FRENCH CLAIM TO TELEPHONE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8363, 25 February 1913, Page 4

FRENCH CLAIM TO TELEPHONE

Dr Charles Boorseul, a French physician but recently deceased, claimed and was often credited with tho honour of having invented the telephone before Graham Bell (says a London paper). In the “Revue Scientifique” his claims are rejected by M. Dauzat, who, While establishing that Bourseul experimented from 1804 onwards with a view to transmitting' the sounds of the human voice by electricity, proves that the experiments .were fruitless, and were based on a different principle to that of the modem telephone, instead of making use of the principle of induction (of which little was known at the time) to repeat the words themselves, he limited his aim to producing sounds similar to those of the Morse code. Thus Graham Bell is secured in his honour of the of the telephone, which he patented in 1876, and exhibited at Philadelphia in 1878. Bell had little success at the Philadelphia, Exhibition, and his invention would have passed unnoticed even had it not been for Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil. For the story wo are also indebted to tho “Revue-. Scientifiquo.” Dom Pedro was inspecting the exhibition, attended by his suite, when he came across .Graham Bell, .whom he remembered as a teacher in a school of deaf-mutes. Dom Pedro came to his: stand and asked him to “set his machine going.” A : wire crossed the ’ room from wall to wall. Dom Pedro stood at the receiver and Bell at the transmitter. No one understood exactly what was happening, when suddenly the Emperor lifted his head dramatically, and shouted in absolute amazement, “He’s talking." The scientists in Dom ‘Pedro’s suite rushed to verify this extraordinary announcement, and “the more they knew of electricity, the less ‘ they would believe their ears.” The next day the newspapers were filled with the news; and the telephone became famous immediately.