???e (far), and f??? (sound), are the Greek roots from which the word telephone is derived. It has the significance of transmitting sound to distant points, and is a word antedating the present speaking telephone, although this fact is generally lost sight of in the dazzling brilliancy of this latter invention. In the effort to hear better, the American Indian was accustomed to place his ear to the ground. Children of former generations also made use of a toy known as the “lovers’ telegraph”—a piece of string held under tension between the flexible bottoms of two tin boxes—which latter when spoken into transmitted through the string the vibrations from one box to the other, and made audible words spoken at a distance. These expedients simply made available the superior conductivity of the solid body over the air to transmit sound waves. The electro-magnetic telephone operates on an entirely different principle. It is a marvelous creation of genius, and stands alone as the unique, superb, and unapproachable triumph of the Nineteenth Century. For subtilty of principle, impressiveness of action, and breadth of results, there is nothing comparable with it among mechanical agencies. In its wonderful function of placing one intelligent being in direct vocal and sympathetic communication with another a thousand miles away, its intangible and mysterious mode of action suggests to the imagination that unseen medium of prayer rising from the conscious human heart to its omniscient and responsive God. The telegraph and railroad had already brought all the peoples of the earth into intimate communication and made them close kin, but the telephone transformed them into the closer relationship of families, and the tiny wire, sentient and responsive with its unlimited burden of human thoughts and human feelings, forms one of the great vital cords in the solidarity of the human family.

It is a curious fact that many, and perhaps most, great inventions have been in the nature of accidental discoveries, the by-products of thought directed in another channel, and seeking other results, but the telephone does not belong to this class. It is the logical and magnificent outcome of persistent thought and experiment in the direction of the electrical transmittal of speech. Prof. Bell had his objective point, and keeping this steadily in view, worked faithfully for the accomplishment of his object in producing a speaking telephone, until success crowned his work. He probably did not realize at first the full magnitude of the achievement, but looking at it from the end of the Nineteenth Century, he might well exclaim in the language of Horace: “Exegi monumentum acre perennius.”

Prof. Bell’s conception of the telephone dates back as far as 1874. His first United States patent, No. 174,465, was granted March 7, 1876, and his second January 30, 1877, No. 186,787. It is generally the fate of most inventions, even of a meritorious order, to languish for many years, and frequently through the whole term of the patent, before receiving full recognition and adoption by the public, but the meteoric brilliancy of this invention at its first public announcement astonished the masses, and inspired the admiration of the savants of the world. When exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, in 1876, it was spoken of by Sir William Thomson, and Prof. Henry, as the “greatest by far of all the marvels of the electric telegraph.”

It is always the fate of the author of any great invention to be compelled to defend himself against the claims of others. It is one of the failings of human nature to lay claim to that which somebody else has obtained, and is an old story which finds its first illustration in the squabbles of childhood. When a troop of prattling boys hunt butterflies among the daisies, and some sharp-eyed youngster has captured a prize, there are always others of his mates to cry, “I saw it first,” and men are but grown-up boys. So in the history of the telephone, Prof. Bell has found competitors for this honor, and it is astonishing to know how close some of these prior experimenters came to success without reaching it. In 1854 Bourseul, of Paris suggested an electric telephone, and in 1861 Philip Reis devised an electric telephone which would transmit musical tones. Daniel Drawbaugh, of Pennsylvania, is alleged to have made an electric telephone in 1867-1868, and his claims against the Bell interests were fought vigorously in the Patent Office, and in the courts, but without success. Elisha Gray’s claims perhaps came nearer to establishing for him a share in the honor of inventing the speaking telephone than any other, for he filed a caveat in the United States Patent Office upon the same day (February 14, 1876), upon which Prof. Bell’s application for a patent was made. But in the contest in the Patent Office with Gray, Edison, Berliner, Richmond, Holcombe, Farmer, Dolbear, Volker, and others, it was decided that Prof. Bell was the first to make a practically effective speaking telephone, and this conclusion has been sustained by the courts. Reis was a poor German school teacher at Friedrichsdorf, and in 1860 he took a coil of wire, a knitting needle, the skin of a German sausage, the bung of a beer barrel, and a strip of platinum, and constructed the first electric telephone. A typical form of his transmitter, see Fig. 55, was a box covered with a vibrating membrane E, and provided with a mouth-piece at one side. A platinum strip F was attached to the membrane or vibrating diaphragm E, and a platinum pointed hammer G rested lightly on the platinum strip F. The hammer G and platinum strip F were connected to the opposite ends of a wire, which had in its circuit a battery and a receiver. Air vibrations in the nature of sound waves in the box caused the diaphragm E to vibrate, and a separating make-and-break contact between the platinum strip F and the platinum point of hammer G caused a series of separate and distinct broken impulses to traverse the battery circuit and be received upon the receiver, which latter consisted of an iron rod with a coil of wire around it. That Reis’ transmitter did alternately make and break the circuit, seems clear from his own memoir. A translation from this memoir, taken from the annual report (Jahresberichte) of the Physical Society of Frankfurt am Main for 1860-1861, reads as follows:

“At the first condensation (of air vibrations) the hammer-shaped little wire d (G in our illustration), will be pushed back. At the succeeding rarefaction it cannot follow the return vibration of the membrane, and the current going through the little strip (of platinum) remains interrupted so long as until the membrane driven by a new condensation presses the little strip against d (the hammer G) once more. In this way each sound wave effects an opening and closing of the current.”

