The First Telephone Line.
“The two rooms in the attic were too near together for the test, as
our voices would be heard through the air, so I ran a wire especially
for the trial from one of the rooms in the attic down two flights to
the third floor where Williams’ main shop was, ending it near my work
bench at the back of the building. That was the first telephone line.
You can well imagine that both our hearts were beating above the normal
rate while we were getting ready for the trial of the new instrument
that evening. I got more satisfaction from the experiment than Mr. Bell
did, for shout my best I could not make him hear me, but I could hear
his voice and almost catch the words. I rushed upstairs and told him
what I had heard. It was enough to show him that he was on the right
track, and before he left that night he gave me directions for several
improvements in the telephones I was to have ready for the next trial.”
Then followed many heart-breaking months of experimenting and it was
not until the following March that the telephone was able to transmit
a complete, intelligible sentence.
[Illustration: TELEPHONE APPARATUS PATENTED IN 1876 BY PROF. BELL,
PHOTOGRAPHED FROM THE ORIGINAL INSTRUMENTS IN THE PATENT OFFICE AT
WASHINGTON]
On February 14, 1876, Professor Bell filed at Washington his
application for patents covering the telephone which he described as
“an improvement in telegraphy” and on March 3, of the same year, the
patent was allowed.
That was the year of the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia and
Professor Bell had a working model of the telephone on exhibition.
Tucked away in an obscure corner it had attracted but little attention,
until on June 25th an incident occurred which had a tremendous effect
in giving to the new invention just the sort of publicity it needed.
Professor Bell himself describes the incident in the following
interesting manner:
“Mr. Hubbard and Mr. Saunders, who were financially interested in the
telephone, wanted this instrument to be exhibited at the Centennial
Exhibition. In those days--and I must say even up to the present time
I am afraid to say it is true--I was not very much alive to commercial
matters, not being a business man myself. I had a school for vocal
physiology in Boston. I was right in the midst of examinations.
“I went down to Philadelphia, growling all the time at this
interruption to my professional work, and I appeared in Philadelphia
on Sunday, the 25th. I was an unknown man and looked around upon the
celebrities who were judges there, and trotted around after the judges
at the exhibition while they examined this exhibit and that exhibit. My
exhibit came last. Before they got to that it was announced that the
judges were too tired to make any further examinations that day and
that the exhibit could be examined another day. That meant that the
telephone would not be seen, for I was not going to come back another
day. I was going right back to Boston.
~HOW AN EMPEROR SAVED THE TELEPHONE~
“And that was the way the matter stood--when suddenly there was one man
among the judges who happened to remember me by sight. That was no less
a person than His Majesty Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil. I had shown
him what we had been doing in teaching speech to the deaf in Boston,
had taken him around to the City School for the Deaf and shown him the
means of teaching speech, and when he saw me there he remembered me
and came over and shook hands and said: ‘Mr. Bell, how are the deaf
mutes of Boston?’ I said they were very well and told him that the next
exhibit on the program was my exhibit. ‘Come along,’ he said, and he
took my arm and walked off with me--and, of course, where an Emperor
led the way the other judges followed. And the telephone exhibit was
saved.
[Illustration: THE FIRST TELEPHONE SWITCHBOARD USED. EIGHT SUBSCRIBERS.]
An Emperor Wonders.
“Well, I cannot tell very much about that exhibit, although it was
the pivotal point on which the whole telephone turned in those days.
If I had not had that exhibition there it is very doubtful what the
condition of the telephone would be today. But the Emperor of Brazil
was the first one to bring that situation about at that time. I went
off to my transmitting instrument in another part of the building, and
a little iron box receiver was placed at the ear of the Emperor. I told
him to hold it to his ear, and then I heard afterward what happened. I
was not present at that end of the line. I went to the other end and
was reciting, ‘To be or not to be, that is the question,’ and so on,
keeping up a continuous talk.”
“I heard afterward from my friend, Mr. William Hubbard, that the
Emperor held it up in a very indifferent way to his ear, and then
suddenly started and said, ‘My God! it speaks!’ And he put it down; and
then Sir William Thomson took it up and one after another in the crowd
took it up and listened. I was in another part of the building shouting
away to the membrane telephone that was the transmitter. Suddenly I
heard a noise of people stamping along very heavily, approaching, and
there was Dom Pedro, rushing along at a very un-Emperor-like gait,
followed by Sir William Thomson and a number of others, to see what I
was doing at the other end. They were very much interested. But I had
to go back to Boston and couldn’t wait any longer. I went that very
night.”
“Now, it so happened there, that, although the judges had heard speech
emitted by the steel disc armature of this receiving instrument, they
were not quite convinced that it was electrically produced. Some one
had whispered a suspicion that it was simply the case of the thread
telegraph, the lovers’ telegraph, as it was known in those days, and
that the sound had been mechanically transmitted along the line from
one instrument to the other. Of course, I did not know about it at that
time; but when the judges asked permission to remove the apparatus
from that location I said, ‘Certainly, do anything you like with it.’
