New-York tribune., 1922-08-03
Bell, Inventor
OF Telephone,
Dies Suddenly
Although Health Had Been
Failing End Was Unex-
pected; Wife at Side
When He Passes Away
Just Past 75th Year
Story of His Success i'm Send
ing Human Voice Over
Wires Reads LikeRomance

SYDNEY, N. s., Aug. 2--Dr. Alex
ander Graham Bell. inventor Of the
telephone, died at o'clock this morn
ing at Benin Breagh, his estate near
Baddeca
Although the inventor had been in
falling health for several months, he
Rad not been confined to bed and the
end was unexpected, Late yesterday
afternoon, however, his condition be-
came serious and DR.. Ker, Of Wash
ineton. cousin Of Mrs. Bell, house
guest, and q Sydney physician attend
ed him. His death was attributed to
progressive anaemia. He was seventy
FIVE years old
With DR.. Bell when he died were
Mrs. Bell; daugnter, Mrs Marian
Hubbard Fairchild, and her husband,
David G. Fairchld, Of Washington. The
inventor leaves another daughter, Mrs.
Elise NJ. Grosvenor, wife of Gilbert II.
Grosvenor, Washington magazine
editor. who is with her husband in
Brazil.
DR.. Bell will be buried on top of Mt.
Benin Breagh, spot chosen by him
self
WASHINGTON, Aug. News of the
death of Dr.. Alexander Graham Bell
at his summer place at Baddeck, N.
S. came as a shock to the scientists
many friends and associates in Wash
ington.
Officials of the National Geograph-
Ic Society, in which DR.. Bell was
prominent, received word of his death
in private advices from Baddeck,
President Harding in a message of
coincidence to Mrs. Bell said;
"The announcement of your eminent
husbands death comes as great shock
to ME. In common with all his coun-
trymen, | mad learned to revere him
as one OF TIE great benefactors of the
race and among the foremost Ameri-
mourned and honored by humankind
everywhere as one who served it great
ly, untiriugly and unseltishly."
President Thayer of the American
Telephone and Telegraph Company, on
hearing of Mr.. Bells death, ordered all
subsidiary corporations of the Bell sys
tenn throughout the United States to
half-mast flags on their buildings.
Alexander Graham Bell was the son
of Alexander Melville Bell and Eliza
Grace (Symonds) Bell and was born in
Edinburgh on March 8, 1S47, when
Morse's epochal invention of the tele-
graph, which he was destined to rival,
was only ten years old. He was thor
oughly educated at the High School and
University of Edinburgh and at Lon
don University, but before he could
complete his course at the last-named
institution his health failed and he
was threatened with tuberculosis and
change of climate was imperative, and
he came with his father to Canada.
That was in 1870. The next year he
moved to Boston and became a teacher
Of deaf mutes in the public schools and
also professor of vocal physiology at
Boston University-a notable engage
ment for youth of twenty-five. but
one in which, he made good" and more.
The Harmonic Telegraph"
AS early as 1867, when he entered
the audacious notion of conveying the
tones of the human voice long dis
tances over wires by means of electric
currents, and while at Boston Univer-
sity he industriously prosecuted that
fascinating quest. He lived at Salem,
in the home of one of his pupils,
George Sanders, and there in the cellar
he fitted up a laboratory from which
was to issue world startling device.
The harmonic telegraph" he called
his earliest arrangement of batteries,
wires, magnets and tuning forks, with
which he sought to transmit a number
OF Morse messages over a wire simul-
taneously, through the operation of
the principle OF sympathetic vibra-
tions. This device had been suggested
to him in a talk with Wheatstone.
One day in the winter of 1874 he took
his crude model to the electrical work
shop of Charles Williams, in Boston,
where he had a workman named
Thomas A. Watson make him six such
instruments. Watson became deeply
interested in the machine, and there
after the two young Zen worked to-
gether, chiefly at nights, to perfect it.
Thus far only Morse messages were
conveyed, but Bell clung to his notion
thst the tones of the human voice
could be sent over the wires, as we'll
as mere mechanical clickings CT even
the sound of tuning fork.
it was on June 2, 1875, that the in
splrauon came. A spring in one OF his
Telegraph instruments stuck, and the
hagneuzed steel sent a faint sound
over the wires, audible to the ear
Eagerly he applied himself to working
out the details thus suggested to him
until March 10, 1876. Bell and Watson
were then living in boarding house
al Exeter Place, Boston. and they
had their rooms, which were on differ
ent hoors, connected by wires, to which
ther. experimental Instruments were
attached. On Mach 10 Bell spoke into
his instruments: "Mr. Watson, come
here | want you" In a moment Wat
son burst into the room, wild with ex-
citement, crying: 81 heard you! |
heard you," The great deed was done.
Dom Pedro and the Telephone
Two months later, exactly, the Cen
tennlal Exposition opened at Philadel-
phia, and there Bell publicly exhibited
.he newborn telephone. For time
ne had it in an obscure corner, where
few noticed it and nobody regarded it
as anything more than an ingenious
ttoy-possbly operated by trickery.
But one day Dom Pedro, the Emperor
OF Brazil, came along. He had heard
OF Bells fine work in acoustics and
vocal culture at Boston and stopped at
ms booth to see what he had there.
he placed the receiver at his ear, while
Bell, at some distance, spoke into the
tfansmitter.
my Godl" cried Dom Pedro, "it
speaks 1t talksi"
Then William Thompson, engineer
OF the first Atlantic cable. afterward