THE TELEPHONE PREDICTED.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 4079, 28 February 1894, Page 4

THE TELEPHONE PREDICTED.

In the works of Robert Hooke, published in 166-1, is tbe following forecast of the telephone': — "And as glasses have highly promoted our seeing, so 'tis not improbable but that there may be found many mechanical inventors to improve our senses of hearing, Binelling, tasting, and touching. 'Tis not impossible to hear a whisper a furlong's distance, it having been already done, and perhaps the nature of the thing would not make it more impossible though that furlong should be ten times multiplied. And though some famous authors have affirmed it impossible to hear through the thinnest plate of Muscovy glass, yet I know a way by which it is easy enough to hear one speak through a wall a yard thick. It has not yet thoroughly examined how far octocousiicons may be improved, nor what other ways there may be of quickening our hearing or conveying sound through other bodies than the air, for that is not the only medium. I can assure the reader tbat I have by the help of a distended wire, propagated the sound to a considerable distance in an instant, or with a seemingly quick motion as that of light, at least incomparably swifter tbaa that which, at the same time, was propagated through the air, and this not only in a straight line or direct, but one bended in many angles."