The Union daily times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1918-current, 1922-08-02
ALEXANDER BELL, TELEPHONE INVENTOR,
PASSES AT HIS HOME In NOVA SCOTIA

Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of
the telephone, died at 2 o'clock this
notIng at his estate at Baddeck
Although 10 failing health for some
time be was not confined TO his bed
and the end was unexpected,
Alexander Graham Bell lived to zee
espsr1mshts which he hegan with a
dead mans ear less than fifty years
ago result in means of communica-
eon for millions of miles of long dis
tance telephone conversations daily
in all parts of the world. The possi-
bility of talking over a wire, ridi-
culed then as a dream by almost
everybody except Bell, became during
him lifetime reality commonplace
and marvellous.
The Bell basic patent, known in the
records at Washington as No. 174,-
465 has bee called the most valuable
single patent ever issued in the whole
history Of invention. There are to-
day over thirteen million telephone
instruments through which billions
Of telephone conversations are car
ried on each year.
Means Of communication had been
o hobby IN the Bell family long before
the inventor of the telephone was
hSfas Two generations hack, Alex
ander Bell became noted for invent
ing system for overcoming stam-
nrerfng speech, while his son, Alex
ander Melville Bell, father Of the in.
ventor Of the telephone, perfected a
system Of visible speech.
With this heritage, the son, born
in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1s47, un-
dsrtook similar experiments while
still a lad He constructed an arti-
fetal skull of gutta- -perchA and In
dian rubber that would pronounce
several words in weird tone, when
blown into by hand bellows. At the
age Of 16 he became, like his father,
a teacher of elocution, and an instruc-
tor of deaf mutes.
Bell reached crisis in his life at
the age of %, when he was threaten
ed with tuberculosis. The white
plague caused the death of his two
brothers and the Bell family. migrat-
ed to Brantfcrd, Canada. !.
X A meeting mt that stime with Sir
] sEaarles Wheatstone. the ENGLISH in.
vent6r Of the telegraph, fired the
young slocutiefist with ambition to
invent a musical, or, multiple tele-
graph, which eventually turned out
to be telephone. -.
His father while giving lecture in
Boston, proudly mentioned the sons
success in teaching London deaf
mutes. This led the Boston Board
of Education to offer young Bell $500
to introduce his system in the new
ly opened school for deaf mutes. He
was then "a years old, and instantly
became the educational sensation of
the day. He was appointed a pro-
fessor in Boston University, and
opened his instantly successful
"School of Vocal Physiology"
But teaching interferred with his
:nventing, and he soon gave up all
but two pupils. One of these was
Mable Hubbard, Of wealthy family.
She had lost her hearing and speech
in an attack of scarlet fever while a
baby. 1t was she who later becama
Bell's wife.
Bell spent the following three
years in night work in cellar in
Salem, Mass. His money-needs were
met by Gardiner G. Hubbard, his fu-
ture father-in-law, and Thomas San
ders, the owner of the cellar. AS he
worked he began to see the posi-
bility of conveying speech over an
electrically charged wire-the tele-
phone. He used dead mans ear for
a transmitter.
"If I can make deaf mute talk"
Bsll had declared, 81 can make iron
talk.s'
tfis Arst success came while test
ing his instruments in his new quar-
ters in Boston. Thomas. A. Watson
Bells assistant, had struck a clock
spring at one end of the wire, and
Bell was electrified to hear the sound
in another room. For forty weeks
the instrument struggled, as it were
for human speech. Then on March
10th, 1875, Watson became almost in
sane with joy when he heard over
the wire Bells voice saying:
"Mr. Watson, come here, / want
yoa."
On his 29th birthday, Bell receiv-
ed his patent. 1t was at the Centen.
NAL Exposition held at Philadelphia
two months later, where men OF
science the world over had cone 70
examine and study the numerous in
ventions exhibited, saw Prof. Bell
give ap rsctical demonstration Of the
transmission of the human voice by
electricity.
AS for Bell himself, he had no,
planned to attend the centennial al
all. He was poor and he had reo~.
ganized his classes in voca, speech
Toward the end of June he went to