The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-09-26
Pres. to The Evening T,me.

Boston. Sept. 26.-For the pas
three months telephone messages hav.
been flashing from above the clouds
which girdle Mount Washington II
New Hampshire to points within q
radius of 500 miles. During the sum.
mer a pay station was opened in the
hotel at the summit of the famous
peak, and now the traveller may take
the receiver in hand and send word
to the folks at home-even though
they he as far away as New York or
WashingtOn-tha he Is safe and sound
though perhaps rather short of breath
Business has been transacted over the
line with people in Boston, Il little more
than 1000 miles away. and as a mat
ter of record it is interesting to note
that the first words spoken over the
new line Travelled in a small fraction
OF second To Burlington. Vermont.
where they were heard in the home Of
Mr.. j. X. Butler. superintendent Of
the northern division of the New Eng
land Telephone and telegraph COM
pany.
The opening of telephone liue tc
the summit OF Mount Washington re-
calls an interesting bit of history con-
nected with the early development OF
DIR. Bells invention. There was Il teie-
phone on Mount Washington at a time
when only a few cities We're provided
with telephone service. Back IN 1873
or 1879 the United States weather
bureau maintained a station ON Mount
Washington during the winter months.
The signal corps had Il telegraph cable
laid on the railroad rack from the
summit to the base OF the mountain.
connecting ut the latter place with the
Western Union line. The cable was
about three miles in length The rail-
road company employed = Waterman
during the winter months to care for
their rolling stock, and this man lived
in a log cabin at the foot of the noun
tain. The observers. isolated at the
storm-swept summit. tried to teach tic
Waterman the Morse code that they
might talk with him. but he did rot
succeed to mastering telegraphy.
Then the ingeniuS weather men
procured two telephones. Mr.. D. G.
Murphy, a veteran in the service, now
stationed at PASSPORT, Maine, describes
these talking instruments as being of
the old-fashioned crab shaped ar
rangement, which served as both trans
mitter an dreceiver. While the watch
man did not become an expert at mani
pulating the telephone key, he learned
to make the mineral five. When his
signal was heard by the men above the
clouds they acknowledged it by max
ing the same mineral three times with
the key. and then. hooking on the tele-
phone to the cable wire, they were
able to talk with the man three miles
below them. who. among other things,
kept them informed of the news of the
great world by reading to them
snatches from the newspapers. This
happened within three years after the
invention OF the telephone. And it
was one of the first and most forcible
demonstrations OF the fact that the
telephone can be used by anybody who
can talk and in any place where an
instrument is obtainable.
The government abandoned the sig
nal station on Mount Washington, and
it was not until three years ago that
telephone communication was re-es-
tablished, a line then being extended
from Fabyans to the summit for use
in the operation of the railroad which
scales the mountain side. From the
Fabyan house to the foot of the noun
tain, distance of some six miles, the
line is an ordinary one stretched on
regulation poles. From the base of
the mountain to the top heavily in
sulated wires are stretched along the
railroad structure. This year, to con-
meet the Summit house with the gen.
eral telephone system, the Bell men
placed an additional instrument in
pay station in the hotel above the
clouds and connected this instrument
with the switchboard at Fabyans.
1t is through this switchboard that
connections are made when visitors to
tho mountain talk to their friends
many miles away. either because they