THE TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE.
Like the "philosopher's stone," the "elixir of youth," and
"perpetual motion," the telegraph was long a dream of the
imagination. In the sixteenth century, if not before, it was
believed that two magnetic needles could be made sympathetic, so
that when one was moved the other would likewise move, however far
apart they were, and thus enable two distant friends to
communicate their minds to one another.
The idea was prophetic, although the means of giving effect to it
were mistaken. It became practicable, however, when Oersted
discovered that a magnetic needle could be swung to one side or
the other by an electric current passing near it.
The illustrious Laplace was the first to suggest a telegraph on
this principle. A wire connecting the two poles of a battery is
traversed, as we know, by an electric current, which makes the
round of the circuit, and only flows when that circuit is
complete. However long the wire may be, however far it may run
between the poles, the current will follow all its windings, and
finish its course from pole to pole of the battery. You may lead
the wire across the ocean and back, or round the world if you
will, and the current will travel through it.
The moment you break the wire or circuit, however, the current
will stop. By its electromotive force it can overcome the
resistance of the many miles of conductor; but unless it be
unusually strong it cannot leap across even a minute gap of air,
which is one of the best insulators.
If, then, we have a simple device easily manipulated by which we
can interrupt the circuit of the battery, in accordance with a
given code, we shall be able to send a series of currents through
the wire and make sensible signals wherever we choose. These signs
can be produced by the deviation of a magnetic needle, as Laplace
pointed out, or by causing an electro-magnet to attract soft iron,
or by chemical decomposition, or any other sensible effect of the
current.
Ampere developed the idea of Laplace into a definite plan, and in
1830 or thereabout Ritchie, in London, and Baron Schilling, in St.
Petersburg, exhibited experimental models. In 1833 and afterwards
Professors Gauss and Weber installed a private telegraph between
the observatory and the physical cabinet of the University of
Gottingen. Moreover, in 1836 William Fothergill Cooke, a retired
surgeon of the Madras army, attending lectures on anatomy at the
University of Heidelberg, saw an experimental telegraph of
Professor Moncke, which turned all his thoughts to the subject. On
returning to London he made the acquaintance of Professor
Wheatstone, of King's College, who was also experimenting in this
direction, and in 1836 they took out a patent for a needle
telegraph. It was tried successfully between the Euston terminus
and the Camden Town station of the London and North-Western
Railway on the evening of July 25th, 1837, in presence of Mr.
Robert Stephenson, and other eminent engineers. Wheatstone,
sitting in a small room near the booking-office at Euston, sent
the first message to Cooke at Camden Town, who at once replied.
"Never," said Wheatstone, "did I feel such a tumultuous sensation
before, as when, all alone in the still room, I heard the needles
click, and as I spelled the words I felt all the magnitude of the
invention pronounced to be practicable without cavil or dispute."
The importance of the telegraph in working railways was manifest,
and yet the directors of the company were so purblind as to order
the removal of the apparatus, and it was not until two years later
that the Great Western Railway Company adopted it on their line
from Paddington to West Drayton, and subsequently to Slough. This
was the first telegraph for public use, not merely in England, but
the world. The charge for a message was only a shilling,
nevertheless few persons availed themselves of the new invention,
and it was not until its fame was spread abroad by the clever
capture of a murderer named Tawell that it began to prosper.
Tawell had killed a woman at Slough, and on leaving his victim
took the train for Paddington. The police, apprised of the murder,
telegraphed a description of him to London. The original "five
needle instrument," now in the museum of the Post Office, had a
dial in the shape of a diamond, on which were marked the letters
of the alphabet, and each letter of a word was pointed out by the
movements of a pair of needles. The dial had no letter "q," and as
the man was described as a quaker the word was sent "kwaker." When
the tram arrived at Paddington he was shadowed by detectives, and
to his utter astonishment was quietly arrested in a tavern near
Cannon Street.
