The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1896-11-07

| Engaged In This Line OF Wofk the sei~
phone Was Suggested To His Mind.
The story Of how the telephone cam,
20 be invented was told by DR.. Alexan'
der Graham Bell during his attendance
ON the meeting Of the American Associ'
alton TO Promote the Teaching Of Speech
10 the Deaf, held at Mount Airy. DIR.
Bells father was an elocutionist in
England and well known rs a corrector
OF defects in utterance. as his GRANDPA
Their had also been. His father had de-
yised a method Of representing the 40
| ton OF the vocal organs by symbols,
| similar to those used in chemistry In
| like manner letters representing the va
rious organs Of speech, with figures at
tached indicating the positions Of those
organs, would represent certain sounds
or spoken words. A person placing his
tongue, teeth, lips and palate in the po-
sition indicated by n certain formula
would produce a definite sound. The
use Of such a system for the instruction
OF deaf mutes was not overlooked by
DR.. Bells father. and experiments were
made in q little school in London. DR.
Bell became interested in the subject
and developed a method Of teaching thu
deaf TO speak. His father had lectured
in this country, and In this way the
system had come to the knowledge OF
the deaf and dumb institutions in Bos.
ron and of the prominent educators in
that city. and in 1871 the board Of edu'
cation invited DR.. Bell 10 see what he
could do in the Boston School For the
Deaf. He accepted the invitation and
put the system in practice there with
very gre,.6 success, and il was intro
duoed in one institution after another
throughout the country.
DR.. Bell did not at that time believe
it was possible for deaf mutes to under
stand speech by looking at the mouth OF
the speaker The mechanism OF speech
was, he thought, too complicated for
that. he therefore set TO work to in.
vent an apparatus which would repre-
sent speech to the eye as ii was spoken
by throwing picture of the vibrations
on the screen. He commenced his exper.
iments with Koenig's manometric flame
apparatus, which. by means of n vibrat-
ing diaphram, stretched on a piece of
wood divided into two parts, and a Sc
ries Of mirrors produced a band of light
with wave effects. according 10 the
sound uttered. The fame was too fee
bic 10 be photographed. DIR. Bell then
turned his attention 10 another appara.
tus, called a phonetograpb. in which
was stretched membrane, against
which a person spoke and which car
ried little pencil over a smoked glass,
which made a curved line that could
easily be photographed.
He made many hundreds Of tracings
but unfortunately they did not CORE
spond with the fame pictures before
described, and he attributed the trouble
TO the clumsiness of the apparatus. He
therefore mapped out changes in the
Of his phonetograph and
thought be saw in his draft a rude anal
ogy To- the construction of the human
ear. Instead Of bones actuated by a
as in the ear. he had lever
Of wood moved by a membrane He
therefore concluded TO modify the shape
TO correspond with the human ear and
went 10 distinguished surist in Bos-
ton. Clarence A. Blake, who suggested
his experimenting with an actual hu-
man ear. Ir. Blake got an ear and dis
secied IL for DIR. Bell so as 70 expose the |
and the little bones. The doc
Tor attached a pencil TO the bone called |
n al ha
With glycerin and water and construct
q an outer ear. With this, beautiful
racings were made on the smoked glass
The tracings, however, were different |
rom what he had before produced.
While he was engaged upon the above
inc Of search at the Institution For the
Deaf, he was also developing an inven-
ion out OF which he expected to make
ONE money-viz, an electrical multi |
lie telegraph, by which he could send |
many messages simultaneously over one
wire. DR.. Bell simplified this apparatus
realty. He noticed that when half
ozen were operating together there
vas a resultant electrical effect, and |
hat but one sending magnet was neces-
airy TO produce all the sounds. Further
convinced him that he |
ould not only send any number of mu.
ical tones simultaneously, but sounds |
any kind His familiarity with the |
Iature Of speech had taught him that |
he term quality of sound" means
eally chord Of different musical tones |
aving different intensities, and he |
ould conceive how sound of any kind |
whatever. even words. might be trans.
litted IL one Of these reeds could be /
moved in front Of an electro magnet in |
be resultant way in which the air is |
moved when a sound is uttered. His
experiments in vibrations had taught |
i'm the form OF the sound waves. The |
roblem was TO make q mass Of steel /
ibrate in the way the air does The |
roblem was in his mind at the time he |
'as making the experiments with the /
uman ear. before described.
The thought suddenly struck him
nat there was great disproportion in
lass between the bones OF the ear and |
he membrane that connected them;
nat these bones were, relatively TO the
very heavy and very mass.
Te. Why, then, could not the piece or
ION or steel be moved by attaching il
, heavier and sitter membrane, Of
ne present telephone form. The prob
nm was solved. 1t will thus be seen
rat the telephone was the result of two
'parate lines Of thought St Louis
lobe Democrat
InsuperabIe Diniculty.
What became of your women's de-