DEVELOPMENT OF TELEPHONE SERVICE 425 



NOTES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF TELEPHONE SERVICE 



By FRED DE LAND 

 PITTSBURG, PA. 



I. The Electric-Speaking Telephone 



THE desire to transmit speech over long distances probably dates 

 back to the first wide separation of loved and beloved. That 

 many methods have been suggested for the transmission of speech is 

 of record. That speech has been mechanically or acoustically trans- 

 mitted over many hundred feet of taut string and practically straight 

 wires, during several hundred years, is true. That the 'lover's tele- 

 phone' is a toy that has amused several generations is well known. 

 That there were musical (not speech) telephones and sound (not 

 speech) microphones nearly a century ago is an interesting fact. That 

 prior to 1876, many men devoted much thought to the problem of the 

 electrical transmission of speech is granted. 



Nevertheless, the facts are that no authentic record has been found 

 proving the existence of a practical method of speech transmission over 

 long-distances, either electrical or mechanical, prior to the invention 

 of the electric-speaking telephone by Alexander Graham Bell. 



Moreover, while certain devices not invented by him are in use on 

 telephone lines, each and all are but refinements or conveniences of 

 the system. The broad fundamental method conceived by Alexander 

 Graham Bell, in 1874, underlies the electrical transmission of speech 

 in any form, and in any portion of the world. And Bell's method has 

 been in no wise changed since its promulgation in letters-patent, in 

 1876, though thousands of the brightest minds in all civilized countries 

 have striven for nearly thirty years to find another way, some other 

 way, any other way, to transmit speech electrically. 



Eighteen months passed by after the method conceived and per- 

 fected by Alexander Graham Bell became public property, and tens 

 of thousands of Bell's telephones went into daily commercial use, before 

 the first of the many claimants publicly asserted a prior right to the 

 discovery of the art of transmitting speech electrically. Yet, not one 

 could make his apparatus convey speech, except through a utilization 

 of Bell's method and, in some cases, only by using Bell's receiver. 



Thus the only reasonable conclusion that men in search of the truth 

 can arrive at is ' that for physical and mathematical reasons it is not 

 possible to have any method except the way that Alexander Graham 

 Bell found.' And that was the sworn testimony unwillingly given by 

 the experts employed by the followers in his footsteps. For the evi- 