In Cooke and Wheatstone's early telegraph the wire travelled the
whole round of the circuit, but it was soon found that a "return"
wire in the circuit was unnecessary, since the earth itself could
take the place of it. One wire from the sending station to the
receiving station was sufficient, provided the apparatus at each
end were properly connected to the ground. This use of the earth
not only saved the expense of a return wire, but diminished the
resistance of the circuit, because the earth offered practically
no resistance.
Figure 45 is a diagram of the connections in a simple telegraph
circuit. At each of the stations there is a battery B B', an
interruptor or sending key K K'to make and break the continuity of
the circuit, a receiving instrument R R'to indicate the signal
currents by their sensible effects, and connections with ground or
"earth plates" E E' to engage the earth as a return wire. These
are usually copper plates buried in the moist subsoil or the water
pipes of a city. The line wire is commonly of iron supported on
poles, but insulated from them by earthenware "cups" or
insulators.
At the station on the left the key is in the act of SENDING a
message, and at the post on the right it is conformably in the
position for receiving the message. The key is so constructed that
when it is at rest it puts the line in connection with the earth
through the RECEIVING INSTRUMENT and the earth plate.
The key K consists essentially of a spring-lever, with two
platinum contacts, so placed that when the lever is pressed down
by the hand of the telegraphist it breaks contact with the
receiver R, and puts the line-wire L in connection with the earth
E through the battery B, as shown on the left. A current then
flows into the line and traverses the receiver R' at the distant
station, returning or seeming to return to the sending battery by
way of the earth plate E' on the right and the intermediate
ground.
The duration of the current is at the will of the operator who
works the sending-key, and it is plain that signals can be made by
currents of various lengths. In the "Morse code" of signals, which
is now universal, only two lengths of current are employed--
namely, a short, momentary pulse, produced by instant contact of
the key, and a jet given by a contact about three times longer.
These two signals are called "dot" and "dash," and the code is
merely a suitable combination of them to signify the several
letters of the alphabet. Thus e, the commonest letter in English,
is telegraphed by a single "dot," and the letter t by a single
"dash," while the letter a is indicated by a "dot" followed after
a brief interval or "space" by a dash.
Obviously, if two kinds of current are used, that is to say, if
the poles of the battery are reversed by the sending-key, and the
direction of the current is consequently reversed in the circuit,
there is no need to alter the length of the signal currents,
because a momentary current sent in one direction will stand for a
"dot" and in the other direction for a "dash." As a matter of
fact, the code is used in both ways, according to the nature of
the line and receiving instrument. On submarine cables and with
needle and "mirror" instruments, the signals are made by reversing
currents of equal duration, but on land lines worked by "Morse"
instruments and "sounders," they are produced by short and long
currents.
The Morse code is also used in the army for signalling by waving
flags or flashing lights, and may also be serviceable in private
life. Telegraph clerks have been known to "speak" with each other
in company by winking the right and left eye, or tapping with
their teaspoon on a cup and saucer. Any two distinct signs,
however made, can be employed as a telegraph by means of the Morse
code, which runs as shown in figure 46.
The receiving instruments R R' may consist of a magnetic needle
pivotted on its centre and surrounded by a coil of wire, through
which the current passes and deflects the needle to one side or
the other, according to the direction in which it flows. Such was
the pioneer instrument of Cooke and Wheatstone, which is still
employed in England in a simplified form as the "single" and
"double" needle-instrument on some of the local lines and in
railway telegraphs. The signals are made by sending momentary
currents in opposite directions by a "double current" key, which
(unlike the key K in figure 45) reverses the poles
A .- J -.-.
B -... K -.-
C ... L --
D -.. M - -
E . N -.
F .-. O . .
G --. Q ..-.
H . .. R . ..
I ..
S ... 1 .--.
T - 2 ..-..
U ..- 3 ...-.
V ...- 4 ....-
W .- 5 ---
X .-.. 6 ......
Y .. .. 7 --..
Z ... . 8 -.. ..
& . .. 9 -..-
Period ..--.. 0 ----
Comma .-.-
The International (Morse) code used elsewhere is the same as the
above, with the following exceptions:
C -.-. Q --.-
F . -. R .-.
