The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1901-07-05
AWIRELESS TELEPHONE
Invention Of a Poor New York
Tailor's Son.
SITTING ROOM HIS LABORATORY,

HUM aA0 1A6VhAIUh1
Living In q Tenement House, Samuel
r. Levenberg Makes n Discovery
which May Revolutionize TeIe-
phoning - Opinion Of Garrett p.
Serviss, the Noted Scientist.
Marconi, who Is the discoverer Of
wireless telegraphy, has q rival in an
18-year-old American boy. who claims
to have discovered the wireless tele-
phone, says the New York Evening
Journal. The young wizard is Samuel
r. Levenberg, the son Of a poor tailor.
who has six other children, all younger
than Samuel, and they live on the third
floor Of a crowded tenement house on
the east side Of New York.
Samuel spent two years at the Col
lege Of the City of New York until
about a year ago. Now he is employed
In the capacity of a laborer. For more
than a year he has spent the greater
part of his nights in trying to solve the
mystery of speaking owe long dis
tances without the aid of wires.
II got my first idea of electricity
at the college," said Samuel. but since
then my studies have been in private,
and l am certain l have discovered
something that will startle the world
and revolutionize the telephone system
now in use.
"How do l get my results? All, that's
my secret, and as l have no patents yet
1t would be suicidal for me to go into
details now" And the young invent
or's big black eyes shone with a light
that told of a wonderful brain above
them.
The boy began his experiments first
in a vacant lot neal his home. Then
he heightened the distance between his
points of communication to a block
and finally to five blocks right across
or through tall buildings, with the
same success. Now he has a regular
line established between the sitting
room of his home, which also serves
as his laboratory, and his fathers tai
lor shop, ON the third floor of a rear
tenement house.
Night after night, sometimes until 3
or 4 o'clock in the morning, this young
inventor is hard at work trying point
by point to perfect his discovery.
Whenever he finds something new he
awakens one of his parents Or a sister
and begs them to go to the ether end
of the invisible line. There is nothing
between the points Of communication
nothing but the earth. which he
claims is his agent for conducting the
message.
Garrett p. Serviss, the noted scien-
fist, says that young Levenberg is GER
tainly able by mean of his apparatus
to reproduce the human voice with dis
tinctness at a distance of some hun
dreds Of feet across noisy streets and
through swarming blocks Of houses.
against the wall of a room.'' says
MI. Serviss, 'hangs a small telephone
box. Wires connect 1t with a simple
battery Of about a dozen cells in an
adjoining closet. Other wires pass
downward from the box through the
d6or, and 1t occurs at nee to the in
Quisitive visitor that these may posi-
bly, form the connection with the re-
ceivfhg station two or three blocks
away.
"Buta the young inventor AYERS. that
they simply pass to the ground, where
he has buried two plates, the precise
nature and arrangement of which he
declines to reveal at present and upon
which the virtue of his wireless tele-
phone depends. In his fathers shop.
in another populous block of buildings
0 for away, is a second box on the
wall with a similar arrangement of
wires connecting with plates buried in
the ground.
"Now approach the box at either sta
ton. put the flexible hearing tube to
your ear, speak into the mouthpiecc.;
then, pressing down a lever correspond
ing with that on which the receiver is
suspended at the side of an ordinary
telephone box. listen for the response.
If the person speaking at the other end
Is one whose vocal tones are familiar
to you. you can recognize the voice
The sounds are not as loud as in a reg
ular telephone. but they are neverthe-
less clear.
"As it stands the apparatus is inter-
esting. 1t is manjfestly as yet imma-
ture, and 1t may turn out to be impor-
tant."
NOTES ON AuToMoBlLlNG.
The Automobile Club of Great Britain
has $500 names on its roll.
At Portland, Me-, the automobilists
have at last organized after prelimina