The History of the Telephone quotes

but it was the first time in the history of the world that a complete sound had been carried along a wire, reproduced perfectly at the other end, and heard by an expert in acoustics.

That twang of the clock-spring was the first tiny cry of the newborn telephone, uttered in the clanging din of a machine-shop and happily heard by a man whose ear had been trained to recognize the strange voice of the little newcomer.

There, amidst flying belts and jarring wheels, the baby telephone was born, as feeble and helpless as any other baby, and "with no language but a cry."

He was a teacher of acoustics and a student of electricity, possibly the only man in his generation who was able to focus a knowledge of both subjects upon the problem of the telephone.

To other men that exceedingly faint sound would have been as inaudible as silence itself; but to Bell it was a thunder-clap.

It was a dream come true. It was an impossible thing which had in a flash become so easy that he could scarcely believe it.

To other men that exceedingly faint sound would have been as inaudible as silence itself; but to Bell it was a thunder-clap.

It was a dream come true.

It was an impossible thing which had in a flash become so easy that he could scarcely believe it.

It was absurd. It was incredible. It was something which neither wire nor electricity had been known to do before. But it was true.

No discovery has ever been less accidental.

It was the last link of a long chain of discoveries. It was the result of a persistent and deliberate search. Already, for half a year or longer, Bell had known the correct theory of the telephone;

His father, also, his two brothers, his uncle, and his grandfather had taught the laws of speech in the universities of Edinburgh, Dublin, and London.

For three generations the Bells had been professors of the science of talking.

They had even helped to create that science by several inven-tions. The first of them, Alexander Bell, had invented a system for the correction of stammering and similar defects of speech.

In temperament he was a true scientific Bohemian, with the ideals of a savant and the disposition of an artist.

He was wholly a man of enthusiasms, more devoted to ideas than to people; and less likely to master his own thoughts than to be mastered by them.

He had no shrewdness, in any commercial sense, and very little knowledge of the small practical details of ordinary living. He was always intense, always absorbed.

and less likely to master his own thoughts than to be mastered by them. He had no shrewdness, in any commercial sense, and very little knowledge of the small practical details of ordinary living. He was always intense, always absorbed.

When he applied his mind to a problem, it became at once an enthralling arena, in which there went whirling a chariot-race of ideas and inventive fancies.

He had been fascinated from boyhood by his father's system of "Visible Speech." He knew it so well that he once astonished a professor of Oriental languages by repeating correctly a sentence of Sanscrit that had been written in "Visible Speech" characters.

No one outside of the Sanders family was allowed to enter it, as Bell was nervously afraid of having his ideas stolen. He would even go to five or six stores to buy his supplies, for fear that his intentions should be discovered.

Almost with the secrecy of a conspirator, he worked alone in this cellar, usually at night, and quite oblivious of the fact that sleep was a necessity to him and to the Sanders family.

"Often in the middle of the night Bell would wake me up," said Thomas Sanders, the father of Georgie. "His black eyes would be blazing with excitement.

But the longer Bell toiled at his musical telegraph, the more he dreamed of replacing the telegraph and its cumbrous sign-language by a new machine that would carry, not dots and dashes, but the human voice. "

If I can make a deaf-mute talk,

" he said, "I can make iron talk." For months he wavered between the two ideas. He had no more than the most hazy conception of what this voice-carrying machine would be like.

To an uninitiated onlooker, nothing could have been more ghastly or absurd. How could any one have interpreted the gruesome joy of this young professor with the pale face and the black eyes, who stood earnestly singing, whispering, and shouting into a dead man's ear?

What sort of a wizard must he be, or ghoul, or madman?

And in Salem, too, the home of the witchcraft superstition! Certainly it would not have gone well with Bell had he lived two centuries earlier and been caught at such black magic.

He had been too much absorbed in his experiments to sustain it. His professorship had been given up, and he had no pupils except Georgie Sanders and Mabel Hubbard.

He was poor, much poorer than his associates knew.

And his mind was torn and distracted by the contrary calls of science, poverty, business, and affection. Pouring out his sorrows in a letter to his mother, he said: "I am now beginning to realize the cares and anxieties of being an inventor.

He had been too much absorbed in his experiments to sustain it. His professorship had been given up, and he had no pupils except Georgie Sanders and Mabel Hubbard. He was poor, much poorer than his associates knew.

And his mind was torn and distracted by the contrary calls of science, poverty, business, and affection.