J .--- X -..-
L .-.. Y -.--
O --- Z --..
P .--.
FIG. 46.--Morse Signal Alphabet.
of the battery, in putting the line to one or the other, and thus
making the "dot" signal with the positive and the "dash" signal
with the negative pole. It follows that if the "dot" is indicated
by a throw of the needle to the right side, a "dash" will be given
by a throw to the left.
Most of the telegraph instruments for land lines are based on the
principle of the electro-magnet. We have already seen (page 59)
how Ampere found that a spiral of wire with a current flowing in
it behaved like a magnet and was able to suck a piece of soft iron
into it. If the iron is allowed to remain there as a core, the
combination of coil and core becomes an electro-magnet, that is to
say, a magnet which is only a magnet so long as the current
passes. Figure 47 represents a simple "horse-shoe" electro-magnet
as invented by Sturgeon. A U-shaped core of soft iron is wound
with insulated wire W, and when a current is sent through the
wire, the core is found to become magnetic with a "north" pole in
one end and a "south" pole in the other. These poles are therefore
able to attract a separate piece of soft iron or armature A. When
the current is stopped, however, the core ceases to be a magnet
and the armature drops away. In practice the electromagnet usually
takes the form shown in figure 48, where the poles are two bobbins
or solenoids of wire 61 having straight cores of iron which are
united by an iron bar B, and A is the armature.
Such an electromagnet is a more powerful device than a swinging
needle, and better able to actuate a mechanism. It became the
foundation of the recording instrument of Samuel Morse, the father
of the telegraph in America. The Morse, or, rather, Morse and Vail
instrument, actually marks the signals in "dots" and "dashes" on a
ribbon of moving paper. Figure 49 represents the Morse instrument,
in which an electromagnet M attracts an iron armature A when a
current passes through its bobbins, and by means of a lever L
connected with the armature raises the edge of a small disc out of
an ink-pot I against the surface of a travelling slip of paper P,
and marks a dot or dash upon it as the case may be. The rest of
the apparatus consists of details and accessories for its action
and adjustment, together with the sending-key K, which is used in
asking for repetitions of the words, if necessary.
A permanent record of the message is of course convenient,
nevertheless the operators prefer to "read" the signals by the
ear, rather than the eye, and, to the annoyance of Morse, would
listen to the click of the marking disc rather than decipher the
marks on the paper. Consequently Alfred Vail, the collaborator of
Morse, who really invented the Morse code, produced a modification
of the recording instrument working solely for the ear. The
"sounder," as it is called, has largely driven the "printer" from
the field. This neat little instrument is shown in figure 50,
where M is the electromagnet, and A is the armature which chatters
up and down between two metal stops, as the current is made and
broken by the sending-key, and the operator listening to the
sounds interprets the message letter by letter and word by word.
The motion of the armature in both of these instruments takes a
sensible time, but Alexander Bain, of Thurso, by trade a
watchmaker, and by nature a genius, invented a chemical telegraph
which was capable of a prodigious activity. The instrument of Bain
resembled the Morse in marking the signals on a tape of moving
paper, but this was done by electrolysis or electro-chemical
decomposition. The paper was soaked in a solution of iodide of
potassium in starch and water, and the signal currents were passed
through it by a marking stylus or pencil of iron. The electricity
decomposed the solution in its passage and left a blue stain on
the paper, which corresponded to the dot and dash of the Morse
apparatus. The Bain telegraph can record over 1000 words a minute
as against 40 to 50 by the Morse or sounder, nevertheless it has
fallen into disuse, perhaps because the solution was troublesome.
It is stated that a certain blind operator could read the signals
by the smell of the chemical action; and we can well believe it.
In fact, the telegraph appeals to every sense, for a deaf clerk
can feel the movements of a sounder, and the signals of the
current can be told without any instrument by the mere taste of
the wires inserted in the mouth.
A skilful telegraphist can transmit twenty-five words a minute
with the single-current key, and nearly twice as many by the
double-current key, and if we remember that an average English
word requires fifteen separate signals, the number will seem
remarkable; but by means of Wheatstone's automatic sender 150
words or more can be sent in a minute.
