The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1877-05-09
THE CHIEF OF MODERN MARVELS.
Professor Bells Talking Telephone and
the Wonders 1t Does.
The Utter Simplicity of Its Construction
and the Utter Mystery of
Its Working.
New York World

mate
ly from Professor Gray's, and from any other
that has yet come TO notice. It's popularity
is that it is capable of transmit
ting oral sounds-in other words, that it
can talk. The motive to its operation is
not electromagnetic as we have here
tofore understood that agent, although for
want of a better word that it is what it is
called. AS far as apparatus goes there is a
magnet, a coil of insulated wire and a disk
of soft iron-no more; nothing of chemicals
or friction to develop an electrical current;
no necessity further but a voice to speak
against the soft iron tympanum and an ear
so miles away to hear what the voice is
saying In point of construction, this
telephone is simplicity itself. AS il is
made for exhibition and as it will be seen
here on the 18th, it consists of q wooden
box, about cubic foot in bulk and not
unlike a Photographic camera in appear
ance. Within this box is set, on its side, an
ordinary horse shoe magnet, with the poles
ends directed towards the audience.
Fixed upon each of these ends is little coil
of insulated fine wire. Still in front OF
these wire coils and separated from them by
a space of about the one-thirty second part
OF an inch is set vertical round disk of
soft iron. about five inches in diameter and
-thirty-second of an inch thick. To
each of the wire coils is fixed a wire, one
running to the point, wherever it may be,
where the talking is to be done, and there
connecting with one of the coils of wire in
an instrument precisely similar the other
running into the ground, as in the corre-
spending instrument does a corresponding
wire, forming the ordinary circuit. That is
the whole apparatus. There is no battery,
no telegraphic instrument, and all connec-
tons with instruments along the line of the
wire must be severed. All that is necessary
then is for che operator-that is to say the
one who is to talk-to say what
he may wish against the soft
iron tympanum, which is exposed through
an opening in the box, and the sound is
caught up, transmitted and reproduced iden-
tically at the other end of the wire. There
is no mystery about this thing, except the
great mystery that one can not understand
why it is all so. The box is not necessity
and is only used as a convenient means of
transporting the apparatus, and as protec-
ton against the dirt and dust. In Professor
Bells own apartments the magnet, the wire
coils and the disk are fixed against the wall
in position convenient to his desk one wire
connecting simply with the gastixture. All
the professor has to do then is TO turn his
face towards the machine as one in common
politeness would do when about to address
another and speak his will: the tympanum
of an exactly corresponding instrument at
the other end of the wire-one hundred
brations of tympanum No. 1, and speaks
there to the listener in language as plain as
that employed by Professor Bell himself
A World reporter had a conversation yes
terday with Mr.. Frederic A. Cover, Profess
sor Bells general manager, who gave most
intelligent account of the working OF the
instrument and of its theory so far as any
body may yet understand it. The whole
reason of it nobody does know There is no
especial necessity for having the magnet in
the telephone just the size that il is. II it is
larger il will do, and if it is smaller it will
do The same is true of the iron disk or
tympanum. Professor Bell has experimental
with all sizes, and finds that an ordinary
magnet and a disk about five inches in di-
ameter produce effects as good as any
though not necessarily the best effects He
has used two OF the little red painted toy
magnets, such as the children buy for 10
cents apiece, and obtained good effects
Again, the telephones employed at the two
ends of the line need not correspond in
point of size; and. contrary to all law gov
erning electric telegraphy, 1t is quite imma-
terial which pole of one magnet corresponds
to given pole of the other. 1t is only nee
ment should be set firm and right
During the transmission OF sound
there is no perceptible motion of the
iron tympanum or any OF the parts; what
ever vibrations occur are not discoverable
by the eye. Again in the oral transmissions
the sound does not escape into air along the
route, as il does for instance when music is
transmitted by Professor Gray's telephone.
During an exhibition in Providence last
winter, the weather was extremely wet and
bad. and in the transmission OF music about
one-third of the sound was dissipated on the
way, but at the same entertainment the oral
sounds were received without any percepti-
BILE diminution of their volume.
The loss through the resistance offered by
different bodies to the passage through them
of an electric current is estimated in what
are called "ohms." Thus the resistance Gre
ated by person OF ordinarily thin skin is
about g 900 ohms, and the loss in passage
through the Atlantic cable is about 900
ohms. An experiment was made with Pro-
lessor Bells telephone in New Haven to see
what loss in its tones would occur through
the interposition of human bodies. Sixteen
OF the professors of Yale college took part in
the experiment.. One part Of the telephone
was set up in one room and the
other part in another room at
at considerable distance, though
distance, within the limit, say, Of 100 miles
at least, does not make any material differ
ence in the volume of sound obtained. The
connecting wires between the two instru-
ments were severed, and the circuit was af-
forwards re-established by making line OF
the professors, eight to each wire, who
joined hands, those on the ends grasping the
severed wires, and thus completing the
circuit. The professors stood upon the floor,
with nothing interposed between their feet
and the carpet, and thus were not insulated.
The telephone was then talked to at one
end and answered at the other in an audible
and highly satisfactory manner.
The work of Professor Bells telephone
seems opposed to all laws, whether of cleo
tro-magnetism or anything else, that the
scientists have as yet codihed. Here is mole
cular vibration changed into impulse, and
impulse In due time changed into molecular
vibration. When the good reason for 1t i
discovered, the World will hasten to make il
known. Ni Efef ip1Faa
- Professor Bell began his career as q profes.
sor of vocal physiology, busying himseli