Pouring out his sorrows in a letter to his mother, he said: "I am now beginning to realize the cares and anxieties of being an inventor.

… with this new mystery of electricity, as Henry had advised him to do, encouraging himself with the fact that Morse, who was only a painter, had mastered his electrical difficulties, and there was no reason why a professor of acoustics should not do as much.

The telephone was now in existence, but it was the youngest and feeblest thing in the nation.

It had not yet spoken a word. It had to be taught, developed, and made fit for the service of the irritable business world.

In all the books of electrical science, there was nothing to help Bell and Watson in this journey they were making through an unknown country.

They were as chartless as Columbus was in 1492.

Neither they nor any one else had acquired any experience in the rearing of a young telephone. No one knew what to do next. There was nothing to know.

They were as chartless as Columbus was in 1492. Neither they nor any one else had acquired any experience in the rearing of a young telephone.

No one knew what to do next.

There was nothing to know.

They were as chartless as Columbus was in 1492. Neither they nor any one else had acquired any experience in the rearing of a young telephone. No one knew what to do next.

There was nothing to know.

For forty weeks—long exasperating weeks—the telephone could do no more than gasp and make strange inarticulate noises. Its educators had not learned how to manage it. Then, on March 10, 1876, IT TALKED. It said distinctly—

For forty weeks—long exasperating weeks—the telephone could do no more than gasp and make strange inarticulate noises. Its educators had not learned how to manage it.

Then, on March 10, 1876, IT TALKED.

It said distinctly—

No one, not even Bell and Watson, was familiar with its odd little voice. Usually Watson, who had a remarkably keen sense of hearing, did the listening; and Bell, who was a professional elocutionist, did the talking.

And day by day the tone of the baby instrument grew clearer—a new note in the orchestra of civilization.

On his twenty-ninth birthday, Bell received his patent, No. 174,465—"the most valuable single patent ever issued" in any country. He had created something so entirely new that there was no name for it in any of the world's languages.

On his twenty-ninth birthday, Bell received his patent, No. 174,465—"the most valuable single patent ever issued" in any country.

He had created something so entirely new that there was no name for it in any of the world's languages.

In describing it to the officials of the Patent Office, he was obliged to call it "an improvement in telegraphy," when, in truth, it was nothing of the kind.

He was a third-generation specialist in the nature of speech, and he knew that for the transmission of spoken words there must be "a pulsatory action of the electric current which is the exact equivalent of the aerial impulses."

Bell knew just enough about electricity, and not too much.

He did not know the possible from the impossible. "Had I known more about electricity, and less about sound," he said, "I would never have invented the telephone."

Bell knew just enough about electricity, and not too much.

He did not know the possible from the impossible.

"Had I known more about electricity, and less about sound," he said, "I would never have invented the telephone." What he had done was so amazing, so foolhardy, that no trained electrician could have thought of it.

So, one after another, this notable company of men listened to the voice of the first telephone, and the more they knew of science, the less they were inclined to believe their ears.

The wiser they were, the more they wondered.

To Henry and Thomson, the masters of electrical magic, this instrument was as surprising as it was to the man in the street.

"It is an interesting instrument, of course, for professors of electricity and acoustics; but it can never be a practical necessity. As well might you propose to put a telescope into a steel-mill or to hitch a balloon to a shoe-factory."

Poor Bell, instead of being applauded, was pelted with a hailstorm of ridicule.

He was an "impostor," a "ventriloquist," a "crank who says he can talk through a wire."

with Morse, whom ten Congresses regarded as a nuisance; with Cyrus Field, whose Atlantic Cable was denounced as "a mad freak of stubborn ignorance"; and with Westinghouse, who was called a fool for proposing "to stop a railroad train with wind."

The very idea of talking at a piece of sheet-iron was so new and extraordinary that the normal mind repulsed it.

Alike to the laborer and the scientist, it was incomprehensible. It was too freakish, too bizarre, to be used outside of the laboratory and the museum. No one, literally, could understand how it worked;

No one, literally, could understand how it worked; and the only man who offered a clear solution of the mystery was a Boston mechanic, who maintained that there was "a hole through the middle of the wire."

People who talked for the first time into a telephone box had a sort of stage fright.

They felt foolish. To do so seemed an absurd performance, especially when they had to shout at the top of their voices. Plainly, whatever of convenience there might be in this new contrivance was far outweighed by the loss of personal dignity;

Plainly, whatever of convenience there might be in this new contrivance was far outweighed by the loss of personal dignity; and very few men had sufficient imagination to picture the telephone as a part of the machinery of their daily work.

