The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-03-18

Bells voice. Faintiy, yet distinctly, these words came over the wire to him;
 Mir. Watson, come here. ] want you.r That was the first message ever de- iivered by telephone. Though informal. 1t was decisive. It lifted telephony high out of the realm of theory and ex- pertinent Into that of practical realities.
 Mir. Bell and Mr. watson first met In 1874. At that time Mir. Bell was pro- lessor Of vocal physiology at Boston University. and Mir. Watson was a young workman in the shop of a maker of electrical apparatus at 10s Court Street, in this city. Mir. Bell visited
 the shop to have made for him some apparatus required In his experiments with multiple telegraphy, or the idea of
 transmitting several telegraph nnes- sages simultaneously without interfer- ence with one another; and the work of constructing this apparatus was as- signed to Mir. Watson. That is how the two men made the acquaintance of
 each other.
 Bell one day confded to Watson his
 belief that it was possible to devise apparatus by means of which the most complex sound vibrations, even those of the human voice, could be transformed into electrical vibrations at one end of telegraph wire, transmitted over the wire, and be changed back at the other end of the wire into the original sounds without loss of their most delicate over tones. In brief. his belief was that a telegraph instrument, that would talk could be devised. z
 It was on June 2. 1875, while they were engaged In experimenting with the multiple or harmonic" telegraph, that the accident happened which con vinced Bell that his idea of telephony was capable of realization. Mir. Bell was engaged in returning one of the springs of the receiver in his room, and to ascertain if the pitch was correct, he had pressed 1t against his ear and was listening to the faint sound of the intermittent current passing through the magnet. All at once the spring of the receiver in the other room stopped vibrating, and, to start it. MT. Watson snapped it with his finger. With a shout of excitement MT. Bell came rushing out and asked what had been done. MT. Watson explained. Do 1t again." said Bell, and Watson spent the rest of the day snapping springs
 This Is what had happened. The spring that Mir. Watson had snapped had become permanently magnetized by long use near it's magnet, and eonse- auently was in condition to generate by its vibration the undulatory electric current which forms the basic principle of telephony Bell had heard, not a mere rattle, but the exact sound made by the spring as it vibrated. and now he realized that it was practical to transmit and reproduce other sounds in the same fashion. Such an undulatory current had undoubtedly been Sener- ated many times before, but, as Mir. Watson says. never before had it reached the ear of man whose mind had been prepared 3y years of thought and training to perceive instantly what it means. The accident simply con- firmed and corroborated Bells precons eeived idea. just as the falling of an apple conuerted Newton. idea of gray itatio1 Into a law.
 After this Bells interest in multiple telegraphy gave way to his enthusiasm over his idea of telephony. He and Watson hired rooms in Exeter Place; and there they worked until the tele- phone became an accomplished fact.
 Three months after the first message had been delivered by telephone Bell exhibited his ir ention at the Centen- nial in Philadelphia. It made a great impression on the scientists who vis- ited the exposition Sir William Thom- son (now Lord Kelvin) reported: T need hardly say that I was astonished and delighted. So were the others, in- cluding some other judges of our group. who witnessed the experiment and vert- fled with their own ears the electric of speech. This, perhaps the greatest marvel hitherto achieved by the electric telegraph, has been ob tained by appliances of quite a home spun rudimentary kind"
 The first telephone was, indeed, a rude affair compared with the compact and convenient apparatus that now adays stands on the business mans | desk. but, appearances aside, it was The question In the minds of the two young men who were at work perfecting 1t was how far 1t could | carry sound, Finally in October, 1878, i they decided to make their first experi- 1 nent in long distance" telephony. Pre- vious to that time they had been tele- ,honing only from one room 10 an | other in their apartment in Exeter Place. Now they arranged for the use | of private telegraph line belonging | 10 the Walworth Manufacturing Com oany. The line ran from the companys | office in Boston to the factory in Cam bridgeport. distance of about two miles.
 On the eve 1Ir. Bell | .ook charge on and | Mr. Watson lrt sta