BEGINNINGS OF THE TELEPHONE 177 



a very much larger number of strings to the octave, the 

 vowel sounds would be perfectly reproduced. My idea of the 

 action of the apparatus was this : utter a sound in the neigh- 

 borhood of the harp, and certain of the rods would be thrown 

 into vibration with different amplitudes. At the other end 

 of the circuit the corresponding rods of the harp would 

 vibrate with their proper relations of force, and the timbre of 

 the sound would be reproduced. The expense of constructing 

 such an apparatus deterred me from making the attempt, and 

 I sought to simplify the apparatus before venturing to have 

 it made. 



It is well known that deaf mutes are dumb merely be- 

 cause they are deaf, and that there is no defect in their vocal 

 organs to incapacitate them from utterance. Hence it was 

 thought that my father's system of pictorial sj^mbols, popu- 

 larly known as visible speech, might prove a means whereby 

 we could teach the deaf and dumb to use their vocal organs 

 and to speak. The great success of these experiments urged 

 upon me the advisability of devising a method of exhibiting 

 the vibrations of sound optically, for use in teaching the deaf 

 and dumb. For some time I carried on experiments with the 

 manometric capsule of Koenig and w^th the phonautograph 

 of Leon Scott. The scientific apparatus in the institute of 

 technology in Boston was freely placed at my disposal for 

 these experiments, and it happened that at that time a stu- 

 dent of the institute of technology, Mr. Maurey, had invented 

 an improvement upon the phonautograph. He had suc- 

 ceeded in vibrating by the voice a stylus of wood about a foot 

 in length, which was attached to the membrane of the phonau- 

 tograph, and in this way he had been enabled to obtain en- 

 larged tracings upon a plane surface of smoked glass. With 

 this apparatus I succeeded in producing very beautiful tracings 

 of the vibrations of the air for vowel sounds. I was much 

 struck with this improved form of apparatus, and it occurred 

 to me that there was a remarkable Ukeness between the man- 

 ner in wliich this piece of wood was vibrated by the membrane 

 of the phonautograph and the manner in which the small 

 bones of the human ear were moved by the tympanic mem- 

 brane. I determined therefore, to construct a phonautograph 



Vol. 7-ia 