The banker said it might do well enough for grocers, but that it would never be of any value to banking; and the grocer said it might do well enough for bankers, but that it would never be of any value to grocers.

As Bell had worked out his invention in Salem, one editor displayed the headline, "Salem Witchcraft." The New York Herald said: "The effect is weird and almost supernatural." The Providence Press said:

He talked telephone by day and by night. Whenever he travelled, he carried a pair of the magical instruments in his valise, and gave demonstrations on trains and in hotels. He buttonholed every influential man who crossed his path.

He was a veritable "Ancient Mariner" of the telephone.

No possible listener was allowed to escape.

Whenever he travelled, he carried a pair of the magical instruments in his valise, and gave demonstrations on trains and in hotels. He buttonholed every influential man who crossed his path. He was a veritable "Ancient Mariner" of the telephone.

No possible listener was allowed to escape.

Further to promote this campaign of publicity, Hubbard encouraged Bell and Watson to perform a series of sensational feats with the telephone.

This was the first feeble sign that such a novelty as the telephone business could be established; and no money ever looked handsomer than this twenty dollars did to Bell, Sanders, Hubbard, and Watson.

It was the tiny first-fruit of fortune.

Greatly encouraged, they prepared a little circular which was the first advertisement of the telephone business. It is an oddly simple little document to-day, but to the 1877 brain it was startling.

Desperately he signed note after note until he faced a total of one hundred and ten thousand dollars.

If the new "scientific toy" succeeded, which he often doubted, he would be the richest citizen in Haverhill; and if it failed, which he sorely feared, he would be a bankrupt.

A disheartening series of rebuffs slowly forced the truth in upon Sanders's mind that the business world refused to accept the telephone as an article of commerce.

It took action quickly and organized the "American Speaking-Telephone Company," with $300,000 capital, and with three electrical inventors, Edison, Gray, and Dolbear, on its staff. With all the bulk of its great wealth and prestige, it swept down upon Bell and his little bodyguard.

It trampled upon Bell's patent with as little concern as an elephant can have when he tramples upon an ant's nest.

To the complete bewilderment of Bell, it coolly announced that it had "the only original telephone," and that it was ready to supply "superior telephones with all the latest improvements made by the original inventors—Dolbear, Gray, and Edison."

The result was strange and unexpected. The Bell group, instead of being driven from the field, were at once lifted to a higher level in the business world. The effect was as if the Standard Oil Company were to commence the manufacture of aeroplanes.

In a flash, the telephone ceased to be a "scientific toy," and became an article of commerce.

It began for the first time to be taken seriously. And the Western Union, in the endeavor to protect its private lines, became involuntarily a bell-wether to lead capitalists in the direction of the telephone.

Hubbard had little aptitude as an organizer; Bell had none; and Sanders was held fast by his leather interests. Here, at last, after four years of the most heroic effort, were the raw materials out of which a telephone business could be constructed.

But who was to be the builder, and where was he to be found?

One morning the indefatigable Hubbard solved the problem. "Watson," he said, "there's a young man in Washington who can handle this situation, and I want you to run down and see what you think of him."

… compete with the Western Union, which had this superior transmitter, a host of agents, a network of wires, forty millions of capital, and a first claim upon all newspapers, hotels, railroads, and rights of way—that was the immediate problem that confronted the new General Manager.

Every inch of progress had to be fought for.

Several of his captains deserted, and he was compelled to take control of their unprofitable exchanges. There was scarcely a mail that did not bring him some bulletin of discouragement or defeat.

Every inch of progress had to be fought for. Several of his captains deserted, and he was compelled to take control of their unprofitable exchanges.

There was scarcely a mail that did not bring him some bulletin of discouragement or defeat.

In the effort to conciliate a hostile public, the telephone rates had everywhere been made too low. Hubbard had set a price of twenty dollars a year, for the use of two telephones on a private line;

By a strange coincidence, the magnificent building of the New York Telephone Company stands to-day on the site of Tillotson's store.

Month after month, the little Bell Company lived from hand to mouth.

No salaries were paid in full. Often, for weeks, they were not paid at all. In Watson's note-book there are such entries during this period as "Lent Bell fifty cents," "Lent Hubbard twenty cents," "Bought one bottle beer—too bad can't have beer every day."