But I could not remain to look after it; they had to look after it
themselves.”
“My friend, Mr. William Hubbard, who had kindly come up from Boston
to help me on this celebrated Sunday, June 25, said he would do his
best to help them out, although he was not an electrician. He knew
nothing whatever about the apparatus, beyond being in my laboratory
occasionally, knowing me well. But he undertook to remove this
apparatus and set up the line under the direction of the judges
themselves. So they had an opportunity finally of satisfying themselves
that speech had really been electrically reproduced.”
“Sir William Thomson’s announcement was made to the world in England,
before the British Association, and the world believed--and from that
time dates the popular interest in the telephone.”
In October, 1876, the first outdoor demonstration, in which
conversation was carried on over a private telegraph wire, borrowed for
the occasion, took place between Boston and Cambridge, a distance of
two miles.
In April, 1877, the first telephone line was installed between Boston
and Somerville.
A month later an enterprising Boston man put up a crude switchboard
in his office and connected up five banks, using the system for
telephoning in the day-time and as a protection against burglars at
night. This was the beginning of the exchange system, all previous
telephoning having been between two parties on the same circuit.
~NINE MILLION TELEPHONES IN U. S.~
Soon after exchanges sprang up in several cities, and by August of that
year there were 778 Bell telephones in use. From this modest beginning
the telephone has grown until on January 1, 1914, there were 13,500,000
telephones in the world, nearly 9,000,000, or over 64 per cent being in
the United States.
[Illustration: MODERN DISTRIBUTING FRAME
When the wires come to this frame they are in numbered order in the
cable. The main frame redistributes these wires so that they are
arranged according to their call numbers, making it possible to connect
any wire with any other wire anywhere that telephone service is
installed.]
[Illustration: HOW THE WIRES ARE PUT UNDERGROUND
Breaking Up the Asphalt Pavement. First Step in Laying an Underground
Cable.]
[Illustration: Laying Multiple Duct Tile Subway Through Which the
Cables Will Run.]
[Illustration: Feeding Cable Into Duct as It is Being Pulled Through
Subway from the Other End.]
[Illustration: A CABLE TROUBLE]
The use of the telephone instrument is common, but it affords no idea
of the magnitude of the mechanical equipment by which it is made
effective.
~UNSEEN FORCES BEHIND YOUR TELEPHONE~
To give you some conception of the great number of persons and the
enormous quantity of materials required to maintain an always-efficient
service, various comparisons are here presented.
[Illustration: TELEPHONES. Enough to string around Lake Erie--8,000,000,
which, with equipment, cost at the factory $45,000,000.]
[Illustration: WIRE. Enough to coil around the earth 621
times--15,460,000 miles of it, worth about $100,000,000, including
260,000 tons of copper, worth $88,000,000.]
[Illustration: LEAD AND TIN. Enough to load 6,600 coal cars--being
659,960,000 pounds, worth more than $37,000,000.]
[Illustration: CONDUITS. Enough to go five times through the earth from
pole to pole--225,778,000 feet, worth in the warehouse $9,000,000.]
[Illustration: POLES. Enough to build a stockade around
California--12,480,000 of them, worth in the lumber yard about
$40,000,000.]
[Illustration: SWITCHBOARDS. In a line would extend thirty-six
miles--55,000 of them, which cost, unassembled, $90,000,000.]
[Illustration: BUILDINGS. Sufficient to house a city of 150,000--more
than a thousand buildings, which, unfurnished, and without land, cost
$44,000,000.]
[Illustration: PEOPLE. Equal in numbers to the entire population of
Wyoming--150,000 employes, not including those of connecting companies.]
The poles are set all over this country, and strung with wires and
cables; the conduits are buried under the great cities; the telephones
are installed in separate homes and offices; the switchboards housed,
connected and supplemented with other machinery, and the whole system
kept in running order so that each subscriber may talk at any time,
anywhere.
Where Does Sound Come From?
Somebody or something causes every sound we hear. Sounds are the result
of disturbances in the air. Sound is produced by waves in the air. The
buzz of the bumble-bee is caused by the quick movement of his wings
in the air. The wings themselves do not make the sound, but their
motion causes waves or vibrations in the air which produce the sound
of buzzing. Every motion made by anybody or anything produces waves in
the air just like the waves you see in the water--a big movement makes
a big wave and a tiny movement a tiny wave. When you clap your hands
you make a disturbance in the air which causes a sound--the harder you
clap the louder the sound. You can hear this sound and anybody else
near can hear it. If there were no air about us, however, we would hear
no sound, even if we could live in such a condition of things, for it
is the air waves produced striking against the drum of our ears that
enable us to discern sounds. When we talk we make air waves also and
thus produce sound. If you were deaf, and talked, you could not hear
any sound, because even when there are air waves they must still strike
against a sounding board in order to be recognized as sound--and the
drum of our ear is our sounding board for hearing sounds.
When the air waves produced are regular we call the sound musical, and
when they are irregular we call it noise. Some people can make musical
sounds when they sing, while others cannot.
