The title of this little work sufficiently indicates its nature and scope. The labour of preparing it has not been slight, and has involved the expenditure of much time in prosecuting inquiries both in this country and in Germany amongst the surviving contemporaries of Philipp Reis. To set forth the history of this long-neglected inventor and of his instrument, and to establish upon its own merits, without special pleading, and without partiality, the nature of that much-misunderstood and much-abused invention, has been the aim of the writer. The thought that he might thus be of service in rendering justice to the memory of the departed worthy has inspired him to his task. He has nothing to gain by making Reis’s invention appear either better or worse than it really was. He has therefore preferred to let the contemporary documents and the testimony of eye-witnesses speak for themselves, and has added that which seemed to him desirable in the way of argument in the form of four appendices.

The author’s acknowledgments are due in an especial manner to Mr. Albert Stetson, A.M., of Cohasset, Massachusetts, who has given him much valuable assistance in the collection of information both in Germany and in this country, and who has also assisted in the translation of some of the contemporary documents to be found in the work. To the friends, acquaintances, and pupils of Philipp Reis, and especially to the surviving members of the family at Friedrichsdorf, who have most kindly furnished many details of information, the author would express his most cordial thanks. The testimony now adduced as to the aim of Philipp Reis’s invention, and the measure of success which he himself attained, is such, in the author’s opinion, and in the opinion, he trusts, of all right-thinking persons, to place beyond cavil the rightfulness of the claim which Reis himself put forward of being the inventor of the Telephone. Full and sufficient as that testimony is, much more remains as yet unpublished. The author has, for example, been permitted to examine a mass of evidence collected by the Dolbear Telephone Company, which entirely corroborates that which is here presented. It is, however, for certain reasons beyond the author’s control, deemed well at the present moment to withhold this testimony for a little while from publication. The appearance of this volume at the present time needs no apology from the author. He is conscious that all he can do will add little or nothing to the lustre with which the name of Philipp Reis will be handed down to posterity. When the Jubilee of Philipp Reis comes to be celebrated in 1884 (January 7th), the world will find out its indebtedness to the great man whose thoughts survive him.