It was being half-starved by cheap rates and crippled by clumsy apparatus. It was being abused and grumbled at by an impatient public. But the art of making and marketing it had at last been built up into a commercial enterprise.

It was now a business, fighting for its life.

For seventeen months no one disputed Bell's claim to be the original inventor of the telephone. All the honor, such as it was, had been given to him freely, and no one came forward to say that it was not rightfully his.

Also, it met the telephone pioneers at every point because it, too, was a WIRE company. It owned rights-of-way along roads and on house-tops. It had a monopoly of hotels and railroad offices.

No matter in what direction the Bell Company turned, the live wire of the Western Union lay across its path.

From the first, the Western Union relied more upon its strength than upon the merits of its case. Its chief electrical expert, Frank L. Pope, had made a six months' examination of the Bell patents.

This high-handed action, it hoped, would most quickly bring the little Bell group into a humble and submissive frame of mind.

Every morning the Western Union looked to see the white flag flying over the Bell headquarters.

But no white flag appeared. On the contrary, the news came that the Bell Company had secured two eminent lawyers and were ready to give battle.

This high-handed action, it hoped, would most quickly bring the little Bell group into a humble and submissive frame of mind. Every morning the Western Union looked to see the white flag flying over the Bell headquarters.

But no white flag appeared.

On the contrary, the news came that the Bell Company had secured two eminent lawyers and were ready to give battle.

In the course of the Dolbear lawsuit, a Reis machine was brought into court, and created much amusement.

It was able to squeak, but not to speak.

Experts and professors wrestled with it in vain. It refused to transmit one intelligible sentence. "It CAN speak, but it WON'T," explained one of Dolbear's lawyers.

This was as hard a blow as the Bell people received in their eleven years of litigation; and the Bell stock tumbled thirty-five points in a few days.

Infringing companies sprang up like gourds in the night.

And all went merrily with the promoters until the Overland Company was thrown out of court, as having no evidence, except "the refuse and dregs of former cases—the heel-taps found in the glasses at the end of the frolic."

Electrical engineering, as a profession, was unborn. And as for their telegraphic experience, while it certainly helped them for a time, it started them in the wrong direction and led them to do many things which had afterwards to be undone.

The peculiar electric current that these young pathfinders had to deal with is perhaps the quickest, feeblest, and most elusive force in the world.

It is so amazing a thing that any description of it seems irrational. It is as gentle as a touch of a baby sunbeam, and as swift as the lightning flash.

The peculiar electric current that these young pathfinders had to deal with is perhaps the quickest, feeblest, and most elusive force in the world. It is so amazing a thing that any description of it seems irrational.

It is as gentle as a touch of a baby sunbeam, and as swift as the lightning flash.

It is so small that the electric current of a single incandescent lamp is greater 500,000,000 times. Cool a spoonful of hot water just one degree, and the energy set free by the cooling will operate a telephone for ten thousand years.

It is so small that the electric current of a single incandescent lamp is greater 500,000,000 times. Cool a spoonful of hot water just one degree, and the energy set free by the cooling will operate a telephone for ten thousand years.

Catch the falling tear-drop of a child, and there will be sufficient water-power to carry a spoken message from one city to another.

Such is the tiny Genie of the Wire that had to be protected and trained into obedience. It was the most defenceless of all electric sprites, and it had so many enemies. Enemies! The world was populous with its enemies.

Such is the tiny Genie of the Wire that had to be protected and trained into obedience. It was the most defenceless of all electric sprites, and it had so many enemies.

Enemies! The world was populous with its enemies.

There was the lightning, its elder brother, striking at it with murderous blows. There were the telegraphic and light-and-power currents, its strong and malicious cousins, chasing and assaulting it whenever it ventured too near.

This was practically the sum total of Bell's invention, and remains to-day as he made it. It was then, and is yet, the most sensitive instrument that has ever been put to general use in any country.

It opened up a new world of sound.

It would echo the tramp of a fly that walked across a table, or repeat in New Orleans the prattle of a child in New York. This was what the young men received, and this was all.

This was practically the sum total of Bell's invention, and remains to-day as he made it. It was then, and is yet, the most sensitive instrument that has ever been put to general use in any country. It opened up a new world of sound.

It would echo the tramp of a fly that walked across a table, or repeat in New Orleans the prattle of a child in New York.

This was what the young men received, and this was all.

