Ellsworth American., 1923-11-07
BIRTH OF TELEPHONE.
Faint Twang of Clock Spring Her.
aided Discovery,

aiucN discovery.
Unforeseen events have shaped the
destinies of men and nations from
time immemorial. Dr. Bells discov-
cry of the principle of the speaking
telephone was not accidental but
rather incidental to one who had al
ready formulated in theory the
principle of transmitting speech.
Alexander Graham Bell had long
cherished the idea of transmitting
months before the twanging of
steel spring had revealed to him the
method of putting into practice the
great idea which through all his ac
tivities he had never abandoned, he
cOntided to his associate Thomas A.
Watson, his theory in the following
words
IF | could make current of
electricity vary in intensity, precisely
as the air varies in density during
the production of sound, | should
be able to transmit speech tele-
graphically
Thomas A. Watson, Bells as
sistant in his experimenting and
prominent in the pioneering days of
the telephone, tells the story of the
discovery as follows
'On the afternoon of June 2, 1875,
we were hard at work on the same
old job, testing some modification of
the instruments. Things were badly
out of tune that afternoon in that
hot garret, not only the instruments,
but, | fancy, my enthusiasm and my
temper, though Bell was as energetic
as ever. | had charge of the trans
mitters as usual setting them squeal-
ing one after the other, while Bell
was returning the receiver springs
one by one, pressing them against
his ear as l have described One of
the transmitter springs | was attend
ing to stopped vibrating and
plucked it to start it again. 1t didn't
start and | kept on plucking it, when
suddenly | heard a shout from Bell
in the next room, and then out he
came with a rush, demanding, What
did you do then? Don't change any
thing. Let me see!'
Il showed him. It was very sim
pie. The make-and- break points of
the transmitter spring l was trying
to start had become welded together,
so that when | snapped the spring
the circuit had remained unbroken
while that strip of magnetized steel
by its vibration over the pole OF it's
magnet, was generating that mar
velouS conception of Bell's-a cur
rent of electricity that varied in in
tensity precisely as the air was vary
ing in density within hearing dis
tance of that spring. That undu-
latory current had passed through
the connecting wire to the distant re
ceiver which, fortunately, was a
mechanism that could transform that
current back into an extremely faint
echo of the sound of the vibrating
spring that had generated it, but
what was still more fortunate, the
right man had that mechanism at his
ear during that fieeting moment, and
instantly tlyrecogniZed the tranScendent
Importance of thatefaint sound thus
electrically transmitted. The shout
l heard and his excited rush into my
room were the result of that recogni-
tion. The speaking telephone was
born at that moment.
Bell knew perfectly we'll that the
mechanism that could transmit all
the complex vibrations of one sound
could do the same for any sound,
even that of speech. That expert
ment showed him that the complex
apparatus he had thought would be
needed to accomplish that long
dreamed result was not at all neces-
sary, for here was an extremely SIM
pie mechanism operating in a per
fectly obvious way, that could do it
perfectly. All the experimenting that
followed that discovery, up to the
time the telephone was put into
practical use was largely matter of
working out the details. We spent a
few hours verifying the discovery, re-
peating it with all the differently
tuned springs we had, and before we
parted that night Bell gave me direc-
tions for making the first electric
speaking telephone"
-ON----