Reis evidently did not know how to make the vibrations of his diaphragm translate themselves into exactly commensurate and correlated electric impulses of equal rapidity, range, and quality. If he had done this, he would have had a speaking telephone, but a make-and-break contact could never do it, and hence he in his later instruments attached to them a telegraphic key in order that the sending operator might communicate with the receiving operator. If Reis’ telephone had been a speaking telephone, this would have been unnecessary. Furthermore, it is inconceivable how the intelligent, progressive, and scientific Germans could have failed to have given to a speaking telephone in 1860 the immediate honor and attention that it deserved. In America, the Bell speaking telephone, invented in 1876, was known all over the civilized world the same year. Reis’ broken contact circuit would transmit musical tones, because musical tones vary chiefly in rapidity of vibration, rather than in range, or quality, and the chattering contacts of Reis’ telephone would transmit musical tones because said contracts could be adjusted to the practically uniform range of vibration. Prof. Bell, however, had made a special study of articulate speech, and knew that speech was not essentially musical, but was composed of an irregular and discordant medley of vowel and consonant sounds, whose vibrations varied not only in pitch or rapidity like musical tones, but also in the quality or kind of vibrations as to range and loudness. In his invention, therefore, he did not make and break the circuit as did Reis, through the contact points, but he used the more sensitive plan of a constantly closed circuit, and merely caused the current to undulate in it by a principle of magnetic induction. This principle was first discovered by Oersted, and developed into the well known fact that when a piece of iron is moved back and forth from the poles of an electro-magnet an induced current is made to oscillate in the helix of the electro-magnet. The difference between Reis’ separating make-and-break circuit, and the Bell continuous but undulating current, might be illustrated by the difference between the impulses delivered by the beating of the drum sticks on the head of a drum, on the one hand, and the alternate pulling and slackening of a kite cord, on the other. In the successive impacts on the head of a drum there could not be so sensitive a transfer of motion to the lower head of the drum as there would be transferred to the kite by the movement of the hand holding the kite cord. Reis’ plan resembled the broken drum beats, and Bell’s the kite cord, which always preserved a certain amount of tension. Bell accomplished his object by the means shown in Figs. 56 and 57, in which Fig. 56 represents his first patent of March 7, 1876, and Fig. 57 his second patent of January 30, 1877. In both cases the current was a continuously closed one, and was not alternately made and broken as by the separating contacts of Reis. Prof. Bell caused the vocal air vibrations to undulate or oscillate the continuously closed circuit by the principle of magnetic induction as follows (see Fig. 56): He caused diaphragm a, when spoken against, to vibrate the armature c in front of the electro-magnet b, but without touching it, and as the armature approached and receded from the electro-magnet it induced an undulating but never broken current in the helix of this electro-magnet and along the line to and through the helix of the electro-magnet f at the distant receiver, and this undulating current, influencing the armature h, which touched the diaphragm i but not the electro-magnet, produced in the attractive influence of the magnet on this armature and diaphragm, vibrations of the same rapidity, range, and quality as those vocal vibrations that acted upon the first diaphragm a. In other words, the sequence of transference was air vibrations in A, mechanical vibrations of diaphragm a, electrical undulations traversing the line, induced vibrations in armature h and diaphragm i, and air vibrations again resolved back into sounds of articulate speech, the same as those spoken into A. It will be perceived that in the Bell telephone both transmitter and receiver were of identical construction. This is better shown in Fig. 57 of his later patent, in which the horizontal line below the electro-magnet on one side represents a metal transmitting diaphragm, and the horizontal line under the electro-magnet at the other side was the receiving diaphragm. Not only were the sounds thus reproduced, but as the circuit was continuous and never broken by any separating contacts, the extreme sensitiveness of the electric vibrations set up by magnetic induction was such that the discordant and irregular quality of the vibrations of articulate speech were transferred and reproduced with exact fidelity, as well as the musical tones, and this rendered the speaking telephone a success. In later telephones the current is actually transmitted through the contacting points, but this only became practicable after the carbon microphone transmitter was invented, in which the essential undulations of the electric current were produced in another way, i. e., by the application of the important discovery that the varying of the pressure on carbon, by vibration, varied its conductivity, and in this way produced the same result of undulating a current without breaking it. This in no wise detracts from the value of the principle of the continuous undulating current discovered and employed by Prof. Bell, between which and the breaks of the hard platinum points of Reis there is a difference as wide as the difference between success and failure.