No doubt, if the young men had stopped to consider their life-work as a whole, some of them might have turned back. But they had no time to philosophize.

They were like the boy who learns how to swim by being pushed into deep water.

Once the telephone business was started, it had to be kept going; and as it grew, there came one after another a series of congestions. Two courses were open;

Next after the transmitter came the problem of the MYSTERIOUS NOISES. This was, perhaps, the most weird and mystifying of all the telephone problems.

The fact was that the telephone had brought within hearing distance a new wonder-world of sound.

All wires at that time were single, and ran into the earth at each end, making what was called a "grounded circuit."

And this connection with the earth, which is really a big magnet, caused all manner of strange and uncouth noises on the telephone wires.

Noises! Such a jangle of meaningless noises had never been heard by human ears.

There were spluttering and bubbling, jerking and rasping, whistling and screaming. There were the rustling of leaves, the croaking of frogs, the hissing of steam, and the flapping of birds' wings.

There were clicks from telegraph wires, scraps of talk from other telephones, and curious little squeals that were unlike any known sound. The lines running east and west were noisier than the lines running north and south.

The night was noisier than the day, and at the ghostly hour of midnight, for what strange reason no one knows, the babel was at its height.

Watson, who had a fanciful mind, suggested that perhaps these sounds were signals from the inhabitants of Mars or some other sociable planet. But the matter-of-fact young telephonists agreed to lay the blame on "induction"—a hazy word which usually meant the natural meddlesomeness of electricity.

Whatever else the mysterious noises were, they were a nuisance. The poor little telephone business was plagued almost out of its senses.

It was like a dog with a tin can tied to its tail.

No matter where it went, it was pursued by this unearthly clatter. "We were ashamed to present our bills," said A. A. Adee, one of the first agents;

Whatever else the mysterious noises were, they were a nuisance. The poor little telephone business was plagued almost out of its senses. It was like a dog with a tin can tied to its tail.

No matter where it went, it was pursued by this unearthly clatter.

"We were ashamed to present our bills," said A. A. Adee, one of the first agents; "for no matter how plainly a man talked into his telephone, his language was apt to sound like Choctaw at the other end of the line."

Whatever else the mysterious noises were, they were a nuisance.

The poor little telephone business was plagued almost out of its senses.

It was like a dog with a tin can tied to its tail. No matter where it went, it was pursued by this unearthly clatter. "We were ashamed to present our bills," said A. A. Adee, one of the first agents;

A telephone wire required the daintiest of handling. To bury it was to smother it, to make it dull or perhaps entirely useless. But now that the number of wires had swollen from hundreds to thousands, the overhead method had been outgrown.

Some streets in the larger cities had become black with wires.

Poles had risen to fifty feet in height, then sixty—seventy—eighty. Finally the highest of all pole lines was built along West Street, New York—every pole a towering Norway pine, with its top ninety feet above the roadway, and carrying thirty cross-arms and three hundred wires.

These roofs had to be kept in repair, and their chimneys were the deadly enemies of the iron wires. Many a wire, in less than two or three years, was withered to the merest shred of rust.

As if these troubles were not enough, there were the storms of winter, which might wipe out a year's revenue in a single day.

The sleet storms were the worst. Wires were weighted down with ice, often three pounds of ice per foot of wire.

If such paper could be put on flat, he reasoned, it would be stronger. Just then he heard of an erratic genius who had an invention for winding paper tape on wire for the use of milliners.

Paper-wound bonnet-wire! Who could imagine any connection between this and the telephone?

Yet this hint was exactly what Barrett needed. He experimented until he had devised a machine that crumpled the paper around the wire, instead of winding it tightly. This was the finishing touch.

By 1896 there were two hundred thousand miles of wire snugly wrapped in paper and lying in leaden caskets beneath the streets of the cities, and to-day there are six million miles of it owned by the affiliated Bell companies.

Instead of blackening the streets, the wire nerves of the telephone are now out of sight under the roadway, and twining into the basements of buildings like a new sort of metallic ivy.

Some cables are so large that a single spool of cable will weigh twenty-six tons and require a giant truck and a sixteen-horse team to haul it to its resting-place.

This mighty geyser of wires is fifty tons in weight and would, if straightened out into a single line, connect New York with Chicago.

Yet it is as invisible as the nerves and muscles of a human body.

During this evolution of the cable, even the wire itself was being remade. Vail and others had noticed that of all the varieties of wire that were for sale, not one was exactly suitable for a telephone system.

