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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



music is executed, it would be a picture 

 of mathematical exactness, and infinite 

 complication, that has no analogy in 

 anything we observe. It has always 

 been regarded as one of the mysterious 

 miracles of vital structure how the lit- 

 tle membranous drum of the human 

 ear can take up so perfectly this rapid 

 stream of intricate motions in the air, 

 which are all so exactly reproduced by 

 the layer of adjacent particles striking 

 upon the membrane, that thousands of 

 tympanums will be all affected precisely 

 alike, while the nerves transmit the 

 thrills to the brain, awakening the same 

 musical sensations and sentiments in the 

 consciousness of as many people as can 

 be brought within hearing. This chain 

 of effects is wonderful, indeed ; but we 

 are now confronted with the fact, more 

 impressively than ever, that it is no 

 prerogative of the living organism to 

 respond to these subtile and exquisite 

 changes in the air ; the inert, dead 

 matter of which we hear so much 

 mere cold iron will do exactly the 

 same thing. 



When we begin to use a telephone 

 for the first time, there is a sense of 

 oddity, almost of foolishness, in the ex- 

 periment. The dignity of talking con- 

 sists in having a listener, and there 

 seems a kind of absurdity in addressing 

 a piece of iron, but we must raise our 

 respect for the metal, for it is anything 

 but deaf. The diaphragm of the tele- 

 phone, the thin iron plate, is as sensi- 

 tive as the living tympanum to all the 

 delicate refinements of sound. Nor 

 does it depend upon the thinness of 

 the metallic sheet, for a piece of thick 

 boiler-plate will take up and transmit 

 the motions of the air-particles in all 

 the grades of their subtilty. And not 

 only will it do the same thing as the 

 tympanum, but it will do vastly more : 

 the gross, dead metal proves, in fact, to 

 be a hundred times more alive than 

 the living mechanism of speech and au- 

 dition. This is no exaggeration. In 

 quickness, in accuracy, and even in 



grasp, there is a perfection of sensitive 

 capacity in the metal, with which the 

 organic instrument cannot compare. 

 We speak of the proverbial " quickness 

 of thought," but the telephone thinks 

 quicker than the nervous mechanism. 

 Let a word be pronounced for a per- 

 son to repeat, and the telephone will 

 hear and speak it a hundred miles 

 away in a tenth part of the time 

 that the listener would need to utter it. 

 Give a man a series of half a dozen 

 notes to repeat, and he cannot do it 

 accurately to save his life ; but the 

 iron plate takes them up, transmits 

 them to another plate hundreds of 

 miles off, which sings them forth in- 

 stantaneously with absolute precision. 

 The human machine can hear, and re- 

 produce, in its poor way, only a single 

 series of notes, while the iron ear of 

 the telephone will take up whole chords 

 and trains of music, and, sending them 

 by lightning through the wire, its iron 

 tongue will emit them in perfect rela- 

 tions of harmony. The correlations and 

 transformations of impulse are besides 

 much more extended in the telephone 

 than in the living structure. The voli- 

 I tional mandate from the brain incites 

 nervous discharges, expended in pro- 

 ducing muscular contractions that im- 

 pel the air across the vibrating cords, 

 where it is thrown into waves. But 

 in the case of the telephone, the air- 

 waves are spent in producing mechani- 

 cal vibrations of the metal ; the secre- 

 ate magnetic disturbances, which ex- 

 cite electrical action in the wire, and 

 this again gives rise to magnetic changes 

 that are still further converted into the 

 tremors of the distant diaphragm, and 

 these finally reappear as new trains ot 

 air-waves that affect the listener, while 

 the whole intermediate series of changes 

 is executed in a fraction of the time that 

 is required by the nervous combinations 

 of speech. And not only does the tele- 

 phone beat the living machine out of 

 sight in speed, accuracy, compass of 

 results, and multiplicity of dynamical 



