THE INVENTOR OF THE TELEPHONE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3138, 9 October 1922, Page 2

THE INVENTOR OF THE TELEPHONE.

The death occurred at the beginning of August of Dr Alexander Graham Bell, the famous scientist and inventor of the telephone, in his 76t.h year. He was born in Edinburgh in March, 1847. His father, his two brothers, his uncle, and his grandfather had taught the laws of speech in the Universities of Edinburgh, Dublin, and London. For three generations the Bells had been professors of the science of talking, and had helped lo further it by several inventions. Dr Graham Bell's father was the author of a most ingenious signlanguage, which he called "visible speech." He himself inherited the peculiar genius of his forbears, both inventive and rhetorical, to such a degree that as a boy he had constructed an artificial skull from gutta-percha and indiarubber, which, when a. blasl of air was forced into it from a pair of bellows, would actually emit sounds closely resembling words. While still at school he thought out a machine for brushing the husks from wheat. When 14 years of age he came to London and was instructed by his grandfather in elocution and the mechanism of speech. He returned to Edinburgh to study at the University, and became a schoolmaster at Elgin. He then acted as assistant to his father, who was at that time lecturer on elocution in University college, London, and, having matriculated at London University, attended medical classes at University College. While in the metropolis he met two distinguished men of science, Alexander ,/. Ellis and Sir Charles Wheatstone, from whom he gathered suggestions which in the years to come were to have an important bearing on his work. To Ellig he owed his knowledge of the experiments of Helmholtz, showing that tuning forks could be kept in vibration by electro-magnets. To Sir Charles Wbeatstone lie owed his knowledge of telegraphy and of an ingenious talking machine' which had been contrived by Baron de Kempelin. As he was very delicate and two of his brothers had died from tuberculosis, his father decided on his account to emigrate to Canada, and took a house at Brantford, in Ontario. In 1871 Dr Bell gave instruction to the teachers of deaf-mute children in Boston, and in 1873 he was appointed professor of vocal physiology at Boston University. For some time he had been endeavoring to perfect apparatus intended to make language sounds visible to the deaf and dumb. He failed, but in the course of his experiments became convinced that articulate speech could bo transmitted electrically. His early work in the education of the deaf led to the conviction that every deaf child should be taught to speak, but he did, not l>elieve that it could learn to read the lips with any great profit. That scepticism prompted him to attempt to produce a machine that should hear for the deaf. It required the active persuasion of the deaf young lady who afterwards became his wife to convince him that speech-reading was possible. He thus found that the machine which he proposed was not necessary, but it became the telephone, which was. therefore, the result of an effort to give speech to the deaf. Long and patient research followed, but at length Bell constructed a receiver and transmitter with conhectiii" wire, the telephone of to-day in its simplest form, and his assistant in the laboratory distinctly heard bis chief, who was speaking in the attic. The telephone was born, and the date of its birth was March 10, 1876. Thirtyeight years later the same two men were at the ends of a telephone wire, but Dr Bell was in New York and his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, was in Sin Francisco. The 3390 miles included a piece of the original wire which had once connected the attic and tl"> '- ; - atory in Boston. "Mr Watson! Come at once, please; I want you," said Dr Bell, using the identical words lie had sunken so many years before. "Mr Bell, I can hear you,'' came the laughing response, "but it is not so easy to comply with your request as it was the first time you ever called me over the 'phone. Then it took me under twentv seconds to be with you; now, it will take me the greater part of a week." 13ut much had happened in the time between those two short conversations. In 1876 the Centennial Exposition was field in Philadelphia, and Bell sent the first of the telephones. It was exhibited in an out-of-the-way corner and attracted little or no notice for six weeks'. Then one week-end Hell, who had' gone (o the exhibition because his sweetheart was distressed at leaving him behind, was standing beside his invention when the Emperor of Brazil, who had once visited his class of deaf-mutes at Boston, warmly greeted him. Doni Pedro took up' the receiver and Bell went to thiei transmitter. Suddenly the Emperor, with a dramatic gesture, exclaimed, with a look of utter amazement, "My God. it talks!" The exhibition judges who were accompanying him tested the apparatus' in turn, and Lord Kelvin declared. "It is the most wonderful thing 1 have seen in America-"

The crude little instrument was taken from its' obscure corner to the judge's pavilion, where during the remainder of the summer it was acclaiined as the wonder of wonders, Dr Bell gave it to Kelvin, who brought it to England and exhibited it before the British Assooia.tion. Queen Victoria evinced the greatest interest iu,the invention. A wire was put up to Windsor, and. an order having been given for 100 telephones, the service in Great Britain was inaugurated, but its development was heavily handiicaoped. Under the Telegraph Act of 186!) the system of telegraphy had been made a Government monopoly, and the PostmasterGeneral declared 1 that the •telephone was a species of telegraph, a pronouncement wind) was supported by Mr Justice Stephen in the High Court in 1880. The great merits of the invention finally received official recognition and all obstacles to its use were overcome.

On liis 2!/fh birthday Tleli received his patent, one of the most valuable ■single patents ever issued in any country, if was immediately and violently attacked,. Phillip Reis had invented: his "telephon" and called' it: by that name in 1860. it was. however, operated by a make-and-hreak current, and. though it conveyed sounds, it could not transmit articulate speech. In March, 1X76. Klisba Gray had also patented a, telephone, but though it was ingenious, it was not of practical utility. Hell's patent was assailed from all sides, and probably no other private document ever caused more litigation durinit one of the many suits which involved 1 the validity of the Patent he was m Hie witness-box for -V2 days reciting the liistorv of his labors —but in the end his claim was fullv and freclv admitted. With the aid of G. G. Hubbard. whose daughter Mabel he married, and who had borne some of the earlier expenses of the experiments, ;i company was formed, but at first it seemed likely to prove a disastrous failure. The reins were, however taken hold 1 of be Theodore Newton Vail, who saw that such a system of communication would never prove a financial success so loneC as its applications were localised. In face of the most hostile opposition Vail proceeded to link up cities, towns villages, hamlets, and even lonely residences in a continuous bond of talking wire, in 1892 Dr Graham Bell in-

augurated the trunk wire, 955 miles in length, between New York City and Chicago, and, by the introduction of the Pupin loading coil, which appeared in 1899, New York was eventually enabled to ring up San Francisco, and Dr Bell repeated with Mr Watson the historic conversation which had first taken place between laboratory and attic in the Boston house.