Or perhaps a submarine cable has been sat upon by the Lusitania and flattened to death. But no matter what the trouble, a telephone system cannot be stopped for repairs. It cannot be picked up and put into a dry-dock.

It must be repaired or improved by a sort of vivisection while it is working.

It is an interlocking unit, a living, conscious being, half human and half machine; and an injury in any one place may cause a pain or sickness to its whole vast body.

But no matter what the trouble, a telephone system cannot be stopped for repairs. It cannot be picked up and put into a dry-dock. It must be repaired or improved by a sort of vivisection while it is working.

It is an interlocking unit, a living, conscious being, half human and half machine; and an injury in any one place may cause a pain or sickness to its whole vast body.

And just as the particles of a human body change every six or seven years, without disturb-ing the body, so the particles of our telephone systems have changed repeatedly without any interruption of traffic. The constant flood of new inventions has necessitated several complete rebuildings.

It cannot be shown by photography, not even in moving-pictures, because so much of it is concealed inside its wooden body. And few people, if any, are initiated into its inner mysteries except those who belong to its own cortege of inventors and attendants.

A telephone switchboard is a pyramid of inventions.

If it is full-grown, it may have two million parts. It may be lit with fifteen thousand tiny electric lamps and nerved with as much wire as would reach from New York to Berlin.

To connect five thousand people by telephone requires five thousand wires when the wires run to a switchboard; but without a switchboard there would have to be 12,497,500 wires—4,999 to every telephone.

As well might there be a nerve-system without a brain, as a telephone system without a switchboard.

If there had been at first two separate companies, one owning the telephone and the other the switchboard, neither could have done the business.

These were as simple as wheelbarrows, and became absurdly inadequate as soon as the telephone business began to grow. Then there came adaptations by the dozen.

Every telephone manager became by compulsion an inventor.

There was no source of information and each exchange did the best it could. Hundreds of patents were taken out. And by 1884 there had come to be a fairly definite idea of what a telephone switchboard ought to be.

The Multiple board was enormously expensive. It grew more and more elaborate until it cost one-third of a million dollars. The telephone men racked their brains to produce something cheaper to take its place, and they failed.

The Multiple boards swallowed up capital as a desert swallows water, but THEY SAVED TEN SECONDS ON EVERY CALL.

This was an unanswerable argument in their favor, and by 1887 twenty-one of them were in use.

The Holmes exchange was on the top floor of a little building, and in almost every other city the first exchange was as near the roof as possible, partly to save rent and partly because most of the wires were strung on roof-tops.

As the telephone itself had been born in a cellar, so the exchange was born in a garret.

Usually, too, each exchange was an off-shoot of some other wire-using business. It was a medley of makeshifts. Almost every part of its outfit had been made for other uses.

To describe one of those early telephone exchanges in the silence of a printed page is a wholly impossible thing.

Nothing but a language of noise could convey the proper impression.

An editor who visited the Chicago exchange in 1879 said of it: "The racket is almost deafening.

No matter how many millions of dollars may be spent upon cables and switchboards, the quality of telephone service depends upon the girl at the exchange end of the wire.

It is she who meets the public at every point.

She is the despatcher of all the talk trains; she is the ruler of the wire highways; and she is expected to give every passenger-voice an instantaneous express to its destination. More is demanded from her than from any other servant of the public.

More is demanded from her than from any other servant of the public. Her clients refuse to stand in line and quietly wait their turn, as they are quite willing to do in stores and theatres and barber shops and railway stations and everywhere else.

They do not see her at work and they do not know what her work is.

They do not notice that she answers a call in an average time of three and a half seconds. They are in a hurry, or they would not be at the telephone; and each second is a minute long.

They do not see her at work and they do not know what her work is. They do not notice that she answers a call in an average time of three and a half seconds.

They are in a hurry, or they would not be at the telephone; and each second is a minute long.

Any delay is a direct personal affront that makes a vivid impression upon their minds.

and the big industry is now being run by a group of young hustlers, with H. B. Thayer at the head of the table. Thayer is a Vermonter who has climbed the ladder of experience from its lower rungs to the top.

He is a typical Yankee—lean, shrewd, tireless, and with a cold-blooded sense of justice that fits him for the leadership of twenty-six thousand people.

So, as we have seen, the telephone as Bell invented it, was merely a brilliant beginning in the development of the art of telephony. It was an elfin birth—an elusive and delicate sprite that had to be nurtured into maturity.

