DEVELOPMENT OF TELEPHONE SERVICE 499 



lines ; then he installed a home-made switching device in his office, and 

 for a signaling device employed a single-stroke bell operating on a 

 gravity-battery current. Then he devised a method of preventing 

 eavesdropping that in May, 1878, was declared ' a great improvement 

 on any other telephone system now in use.' So satisfactory did these 

 instruments prove that other lines were similarly equipped and soon a 

 mutual telephone exchange system was in full operation, that later on 

 formed the nucleus of the commercial exchange opened in Bridgeport 

 by Mr. Doolittle in 1878. 



In the fall of 1877 he planned and built a private telephone ex- 

 change system for the Ansonia Brass and Copper Company, of An- 

 sonia, that, while in no sense a commercial exchange system, was indi- 

 rectly of incalculable benefit to the growth and prosperity of the entire 

 commercial telephone industry. For in planning this system Mr. 

 Doolittle decided to use circuits of copper instead of iron, and, after 

 many experiments, produced a hard drawn copper wire of his own 

 adaptation, the drawing of which he supervised in the mills of that 

 company. 



Prior to that time it had been found impossible to use copper wire 

 on pole line circuits, as its extreme ductility proved a source of con- 

 tinued elongation in all spans of any length and where the strain was 

 constant. By the Doolittle process the tensile strength of the wire 

 was greatly increased, its elongation reduced to about one per cent., 

 and there was no appreciable change in its conductivity. Yet it re- 

 quired ten years of costly experience with iron wire circuits before 

 the telephone interests fully comprehended the inestimable value of 

 this improvement. In September, 1880, at a conference of telephone 

 men, the representative of a very large wire-drawing mill stated that 

 " copper wire has ceased to be discussed for telephone line use. It is 

 too soft and elongates too readily under exposure. The suitable wire 

 must be tough pure iron, well manipulated to secure flexibility and 

 toughness." 



Eeferring to this pioneer work, Mr. Doolittle wrote: 



Hard drawn copper was the result of an adaptation rather than a discovery, 

 although many of its valuable properties were not appreciated until after it 

 had been in service several years. Prior to its introduction for aerial conductors 

 there was very little, if any, call for the hard product. Copper wire was usually 

 annealed after drawing and sold in that form. Copper alloyed with other metal 

 was, and is now, used in the manufacture of hard or spring wire. It is the com- 

 mon knowledge of all who are familiar with the manipulation of copper that 

 the process of drawing it into wire serves to harden the surface. Thus it will 

 be seen that the experiments which resulted in the so-called hard drawn copper 

 wire were based upon a well-known principle, although the application of this 

 principle had never been made use of for the final product. The writer was 

 familiar with this phenomenon of the hardening of drawn copper at the time 

 he entered the field of electricity; therefore, when it was disclosed to him that 

 copper was not only one of the best conductors of electricity, but was the cheapest 

 in conductivity, or per mile ohm, it was only left for him to determine whether 

 or not this hardening process could be made available in order that copper wire 



