The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-09-21
ORIGIN OF TELEPHONES.
The story of This Remarkable In
ventiOn Told by Its Author.

NChhNh AoAu ny lNS AWNnOF,
From the st. Louis Globe Democrat.
The story of how the telephone came to
be invented was told by Dr. Alexander
Graham Bell during his attendance on the
recent summer meeting Of the American
association to promote tho teaching of
speech to tho deaf, hold at Mount Airy
Dr. Bells father was an elocutlonist in
England, ana we'll known as corrector
OF defects in utterance. as his grandfath-
err had also been. His father had devised
method OF representing the action of
the vocal organs by symbols, similar to
those used In chemistry In like manner
letters representing the various organs OF
speech, with figures attached Indicating
the positions of those organs, would rep
resent certain sounds or spoken words. A
person placing his tongue, teeth, lips and
palate In the position indicated by GER
tain formula would produce a definite
sound. The use of such n system for the
instruction of deaf mutes was not over
looked by Dr. Bells father, and expert
ments were made in little school in
London. DR.. Bell became Interested in the
subject and developed a method of teach
ing the deaf to speak His father had
lectured In this country, and in this way
tho system had come to the knowledge of
the deaf and dumb institutions in Boston
and of the prominent educators in that
city, and in 1871 the board OF education
invited DR.. Bell to sec what he could do
in the Boston School for the Deaf He
accepted the invitation, and put the sys-
tenn in practice there with very great sue
cess, and It was introduced in one institu-
ton after another throughout the coun-
try.
DIR. Bell did not at that ime believe 1t
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 invent an
apparatus which would represent speech
to the eye as it was spoken, by throwing
a picture OF the vibrations on the screen.
He commenced his experiments with Koe-
nig's manometric flame diaphragm.
stretched on a piece of wood divided into
two parts, and a series of mirrors, pro-
duced a band of light with wave effects,
according to the sound uttered. The
flame was too feeble to be photographed,
DR. Bell then turned his attention to an
other apparatus, called phonetograph.
in which was stretched membrane
against which a person spoke and which
carried a little pencil over a smoked glass,
which made a curved line that could cas-
lily be photographed.
He made many hundreds Of tracings, but
with the flame pictures before described
and he attributed the trouble to the clum-
siness of the apparatus He, therefore,
mapped out changes In the construction of
his phonetograph, and thought he saw in
his draft a rude analogy to the construc-
ton Of the human ear. Instead of bones
actuated by a membrane, as in the ear, he
had lever of wood moved by a mem
brane He, therefore, concluded to modify
the shape to correspond with the human
ear, and went TO distinguished aurist in
Boston, Clarence A. Blake, who suggest
ed his experimenting with an actual hui
man ear. DIT. Blake got an ear and dis
sected It for DR.. Bell, so as to expose the
membrane and the little bones. The doc
tor attached a pencil to the bone called
the "malleus," moistened the membrane
with Rlycerine and water, and construct
ed an outer ear. with this beautiful trac-
ings were made on the smoked glass. The
tracings, however, were different from
what he had before produced.
While he was engaged upon the above
line Of search at the institution for the deaf
he was also developing an Invention out OF
which he expected to make some money
viz, an electrical multiple telegraph, by
which he could send many messages SIM
utaneously over one wire. DR.. Bell simpli-
fed this apparatus greatly He noticed
that when half a dozen we're operating to-
BGLneI lItlt was a RESULTANT tlttLIltdl
effect, and that but one sending magnet
was necessary to produce all the sounds
Further consideration convinced him that
he could not only send any number OF mu-
steal tones simultaneously, but sounds OF
any kind. His familiarity with the nature
of speech had taught him that the term
quality of sound" means really chord
of different musical tones having different
intensities, and he could conceive how a
sound of any kind whatever, even words
might be transmitted, II one of these reeds
could be moved I'm front Of an electro
magnet in the resultant way in which the
air Is moved when a sound Is uttered. His
experiments in vibrations had taught him
the form OF the sound waves. The prob
lem was TO make a mass of steel vibrate
in the way the air does. The problem was
in his mind at the time be was making the
experiments with the human ear, before
described.
The thought suddenly struck him that
there was a great disproportion in mass
between the bones OF the ear and the
membrane that connected them: that these
+ bones were, relatively to the membrane
very heavy and very massive Why, then
could not the piece of iron or steel be NOV
ed by attaching 1t to heavier and SITTER
membrane, Of the present telephone form
The problem was solved. 1t will thus be
seen that the telephone was the result OF
two separate lines of thought