The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1922-08-02

BADDECk, Nova Scotia, Aug, q
alexander Graham Bell, inventor of
the telephone and one Of the countrv's
most distinguished scientists, diI
here today at the age of IS.
Alexander Graham Bell was born in
Edinburgh, Scotland, March 3, 1S47.
He was graduated from several Euro
pean universities and came to Canada
in 1870. leaving there and settling in
Boston one year later.
He concentrated his energies on his
work on the telephone while a profes-
scr at Boston university and received
a patent for the telephone in 1876.
Bell also invented a phonograph in
conjunction with C. A. Bell and Sum
ner Taintor The invention of the
photophone, induction balance and
telephone probe for the detection of
bullets il the human body are also ac-
credited 10 the scientist.
Bell was well known for his efforts
to aid the deaf He was founder Of
the American Association for the
Teaching OF Speech TO th5 Deaf and
contributed a quarter of a million dol
lars to the cause.
The scientist was the recipient of
many honors from universities all over
the world
The governments of France, Eng
land, Belgium and other countries dec
Grated him in recognition of his
achievements
In 1914 he was honored with the Edi-
son Scientific medal Bell was a fire.
auent contributor to scientific publica-
tions.
Alexander Graham Bell lived to see
experiments which he began with
deaf mans ear less than fifty years
ago result in a means of communica-
tion for millions of long distance tele-
phone conversations daily in all parts
os the world The possibility of talk
ing over wire, ridiculed then as a
dream by almost everybody except
Bell, became during his lifetime real
ity, commonplace and marvellous.
The Bell basic patent, known in the
records at Washington as No. 17,446
has been called the most valuable single
patent ever issued in the history of
invention There are today more than
13,000, 900. tele phi one instruments
through which billions Of telephone
conversations are carried on each year.
Means of communication had been
a hobby in the Bell family long be-
fore the inventor of the telephone WAS
born. Two generations back, Alexan-
der Bell became noted for inventins
a system for overcoming stammering
speech. while his son, Alexander Mel
vile Bell, father of the inventor OF
the telephone, perfected system OF
visible speech.
With this heritage. the son, born
in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1S47 un-
dertook similar experiments while
still a lad He constructed an arti-
fetal skull of gutta-percha and India
rubber that would pronounce several
words in weird tones, when blown
into by a hand bellows At the age
of sixteen he became, like his father
a teacher of elocution and an instruct
or of deaf mutes.
"If l can make a deaf mute talk,
Bell had said. 81 can make iron talk. y
His first 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 40 weeks the
instrument struggled, as it were, fol
human speech. Then on March 10
1876. Watson became almost insane
with 10y when he heard over the wire
Bells voice saying:
"Mr Watson, come here; wan
you"
On his -29th birthday Bell received
his patent 1t was at the centennla
exposition at Philadelphia two months
later, where men of science the worit
over who had come to examine anG
study the numerous inventions exhlb
tied. saw Professor Bell give a prac
tical demonstration of the transmits
sion of the human voice by electricity
DIR Bells laboratories have been
/ since 1886. near Baddeck, Cape Bre
ton. There for many years he con
Quoted research and experiment Il
aerial locomotion and other sclentifi'
subjects and maintained his private
museum showing the development Q
his greatest inventions. He encourag
ed Samuel P. Langley to invent thu
first flying machine and said after wit
Messing its flight at Quantico, Va, il
1896. that the age of the airplane wa
AZ hand. although Langley's machin'
was destroyed.
In the World war DR.. Bell and F. "
Baldwin invented a boat called
hydrodrome which developed a spec
of 20 miles an hour and was termet
the bastest in the world. 1t used a.
airplane propeller and carried beneau
IL a series of planes which lifted it
main body above the water as its spec
increased 1t was intended for sui
marine chasing and scouting. but tn
armistiee prevented its use for thos
purposes.