Among telegraphs designed to print the message in Roman type, that
of Professor David Edward Hughes is doubtless the fittest, since
it is now in general use on the Continent, and conveys our
Continental news. In this apparatus the electromagnet, on
attracting its armature, presses the paper against a revolving
type wheel and receives the print of a type, so that the message
can be read by a novice. To this effect the type wheel at the
receiving station has to keep in perfect time as it revolves, so
that the right letter shall be above the paper when the current
passes. Small varieties of the type-printer are employed for the
distribution of news and prices in most of the large towns, being
located in hotels, restaurants, saloons, and other public places,
and reporting prices of stocks and bonds, horse races, and
sporting and general news. The "duplex system," whereby two
messages, one in either direction, can be sent over one wire
simultaneously without interfering, and the quadruplex system,
whereby four messages, two in either direction, are also sent at
once, have come into use where the traffic over the lines is very
great. Both of these systems and their modifications depend on an
ingenious arrangement of the apparatus at each end of the line, by
which the signal currents sent out from one station do not
influence the receivers there, but leave them free to indicate the
currents from the distant station. When the Wheatstone Automatic
Sender is employed with these systems about 500 words per minute
can be sent through the line. Press news is generally sent by
night, and it is on record, that during a great debate in
Parliament, as many as half a million words poured out of the
Central Telegraph Station at St. Martin's-le-Grand in a single
night to all parts of the country.
Errors occur now and then through bad penmanship or the similarity
of certain signals, and amusing telegrams have been sent out, as
when the nomination of Mr. Brand for the Speakership of the
Commons took the form of "Proposed to brand Speaker"; and an
excursion party assured their friends at home of their security by
the message, "Arrived all tight."
Telegraphs, in the literal sense of the word, which actually write
the message as with a pen, and make a copy or facsimile of the
original, have been invented from time to time. Such are the
"telegraphic pen" of Mr. E. A. Cowper, and the "telautographs" of
Mr. J. H. Robertson and Mr. Elisha Gray. The first two are based
on a method of varying the strength of the current in accordance
with the curves of the handwriting, and making the varied current
actuate by means of magnetism a writing pen or stylus at the
distant station. The instrument of Gray, which is the most
successful, works by intermittent currents or electrical impulses,
that excite electro-magnets and move the stylus at the far end of
the line. They are too complicated for description here, and are
not of much practical importance.
Telegraphs for transmitting sketches and drawings have also been
devised by D'Ablincourt and others, but they have not come into
general use. Of late another step forward has been taken by Mr.
Amstutz, who has invented an apparatus for transmitting
photographic pictures to a distance by means of electricity. The
system may be described as a combination of the photograph and
telegraph. An ordinary negative picture is taken, and then
impressed on a gelatine plate sensitised with bichromate of
potash. The parts of the gelatine in light become insoluble, while
the parts in shade can be washed away by water. In this way a
relief or engraving of the picture is obtained on the gelatine,
and a cross section through the plate would, if looked at
edgeways, appear serrated, or up and down, like a section of
country or the trace of the stylus in the record of a phonograph.
The gelatine plate thus carved by the action of light and water is
wrapped round a revolving drum or barrel, and a spring stylus or
point is caused to pass over it as the barrel revolves, after the
manner of a phonographic cylinder. In doing so the stylus rises
and falls over the projections in the plate and works a lever
against a set of telegraph keys, which open electric contacts and
break the connections of an electric battery which is joined
between the keys and the earth. There are four keys, and when they
are untouched the current splits up through four by-paths or
bobbins of wire before it enters the line wire and passes to the
distant station. When any of the keys are touched, however, the
corresponding by-path or bobbin is cut out of circuit. The
suppression of a by-path or channel for the current has the effect
of adding to the "resistance" of the line, and therefore of
diminishing the strength of the current. When all the keys are
untouched the resistance is least and the current strongest. On
the other hand, when all the keys but the last are touched, the
resistance is greatest and the current weakest. By this device it
is easy to see that as the stylus or tracer sinks into a hollow of
the gelatine, or rises over a height, the current in the line
becomes stronger or weaker. At the distant station the current
passes through a solenoid or hollow coil of wire connected to the
earth and magnetises it, so as to pull the soft iron plug or
"core" with greater or less force into its hollow interior. The up
and down movement of the plug actuates a graving stylus or point
through a lever, and engraves a copy of the original gelatine
trace on the surface of a wax or gelatine plate overlying another
barrel or drum, which revolves at a rate corresponding to that of
the barrel at the transmitting station. In this way a facsimile of
the gelatine picture is produced at the distant station, and an
electrotype or cliche of it can be made for printing purposes. The
method is, in fact, a species of electric line graving, and Mr.
