FIRST TELEPHONE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20283, 16 December 1927, Page 15

FIRST TELEPHONE.

The telephone was an accidental discovery. In his attempts to transmit musical Lunds by electricity Alexander Graham Bell in 1875 devised a harmonic telegraph, in which reeds at the receiving end were set in motion by electro-mag-nets. It was an irregularity m the working of this which led Bell to the invention of the telephone, and on this day in Feb ruarv, 187(5, he filed an application for his invention with the American Patent Office. Elisha Gray had also been working on a telephone, and on the very same day and at the same office he also applied for a patent. Bell’s application had been received first, however, and be secured the rights. The following year Bell went to London and addressed the Physical Society. The same instrument was used both as transmitter and received, and it was not until later that the microphone was invented. Everybody was eager to see and speak into the telephone. Its humble appearance wm a surprise and disappointment. W hen Graham Bell informed Lord Winchelsea.that he was sending him a telephone Winchelsea despatched a farm wagon to the station to .collect it.