A NEW TELEPHONE.

Kumara Times, Issue 797, 21 April 1879, Page 2

A NEW TELEPHONE.

There has been recently exhibited to the French Academy a telephone with some novel features, and said to give remarkably good effects. It is the invention of Mr Gower, an American. He uses very* strong ma nets made of the best French steel known, and magnetised by means of a large electro magnet, deriving its current from a powerful Gramme machine. The magnetic bar is bent in a semi-circle, with its ends or pules projecting inwards and having each a small, oblong piece of iron, on which is mounted a coil of wire. These parts are enclosed in a shallow cylindrical brass case, the cover ofwhich carries the vibrating • membrane (rather thicker than usual), seperaied

from it by an exclusively thin chamlx** and attatched by means of a brass and screws (which latter does not touch the membrane at any point). The old form of telephonic mouthpiece has been abandoned, and a flexible acoustic tube with mouthpiece is attatched to the middle of the cover. Thus 'one may speak sitting at the table, while the telephone is attached to the wall. Perhaps the most novel feature is the use of a telephone call, consisting of a small tube bent at a right anyle, .and containing a vibrating »eed ; this tuba is Hxed on one side of the membrane. On blowing into the acoustic tube-this reed is vibrated, and, consequently, also the membrane, which then moves in excursions large enough to he felt with the finger. A correspondiugly-strong sound is produced in the receiving telephone through vibration of its membrane, which sound may: be perceived in a hall of any size, and even (from its peculiar timbre) when other sounds are present. The tube with the reed in it does not injure, but rather improves the distinctness of transmitted speech. Simple phi uses spoken with a loud voice into the transmitter are hoard as far as five or six metres from the re* ceiver—a result never achieved before.