Amstutz hopes to apply it to engraving on gold, silver, or any
soft metal, not necessarily at a distance.
We know that an electric current in one wire can induce a
transient current in a neighbouring wire, and the fact has been
utilised in the United States by Phelps and others to send
messages from moving trains. The signal currents are intermittent,
and when they are passed through a conductor on the train they
excite corresponding currents in a wire run along the track, which
can be interpreted by the hum they make in a telephone.
Experiments recently made by Mr. W. H. Preece for the Post Office
show that with currents of sufficient strength and proper
apparatus messages can be sent through the air for five miles or
more by this method of induction.
We come now to the submarine telegraph, which differs in many
respects from the overland telegraph. Obviously, since water and
moist earth is a conductor, a wire to convey an electric current
must be insulated if it is intended to lie at the bottom of the
sea or buried underground. The best materials for the purpose yet
discovered are gutta-percha and india-rubber, which are both
flexible and very good insulators.
The first submarine cable was laid across the Channel from Dover
to Calais in 1851, and consisted of a copper strand, coated with
gutta-percha, and protected from injury by an outer sheath of hemp
and iron wire. It is the general type of all the submarine cables
which have been deposited since then in every part of the world.
As a rule, the armour or sheathing is made heavier for shore water
than it is for the deep sea, but the electrical portion, or
"core," that is to say, the insulated conductor, is the same
throughout.
The first Atlantic cable was laid in 1858 by Cyrus W. Field and a
company of British capitalists, but it broke down, and it was not
until 1866 that a new and successful cable was laid to replace it.
Figure 51 represents various cross-sections of an Atlantic cable
deposited in 1894.
The inner star of twelve copper wires is the conductor, and the
black circle round it is the gutta-percha or insulator which keeps
the electricity from escaping into the water. The core in shallow
water is protected from the bites of teredoes by a brass tape, and
the envelope or armour consists of hemp and iron wire preserved
from corrosion by a covering of tape and a compound of mineral
pitch and sand.
The circuit of a submarine line is essentially the same as that of
a land line, except that the earth connection is usually the iron
sheathing of the cable in lieu of an earth-plate. On a cable,
however, at least a long cable, the instruments for sending and
receiving the messages are different from those employed on a land
line. A cable is virtually a Leyden jar or condenser, and the
signal currents in the wire induce opposite currents in the water
or earth. As these charges hold each other the signals are
retarded in their progress, and altered from sharp sudden jets to
lagging undulations or waves, which tend to run together or
coalesce. The result is that the separate signal currents which
enter a long cable issue from it at the other end in one
continuous current, with pulsations at every signal, that is to
say, in a lapsing stream, like a jet of water flowing from a
constricted spout. The receiving instrument must be sufficiently
delicate to manifest every pulsation of the current. Its
indicator, in fact, must respond to every rise and fall of the
current, as a float rides on the ripples of a stream.
Such an instrument is the beautiful "mirror" galvanometer of Lord
Kelvin, Ex-President of the Royal Society, which we illustrate in
figure 52, where C is a coil of wire with a small magnetic needle
suspended in its heart, and D is a steel magnet supported over it.