By this time, too, the public was ready for the telephone. A new generation had grown up, without the prejudices of its fathers. People had grown away from the telegraphic habit of thought, which was that wire communications were expensive luxuries for the few.

The telephone was, in fact, a new social nerve, so new and so novel that very nearly twenty years went by before it had fully grown into place, and before the social body developed the instinct of using it.

Not that the difficulties of the telephone engineers were over, for they were not. They have seemed to grow more numerous and complex every year. But by 1896 enough had been done to warrant a forward movement.

Then it reached out to master an area of four hundred and thirteen thousand square miles—a great Lone Land of undeveloped resources. Its linemen groped through dense forests where their poles looked like toothpicks beside the towering pines and cedars.

They girdled the mountains and basted the prairies with wire, until the lonely places were brought together and made sociable.

They drove off the Indians, who wanted the bright wire for ear-rings and bracelets; and the bears, which mistook the humming of the wires for the buzzing of bees, and persisted in gnawing the poles down.

Of all brokers, the one who finally accomplished most by telephony was unquestionably E. H. Harriman. In the mansion that he built at Arden, there were a hundred telephones, sixty of them linked to the long-distance lines.

What the brush is to the artist, what the chisel is to the sculptor, the telephone was to Harriman.

He built his fortune with it. It was in his library, his bathroom, his private car, his camp in the Oregon wilder-ness. No transaction was too large or too involved to be settled over its wires.

But it is in a dangerous crisis, when safety seems to hang upon a second, that the telephone is at its best.

It is the instrument of emergencies, a sort of ubiquitous watchman.

When the girl operator in the exchange hears a cry for help—"Quick! The hospital!" "The fire department!" "The police!" she seldom waits to hear the number. She knows it. She is trained to save half-seconds.

What telephones have done to bring in the present era of big crops, is an interesting story in itself. To compress it into a sentence, we might say that the telephone has completed the labor-saving movement which started with the McCormick reaper in 1831.

It has lifted the farmer above the wastefulness of being his own errand-boy.

The average length of haul from barn to market in the United States is nine and a half miles, so that every trip saved means an extra day's work for a man and team.

The larger significance of the telephone is that it completes the work of eliminating the hermit and gypsy elements of civilization.

In an almost ideal way, it has made intercommunication possible without travel. It has enabled a man to settle permanently in one place, and yet keep in personal touch with his fellows.

The larger significance of the telephone is that it completes the work of eliminating the hermit and gypsy elements of civilization.

In an almost ideal way, it has made intercommunication possible without travel.

It has enabled a man to settle permanently in one place, and yet keep in personal touch with his fellows.

And then came the telephone, giving direct instantaneous communication and putting the people of each nation within hearing distance of each other. It was the completion of a long series of inventions.

It was the keystone of the arch.

It was the one last improvement that enabled interdependent nations to handle themselves and to hold together.

To make the electric wire carry signals was more, because of the instantaneous transmission of important news. But to make the electric wire carry speech was MOST, because it put all fellow-citizens face to face, and made both message and answer instantaneous.

The invention of the telephone taught the Genie of Electricity to do better than to carry mes-sages in the sign language of the dumb. It taught him to speak.

As Emerson has finely said:

And thus the larger truth about the telephone is that it is vastly more than a mere convenience. It is not to be classed with safety razors and piano players and fountain pens.

It is nothing less than the high-speed tool of civilization, gearing up the whole mechanism to more effective social service.

It is the symbol of national efficiency and cooperation.

This effort to conquer Time and Space is above all else the instinct of material progress.

To shrivel up the miles and to stretch out the minutes—this has been one of the master passions of the human race.

And thus the larger truth about the telephone is that it is vastly more than a mere convenience. It is not to be classed with safety razors and piano players and fountain pens.

It expected every instrument to pay its way. In many States, both the telephone men and the public overlooked the most vital fact in the case, which is that the members of a telephone system are above all else INTERDEPENDENT.

One telephone by itself has no value. It is as useless as a reed cut out of an organ or a finger that is severed from a hand.

It is not even ornamental or adaptable to any other pur-pose. It is not at all like a piano or a talking-machine, which has a separate existence. It is useful only in proportion to the number of other telephones it reaches.

He did more. He became the champion of the telephone. He staked his reputation upon it. He told the story of the tests made at the Centennial, and assured the sceptical scientists that he had not been deceived.

