Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-07-08

an atmosphere of discoura cement for scien-
tfic pursuits. Such q chimerical idea as
telegraphing vocal sounds would, indeed to
most minds seem scarcely feasible enough
to spend time in working over. / believe,
however that it is feasible and 1 have got
the cue to the solution of the problem
Heroic Efforts.
The letter was written after his return to
Boston, and he started III on his expert
mental work with renewed energy. He
TIED to accomplish with limited resources
ard under conditions the most trying an
amount of work which would have stag
gered the strongest of men. He taxed lis
resources, financial and physical, to the
limit, and then he resolved on bold step
On March is he wrote to his father and
mother:
Il have put off my pupils and all my
classes until the list of April. Flesh and
blood could not stand much longer the
strain L have had upon me. Professional
work is all in confusion, and the only way
is to cut the Gordian knot and throw up
everything until the end is achieved
Bell worked on now day and night,
studying and experimenting. Meanwhile
the situation had become complicated and
even perhaps little more difficult for the
young man. In the course of his associa-
ton with his partner, Mr.. Hubbard, he
had met the charming young daughter of
that distinguished philanthropist, then Miss
Mabel Hubbard. They had fallen in love
with each other. The pride of the Scotch
gentleman of small means, which has been
so charmingly characterized in the novels
of Sir Walter Scott. was exaggerated in
young Bell. The expense of his actual ex-
periments in multiple biography had been
betrayed by his partners in the enterprise.
But that of the telephone experiments fell
entirely on him, and his slender purse was
taxed TO the utmost to meet the calls upon
it. He was unwilling to go to the father of
his fiancee and ask loan to help him de-
fray his living expenses, and those incident
to the purchase and construction of eX-
pensive apparatus. Neither was he willing
to turn to his parents for aid; and with
his sole source of revenue cut off by the
dismissal of his classes, he found himself
reduced to the verge of actual want. At
this juncture a friend came forward and
loaned him a small sum of money on the
security of his prospective earnings from
teaching during the coming winter.
The Real Discovery.
With this he struggled on. The date of
the real discovery of the telephone might
be said to be June 3 1875. On that day
Bell was standing by one of his harmonic
instruments when his assistant acciden-
| tally tapped the connecting instrument
with his hand. The slight noise proceed
| ing from the nearby receiver would have
escaped the attention of a less skilled OBJ
server than Bell. To him it sounded as
| distinct as the crack of a pistol Again
and again the excited young scientist made
| his assistant repeat the tapping with his
, rnent, while he stood with his ear to the
receiving instrument, listening delightedly
| to the sounds that issued from it. He re-
| peated the experiments until he had salts
| fed himself that the sound which he heard
| from the one instrument was due to cleo
| trio impulses generated by the sonorous
vibrations of the other. Within the hour
| he gave orders for the construction of ex
| actly such a telephone in the preceding
! fall he had described to DR.. Blake. The
| electric speaking telephone was then
practical certainty!
In July and August, when his invention
was ready to patent, Bells assistant, Mr..
Watson, became sick, and Bell himself
! broke down. He went to Canada to visit
! his parents, and in the fall of 1875 drew up
specifications for his patent These he gave
to Mr.. Hubbard to take to Washington and
! file in the patent office. But owing to de-
lays with the English patent, it was not
until February Ia, 1876, that the applica-
| ton was filed with the commissioner of
patents. One hour after it was filed Elisha
| Gray of Philadelphia also filed in the patent
| office a caveat warning inventors against
| any attempt to patent an instrument such
as the telephone, as he was doing some
| work looking to the transmission of speech
| by the electric current. Had this been filed
| before Bells application there Is a posi-
bility that he would not have been granted
| a patent.
Patent number ia, 4S5, perhaps the most
| important ever allowed by the United States
| patent office, was issued on March Z, 1876,
| to Graham Bell for his original invention Of
an electric speaking telephone
| At the Centennial.
Meanwhile, Bell was at work harder than
| ever conducting his classes in Boston, and
| in trying to make such improvements in
| the telephone as suggested themselves He
sent the rude instruments which eoBsti-
| tuted his first telephone on to the centen-
| NAL exposition, which was being held that
year in Philadelphia. They were placed
| in an obscure corner of the Massachusetts
exhibit, and attracted little or no atten-
| ton
| Mr.. Gardner Hubbard was attending the