The Developing of Communication 



The telegraph was a conveyor of signals but civilization 

 demanded a conveyor of the human voice and one that could 

 be put to more general and practical uses In the every day 

 affairs of life. This necessity gave rise to the Invention of 

 the telephone, an instrument for the transmission and repro- 

 duction of articulate speech between two or more distant 

 points. 



The telephone was a lineal descendant and a direct off- 

 spring of the telegraph that had preceded Its coming. All 

 the thoughts that had been conceived and applied in making 

 up the telegraph system were commingled and all the useful 

 parts were retained and the useless discarded and with the 

 addition of new Ideas, the telephone was developed. The 

 fact that sound could be transmitted over tightly drawn 

 wires had been discovered as early as 1667, but the first 

 practical demonstration in transmitting sound by artificial 

 means was through a tube and by the use of the string tele- 

 phone. Like that of the telegraph, many Impractical devices 

 came Into limited use, but it remained for Dr. Alexander 

 Bell, of Boston, to perfect the first practical Instrument for 

 conveying the articulate human voice to distant points. He 

 made application for a patent on his new invention on Feb- 

 ruary 14, 1876, and, strange as It may seem. Professor 

 Elisha Gray made application on the same day for a patent 

 on a similar instrument. Extensive litigation was then 

 entered Into between these two claimants, which was finally 

 decided by a decision of the Supreme Court sustaining the 

 claims of Dr. Bell. 



The first Idea was that the telephone should be for pri- 

 vate use connecting the home of one person to that of some 



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