has created more sensation, or has 
 attracted so much attention, as the incomparable invention of 
 Alexander Graham Bell .” — From a lecture delivered before the 
 United Service Club, December , 1877. 
 
60 
 
 bell's telephone. 
 
 THE TELEPHONE AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 
 
 “ Some very interesting experiments were tried with the 
 wonderful telephone at the Crystal Palace on Boxing Day, 
 a day when, as everybody knows, the Palace is crowded with 
 more or less noisy persons. Above the heads of fifty thou- 
 sand persons who congregated at the Palace, and the conse- 
 quent noise created below, the operators at each end of the 
 wire, which was over a quarter of a mile in length, did not 
 experience the slightest difficulty in carrying on a conversa- 
 tion with each other. In every instance where the telephone 
 was made use of by the visitors, they expressed themselves 
 delighted with the ease with which they could converse. 
 The arrangements in connection with the construction of the 
 wires were under the superintendence of Mr. Frank Fisher.’’ 
 - — Daily News , December 29, 1877. 
 
 LAW TELEPHONE. 
 
 “ The aid of the telephone is being secured in Jersey City in 
 connection with the courts. A telegraph wire is being laid 
 from the Hudson County Court House to the telegraph office 
 in Montgomery Street, and a telephone will be attached to 
 each end, whereby lawyers can communicate with each other 
 rapidly between their offices and the court house .” — Neiv Yorh 
 Herald , Dec. 30, 1877. 
 
 A JOURNALISTIC LUXURY. 
 
 “ General Hawley, Charles Dudley Warner, and S. A. Hub- 
 bard, editors of the Hartford Gourant , U.S., have acquired 
 the journalistic luxury of a telephone, which connects their 
 houses and enables them to exchange and edit their views at 
 home, and have their articles all ready for the compositors 
 when they reach the office.” — Anglo- American Times , 
 
BELLS TELEPHONE. 
 
 61 
 
 CHESS BY TELEPHONE. 
 
 According to an account of the Hartford Times (Con- 
 necticut, U.S.) the telephone has already been utilised for 
 transmitting the moves of a chess game. The parties to the 
 contest, which took place at Hartford, were Mrs. J. W. Gil- 
 bert, the lady champion of America, and Mr. J. G. Belden, on 
 the one side, and Messrs. A. E. Olmstead and C. G. Lincoln 
 on the other. The novel way of carrying on the game created 
 a great deal of amusement amongst the members of the Hart- 
 ford chess circle, who in separate parties attended at the two 
 stations, which were miles apart; and the powers of the 
 telephone for purposes of general conversation were often 
 tried during the intervals between the announcement of the 
 moves. 
 
 INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS IN IRELAND. 
 
 “ Some interesting experiments with the telephone were 
 tried yesterday on the Midland Great Western Railway. 
 The chairman and directors of the line, having kindly placed 
 the telegraphic wires of the company between Enfield and 
 Edenderry stations at the service of the experimenters, Mr. 
 Thomas H. Sanger, Irish Divisional Engineer of the Postal 
 Telegraph Service, repaired to Enfield accompanied by 
 Messrs. Wm. Louth, James Walby, H. Pomery, of the Tele- 
 graph Department; John A. Baker, E.R.C.S.I., and J. E. 
 Ward, Midland Great Western Railway. ... To test the powers 
 of this wonderful little instrument Mr. Sanger sang a verse 
 of a well-known song at Edenderry, every note of which was 
 heard most distinctly at Enfield ; also a tune whistled at the 
 former place was clearly heard at the latter. On the return 
 of the party to Enfield the powers of the telephone were 
 proved in an extraordinary manner. The observatory clock 
 is electrically moved by a wire from the Port and Dock’s 
 clocks in Dublin running through Broadstone Station, for 
 about three miles along the Midland Great Western Railway, 
 and thence to Dunsink Observatory. The telephone was 
 
62 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 attached to the wire between Dublin and Mullingar, quite 
 distinct from the wire leading to the D unsink Observatory 
 clock. Under these circumstances the induction from that 
 wire clearly made each beat of the Observatory clock per- 
 fectly audible at Enfield. . . . What was experienced yesterday 
 proves that all that has been read and heard of this remarkable 
 invention is perfectly true and that before long the telephone 
 will on many lines take the place of the electric telegraph.’ ’ — 
 Saunders's News Letter , Lublin , January 1st, 1878. 
 
 WHISPERING BY TELEPHONE. 
 
