The mirror., 1919-04-17
OSSIBLY there is not a
man, woman or child in
this great country of

uFSSGk man, woman or child in
HY30EA2N this great country of
EG &D ours, or the greater part
of the civilized world, who has not
either seen or heard of the tele-
phone. Certainly it would be hard
to conceive otherwise, and it would
be but a commentary upon the in
telligence of those present to state
it's uses, value and other achieve
ments. We all know that it is a
most wonderful instrument and a
marvellous success, and it occurred
to me to show what struggles, pri-
vations and disappointments were
incurred in order to bring it to its
present state of perfection.
Not many months ago we're gath
cred in a room in Washington, d.
c., a group of men who all but
observed the waves of the Pacific
ocean dash themselves against the
cliffs of the California coast. With
the roar of the sea distinctly audi
BILE, came the strains of music
eminating from the celebrated
Cliff House orchestra, and this
three thousand miles away. This
was accomplished through the tele-
phone; and the cry is a far one
from the initial advent of Alexan-
der Graham Bells first crude but
practical invention to the wonder
full voice and sound transmitting
instrument now installed in prac-
tically every civilized country in
the world.
Edinburgh, Scotland, claims the
distinction of being the birthplace
of Alexander Graham Bell. When
he had attained his majority he
adopted as his vocation instruction
of elocution and, while so engaged,
made several discoveries as to the
nature of vowel sounds.
In the course of his career he
met in London, England, several
distinguished personages, Alexan-
der j. Ellis and Sir Charles Wheat
stone, who did far more than they
ever knew to forward Bell in the
direction of his invention of the
telephone. In the course of their
companionship young Bell in
formed Ellis of his experiments
and he was told that Helmholtz
had experimental in a like manner
years before, only more thorough
ly, explaining how he kept tuning
forks in vibration by the power of
electric magnets and blended the
tones of several tuning forks to-
gether to produce the complex
quality of the human voice. Mes
sage carrying or the telephone was
entirely removed from Helmholtz's
mind; his purpose was to point out
the physical basis of music, moth
ing more, but inasmuch as the idea
was new to Bell, it appealed to
him strongly. If a tuning fork
could be made to sing by magnet
on an electrified wire, why would
it not be possible to make a mu-
sical telegraph, a telegraph with a
keyboard, so that many messages
could be sent at once over a
single wire.
Unknown to Bell there were at
the time several inventors at work
on this problem, which proved in
the end to be very elusive, but it
was a starting point, and then and
there his quest of the telephone
had it's beginning.
At that time Sir Charles Wheat
stone was the best known expert
on telegraphy. and Bell, who at
this time had attained the age of
%, was constant seeker after
knowledge from Wheatstone, who
being 81 years of age, formed a
great regard for young Bell and
impaired valuable scientific facts
which were later used in his ex-
periments. These experiments
were abruptly brought to a stand