392 BELL SYSTEM TECHNICAL JOURNAL 



of our land, East, West, North, South. Remarkable as this is, the progress 

 made during the epoch of which this was the culminating point has been still 

 more remarkable, but so quietly has it all been accomplished that it has been 

 hardly appreciable. During the past ten years more has been done to increase 

 the utility and availability of the telephone service, more has been done to in- 

 crease its reliability, and greater obstacles have been overcome, than during its 

 whole preceding existence. 



What has been accomplished perhaps never will be surpassed, the present 

 contains the germs of the future development. Commercial practicability will 

 be more controUing in the future than technical practicability." 



