OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. 267 



full statement seems necessary as a contribution to the history of the 

 telephone. 



It will be seen from the above statement, that in 1870, several years 

 before the telephones now in use were invented, a receiver was de- 

 vised, constructed, and tried, which consisted of a flexible iron dia- 

 phragm, supported at the edges and replacing the armature of an 

 electro-magnet. Musical sounds were telegraphed successfully, and 

 the apparatus was described at a scientific meeting, as the newspaper 

 report shows. In 1872 and later, the experiment was repeated under 

 various conditions. In 1879 it was shown that it was capable of 

 serving as a telephone, and of rendering articulate speech audible at 

 a distance. It appears to differ in no way in principle from the re- 

 ceiver now used. On the other hand, it should be stated that all my 

 experiments were made, or were intended to be made, with a discon- 

 tinuous current, and, although the instrument is capable of showing 

 the variations of a continuous current, I did not have this application 

 in mind when I constructed it. 



