548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



what better practical articulation, hereafter testified to, was obtained. 

 But, even on this showing, what can be plainer than that Reis was the 

 originator of the new art of the electrical transmission of speech ? 

 Granting that the articulation at this time, and even in 1864, was 

 poor poorer even than Gray's in 1875, and Bell's in the spring of 

 1876 it was still articulation, understood where the words were not 

 foreknown by the listener. 



With regard to the present capability of Reis's instruments, Pro- 

 fessor Thompson says that he has found the Reis transmitters com- 

 petent to transmit both vowels and consonants with perfect distinct- 

 ness ; and from Reis's " knitting-needle receiver he has obtained 

 articulation, exceeding, in perfection of definition of vowels and con- 

 sonants, the articulation of any other telephone receiver he has ever 

 listened to.'''' 



Among other contemporary documents, the important report of 

 Legat on Reis's telephone to the Austro-German Telegraph Society 

 in 1862 is reproduced in full. From this report we have taken one of 

 the illustrations in this paper. The report is not only a description of 

 Reis's instruments, but an elaborate discussion of the problems con- 

 nected with the telephonic reproduction of sounds, including the trans- 

 mission of speech. The documents of this date show that the subject 

 of telephony was usually studied in connection with vocal song rather 

 than simple speech, and that the transmission of musical sounds, which 

 was generally successful, was preferred for illustration to the more 

 difficult, but also much more important, transmission of words and 

 sentences. But the fact of articulation continually appears. 



In a chapter containing the testimony of contemporary witnesses, 

 Professor G. Quincke, Professor of Physics in the University of Hei- 

 delberg, writes, under date of March 10, 1883, that he was present 

 at Reis's exhibition before the Naturforscher Versamlung, at Giessen, 

 1864. He says : " I heard distinctly both singing and talking. I 

 distinctly remember having heard the words of the German poem : 



" ' Ach, du lieber Angustin, 

 Alles ist bin,' " etc. 



Ernst Horkeimer, a pupil of Reis, writes that he assisted him in 

 most of his experiments prior to the spring of 1862 ; that the trans- 

 mission of speech was Reis's chief aim ; " the transmitting of musical 

 tones being only an after-thought, worked out for the convenience of 

 public exhibition," and that some words were successfully transmitted 

 without previous arrangement, but not (at that date) whole sentences. 

 He states that Reis anticipated the use of thin metallic tympanums, 

 and tried one, varnished with shellac on both sides, except the cen- 

 tral point of contact. 



Leon Gamier, proprietor and principal of the institute of which 

 Reis was a teacher, states that he often talked with Reis through his 



