Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1910-10-05

ser1ally In Everybody'S with instant
recognition. In the new story Mr..
Beach is said to do for the Caribbean
what "The Spoilers" did for Bering
sea in depicting the life and activities
of an American outpost. 1t is plot
romance Of the Panama canal, full of
dramatic movement and power.
The Mystery of the TeIephone.-In
THE History of the Telephone
out through A c. McClurg & Co, the
author has succeeded admirably in
conveying the sheer wonder of the
thing to the reader who may never
have given the telephone much
thought before. Here is Mr.. Casson's
summary of the telephones develop
ment up to date, which follows his de-
tailed story of how that development
took place:
Here is a tiny disc of sheet iron.
1 speak-t shudders. 1t has a diff
ferent shudder for every sound. 1t
has thousands of millions of different
shudders. There is a second disc
many miles away, perhaps $500 miles
away Between the two discs runs
copper wire. AS l speak, a thrill OF
electricity fits along the wire. This
thrill is moulded by the shudder OF
the disc. 1t makes the second disc
shudder And the shudder of the sec
ond disc reproduces my voice. This is
what happens But how-not all the
scientists of the world can tell. The
telephone current is a phenomenon of
the ether say the theorists. But what
is ether? No one knows Sir Oliver
Lodge has guessed that it is perhaps
the only substantial thing in the ma
terial universe but no one knows.
There is nothing to guide~us in that
unknown country except signpost
that points upwards and bears the one
word-''Perhaps." The ether of space!
Here Is an EldoradO for the scientists
of the future, and whoever can first
map it out will go far toward discov-
ering the secret of telephony. Some
day-who kncws?-there may come
the poetry and grand opera of the tel
ephone. Artists may come who will
portray the marvel Of the wires that
culver with electrified words, and the
romance Of the switchboards that
tremble with the secrets of a great
city. Already Puvis de Chavannes, by
one of his superb panels in the Bos-
ton library, had admitted the tele-
phone and telegraph to the world of
art He has embodied them as two
flying figures, poised above the electric
wires, and with the following inscrip-
ton underneath: BY the wondrous
agency of electricity, speech flashes
through space and swift as lightning
bears tidings of good and evil
But these random guesses as to the
future of the telephone may fall far
short of what the reality will be. In
these dazzling days it is idle to pre-
dict The inventor has everywhere
put the prophet out of business. Fact
has outrun fancy. When Morse, for
instance, was lacking up his first little
line of wire around the Speedwell Iron
works. who could have foreseen $780,
600 miles of submarine cables, by
which the very oceans are all a-quiver
with the news of the world? When
Fulton's tiny tea-kettle of boat
steamed UP the Hudson to Albany in
two days, who could have foreseen the
steel leviathans, one-sixth of mile in
length, that can in the same time cut
the Atlantic ocean In halves And
when Bell stood in a dingy workshop
in Boston and heard the clang of a
clock spring come over an electric
wire, who could have foreseen the
massive structure of the Bell system,
built up by half the telephones of the
world, and by the investment of more
actual capital than has gone to the
making Of any other industrial associ-
alton Who could have foreseen what
the telephone bells have done to ring
out the old ways and to ring in the
new; to ring out delay and isolation
and to ring in the efficiency and the
friendliness of truly united people?"
The book is worth reading.