AN ANCIENT TELEPHONE.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 23, Issue 6, 23 January 1912, Page 2

AN ANCIENT TELEPHONE.

English travellers and officers in India who have contrived, through the priests, to gain access to some of the half-ruined temples of Panj, a city about 200 miles from Madras, have learned that the telephone has been known in that country for thousands of years. In the city of Panj there are two temples about a mile apart. In the interior, on the ground floor of each, there is a small circular room guarded day and night from natives as well as strangers. These rooms are supposed to be the abiding places of '“governing spirits,” but,, in reality, are the termini of a telephone line which is Laid underground from one building to the other.

The superstitious natives regard these little circular rooms with the greatest awe, because they have had demonstrated to them on various occasions the-power of these “governing spirits” to communicate with the other temple. When this miracle is being performed, the natives are required to make their offerings in one building and make known their wishes and desires. Then, upon immediately repairing to the other temple, they are informed of all they have said and done. To us that is all easy enough ; but to the superstitious native of India it is proof that the priests are supernatural beings. Those who have visited these telephone connected temples, say that the transmitters are of wood, and that they are about the size of the head of a flour barrel. The wire is said to be of neither steel, copper, nor brass, but of a substance colsely resembling the latter metal. Old wormeaten transmitters, said to be 2,000 years old, have been shown those fortunate enough to gain admission to these temples.