HISTORY OF ELECTRICITY IN AMERICA 137 



the Northwestern university at Evanston, is now the editor of 

 a well known electrical journal. 



But the list of prominent schoolmen still identified with 

 institutions of learning includes, with the exceptions noted, 

 nearly or quite all the names which really fill a place in elec- 

 trical science. Such are Prof. H. A. Rowland and Dr. Louis 

 Duncan, of Johns Hopkins; Prof. John Trowbridge, of Har- 

 vard; Prof. C. F. Brackett, of Princeton; Prof. George F. 

 Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania; Prof. Charles R. 

 Cross, of the Massachusetts institute of technology; Prof. 

 Henry Morton and Prof. A. M. Maj^er, both of the Stevens 

 institute; Prof. A. E. Dolbear, of Tufts; Prof. E. L. Nichols, 

 of Cornell, and Prof. H. J. Ryan, his associate; Prof. Edwin 

 J. Houston, already mentioned; Prof. L. I. Blake, of the 

 University of Kansas; and Prof. H. S. Carhart, of Ann Ai'bor. 



By common consent, the most unexpected, the most 

 wonder compelling invention of all time, the one of all w^hich, 

 when realized, seems most unreal, is the electric telephone. 

 After years of constant familiarity with the fact of talking 

 with a distant friend, it still seems, at first thought, incred- 

 ible and impossible. It is still more like one of Puck's fan- 

 cies, which we shall see the absurdity of, as soon as we are 

 released from the spell. The marvelous invention has had 

 an equally marvelous histor}^ It has been claimed for a 

 German professor and for three different Americans of the 

 same guild, for a French private in the African army, for an 

 Italian refugee, and variously, for a model maker, a music 

 teacher, an upholsterer, barber, and man)^ others. Every 

 detail of the entire history has been brought to light by in- 

 terested parties in the attempt to overthrow the patent of 

 Alexander Graham Bell, whose predominating claims as in- 

 ventor have been authoritatively sanctioned by the Su- 

 preme court of the United States. The undoubted fact that 

 Elisha Gray filed a caveat for the same invention on the 

 same day that Bell lodged his application, and the resulting 

 legal complications, are ranged side by side w^ith claims from 

 other inventors which are manifestly untrustworthy and 

 fraudulent. But this, the most interesting chapter in the 

 history of invention, must here regretfully be suppressed. 