 “ On Tuesday morning some highly successful experiments 
 were made with the telephone between the Railway Station, 
 at Ipswich and the Liverpool Street Station, London, a 
 distance of 68| miles. At Ipswich the operator was Capt. 
 Turner, R.E., who was accompanied by a party of about 
 sixteen, amongst whom were Mr. J. Dutton, district superin- 
 tendent, and Mr. Nibloe, station master. At London, Mr. 
 Sach, manager of the Great Eastern Railway telegraph 
 system, was the operator, and with him were two of his 
 assistants. Three different kinds of telephones were used, 
 the box pattern, and two of the smaller pattern instruments. 
 The ordinary telegraph wires were brought into requisition, 
 and conversation was most easily kept up. Bugle calls were 
 also distinctly heard at London, and a tune sung by Mr. Sach 
 was perfectly distinguished at Ipswich. It was so good that 
 about half-a-dozen of the party called out “Hear, hear,” upon 
 which Mr. Sach asked them not to do that again, or they 
 would split his ear-drum. This caused a laugh, which, as 
 well as a slight cough — a mere phthisic, in fact — was heard 
 at Liverpool Street, and when Mr. Sach sneezed, the listeners 
 at Ipswich heard him. Then further experiments were tried. 
 First two persons were placed in circuit, and as the words of 
 Capt. Turner could be distinguished in London, the number 
 of persons was increased to eleven, and still conversation 
 could be easily maintained. The marvel of the experiments, 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 63 
 
 however, was still to come. Capt. Turner gradually lowered 
 the tone of his voice till he spoke much below ordinary con- 
 versation pitch, and very little higher than a whisper, and 
 even then Mr. Sach heard what was said, and repeated the 
 words. Mr. Sach also tried the same thing, but as the instru- 
 ments at Ipswich were not so sensitive as the one he was 
 using, the words could not be so easily heard, but still suffi- 
 ciently clear to gather the meaning. This startled the whole 
 party, as such a thing was never anticipated. As a conclu- 
 sion the operators bade each other good night, and gave a 
 cheer. That at London was distinctly heard in the room at 
 Ipswich, even by those wffio had not telephones against their 
 ears. The experiments began at half past ten and lasted with 
 unflagging interest until twelve o’clock, and all expressed 
 themselves thoroughly pleased with the results. It is most 
 gratifying to the operators that they have so far advanced 
 the efficiency of the telephone, and that they have so demon- 
 strated the use to which they can be put. Of the instruments 
 used at Ipswich the box pattern was the most effective .” — East 
 Anglian Daily Times , Jan. 2, 1878. 
 
 THE TELEPHONE AT COURT. 
 
 “ On Monday evening, as announced in the Court Circular, 
 Professor Bell and Colonel Reynolds were presented to the 
 Queen, and exhibited the telephone, being assisted by Mr. C. 
 Wolleston. In a lecture of fifteen minutes’ duration, Pro- 
 fessor Bell explained the mechanism of his invention, and 
 then held telephonic communication with Osborne Cottage, 
 the residence of Sir Thomas Biddulph. The apparatus there 
 was under the management of Mr. F. C. Ormiston, who was 
 the first to address the Royal party. Her Majesty conversed 
 with Sir Thomas and Lady Biddulph, and later Miss Kate 
 Field, who was at Osborne Cottage, sang “ Kathleen Mavour- 
 neen,” for which Her Majesty returned gracious thanks tele- 
 phonically through the Duke of Connaught. Miss Field 
 afterwards sang Shakespeare’s “ Cuckoo Song,” and “ Cornin’ 
 
64 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 Thro’ tlie Rye,” and delivered the epilogue to “ As You Like 
 It,” all of which were heard distinctly. The applause which 
 followed came through the telephone. The Princess Beatrice? 
 the Hon. Mrs. Ponsonby, and others conversed with Osborne 
 Cottage, sometimes through a circuit of one, three, and five 
 persons. As the evening wore on, telephonic connection was 
 established between Osborne House and Cowes, Southampton, 
 and London. At Cowes, where Major Webber, of the Royal 
 Engineers, superintended the line, a quartet of tonic-sol-fa 
 singers, consisting of Miss Webber, Miss Strohmenger, 
 Mr. Hamilton, and Mr. Curwen, sang several part songs, 
 which produced an admirable effect, and the Duke of Con- 
 naught talked for several minutes with Major Webber. At- 
 tention was then turned to Southampton, where Mr. W. H. 
 Preece, of the Post Office, talked as fluently with Professor 
 Bell and Colonel Reynolds as though he were in the next 
 room. A bugle in Southampton sounded the retreat with 
 startling distinctness ; and, lastly, came the tones of an organ 
 from London, in charge of Mr. Wilmot. The experiments 
 lasted from half-past 9 until nearly midnight. Her Majesty, 
 the Princess Beatrice, the Duke of Connaught, and the entire 
 Royal Household evinced the greatest interest. On Tuesday 
 Professor Bell made very successful experiments between 
 Cowes, Osborne House, and Osborne Cottage, at which the 
 Princess Beatrice, the Duke of Connaught, the Duke of Rich- 
 mond, Lord John Manners, Lord Ripon, Lady Biddulph, Lady 
 Cowell, Sir John Cowell, and others, assisted.” — Times , Jan. 
 16, 1878. 
 
