424 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[May 1, 1915. 



The Telephone and Its Dependence on Rubber. 



T twenty-fifth day of Januarj last will go down in his- 



tory as an epoch-marking date in the annals of tele- 

 phony. Upon that occasion Alcxandei Graham Bell, in 

 New Y.>rk City, spoke across the breadth of our land with 

 fhomas A. Watson, in San Francisco Less than 4(i years ago 

 those sanie nun were the first to transmit and hear human speech 



ied bj Watson, Bell ran the wires of his experimental cir- 

 cuit. Finally, on the tenth day of March, 1876, Bell, in his room 

 .hi the top floor, put his mouth to the transmitter, which he had 

 fashioned for hi- system, and called, "Mr. Watson, < "me here, I 



you." And Watson made haste to comply, rushing into his 

 associate's room with the excited exclamation, "[ heard you; I 



Thomas A. Watson. 



Theodore X. Vail. 



Copyright by Harris &■ Ewing. 



Alexander G. Bell. 



through the medium of wires stretched then over a span shorter 

 than a hundred feet. No wonder Bell, the inventor of this mar- 

 velous system of communication, said, as he turned from the 

 transmitter, after hearing Mr. Watson 3.000 miles away, "It's 

 wonderful! Simply wonderful!" 



Many of us have still fresh in our memories the commercial 

 advent of the telephone and can recall vividly its early imperfec- 

 even when used within a city's limits, and all of adult age 

 know how brief is the interval since the long-distance telephone 

 me a medium of daily service. Therefore, we can under- 

 stand and appreciate Dr. Hell's exclamations. Many inventive 

 and hundreds of trained engineers have lent the best of 

 their skill in the developing of the telephone and its contributive 

 apparatus since Dr. Bell first brought it into being a little less 

 than two-score years ago, but that does not alter a bit the marvel 

 of the telephi me's birth. 



md day of June, 1875, will always lie a memorable 

 for on that occasion an accident brought a revelation to Dr. Bell 

 who at that time, with Mr. Watson, was working away at his 

 so-called "harmonic telegraph" apparatus. It seems one of the 

 transmitter springs of the telegraph instrument in Watson's room 

 stuck, and this bit of magnetized steel produced a current that 

 sent a faint vibration over the electric wire to Bell's receiver 

 something less than a hundred feet away in another chamber. 

 Bell heard that sound, and at once his inventive imagination saw 

 the possibility of the telephone. If the tone of that vibrating 

 spring could be carried over a wire, why not, then, the vibrations 

 of the human voice? To him, the answei was yes. and fulfil- 

 ment became a question of working out t 1 ary details. 



But the details took many months of labor and patient inves- 

 tigation, and the two young men worked early and late. At the 

 time they were boarding in Boston, and between his room and that 



could hear what you said!" Again, it was a matter of details to 

 work out the elements of a commercial system, and how well Dr. 

 Bell succeeded then can be gathered from the fact that it was 

 with his original transmitter, having a vibrating diaphragm of 

 animal membrane, that the inventor talked with Mr. Watson on 

 the 2Slh of January over the wires reaching from New York to 

 San Francis, i 



Thinking the world would he interested ill his telephone, Bell 

 ded to exhibit it at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, 

 in 1876. But so little impressed was the management with the 

 apparatus that Bell's display was poked off in an out-of-the-way 

 corner and generally overlooked by the public hungering for 

 things spectacular — as they understood the term. However, one 

 day along came the Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro, who knew 



>t lull because of the latter's work in acoustics. Bell explained 

 the telephone and persuaded the Emperor to listen at a receiver 

 while he talked. Dom Pedro dropped the instrument, exclaiming: 

 "My God, it speaks!" And the amazement of the distinguished 

 visitor attracted attention to its cause. Bell and his invention 

 were soon the main features of the Centennial. 



Just the same, business recognition lagged. But Bell and his 

 few faithful associates stuck to their task, and inside of sixteen 

 months after this patent was issued — that is, by August, 1877 — 

 there were 778 telephones in service in Boston. At that time 

 the business was organized under the name of The Bell Telephone 



Association. And then the inventor substantially turned the task 

 of further development over to others. From that modest begin- 

 ning has grown the continent-wide system of communication by 

 wire which has revolutionized commercial life here and has 

 brought into intimate vocal touch people physically scattered far 

 and wide. 

 In the United States, the telephone joins audibly no fewer than 



