The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1904-06-26
.HURRY|NG WORDS
FOR MANY NILES
Long Distance Telephone is
Most Wonderful Invention
MESSAGES TRAVEL FAST
It Takes But Fraction of Second
for Word "Helo" to Travel
From New York TO
ST. Louis.

telephone the man with whom you talk,
be he fifty or one hundred, or one thous
/ and miles away, hears the sound of your
voice before your stenographer who sits
across the room can hear it? 1t is is per-
maps the nearest approach to the quick
ness of thought, this for 1t takes the
sound of speech as it leaves your lips
and carries 1t on electrical impulses
thousand miles In less than hundredth
part of a second.
And what does this journey of thou
sand miles involve? What are the cleo
trical waves about while the sound waves
are making their way to the other side
of the room? Suppose, for example, a
business man in his office on the TWEEN
tenth floor of a New York sky-scraper
talks with the manager of his exhibit at
the st. Louis fair. Fitting the receiver
from Its hook when the long distance
operator at Central tells him st
Louis is all ready he says: Hello"
Through the little silk-coyered wires
That trail from his telephone to the wall
opposite MS desk, up to the moulding
above the window, around two sides of
the room, the little words goes into the
office switchboard. From there il sour
ries under the floor into the hallway and
joins probably twenty other wires in
cable that climbs down the elevator shaft.
picking up ten or twenty more connec-
lions at each floor In its progress. pass
ing from the basement through the wall to
become part of a large iead-covered cable
In conduct under the street
Travel Not So Easy.
Here travel is not so easy as IT was
in the building, for 1900 wires, each in Its
little covering of insulated air-lined paper,
are wrapped together In the cable and
many influences from outside combine to
impede the progress of the message.
But one after another they are overcome
ana In perhaps the en-millionth part of
second the Hello" has entered the
telephone Central" Here It encounters
more impedments among the lightning
arrests which stand guard over the
switchboard and the other intricate appa-
ratus that surrounds the marvelously de-
llcate mechanism telephony employs for
bringing together its sensitive filaments.
But these obstacles are overcome and
through the main switchboard it darts
to the long distance switchboard in an
other part of the building Another
downward leap and 1t Is once more hur-
rying through the cable beneath a busy
street. In its path to the westward lies
the Hudson. but snugly wrapped in the
cable 1t dives below the clustering river
trafnc and finally comes out again to the
light of day In Jersey City where. for the
first time 1t Is brought up through the
pavement and suspended from the cross
arms of huge poles.
Now its journey becomes easier, for
the copper thread hung in mid-air offers
less resistance to the passage Of the mes
sage than do the crowded confines of the
many wired conduit. Indeed such diff
ference does this make that whenever IT
approaches large city long distance
telephone line passes around the denseiy
populated sections so that 1t may stay
above ground little switch station be-
ing provided to accommodate 1t. But
at each station 1t must pass through the
switchboard with its lightning arresters
and other paraphernalia.
Down over the New Jersey meadows
and pine lands the little word Hello"
hurries to ascend the Alleghanles Then
1t shoots down again to dart across the
farm lands and mining regions of eastern
Pennsylvania, past Pittsburg with it's
furnaces and foundries and over a cor
ner of West Virginia on the banks of
the Ohio 1t resorts to another cable
emerging on the further shore In the
pleasant countryside of Ohio and In
diana and journeying on over the undulat-
ing Prairie State along roads which wind
through great corn and wheat fields
Now its flight is nearly over, but the
mighty Mississippi still lies between II
and its destination. 1t crosses the river
on one OF wires strung on a great bridge
Then there Is plunge into a city con-
duit rush into the st. Louis Central
out and underneath the streets again, up
once more to the aerial line and Into
the fair grounds where, sitting at his
desk in the exhibit booth. the manager
sends back his answering Hello" before
the stenographer in the New York office
has time to ask. did you get hlm?"
1t has all taken but a hundredth part of
second-an infinitesimal fraction of the
time required for the conductors warning
cry of "Al aboard" to reach the hur-
rying people taking the express train
which, travelling as fast as human ingen-
uity can make II. spends twenty-nine
hours on Its way from New York to the
city of the exposition.
Impulse Is SIiqht.
The word which made its thousand
mile journey in less than the hunderdth
part of second was given at the start
an impulse SO slight that scientists long
sought in vain for device which would
detect and measure the very weak cleo
trical current in the wires The word
as 1t hurries westward receives no other
impetus. Repeating devices are included
In telegraph lines, but the word spoken
into the telephone must make it's jour-
ney unaided after II has received at the
beginning the impulse which is so small
that it cannot be detected. But that in
itial impulse will carry the word many
one of the greatest of the wonders of
telephony.
To the layman who never stops to
think of it particularly, getting a long
distance call for subscriber may seem
just as simple process for the COM
pany as making local connection; but
after following the New Workers. con-
versation to st. Louis he can understand
that 1t Is not an entirely simple matter.
III two copper wires were strung side by
side without a break between the two
cities and 1t were possible to telephone
directly over them II would be less diff
cult. As matter of fact. however, the
message passes over five distinct cir
cults between the transmitter in the
east and the receiver In the west-flve
circuits arranged in tandem, as the Bell
people say The circuits are united. like
INKS In chain. at switching stations
just outside the cities of Pittsburr, CO.
lumbus Indianapolis and Terre Haute.
Each switching station has its swith-
board and other apparatus through which
the message must make it's way, but these