The needle (M figure 53) is made of watch spring cemented to the
back of a tiny mirror the size of a half-dime which is hung by a
single fibre of floss silk inside an air cell or chamber with a
glass lens G in front, and the coil C surrounds it. A ray of light
from a lamp L (figure 52) falls on the mirror, and is reflected
back to a scale S, on which it makes a bright spot. Now, when the
coil C is connected between the end of the cable and the earth,
the signal current passing through it causes the tiny magnet to
swing from side to side, and the mirror moving with it throws the
beam up and down the scale. The operator sitting by watches the
spot of light as it flits and flickers like a fire-fly in the
darkness, and spells out the mysterious message.
A condenser joined in the circuit between the cable and the
receiver, or between the receiver and the earth, has the effect of
sharpening the waves of the current, and consequently of the
signals. The double-current key, which reverses the poles of the
battery and allows the signal currents to be of one length, that
is to say, all "dots," is employed to send the message.
Another receiving instrument employed on most of the longer cables
is the siphon recorder of Lord Kelvin, shown in figure 54, which
marks or writes the message on a slip of travelling paper.
Essentially it is the inverse of the mirror instrument, and
consists of a light coil of wire S suspended in the field between
the poles of a strong magnet M. The coil is attached to a fine
siphon (T5) filled with ink, and sometimes kept in vibration by an
induction coil so as to shake the ink in fine drops upon a slip of
moving paper. The coil is connected between the cable and the
earth, and, as the signal current passes through, it swings to one
side or the other, pulling the siphon with it. The ink, therefore,
marks a wavy line on the paper, which is in fact a delineation of
the rise and fall of the signal current and a record of the
message. The dots in this case are represented by the waves above,
and the "dashes" by the waves below the middle line, as may be
seen in the following alphabet, which is a copy of one actually
written by the recorder on a long submarine cable.
Owing to induction, the speed of signalling on long cables is much
slower than on land lines of the same length, and only reaches
from 25 to 45 words a minute on the Atlantic cables, or 30 to 50
words with an automatic sending-key; but this rate is practically
doubled by employing the Muirhead duplex system of sending two
messages, one from each end, at the same time.
The relation of the telegraph to the telephone is analogous to
that of the lower animals and man. In a telegraph circuit, with
its clicking key at one end and its chattering sounder at the
other, we have, in fact, an apish forerunner of the exquisite
telephone, with its mysterious microphone and oracular plate.
Nevertheless, the telephone descended from the telegraph in a very
indirect manner, if at all, and certainly not through the sounder.
The first practical suggestion of an electric telephone was made
by M. Charles Bourseul, a French telegraphist, in 1854, but to all
appearance nothing came of it. In 1860, however, Philipp Reis, a
German schoolmaster, constructed a rudimentary telephone, by which
music and a few spoken words were sent. Finally, in 1876, Mr.
Alexander Graham Bell, a Scotchman, residing in Canada, and
subsequently in the United States, exhibited a capable speaking
telephone of his invention at the Centennial Exhibition,
Philadelphia.
Figure 56 represents an outside view and section of the Bell
telephone as it is now made, where M is a bar magnet having a
small bobbin or coil of fine insulated wire C girdling one pole.
In front of this coil there is a circular plate of soft iron
capable of vibrating like a diaphragm or the drum of the ear. A
cover shaped like a mouthpiece O fixes the diaphragm all round,
and the wires W W serve to connect the coil in the circuit.
The soft iron diaphragm is, of course, magnetised by the induction
of the pole, and would be attracted bodily to the pole were it not
fixed by the rim, so that only its middle is free to move. Now,
when a person speaks into the mouthpiece the sonorous waves
impinge on the diaphragm and make it vibrate in sympathy with
them. Being magnetic, the movement of the diaphragm to and from
the bobbin excites corresponding waves of electricity in the coil,
after the famous experiment of Faraday (page 64). If this
undulatory current is passed through the coil of a similar
telephone at the far end of the line, it will, by a reverse
action, set the diaphragm in vibration and reproduce the original
sonorous waves. The result is, that when another person listens at
the mouthpiece of the receiving telephone, he will hear a faithful
imitation of the original speech.