 THE QUEEN AND THE TELEPHONE. 
 
 “ Osborne, Jan. 16, 1878. 
 
 “ My dear Sir, — I hope you are aware how much gratified 
 and surprised the Queen was at the exhibition of the telephone 
 here on Monday evening. Her Majesty desires me to express 
 her thanks to you and the ladies and gentlemen who were as- 
 sociated with you on the occasion. The Queen would like, if 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 65 
 
 there is no reason against it, to purchase the two instruments 
 which are still here with the wires, &c., attached. Perhaps 
 you will be so kind as to let me know to whom the sum duo 
 should be paid. — I am, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours, 
 
 “ Thos. Biddulph.” 
 
 “Prof. Alex. Graham Bell.” 
 
 A SCIENTIFIC WONDER. 
 
 “ On Wednesday last a demonstration of the practical appli- 
 cation of the uses of the newly-invented instrument for con- 
 veying the human voice, which is known as the telephone, 
 was given at 115, Cannon Street, E.C. The apparatus em- 
 ployed on this occasion may be likened to a small writing 
 desk, having in front of the telephonic operator an electric 
 bell, which can be sounded by the correspondent at the 
 other extremity of the telegraphic wires ; there is also a stud 
 which, when pressed, sounds a second electric bell on the 
 distant correspondent’s instrument, to call his attention to 
 the impending message. On both sides of the desk are 
 funnel-shaped wooden instruments, the wider end of one of 
 which is applied to the mouth when sending a message, and 
 the other to the ear when receiving one. The smaller end of 
 each instrument is continued into a wire, which is in direct 
 communication with the similar apparatus at which the 
 distant correspondent sits. 
 
 “ To transmit a verbal message by the telephone, the sender 
 first touches the electric stud, which causes the bell to sound 
 at the other end of the wire. This may be a few hundred 
 yards or miles distant. He then takes up the two instru- 
 ments, and as they are raised from their supports their re- 
 moval relieves a spring, which at once cuts off the wires from 
 the electric bell, and leaves them free to convey the telephonic 
 message. Then, placing one of the instruments to the mouth, 
 the message is spoken, and is received by the distant listener, 
 who has his instrument applied to his ear ; and his reply is 
 conveyed back and received in a similar manner. 
 
 F 
 
86 
 
 bell’s telephone. 
 
 “ The voice, when spoken into the month of the funnel-shaped 
 instrument, is received on a vibrating membrane, constructed 
 on the same principle as the membrane of the drum of the ear. 
 The vibration of this membrane interrupts the electric current 
 which is proceeding along the wire from a small magnet con- 
 tained in the instrument held in the hand. These interrupted 
 vibrations are reproduced in the corresponding instrument 
 held in the hand of the distant listener ; and the sound there 
 created is the consequence of the vibrations induced in the 
 membrane of that instrument. 
 
 “ Contrary to the general belief, the telephone does not 
 convey, so to speak, the actual voice or sound, as is really 
 done in the toy sold in the streets, which is formed by a 
 tightened string, stretched between two small drums made of 
 parchment and the necks of two broken bottles. In the 
 telephone the vibrations of sound interrupt an electric cur- 
 rent, and at the other end that interrupted current reproduces 
 the vibrations, and consequently re-creates the sound. 
 
 “ The demonstrations' were perfectly successful : conversation 
 was easily maintained with a distant operator in some other 
 part of the city ; the very tones and inflexions of the voice 
 were exactly reproduced; an angry or affectionate message 
 could be sent with appropriate emphasis ; and one or two of 
 the ladies present indulged in mild flirtations with the unseen 
 correspondent, sending out soft suspirations, and receiving 
 vigorous osculations in return. 
 
