The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-06-30

there were in the United States only
nine cities of more than 10000 lnhabl-
tants. and only one of more than $1,000,
without a telephone exchange.
Vast Bell System.
The shortness of the time in which,
from these small beginnings with crude
appliances, has been developed the pres
ent Bell system with it's marvellous ply
steal plant is most strikingly empha-
sized, perhaps, by the fact that there
neers in every branch of the business;
and nearly all Of them, except Alex
ander Graham Bell, who has since
turned his attention to other fields of
investigation, have had au active share
in the great work All four of the
members of the original Bell Telephone
association are still active; Mr. DooEt-
tie, who after he made his switchboard,
discovered the process of hardening
copper so that it could be drawn into
wire for all electrical uses, and who de-
viscd the earliest form OF several of
the attachments of telephony, is one
of the general engineering force of the
Bell system: Theodore n. Vail, first
general manager of the American Bell
Telephone company, has within n few
weeks, become the head Of the Ameri-
can Telephone and Telegraph company
the successor Of the parent organization.
And the group of experts whose brains
and hands have wrought out practically
every improvement made in tcephons
in these thirty years has changed but
little as its work progressed except TO
add new members TO its number.
Early switchboards.
The early switchbosrils were curious
contraptions beside the modern type of
apparatus. They took several forms be-
Bell companies for nearly twenty years
now was worked out, AT first they had
signal bells of different tones, one at
the end Of each subscriber s circuit
the distinctive tone indicating which
line was "ringing up" Then num-
bcred drops were adopted, each line
having n metallic shutter in the front
of the board which, when the sub
scriber turned the generator crank at
the side of his telephone instrument, fell
so ms TO display the number OF his
line. And finally came the common
battery switchboard now in use in all
large cities and being adapted TO
smaller exchanges, in which tho opera
tors signal is given by tiny incan-
descent electric lamp. The one place
in the telephone system where bell
never rings Is now lnc central once
Some of the early switchhoards were
big frames set along the side of the
operating room. the connections being
made by boys who ran from one point
TO another as the calls came in. Others
were like elongated tables, the switch
sockets being set into the fiat top and
the cords for conuectlu0 them being
suspended from the ceiling. Apparatus
of this sort was clumsy and slow to
operate, besides being limited in the
number of lines it could provide for.
II was abandoned in the United States
quarter Of century ago, but il is a
curious commentary on the lack of pro
gressiveness in some directions of our
Trans. Atlantic cousins that it is still in
use in some of the ooverpment-ope-
rated exchanges of Europe. No doubt
their backwardness in adopting i'm
provements accounts for the small de-
velopment of European telephone sys,
tens as compared with the development
in this country.
Automatic Telephone System.
In the last few years there have been
devised so-calied automatic - telc