The Bell telephone is virtually a small magneto-electric generator
of electricity, and when two are joined in circuit we have a
system for the transmission of energy. As the voice is the motive
power, its talk, though distinct, is comparatively feeble, and
further improvements were made before the telephone became as
serviceable as it is now.
Edison, in 1877, was the first to invent a working telephone,
which, instead of generating the current, merely controlled the
strength of it, as the sluice of a mill-dam regulates the flow of
water in the lead. Du Moncel had observed that powder of carbon
altered in electrical resistance under pressure, and Edison found
that lamp-black was so sensitive as to change in resistance under
the impact of the sonorous waves. His transmitter consisted of a
button or wafer of lamp-black behind a diaphragm, and connected in
the circuit. On speaking to the diaphragm the sonorous waves
pressed it against the button, and so varied the strength of the
current in a sympathetic manner. The receiver of Edison was
equally ingenious, and consisted of a cylinder of prepared chalk
kept in rotation and a brass stylus rubbing on it. When the
undulatory current passed from the stylus to the chalk, the stylus
slipped on the surface, and, being connected to a diaphragm, made
it vibrate and repeat the original sounds. This "electro-
motograph" receiver was, however, given up, and a combination of
the Edison transmitter and the Bell receiver came into use.
At the end of 1877 Professor D. E. Hughes, a distinguished
Welshman, inventor of the printing telegraph, discovered that any
loose contact between two conductors had the property of
transmitting sounds by varying the strength of an electric current
passing through it. Two pieces of metal--for instance, two nails
or ends of wire--when brought into a loose or crazy contact under
a slight pressure, and traversed by a current, will transmit
speech. Two pieces of hard carbon are still better than metals,
and if properly adjusted will make the tread of a fly quite
audible in a telephone connected with them. Such is the famous
"microphone," by which a faint sound can be magnified to the ear.
Figure 57 represents what is known as the "pencil" microphone, in
which M is a pointed rod of hard carbon, delicately poised between
two brackets of carbon, which are connected in circuit with a
battery B and a Bell telephone T. The joints of rod and bracket
are so sensitive that the current flowing across them is affected
in strength by the slightest vibration, even the walking of an
insect. If, therefore, we speak near this microphone, the sonorous
waves, causing the pencil to vibrate, will so vary the current in
accordance with them as to reproduce the sounds of the voice in
the telephone.
The true nature of the microphone is not yet known, but it is
evident that the air or ether between the surfaces in contact
plays an important part in varying the resistance, and, therefore,
the current. In fact, a small "voltaic arc," not luminous, but
dark, seems to be formed between the points, and the vibrations
probably alter its length, and, consequently, its resistance. The
fact that a microphone is reversible and can act as a receiver,
though a poor one, tends to confirm this theory. Moreover, it is
not unlikely that the slipping of the stylus in the
electromotograph is due to a similar cause. Be this as it may,
there can be no doubt that carbon powder and the lamp-black of the
Edison button are essentially a cluster of microphones.
Many varieties of the Hughes microphone under different names are
now employed as transmitters in connection with the Bell
telephone. Figure 58 represents a simple micro-telephone circuit,
where M is the Hughes microphone transmitter, T the Bell telephone
receiver, JB the battery, and E E the earth-plates; but sometimes
a return wire is used in place of the "earth." The line wire is
usually of copper and its alloys, which are more suitable than
iron, especially for long distances. Just as the signal currents
in a submarine cable induce corresponding currents in the sea
water which retard them, so the currents in a land wire induce
corresponding currents in the earth, but in aerial lines the earth
is generally so far away that the consequent retardation is
negligible except in fast working on long lines. The Bell
telephone, however, is extremely sensitive, and this induction
affects it so much that a conversation through one wire can be
overheard on a neighbouring wire. Moreover, there is such a thing
as "self-induction" in a wire--that is to say, a current in a wire
tends to induce an opposite current in the same wire, which is
practically equivalent to an increase of resistance in the wire.