 “ The utility and convenience of such an invention are 
 obvious. Instead of sending a telegraphic message, requiring 
 time to write, and a skilled operator to transmit, one has but 
 to whisper into the telephone, which, like a speaking tube 
 practically unlimited in length, will convey the message to its 
 required destination. That the telephone will come into 
 general use there is not the slightest doubt. At present it is 
 in its infancy ; but the company established by Professor Bell 
 is already engaged in supplying instruments. 
 
 “ The success of the telephone in conveying messages great 
 distances was shown in the experiments recently performed 
 before Her Majesty at Osborne, when a conversation was 
 
bell’s telephone. 
 
 67 
 
 carried on between London and the Isle of Wight, and vocal 
 and instrumental music was transmitted with success.” — The 
 Field , January 19, 1878. 
 
 A LIFE SAVED BY TELEPHONE. 
 
 “ Newport , JR. I ., Jan. 19. — A sad drowning accident oc- 
 curred at Easton's Pond, Middletown, this afternoon. Four 
 boys, while skating, broke through the ice, which was very 
 rotten. Two, sons of Colonel 0. L. Shepherd, U. S. A., got 
 out without assistance. Charles Easton was pulled out when 
 he had gone down for the last time. William Riggs, Jr., 
 aged 10 years, was not found until after Easton had been 
 rescued. Life was extinct, and the body was taken to his 
 parents’ residence. The boy Easton owes his life to the 
 telephone, word being sent to town by this means for a 
 physician. Had the news reached this city by ordinary 
 means, there would have been two deaths instead of one to 
 record.” — Special Despatch to Boston Herald , U. S. Jan. 20, 
 1878. 
 
 THE TELEPHONE AT THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 “ Communication was established between the House of 
 Commons and the office of the Daily News in Bouverie 
 Street by means of the telephone, which is specially attached to 
 the ordinary telegraphic wires running between the Houses of 
 Parliament and the Hally Neivs office. Conversation was 
 distinctly audible despite the noise from the other wires, and 
 part of the Parliamentary debate and summary in this morn- 
 ing’s paper was received by this novel and interesting agency.” 
 - — Hally News , Jan. 23, 1878. 
 
 A TRIBUTE TO GENIUS. 
 
 “ In consideration of his invention of the telephone, Pro- 
 fessor Alexander Graham Bell has been elected a life 
 member of the Society of Arts.” — Journal of the Society of 
 Arts , February 15, 1878. 
 
BELL’S TELEPHONE. 
 
 The Electric Telephone Company, 
 
 116, CANNON STREET, E.C., 
 
 IS NOW READY TO EXECUTE ORDERS 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 Rental or Purchase of Telephones, 
 
 E ST I M AT E S 
 
 ARE ALSO FURNISHED 
 
 I 
 
 For the CONSTRUCTION of TELEPHONIC LINES, 
 
 Local Companies will be established in all the 
 principal Towns of the United Kingdom. 
 
 The public is hereby cautioned against purchasing or using 
 cheap imitations of Bell’s Telephone, as they are infringe- 
 ments of Professor Bell’s Patent. All makers, sellers, or users 
 of such spurious instruments will be prosecuted to the full 
 extent of the law. 
 
BELL’S TELEPHONE. 
 
 The Telephone has made rapid progress, commercially, 
 many leading merchants, bankers, and manufacturers having 
 already adopted it. As a means of rapid communication, 
 Professor Bell’s invention is found superior to all known 
 systems of telegraphy, proof of the fact being found in the 
 following letters : — 
 
 “ CiiArEL Field Works, 
 
 “ Audwicii, Manchester, 
 
 “ Jan . 29, 1878. 
 
 “ Dear Sirs : — In reply to your favour, we have much plea- 
 sure in advising you that we have had Bell’s Telephone in 
 constant use for the past three months, during which time we 
 have experienced every possible convenience from them as 
 practically applied to commercial purposes. We have twenty- 
 four telephones in circuit from our head offices, communi- 
 cating with the various departments, and the facilities which 
 it gives to business are very great — in fact, we daily experi- 
 ence immense advantages by this wonderful system of com- 
 munication. 
 
 “We are, yours obediently, 
 
 (Signed) “ David Moseley and Sons. 
 
 “ Electric Telephone Company, 
 
 “ llo, Cannon Street, E.C.” 
 
 “ Northern Telegraph Works, 
 
 “ Sqvare Hoad and Charles Street, Halifax, 
 
 “ Feb . lZt / i , 1878. 
 
