The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1915-01-30
~TELEPHON|NG FROM
ATLANTIC TO PACIFIC
A. G. Bell, Original Inventor, Talka
Across Country
Watson, His Early Assistant, at
Other End

NEW YORK, January - yes
terday afternoon in an office within sight
of the Statue of Liberty. DIR. Alexander
Graham Bell. the inventor of the tele-
phone. talked over a line, the route of
which is 3,400 miles long, to Thomas A.
Watson, in San Francisco. This is the
first time in history that the voice of
man has leaped in a single bound from
the Atlantic to the Pacific. and yester-
days conversation between DR.. Bell and
Mr.. Watson repeats one of the most
thrilling incidents of scientific history.
Mr.. Watson was Bells assistant dur
ing the long, trying months of his early
experiments, and he 1t was who first
heard the sound of a human voice over
a wire when, in the basement of a
machine shop in Boston, forty years ago,
he heard the first crude instrument shape
the words. Mr.. Watson. come here, l
want you," spoken by Bell from a room
above.
Alloy. Ahoyi Can you hear me?"
asked DR.. Bell, to-day, and instantly
there was a murmur in the receiver
audible to everyone in the room. Out
in San Francisco in the offices of the
Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Com
pany, Thomas A. Watson had heard the
voice of his old-time associate signalling
in the manner they had employed in
their earliest experiments, and had
answered: 81 can hear perfectly"
Colonel Goethals has made it possible
for a ship to pass from the Atlantic to
the Pacific in eight hours; DR.. Bells
voice yesterday leaped across the wires
from New York to San Francisco in
1-15th of a second. In these days of
Zeppelins and aeroplanes and 42-centi.
meter guns and submarines, the aver
age American has come to accept each
new wonder as a matter of course. 1t is
the American way of doing things. We
have used the telephone for forty years,
and the average American says: IF
can talk a hundred miles over a tele-
phone, why not three thousand" And
so, for years a corps. of more than $50
engineers and scientists in the Bell
Organization nave bent every energy
toward the means of protecting and
helping onward the tiny voice impulses
as they gave reached out, mile after
mile, to greater and greater distances.
In 1876 the limit was two miles. from
Boston to Cambridge, and one had to
have pretty sharp ears and a pretty
SCC0 ~ u IACNf 49, 1'fF 1851 49,
New York linked; then the 900 miles to
Chicago were bridged in 90. One after
the other came Omaha, Denver and salt
Lake City. Yesterday the oceans were
linked by a great talk canal over whose
copper strands Bell and a hundred OFF,
cials and business men who attended the
celebration sent their voices in electrical
waves, at the rate of 1000 per second.
from coast to coast.
The celebration was held in the office
of Theodore N. Vail, President of the
American Telephone & Telegraph Com
pany at the New York end, and in an
office of the Pacific Telephone & TeIe-
graph Company, at San Francisco. Be-
tween these two points 100. 900 special
poles have been erected, carrying two
complete circuits of four wires, each
3,400 miles in length. At frequent in
tervals along this line special coils were
introduced to strengthen and hold the
tiny current, and almost countless in
ventions and tricks of the telephone
scientists skill have been used to make
the transmission perfect.
At New York. the men who witnessed
the demonstration included Mayor
Mitchell, other city and state officials, a
number of prominent business men; ].
]. Carly. the Alief Engineer of the
American Telephone & Telegraph Com
pany, who has directed the entire work
of planning, building and opening the
line; Thomas B. Doolittle. who first in
vented what is known as "hard-drawn
copper wire and many other telephone
officials, while a small group gathered in
San Francisco.
In New York the time was about 5
o'clock, while in San Francisco, by rea-
son of the longitudinal difference be-
tween the two points, the time was
about 2 o'clock.
Adding to the marvel of the talk itself,
Theodore N. Vail, the President of the
company, was connected to the line from
Jekyll Island, off the coast of Florida.
When it was found that Mr.. Vail could
not be in New York. this additional line
was arranged so that both he and DR..
Bell, together with other telephone and
civic officials. could talk across the
country.
At the White House President Wilson
spoke into the m~outhpiece of his tele-
phone and his voice was whirled across
thirteen States to the shores of the
Pacific.
From New York the new line sweeps
first to the outskirts of Philadel-
phia, leaps across the Susquehanna, zig
up and down the Alleghenies. dips
the murk of Pittsburgh. goes
on through Ohio and Indiana to
the windy City of Chicago. then ira
verses the plains, crossing Missouri at
Omaha, and then it runs along the very
brink of the Grand Canyon and up over
the spow-capped peaks of Pueblo and
the lofty City of Denver; then it turns
northwest to Salt Lake City and dips
down through the foothills of the Rock
past the orange orchards of Cali
fornia and finally crosses the Saera-
mento River to San Francisco. From
the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate,
at the rate of SO, 900 miles a second
less than the wink of an eye.
Shortly before . O'clock a hush fell
upon the group of about one hundred
men at each end of the line and Mr..
Vail. in a room on Jekyll Island, near
Jacksonville, Florida, was told that all
was ready. 1t was DIR, Belts hour of
but it was no less a triumph
for the engineers and scientists grouped
round him, for it was these who