THE NEWEST WONDER

Clutha Leader, Volume III, Issue 124, 24 November 1876, Page 3

THE NEWEST WONDER

Sir William Thompsorl, the learned President of the Physical Science section, of the British Association j at Glasgow last month told an attentive and admiring audience hoWj in a recent investigation of the United States Tek* graph Department, he saw and heard Elisha Gray's splendidly -worked electric telephone actu-illy sounding four messages simultaneously on the Morse Code, and equally capable of sounding yet four times as many with very moderate improvements of details-=-how he saw Edison's automatic telegraph delivering 1,015 words in 57sec_ — how in the Canadian Department he heard " To be or not to be ?". recited through the electric wire ; and how, scoring monosyllables, the eletrio articulation rose to higher flights, and gave audible passages taken at random from thes New York newspapers, such as v The Senate has resolved to print a thousand extra copies;" "The Americans in London have resolved to celebrate the coming Fourth of July," and a Dumber of other utterances. "All this," Sir William continued-, '* my own ears hpard spoken to me with unmistakable distinctness by the thin circular disc armature of just such another little electro- magtiet as this which I hold' in my hand. iThe words were shouted in a loud and clear voic.?* by .my colleague, Professor Watson, at the far end of the line, hoi ling his mouth close to a Stretched •membrane carrying a little piece oi' soft iron, which was thus made to perform, in neighborhood of an electromagnet, a circuit with the line, motions proportional to the sonorific motions of the air" These are indeed mighty marvels, sufficient to have made the hair of; the "scientists" of forty years 'ago 'stand on end) and which, performed three, yeenturiessinee, would have exposed the premature electricians to the peril of being burnt alive. as wizards.