"All this my own ears heard," he said, "spoken to me with unmistakable distinctness by this circular disc of iron."

The scientists and electrical experts were, for the most part, split up into two camps. Some of them said the telephone was impossible, while others said that "nothing could be simpler." Almost all were agreed that what Bell had done was a humorous trifle.

"Suddenly and quietly the whole human race is brought within speaking and hearing distance," it exclaimed; "scarcely anything was more desired and more impossible." The next paper to quit the mob of scoffers was the Tatler, which said in an editorial peroration,

"We cannot but feel im-pressed by the picture of a human child commanding the subtlest and strongest force in Nature to carry, like a slave, some whisper around the world."

Closely after the scientists and editors came the nobility. The Earl of Caithness led the way. He declared in public that "the telephone is the most extraordinary thing I ever saw in my life."

There was no national plan, no standardization, no staff of inventors and improvers. Every user was required to buy his own telephone.

As George Ade has said, "Anything attached to a wall is liable to be a telephone in Paris."

And so, what with poor equipment and red tape, the French system became what it remains to-day, the most conspicuous example of what NOT to do in telephony.

The telephone thus became a part of the telegraph, which is a part of the post office, which is a part of the government.

It is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction—a mere twig of bureaucracy.

Under such conditions the telephone could not prosper. The wonder is that it survived.

The craze for "cheap and nasty" telephony is passing; and the idea that the telephone is above all else a SPEED instrument, is gaining ground. A faster long-distance service, at double rates, is being well patronized.

Slow-moving races are learning the value of time, which is the first lesson in telephony.

Our reapers and mowers now go to seventy-five nations. Our street cars run in all great cities. Morocco is importing our dollar watches; Korea is learning the waste of allowing nine men to dig with one spade. And all this means telephones.

Among the wise men of Greece and Rome, few knew its existence, and none put it to any practical use. The wisest knew that a piece of amber, when rubbed, will attract feathery substances. But they regarded this as poetry rather than science.

There was a pretty legend among the Phoenicians that the pieces of amber were the petrified tears of maidens who had thrown themselves into the sea because of unrequited love, and each bead of amber was highly prized.

It was worn as an amulet and a symbol of purity. Not for two thousand years did any one dream that within its golden heart lay hidden the secret of a new electrical civilization.

Thus it happened that when Bell invented the telephone, he surprised the world with a new idea. He had to make the thought as well as the thing. No Jules Verne or H. G. Wells had foreseen it.

The author of the Arabian Nights fantasies had conceived of a flying carpet, but neither he nor any one else had conceived of flying conversation.

In all the literature of ancient days, there is not a line that will apply to the telephone, except possibly that expressive phrase in the Bible, "And there came a voice."

No other thing is more enswathed in the unknown. Not even the gray-haired pioneers who have lived with the telephone since its birth, can understand their protege. As to the why and the how, there is as yet no answer.

It is as true of telephony to-day as it was in 1876, that a child can use what the wisest sages cannot comprehend.

Here is a tiny disc of sheet-iron. I speak—it shudders. It has a different shudder for every sound. It has thousands of millions of different shudders. There is a second disc many miles away, perhaps twenty-five hundred miles away.

As to the why and the how, there is as yet no answer. It is as true of telephony to-day as it was in 1876, that a child can use what the wisest sages cannot comprehend.

Here is a tiny disc of sheet-iron. I speak—it shudders. It has a different shudder for every sound.

It has thousands of millions of different shudders. There is a second disc many miles away, perhaps twenty-five hundred miles away. Between the two discs runs a copper wire. As I speak, a thrill of electricity flits along the wire.

The telephone current is a phenomenon of the ether, say the theorists. But what is ether? No one knows. Sir Oliver Lodge has guessed that it is "perhaps the only substantial thing in the material universe"; but no one knows.

There is nothing to guide us in that unknown country except a sign-post that points upwards and bears the one word—"Perhaps."

The ether of space! Here is an Eldorado for the scientists of the future, and whoever can first map it out will go far toward discovering the secret of telephony.

But these random guesses as to the future of the telephone may fall far short of what the reality will be. In these dazzling days it is idle to predict.

The inventor has everywhere put the prophet out of business. Fact has outrun Fancy.

When Morse, for instance, was tacking up his first little line of wire around the Speedwell Iron Works, who could have foreseen two hundred and fifty thousand miles of submarine cables, by which the very oceans are all aquiver with the news of the world?