The form in which Prof. Bell’s telephone was placed before the public was not that shown in the patents, but it quickly assumed the well-known shape of an elongated cylinder forming a handle, with a flaring mouth-piece at one end. This development in form is credited to Dr. Channing in 1877, and it is the familiar form to-day, whose internal construction is shown in Fig. 58. The handle is made of hard rubber, and the cap or mouth-piece, which is screwed thereon, is also of hard rubber. The diaphragm A, of thin ferrotype plate, is clamped at its edges between the cap, or mouth-piece, and the handle. The compound magnet B is composed of four thin flat bar magnets, arranged in pairs on opposite sides of the flat end of the soft iron pole piece c at one end, and the soft iron spacing piece d at the other end, the magnets being clamped to these pieces with like poles all in one direction. The end of the pole piece c extends to within ¹/₁₀₀ to ²/₁₀₀ of an inch of the diaphragm, or as near as possible so that the diaphragm does not touch it when it vibrates. On the pole piece c is placed a wooden spool on which is wound silk-covered wire (No. 34, Am. W. G.). This wire fills the spool, and its ends are soldered to two insulated wires which pass through a flexible rubber disc f below the spool and extend respectively to the two binding posts at the opposite end of the handle. The current passes from one binding post and its connecting wire, through the wire on the spool, and thence to the other connecting wire and binding post. When used as a transmitter, vocal vibrations acting mechanically on the diaphragm A produce undulatory vibrations by magnetic induction in the spool of wire, which are transmitted to the other end of the line; and when used as a receiver, the undulatory vibrations from the remote end of the line produce mechanical vibrations in the diaphragm, which set up air vibrations that are reproductions of articulate sounds.

Although the Bell telephone is both a transmitter and receiver, in practice a more sensitive and better form of transmitter has taken its place. That most generally used and best known is the “Blake transmitter,” which was brought out about 1880. This employs two important elements. The first is the carbon microphone, which is a means for producing the undulations in the current by the variations in pressure on carbon contacts, and the second is an induction coil operated by a local battery, whose primary circuit passes through the contacts of the carbon microphone, and whose secondary circuit passes over the line. These fundamental elements of the Blake transmitter were the inventions of Berliner and Edison, and were made in 1877. The broad idea of producing electric undulations by varying the pressure between electrodes by vocal vibrations, was a large bone of contention in the Patent Office between various inventors. An application for a patent for the same was filed in the Patent Office by Emile Berliner, June 4, 1877, which was contested in an interference by Gray, Edison, Richmond, Dolbear, Holcombe, Prof. Bell, and others. After fourteen years of litigation the patent was finally awarded to Berliner. The patent granted to him November 17, 1891, No. 463,569, is a valuable one, and has become the property of the American Bell Telephone Company. The application of a low resistance conductor (carbon) in a microphone was invented by Edison as early as 1877, but his patent, No. 474,230, did not issue until May 3, 1892, on account of the interference with Berliner on the broader principle.

The Blake transmitter takes its name from the inventor of its mechanical features, who has assembled in it the fundamental principles of Berliner and Edison in a sensitive and practical mechanical construction, covered by minor patents, dated November 29, 1881. It is the little box in the middle of the familiar telephone outfit into which the talking is done. Its internal construction is shown in Fig. 59. To the rear of the door is secured the cast iron circular ring A, inside of which lies the Russia iron diaphragm B, cushioned at its edges with a rubber band. A circular seat a little larger than the diaphragm is formed in the iron ring, and on this seat the diaphragm rests. A short, thin metal plate attached to the ring A on the right hand side clamps the diaphragm in position by resting squarely on the rubber edge of the diaphragm. Its function is like that of a hinge, which allows the diaphragm to freely swing inward. A steel damping spring is secured to the ring at the opposite edge of the diaphragm, and has its free end provided with a rubber glove on which is cemented a thin piece of fluffy woolen material. The padded end of the damping spring rests against the diaphragm and prevents excessive vibration. The iron ring A has at its bottom a projection holding an adjusting screw, and to a similar top projection is attached by screws a brass spring, from which depends another casting C, supporting the microphone apparatus, which is best shown in the diagram, Fig. 60. In this diagram A is one terminal of the battery connected by wire S to the hinge H of the box. From the other leaf of the hinge the wire M passes to K, where it is soldered to the upper end of a German silver spring I. At K this spring is clamped and insulated from the iron work by two pieces of hard rubber. On the lower end of the spring I is soldered a short piece of thick platinum wire, whose ends are rounded into heads, one of which bears against the diaphragm N, and the other against the carbon button J. This button is attached to a small brass weight, and is supported by a spring R, clamped at its upper end to the metal support T. This spring is surrounded its entire length by rubber tubing to deaden vibration. The transmitter is adjusted by screw O, which, acting upon casting T, brings the carbon button, the platinum heads, and also the diaphragm N, against each other with a regulated pressure. The current passes from the part K to the spring I, the platinum head, carbon button J, and its supporting spring R, to metal casting T, and ring V, thence by wire L to the lower hinge G, by wire P to the primary of the induction coil, and thence by wire Y to binding post B, the two binding posts A B being the two battery terminals. The secondary wire E of the induction coil has its ends connected by wires X and W with the two binding posts C B, which are the line terminals, or one the line terminal and the other the ground connection. It will thus be seen that the primary current passes through the transmitter, and the secondary traverses the line. The most familiar forms of the telephone are those seen in Figs. 61 and 62, but the ideal form is rigged in a cabinet or little room, which excludes all extraneous interfering sounds.