If you take a piece of thin wire and stretch it tightly, fastening it
at both ends, and then pull it with your finger and let go, you will
hear a musical sound, because the vibrations produced will be regular
and will continue for some time. If you shorten the distance on the
wire where it is fastened at both ends and pull it as before, the
sound produced will be in a higher key. If you take a guitar and snap
the big G string you will produce the bass note of G. If the other
G string (the smaller one) is in tune (if you watch the smaller one
closely while you strike the larger one) you will notice the smaller
one vibrate also. Sound waves of the same tone, although in different
octaves, produce the same sounds, although in different keys.
This is the principle on which the piano is made to produce music.
Inside the piano are wires of different lengths and the keys of the
piano are arranged to operate certain little hammers, each of which
strikes a certain wire. Every time you strike a piano key you cause one
of the little hammers to hit its wire--the wire then makes vibrations
which cause air waves. The air waves strike against the sounding board
which is located behind the wires, and being thrown back into the air,
strike against the drum of our ears, and we can hear the note.
Why Can We Make Sounds With Our Throats?
The sounds we make when we talk are produced in exactly the same way
with the exception of the little hammers. In our throats are two cords
which we call our vocal cords. When we talk we cause these cords to
vibrate and thus we make the sounds of our voices. The most wonderful
part of this voice of ours is that with only two vocal cords or wires,
we can produce practically all the notes that can be made with a piano,
which has a wire or cord for every note, excepting that we cannot make
so many at one time. The human throat is so wonderfully constructed
that we can lengthen or shorten our vocal cords at will and produce,
with two strings, in our throats as many notes as it takes the piano
many more strings to produce.
Why Does the Sound Stop When We Touch a Gong that Has Been Sounded?
When we touch the gong we stop the sound waves which the gong gives
off when it is struck. These sound waves continue after the gong has
been struck in continuous vibrations until something stops them. When
you touch the vibrating gong, you stop its vibrating. If you only
touch your finger to the vibrating gong you can feel the vibrations
which cause a little tickling sensation. Naturally when you stop these
vibrations you stop the air waves which the vibrations cause, and thus
also the sound of these air waves striking your ear are stopped and the
sound ceases.
How Can Sound Come Through a Thick Wall?
A sound will come through a thick or thin wall only if the wall is a
good conductor of sound. Some things are good conductors of sound and
others are not, just as some things are good conductors of electricity
and others are not. If a wall is built of materials all of which are
good conductors of sound, the sound will come through it no matter how
thick. Wood is an especially good conductor of sound. It is even better
than air. You can stand at one end of a long log and have another
person at the other end hold up his watch in the air, and you cannot
hear the watch tick, but if the watch is “going” as we say, and you ask
the person holding it to put the watch against his end of the log, and
you then put your ear to the other end, you can hear the watch ticking
almost as well as if you had it to your own ear. In like manner you can
hear the scratching of a pin at the other end of the log. When you put
your ear against a telegraph pole you can hear the hum of the wires
while you cannot hear it through the air. All sound is produced by
sound waves and many solids are better conductors of sound waves than
the air.
Sound waves, however, will sometimes not be heard as plainly through a
wall, because of the fact that the wall may be made of materials which
are not equally good conductors of sound. When a sound wave strikes a
poor conductor it loses some of its power and the sound, although it
may be heard through the wall, will be fainter.
What Is Meant by Deadening a Floor or a Wall?
By deadening a floor, for instance, we mean inserting between the
ceiling of the room below and the floor above, or in the instance of a
deadened wall, between the two sides of the wall, some substance like
felt, paper or other non-conductor of sound, which will prevent the
sound waves from passing through. This deadens them to the passing of
sound or makes them sound-proof.
What Makes the Sounds Like Waves in a Sea Shell?
The sounds we hear when we hold a sea shell to the ear are not really
the sound of the sea waves. We have come to imagine that they are
because they sound like the waves of the sea, and knowledge that the
shell originally came from the sea helps us to this conclusion very
easily.
What Are the Sounds We Hear in a Shell?
The sounds we hear in the sea shell are really air waves or sounds made
by air waves, because all sounds are produced by air waves.
The reason you can hear these sounds in a sea shell is because the
shell is so constructed that it forms a natural sounding box. The
wooden part of a guitar, zither or violin is a sounding box. They have
the faculty of picking up sounds and making them stronger. We call them
“resonators,” because they make sounds resound. The construction of a
sea shell makes an almost perfect resonator. A perfect resonator will
pick up sounds which the human ear cannot hear at all and magnify them
so that if you hold a resonator to the ear you can hear sounds you
could not otherwise hear. Ear trumpets for the deaf are built upon this
principle.
Sometimes when you, with your ear alone, think something is absolutely
quiet, you can pick up a sea shell and hear sounds in it. But the sea
shell will magnify any sound that reaches it.
It would be possible, of course, to take a sea shell to a place where
it would be absolutely quiet and then there would be no sounds.
There are such places, but very few of them. A room can be built which
is absolutely sound proof.
[Illustration: SIBERIAN LAMBS IN SOUTH DAKOTA]