It is particularly observed at the starting and stopping of a
current, and gives rise to what is called the "extra-spark" seen
in breaking the circuit of an induction coil. It is also active in
the vibratory currents of the telephone, and, like ordinary
induction, tends to retard their passage. Copper being less
susceptible of self-induction than iron, is preferred for trunk
lines. The disturbing effect of ordinary induction is avoided by
using a return wire or loop circuit, and crossing the going and
coming wires so as to make them exchange places at intervals.
Moreover, it is found that an induction coil in the telephone
circuit, like a condenser in the cable circuit, improves the
working, and hence it is usual to join the battery and transmitter
with the primary wire, and the secondary wire with the line and
the receiver.
The longest telephone line as yet made is that from New York to
Chicago, a distance of 950 miles. It is made of thick copper wire,
erected on cedar poles 35 feet above the ground.
Induction is so strong on submarine cables of 50 or 100 miles in
length that the delicate waves of the telephone current are
smoothed away, and the speech is either muffled or entirely
stifled. Nevertheless, a telephone cable 20 miles long was laid
between Dover and Calais in 1891, and another between Stranraer
and Donaghadee more recently, thus placing Great Britain on
speaking terms with France and other parts of the Continent.
Figure 59 shows a form of telephone apparatus employed in the
United Kingdom. In it the transmitter and receiver, together with
a call-bell, which are required at each end of the line, are
neatly combined. The transmitter is a Blake microphone, in which
the loose joint is a contact of platinum on hard carbon. It is
fitted up inside the box, together with an induction coil, and M
is the mouthpiece for speaking to it. The receiver is a pair of
Bell telephones T T, which are detached from their hooks and held
to the ear. A call-bell B serves to "ring up" the correspondent at
the other end of the line.
Excepting private lines, the telephone is worked on the "exchange
system"--that is to say, the wires running to different persons
converge in a central exchange, where, by means of an apparatus
called a "switch board," they are connected together for the
purpose of conversation
A telephone exchange would make an excellent subject for the
artist. He delights to paint us a row of Venetian bead stringers
or a band of Sevilhan cigarette makers, but why does he shirk a
bevy of industrious girls working a telephone exchange? Let us
peep into one of these retired haunts, where the modern Fates are
cutting and joining the lines of electric speech between man and
man in a great city.
The scene is a long, handsome room or gallery, with a singular
piece of furniture in the shape of an L occupying the middle. This
is the switchboard, in which the wires from the offices and homes
of the subscribers are concentrated like the nerves in a ganglion.
It is known as the "multiple switchboard," an American invention,
and is divided into sections, over which the operators preside.
The lines of all the subscribers are brought to each section, so
that the operator can cross connect any two lines in the whole
system without leaving her chair. Each section of the board is, in
fact, an epitome of the whole, but it is physically impossible for
a single operator to make all the connections of a large exchange,
and the work is distributed amongst them. A multiplicity of wires
is therefore needed to connect, say, two thousand subscribers.
These are all concealed, however, at the back of the board, and in
charge of the electricians. The young lady operators have nothing
to do with these, and so much the better for them, as it would
puzzle their minds a good deal worse than a ravelled skein of
thread. Their duty is to sit in front of the board in comfortable
seats at a long table and make the needful connections. The call
signal of a subscriber is given by the drop of a disc bearing his
number. The operator then asks the subscriber by telephone what he
wants, and on hearing the number of the other subscriber he wishes
to speak with, she takes up a pair of brass plugs coupled by a
flexible conductor and joins the lines of the subscribers on the
switchboard by simply thrusting the plugs into holes corresponding
to the wires. The subscribers are then free to talk with each
other undisturbed, and the end of the conversation is signalled to
the operator. Every instant the call discs are dropping, the
connecting plugs are thrust into the holes, and the girls are
asking "Hullo! hullo!" "Are you there?" "Who are you?" "Have you
finished?" Yet all this constant activity goes on quietly, deftly
--we might say elegantly--and in comparative silence, for the low
tones of the girlish voices are soft and pleasing, and the harsher
sounds of the subscriber are unheard in the room by all save the
operator who attends to him.