 “Dear Sirs: — We have much pleasure in stating that we 
 find the telephone of the utmost importance in commercial 
 telegraphy, and infinitely better than any other telegraphic 
 instrument extant, both as regards speed of transmission, 
 accuracy, and small cost of maintenance. In every case where 
 we have fixed the instrument, it is working satisfactorily, and 
 many other instruments are being laid aside altogether after 
 a few days’ trial of the telephone. 
 
“ We may add that we are working lines from one quarter 
 of a mile to ten miles in length, successfully, although many of 
 these are fixed on the same posts as other lines worked by 
 other classes of instruments. A few weeks ago, one of our 
 lines between this town and Bradford (about ten miles) 
 became so faulty, that communication by the Wheatstone or 
 other instruments was impossible, and the line would have 
 been useless for the time, had we not tried the telephone, which, 
 to our surprise, worked perfectly. 
 
 “We have since made experiments on a number of faulty 
 lines, both overground and underground, and find that the 
 telephone may be worked over a line too far gone for any 
 other telegraphic instrument. 
 
 “We are, dear sirs, yours most respectfully, 
 
 “ Blakey Bros., and Emmott. 
 
 “ Electric Telephone Company, 
 
 “ 115, Cannon Street, E.C.” 
 
 Further proof of the practical valne of the Telephone may 
 he found in the following list of persons, companies, and 
 institutions now using it : — 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 ~J. S. Morgan & Co., Bankers, Old 
 Broad Street. 
 
 Marine Insurance Co., Old Broad 
 Street. 
 
 India Rubber Co., 106, Cannon 
 Street. 
 
 .Nash & Field, 12, Queen Street. 
 Brown’s Hotel, Dover Street. 
 Adams & Co., Marshall Street. 
 James Duncan, Clyde Wharf, Vic- 
 toria Docks. 
 
 • C£ Daily’ News” Office. 
 
 H.M. Post-Office. 
 
 H. F. Gillig & Co., 449, Strand. 
 Sir John IIawkshaw. 
 
 Royal Polytechnic Institution, 
 Regent Street. 
 
 Royal Aquarium, Westminster. 
 
 London & North Western Rail- 
 way Co. 
 
 London & South Western Rail- 
 way Co. 
 
 Major Wood, Brazilian Telegraph 
 Co. 
 
 The Persian Ambassador, Holland 
 Park. 
 
 Anthony Gibbs, Esq., 16, Hyde 
 Park Gardens. 
 
 Wm. Blackmore, Esq., Founders’ 
 Court, E.C. 
 
COUNTRY. 
 
 WINDSOR CASTLE and OSBORNE HOUSE. 
 
 Lord Derby, ICnowsley Park, Lan- 
 cashire. 
 
 Lord Onslow, Clandon Park, Guild- 
 ford. 
 
 Lord Lindsay, Dun Edit, Aberdeen. 
 
 Eev. H. Wilder, Sulham, Reading 1 . 
 
 Capt. Herbert, H.M.S. “Vernon,” 
 Portsmouth. 
 
 The Midland & Great Western 
 Railway Co., Ireland. 
 
 The Aquarium, Yarmouth. 
 
 J. Crossley & Sons, Limited, Hali- 
 fax. 
 
 Scarborough Bros., Halifax. 
 
 John Eddison, Esq., Leeds. 
 
 Symes & Co., Liverpool. 
 
 D. Moseley & Sons, Manchester. 
 
 J. A kern, Manchester. 
 
 C. Clifford & Sons, Birmingham. 
 
 Crystal Palace, Sydenham. 
 Street & Co., Belper. 
 
 “Free Press” Office, Bury St. 
 Edmunds. 
 
 II. E. Falck, Esq., Winsford . 
 
 A. Westwood & Co., West- Brom- 
 wich. 
 
 Griffiths & Co., Derwent Tin Plate 
 Works, Workington. 
 
 Maguire & Co., Dublin. 
 
 T. Mackenzie & Sons, Dublin. 
 Pinner Bros., & Co., Dublin. 
 Clelland & Co., Belfast. 
 
 Caryill Bros., Newry. 
 
 H. Parkins, Esq., Rugby. 
 
 11. Roberts, Esq., Portmadoc. 
 
 R. S. Armitage, Esq., Nottingham. 
 Robert Bailey, Esq., Torr Grove, 
 Plymouth. 
 
 OFFICE of THE ELECTRIC TELEPHONE COMPANY: 
 
 115, CANNON STREET, EC. 
 
LONDON 
 
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