THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 203, 25 August 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE.

It was on May 16, 1873, that the lnture inventor of the telephone became Professor Vocal Phys'-ology in Boston University, and turned his attention to multiplex telegraphy. One day a wire, snapping in two, sent a sound through another wire which had attached to each end a thin sheet iron dsc a few inches in circumference. Could that sound be repeated? &x----fpriment gave an affirmative answer, hen prose the important query _ Could vocal sounds be transmitted thus? A parchment diaphragm, with a sheet iron button in the centre, was stretched arcoss the mouth of a thin metal cylinder about 3 ins. in diameter. A glimpse inside that metal tube would have shown us features no;* unknown in today's perfect receiver—two magnets with poles bound with wire, and between the magnets a small strip of soft •iron. A precisely similar instrument with a wire running from its coils was left in charge of Bell's assistant, while Bell, with the wire connected with his tubular iron-cased telephone, ascended to the attic of his house. The assistant, a bright young man, was* directed to remain in the laboratory and to keep the receiver at his ear. Bell, holding the diaphragm a few inches from hi 3 lips, said in ordinary convejrsafconal tones, "'Can you hear me?" In a moment the assistant came bound : ng up the stairs. "Mr. Bell," he excitedly called out. "I heard' yoi|> - question plainly!" The telephone was born! "It is the wonder of wonders," exclaimed Sir William Thompson (afterwards Lord Kelvin), after he had tested the first telephone shown +o the public at the. Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876.