With the Bell receiver and the Blake transmitter a good practical telephone system may be constructed, but the improvements which have been made in the short life of the telephone are beyond adequate description, or even mention. They relate to the call bell, the battery, the switchboard, meters for registering calls, conductors, conduits, connections, lightning arresters, switches, anti-induction devices, repeaters, and systems. Among those most prominently identified with its development are Bell, Edison, Berliner, Hughes, Gray, Dolbear and Phelps. The activity in this field is best illustrated by the fact that the art of telephony, begun practically in 1876, has at the end of the Nineteenth Century grown into some 3,000 United States patents on the subject.

That which has given the telephone its greatest commercial value is the “exchange” system, by which at a central office any member of a telephonic community may be instantly put into communication with any other member of that community. For this purpose, see Fig. 63, a continuous switchboard is arranged along the side of a large room and occupies most of that side of the wall. It comprises a great array of annunciator drops, spring jacks with plug seats, and connecting cords with metal plugs at their opposite ends. Each subscriber is connected to his own spring jack and annunciator drop, and his call to central office (from his magneto-bell) throws down the annunciator drop which bears the number of his telephone, and announces to the attendant his desire to communicate with another. To insure the attention of the attendant, a tiny electric lamp is by the same action lighted directly in front of her, which acts as a pilot signal to call her attention to the drop. The attendant now puts a plug in that spring jack, which automatically restores the drop, and she then asks the number which the subscriber wants, and, upon ascertaining this, puts the plug at the other end of the connecting cord into the spring jack of the subscriber wanted, and by this action disconnects her own telephone. As every telephone subscriber has in the central office an apparatus exclusively his own, it will be seen that a telephone community of several thousands of subscribers involves an imposing array of multiple connections, and a great expense in construction. Girls are chosen as exchange attendants because their voices are clearer. Every telephone jack, however, does not have its Jill, for each girl has charge of a hundred or more jacks, and wears constantly on her head a telephone of special shape, embracing her head like a child’s hoop comb, but terminating with an ear-piece at one end that covers one ear. She is too busy to waste time in adjusting an ordinary telephone to her ear, and so wears one of special design all the time.In the twentieth annual report of the American Bell Telephone Company, for the year 1899, the number of telephones in use January 1, 1900, by that company alone, in the United States, was 1,580,101; the miles of wire were 1,016,777, and the daily connections for persons using the telephone were 5,173,803. The gross earnings of the company were $5,760,106.45, and it paid in dividends $3,882,945. The total number of exchange stations of the Bell Company in the principal countries of the world are: United States, 632,946; Germany, 212,121; Great Britain, 112,840; Sweden, 63,685; France, 44,865; Switzerland, 35,536; Russia, 26,865; Austria, 26,664; Norway, 25,376. The United States has nearly 85,000 more than all the others put together.

Since the expiration of the Bell patents many smaller companies have sprung up, and the number of telephones in use has more than doubled in the last five years. Long distance telephony is now carried on up to nearly 2,000 miles, and one may to-day lie in bed in New York and listen to a concert in Chicago, and the vocal exchange of business and social intercourse between cities has become so large a feature of modern life as to justify the organization of a great company for this service alone.

In the Old Testament, Book of Job, xxxviii. chapter, 35th verse, it is written: “Canst thou send lightnings that they may go and say unto thee—‘Here we are?’” For thousands of years this challenge to Job has been looked upon as a feat whose execution was only within the power of the Almighty; but to-day the inventor—that patient modern Job—has accomplished this seemingly impossible task, for at the end of this Nineteenth Century of the Christian Era, the telephone makes the lightning man’s vocal messenger, tireless, faithful, and true, knowing no prevarication, and swifter than the winged messenger of the gods.