The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-11-27

Boston. Nov. 24.-There have just come to light in this city two tele- pbones of an historicaI' character. one is an instrument which the inventor Alexander Graham Bell, himself gave to some young telephone enthuslasso in Cambridge, Mass, and the other IS an instrument made in 1878, and stamp ed with the inscription, Bell Telephohe Co, Mfrs, 109 Court St. 6ostoh: %o one of the first telephones made TOT publjc use In those days as at pres ent. each telephone was numbered. NOW tha number found at the top Of the fransmitter generally ruEs into seven figures. for, according to the latest or- flcial estimate the Bell subscribers have nearly reached the three milIlch mark Telephone instruments connect ed with the system are in use In more than 10000 cities. towns and villages in the United States, and about 5,O0O'- 00O. 900 messages annually flash over the telephone lines. In the early days of the telephone each instrument was marked alphabetically. thousand in- struments or thereabouts, to each let ter. This places the instrument marked D623 among the first made by the orig inal Bell Company, which was organ ibed in July 1878, and became the Ma
 
 March of the following year.
 The older of these two neW-found 1n- gtruments has an interesting history. It was one of series used by Pro- lessor Bell ard his associates in the ex- perirnental days of the telephone, prop ably some time in 1877, during the ex- istence of the Bell Telephone Associa- tion. For after the young teacher or vocal physiology had exhibited his in- vention at the Centennial and had been encouraged by World-famous scientists to believe that he had produced one or the greatest of utilities, he and his father-in-Iaw, Gardner Green Hubbard of Cambridge, his own associate Tn laboratory work, Thomas A. Watson, young electrician, and Thomas Sanders, an enthusiastic admirer living in Sa- lem, Mass, formed the Bell Telephone Association. This was for the purpose of protecting and improving the new invention, and consequently the asso- citation was not capitalized certain members provided funds for experiment tai work and in the course of this work the second or older of these two m struments was made, only to be dis carded.
 Incidentally, it may be said that Pro lessor Bell had at his command the advice of another expert in the trans mission of sounds, Professor Clarence John Blake, the distinguished biologist of the Harvard Medical School Who' together with Mir. Watson, the expert electrician, had much to do with tn mechanical formation of the hrst teIe- phone offered to the public.
 About this time, in Cambridge, where Professor Bell resided, there was lt- He company of school boys who were In the habit of telegraphing to one an- other over their own private line Ma turally enough they took an interest Tn she new invention which has then be- s,,nnino to he the subject of consider shIe comment, and believing 1t to be ar imnrovement upon the old-fash- toned method of telephoning by means of a string and two tomato cans, they nov-liIke. showed their enthusiasm and ternnerity-by changing over thelI telegraph line to a telephone line ana appeaIing to headquarters for assist ance. In response 10 thelr appeSi, tne kind professor gave them several teIe- Dhones that had been used in his carry exneriments One of these instruments ts bas inst been brought out Of it's resting place by it's possessor' ,,,- ,.,
 yrne primitive instrument, ike us srnnediate successor, the telephone pu, out the following year by the nrst pen pen company, in general resembles tne re ceiver now In use. The chief direrence hetween the two instruments Is thai the older weighs less than half as much as the other, the proportion being hVe Sunces to eleven; 1t has two copper threads instead of the two olndlhs posts, adopted later as a means or at faching the subscribers line, and tht general construction is lighter ahc weaker But in essentials the two TIT struments are identical.
 Tn fact. so far as working princlples ana fundamentals are concerned there ia no difference between either one or these instruments and the receiver ol today. The two instruments now brought to light after the lapse ol almost third of a century, when com Dared with the receiver that hangs a tbe side of every transmitter at tho present time. are seen to be strlKlnt illustrations of the remark Lord kelVlr made when he first saw Bells inven tion, thirty years ago, that 1t was com plete" New light is also thrown upo' the words written not long ago by al electrical expert: wv nile the tele nbone was an invention of radical nov city, made without the assistance O precedents to govern its assemblage vet it's degree of perfection Is such tha 1t has escaped Improvements, and | today in its entirety as produced b! pr. Alexander Graham Bell"
 With the instruments presented b! Professor Bell the CdmDrldge poys half A dozen In number, talked to on' another every day. They had alto Rether a mile and half of line, and telegraph wire was too heavy, not t say too expensive, they made use O stove pipe wire, that being the chca1ea they could find. The line crossed tn estate of LOT gfelloE, on Brattle Street and the argument that secured tn poets consent to this part of the enter price was that the wire would be al most invisible. The boys were so prou of their work that they organized a the Stove Pipe Wire Telephone Com pany. It is worth recording that tn president of the company, whose hom served as a kind of central exchange adopted telephony as a profession, an is now prominently connected with tn American Telephone and Telegrap Company.
 The instrument made in 1878 an
 rented to subscribers of thes first Bel company, in Boston, differs from tn
 present receiver only in the form am
 substance of the casing The earlie
 instrument was cased in mahogany and weighed altogether eleven ounces
 The receiver used today is cased in
 rubber composition, vulcanite, am
 weighs some fifteen ounces. Even tn