26 Transactions of the Kansas 



was pierced with a conical hole, and over the smaller end the skin of a German 

 sausage was stretched. Another tubular opening into the barrel allowed this mem- 

 brane to be put into vibration by tones of the voice. These vibrations, by suitable 

 mechanism, opened and closed an electric circuit, and the interrupted current 

 passed through an electro-magnet properly mounted on a box for strengthening 

 the sound. 



The German pedagogue still flourishes, and has made many improvements in his 

 original telephone — some of quite recent date. 



A writer in the Polytechnisches Notizblatt, in 1863, says, that not only tones, but 

 words, could be communicated by Reiss' telephone, if such as heard frequently; 

 and in 1865, Yeates, an instrument maker of Dublin, introduced a modification of 

 Reiss' instruments that was said to transmit words well, bj' members of the Dublin 

 Philosophical Society. Reiss named his invention a telephone, a name that had 

 then been in use many years, and was applicable to all instruments for trans- 

 mitting sound to a distance. Reiss suggested that this kind of sound transmission 

 might be the basis of improvements in telegraphy, but no practical applications 

 were made, and telephones were merely philosophical toys until Bell's work culmi- 

 nated in 1876. 



Till that date our best text books, if allusion was made to it at all, dispatched the 

 subject of electrical transmission of sounds in a paragraph. Since then, the 

 progress of the science has been simply wonderful, for we may surely call tele- 

 phony a science bringing forth several volumes in two years, and being the subject 

 of articles innumerable in all classes of journals, and the topic of inquiry and curi- 

 osity everywhere. I have no time to pursue my theme historically, any further, nor 

 do I wish to enter on the disputed question of priority. 



A discussion of principles and applications is more worthy the attention of the 

 Academy. 



We may divide electric telephones into three classes: 1st. Those already 

 described, where the vibrations of a reed, or membrane, cause interruptions 

 of an electric circuit, thus sending intermittent currents to a distant station. 

 These currents have the same frequency as the pulsations of the sound-wave that 

 caused the interruptions, and will produce in the electro-magnet pulsations of like 

 frequency. We thus get a tone of the same pitch as the original note which is sung 

 by the voice or emitted by the vibrating reed. The quality of the tone^-its timbre, 

 will depend on the kind of mounting given to the electro-magnet. The most elab- 

 orate telephone of this class, yet constructed, is that made by Prof. Gray, of 

 Chicago. For the original tones he used reeds of different pitch, vibrated by elec- 

 tric influence which was controlled by keys like those of a piano. At the receiving 

 end he had an ingenious and complicated apparatus for reinforcing the sound. It 

 was Prof. Gray who gained such wide celebrity by his telephonic concerts, in the 

 first of which, music in Chicago was reproduced in Milwaukee, greatly to the sur- 

 prise and delight of a large audience. 



Prof. Gray, as electrician to a telegraph company, naturally sought to utilize the 

 principles of his musical telephone in multiplex telegraphy, and has been measur- 

 ably successful, though the time does not seem ripe yet for its universal adop- 

 tion. Aside from its novelty, the music from this sort of telephone has no special 

 charm. It is apt to sound weird and doleful, and reminds one of hand organs, 

 such as are ground by old beggar-women, to attract notice and sympathy, sitting 

 with tlioir starved children beside a gutter. As a musical instrument it is not a 

 success, as Artemus would have said. 



Telephones of the second class, of which Bell's instruments were the precursors 



