342 BELL SYSTEM TECHNICAL JOURNAL 



maintenance by curbing the severity of the hghtning surges. Although the 

 initial experiments were quite encouraging, the more extensive service 

 trials proved insufl&cient advantage to warrant standardization. 



Early in 1905 Jewett also started to build up a splendid record as a per- 

 sonnel recruiting agent for the headquarters staff. '^ 



Jewett's 1905 engineering work, however, was not wholly taken up by 

 protection problems or personnel recruiting. He also handled a large cor- 

 respondence with the field engineers on current transmission engineering 

 problems, including loading and phantom working, and made a number of 

 special transmission and patent studies. This experience substantially 

 broadened his training in the engineering work, and provided a helpful 

 background for the assumption of new responsibilities on January 1, 1906, 

 when he succeeded Dr. Campbell as head of the Electrical Department, 

 reporting directly to Warren. For some time Campbell had been anxious 

 to concentrate on theoretical research problems and he welcomed the 

 availability of Jewett as a replacement. That Jewett was ready for de- 

 partment supervision responsibilities after less than 16 months' service 

 with the Telephone Company proved the capabilities of the man and veri- 

 fied the initial appraisals of his potentialities made by Messrs. Hayes, 

 Warren, and Campbell. 



Now that the story has Jewett well started on his telephone career, it is 

 appropriate to review the state of the art, and briefly consider organization 

 responsibilities. Also the laboratory facilities and methods of transmission 

 testing are briefly described. 



State of the Art 



Regarding the general status of telephony at the beginning of 1906 we 

 can take it from Frederick L. Rhodes' account in the "'BEGINNINGS OF 

 TELEPHONY" (published 1929) that the art had been very well begun 

 and that the Bell System plant had been placed or^ a sound engineering 

 basis. Much remained to be done, however, in all branches of the art, and 

 in some of the fields which assumed great importance in later years the sur- 

 face had hardly been scratched. 



A few high spots of the 1906 status are briefly mentioned below to give 

 some indication of what had been done and in some instances what re- 

 mained to be done. 



1. The telephone wire plant was substantially on a metallic circuit 

 basis (excepting some rural subscriber lines). 



^ His early selectees included F. J. Chesterman now Vice-President of the Bell Tele- 

 phone Company of Penna.; O. B. Blackwell now Vice-President of the Bell Telephone 

 Laboratories; H. S. Osborne, now Chief Engineer of the American Telephone and Tele- 

 graph Co.; John Mills, Director of Publication, and VV. H. Martin, now Director of Sta- 

 tion of Apparatus Development, Bell Telephone Laboratories. 



