Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1875-01-29

The Telephone.
PLAYING TUNES AT A DISTANCE OF A

(
PLAYING TUNES AT A DISTANCE OF A
| MILE.
| About The middle of last July the Tri-
bune published the account of an invention
| Of Mr. Elisha Gray, Superintendent of the
Western Electric Manufacturing Company,
| called by him the telephone, with whose aid
| he was enabled, as the article showed, to
| transmit sounds from one end of the tele-
phone wire to the other, or to any point or
points along the same. Yesterday morn
! ing when the inventor gave an exhibition
of the new idea he had discovered in the
| field of electric science. he did 80 with con-
| fdence he may not have possessed six
months ago.
| The exhibition Of the telephone took
place in General Stager's room in the
| Union Building. AS soon as the company
arrived and had been introduced to the in
ventor, he briefly explained to them the
nature of the exhibition, showing that the
| sound producing instrument was about
mile distant, and calling attention to the
! receiving instrument, by means of which he
| proposed to bring the ear-of music within
| the hearing of all in the room. There
were two in number: one q sounding box
made in wood, perforated on one side, about
! Is inches in length, and four inches in
| heighth and breadth, with an electric mag
net placed upon its upper surface-the otE-
er an ordinary violin with metallic plate
stretched across it on a bridge, in lieu of
the four strings.
The first exhibition made was with the
sounding board. The wire leading into
the room from the electric works on kinzie
street was connected with the electric-mag-
net on the sounding box, and the General
.elegraphed to the instrumentalist at the
works to begin playing. In few seconds
the sounding box began TO evoke sweetiy
and very sonorously the tune of Yankee
Doodle followed in minute by Robin
Adair.' The effect upon the audience-all
of them were fully capable Of appreciating
whatever of the beautiful, or wonderful, or
useful, or all combined, there is in art or
nature-was instantaneous. They looked
from one to the other with that's a-big
thing sort of expression which was quite
amusing, and when the last note of Robin
Adair' died away, they made quite num-
Der of pertinent inquire. OF the inventor,
who explained to them that the sound was
produced at the other end of the line BY an
instrument fitted with keys, which, under
action of the electric current, under
went certain number of vibrations, which,
according to the number of each key
achieved, provided its note, the number of
the vibrations of the higher keys being, of
course, much greater than those of the low-
er. The number of vibrations per second
achieved by the key in the telephone was
reproduced in the electric coil on the top
of the sounding box, which, sympathetical-
ly vibrating, sounded the note. The in
ventor then called attention to the fact that
with the introduction of living animal tis-
sue into the circuit the sound could be pro-
duced without the agency of the electro
magnet. In proof Of this he placed him
self in the circuit, and, taking the violin
above described in his hands. he rubbed
the surface of its metallic plate with bow
composed of q small piece of wood with =
A PIECE OF PIGS TAIL
dexterioIsy inserted therein, and evoked
as loud correct music rs had been provided
by the sounding-box. Having shown the
gentlemen present how to do it, they all in
turn took the violin in hand, and although
none of them had played note in their
lives before, with the aid of q piece of pigs
tail they produced Just as good music as
Mr.. Gray, every did. The inventor then,
to show that the principle applied to every
thing that was sonorous in its nature, sent
for dust-pan, from which he, placing
himself in circuit brought forth the music,
less clearly, of course, then from that violin
or sounding box, but still quite audible to
all in the room. He then took an ordinary
lctter-box, and placing a sheet of tissue
paper across it, instructed gentleman
present to put himself in circuit and hold
the papered side of the box to his ears.
The gentleman did so and announced the
time at once. Several other gentlemen
PLAYED upon the dust pan, and held the
letter-oox to their ears with equally salts
factory results, and what was more re-
markabe was that while the song was
pealing foith from the violin the sounding
box was playing the same tune not wit
less loudly than before. Such are the DIFF
ferent exhibitions made by the inventor of
this newly discovered feature in electric
science, and, before leaving, the gentlemen
present all expressed their admiration and
wonder at the results produced, and con-
viction that, practically applied, the in
yentiou would become of great commercial
Importance.
Mr.. Gray-The practical feature of the
invention lies in the fact that, with my in
strument, l can transmit all the common
chords of a seven-octave piano along SIN
gle wire at the same time, and in the
further fact that these harmonic sounds
| can be analyzed at the receiving end on in
strumepts, each OF which selects its own
peculiar note, and rejects all others. Thus
one wire can easily be employed by at least
twenty-five different sending and twenty
two different receiving operators.
In the interesting conversation which the
| reporter had after this exhibition with the
| inventor, the latter explained that there
was no doubt that what was SO clearly ac-
complished with two notes could certainly
be done with twenty-five. The telegraph
ing would be done with the ordinary Morse
| alphabet, the great point now to be Disco
vered being whether the telegraphing could
be done backwards and forwards at the
same time. This is the point to which Mr..
Gray will devote his future energies. In
the meantime he is preparing o transmit
ting instrument, with the aid of which he
will shortly show to the world that eisht
messages can be sent along single wire
and received simultaneously, and there is
no doubt when this Is done satisfactorily he
will not be long in enlarging his instrument.
aud adding the other fourteen TO fill the
twenty-five simultaneous messages Of
which he is 90 confident. - Chicrqo Tribune.