22 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. m. 



most while they are happening on the other side of the 

 globe; and, owing to difference of longitude, we some- 

 times can hear of an event apparently before it has hap- 

 pened. If some great official were to die at Calcutta at 

 sunset, we should receive the news soon after noon on 

 the same day. 



As a result of the numerous experimental researches 

 necessitated for the continuous improvement of the elec- 

 tric telegraph, the telephone was invented, an even more 

 marvellous and unexpected discovery. By it, the hu- 

 man voice, in all its countless modifications of quality 

 and musical tone, and its most complex modulations dur- 

 ing speech, is so reproduced at a distance that a speaker 

 or singer can be distinctly heard and understood hun- 

 dreds of miles away. This is not an actual transmission 

 of the voice, as in the case of a speaking-tube, but a true 

 reproduction by means of two vibrating discs: the one 

 set in motion by the speaker, while the electric current 

 causes identical vibrations in the similar disc at the end 

 of the line, and these vibrations reproduce the exact 

 tones of the voice so as to be perfectly intelligible. At 

 first telephones could only be worked successfully for 

 short distances, but by continuous improvements the dis- 

 tance has been steadily increased, so that in America 

 there is a telephone line now in operation between New 

 York and Chicago, cities about a thousand miles apart. 



Those who have read Mr. Bellamy's wonderful story, 

 " Looking Backward," will remember the concerts con- 

 tinually going on day and night, with telephonic connec- 

 tions to every house, so that everyone could listen to the 

 very best obtainable music at will. But few persons are 

 aware that a somew r hat similar use of the telephone is 



