The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-06-12

had paid an examiner of the patent Of
flee 500 to illegally secure my patent
having stolen the idea from prior
claims and a mark was made on the
hall moor of the Interior Department
where 1t was said the clerk stood when
he made the alleged bargain with me.
This story seems all the more ridicu-
lous now when I remember how scarce
500 bills were with me in those days
why the Story of the Invention Was
Not Told.
How could you reply to such at
tacks?" ! asked.
That was one of the worst features
of the trouble" said DR.. Bell. Il was
instructed by my lawyers not to say
anything about my invention, to bear
all such attacks without comment. and
to let the battle of it's originality be
fought out in the courts. The result IL
that / have never told the story OF the
telephone and Its invention. The last
time / made any public utterance on
the subject was in lecture ] deiiv-
cred in London in 1877. now more than
twenty-six years ago."
But, will you not write II some
dayr' 1 asked.
Possibly SHALL" said DR.. Bell, hut
not until my life reaches Its reminis-
cent stage. ] am now so much occu-
pied with the present and the POSSIBLE
tiles of the future that the past seems
far behind me-"
The Telephone of the Future.
Has the telephone reached Its per-
fection?.
"By no means" was the reply. 1T
is still in it's infancy as an instrument
for the transmission of sound and in
aa NF ia Ita hnaineSS
and mechanical arrangements are still
clumsy and unwieldy. The telephone
industry is one of the few which cost
more to handle at wholesale than at
retail What I mean 10 that Il now
costs enormously more In proportion
to run a large telephone business than
small one. Suppose you are one OF
one hundred families connected with
a telephone exchange. You and each
of the rest will each have ninety-nine
other families to talk with, and 1t will
require certain number Of operators
to conduct your conversations, Now.
suppose the patrons of the exchange be
doubled. Each family will now have.
instead of ninety-nine families. one
hundred and ninety-nine to talk to,
and the possible number OF converse
tions OF every one in the exchange has
been multiplied, not py two, but by one
hundred; for every one has one hun
bred families more to talk to. This
requires a proportionate number of
new operators. and makes the big bus
mess very expensive, necessitating the
finest machinery at the exchanges. A
single switchboard for instance in the
central office of New York costs $751;
000.'
An Automatic Telephone Service.
Tn the improvement of the tele-
phone" continued DIR. Bell, in the
telephone of the future look for all
this business to be done automatically.
Instead OF a single wire there will be
little cable of wires connecting each
house with the central exchange; and
IL will be possible for ten wires to do
the work that a thousand do now,
There may be a system by which the
subscriber can move certain buttons
and call up whom he pleases. The
calls will be automatic, causing the
idle wires among those In the cable TO
automatically come into use, and when
the. conversation is over the disconnec-
ton will be automatically made. If
this can be accomplished 1t will do
away with the vast army of telephone
operators and SO reduce the expense
that the poorest man cannot afford to
be without his telephone"
Will SOunu IEdnSullSSiOu uo ~Aeo
| improved?"
yes; we now have the wire loaded
with several unnecessary processes or
attachments. These will be gradually
eliminated and each wire will have
but one work to de, and 1t will do its
work better"
How about telephoning without
wires?"
"I think that will come some day.
replied DIR. Bell. Indeed, have
done such telephonilg. Through my
invention of the photophone have al
so been able to send sounds upon rays
of light. The sound-carrying meuIum
| is of the same nature as the electrical
medium, and 1t may be that we shall
some day send sounds through the air
with the rapidity of light transmission.
You know what Is being done in wire
less telegraphy. Some day we may
have wireless telephony as we'll"
Great Inventions of the Future.
Then you evidently think we have
not come to the end of the inventive
age?"
NO Indeed, it is dificult to say
how near we are to its beginning We
are discovering new forces and new
principles every day. We did much in
| the nineteenth century but here at the
| OdWil VI LiiC NWChNiCeAA, We he~NO III NfA
tirely new field opened up by the dis
covery of radium, and that discovery
| the work of a woman. We have sew
| eral new forces--so new that we do
not yet know what they are nor how
they may change the life and work
of the world. We have radium. hell
UNI, thorium and other wonderful
things. BY liquid air we have frozen
some of these rays into a liquid. and
have, as IT were. bottled up the rays
of the sun, and also of these powerful
and, until now, altogether unknown
forces. Indeed. we are daily more and
more surprised at how little we know
and we cannot but think that thS
greatest treasures OF nature are yet to
be discovered"
Aerial Navigation.
How about the air and its naviga