TELEPHONE 



5742 



TELESCOPE 



the telephone. Capital could not be secured to 

 develop the business. Bell had associated with 

 him three men, Hubbard, Saunders and Wat- 

 son. In the midst of their discouragement The 

 Western Union Telegraph Company came out 

 in opposition to Bell, claiming that he was not 

 the original inventor of the telephone, but 

 that its company, under the name of the 

 American Speaking-Telephone Company, was 

 prepared to supply "superior telephones with 

 all the latest improvements." This looked like 

 defeat for Bell, but instead it stimulated inter- 

 est in the telephone to such an extent that 

 capital began to come in to Bell and his asso- 

 ciates, and in two months they had fifty thou- 

 sand dollars and were leasing telephones at the 

 rate of a thousand a month. 



In 1878 the Bell Telephone Company was 

 organized under the management of Theodore 

 N. Vail, with a capital of $450,000. But the 

 battle was not over. The Western Union Tele- 

 graph Company owned the Edison transmitter, 

 while the Bell Company had only the Bell re- 

 ceiver, which served as both receiver and trans- 

 mitter. At this juncture Francis Blake came to 

 the Bell Company with a transmitter of his 

 own invention which he offered to sell for 

 stock. His offer was accepted, and the Blake 

 transmitter, proving superior to the Edison, 

 gave the Bell Company the advantage it 

 needed. The Western Union next attacked the 

 legality of the Bell patents. The fight, which 

 continued for eleven years and comprised six 

 hundred lawsuits, was decided -in Bell's favor. 

 This was the end of the difficulties. Bell stock 

 jumped to fabulous prices. By 1898 the com- 

 pany had installed its first million telephones. 

 So large has the telephone business become 

 that the Bell patent is recognized as the most 

 valuable patent ever issued in any country. 



Present Extent of Telephone Service. In the 

 United States. Nowhere else in the world has 

 the telephone industry grown as rapidly as in 

 the United States. Comparisons show that 

 while in England there is one telephone for 

 every 100 people there are ten telephones for 

 the same number in the United States. Chi- 

 cago has more telephones in proportion to 

 population than any other city in the world, 

 there being one for every six people. New 

 York City averages about one instrument for 

 every ten people. While farms in England are 

 practically without telephone connection there 

 is in the United States approximately a rural 

 telephone for every two farms. Each telephone 

 in the great Bell System in the United States 



represents an investment of $126, and the gross 

 revenue from it is $41.75. The total telephone 

 investment in all countries in 1914 was $1,729,- 

 000,000, and there were 28,000,000 miles of wire. 

 Of this total the 

 United States had 

 18,000,000 and 

 Canada 890,000 

 miles. 



In the Ameri- 

 can Union there 

 are -12,480,000 

 poles, a number 

 sufficient to build 

 a stockade around 

 California, while THE WO RLD'S TEL,E- 

 the wire on which PHONES 



^fl OOfl 000 m P ; Nearly three-fourths of the 



dU,UUU,UUl number of telephones in the 



sages a year are world are in service in the 

 transmitted, if United States, 

 in a single line, would reach 625 times around 

 the world. Of the 8,000,000 telephones in use 

 5,000,000 are owned by the American Bell Com- 

 pany and 3,000,000 belong to independent com- 

 panies. 



In Canada. In Alberta, Manitoba and Sas- 

 katchewan are telephone systems owned by the 

 provincial government. In the entire Do- 

 minion in 1914 there were thirty-five municipal 

 exchanges, 368 stock companies, 133 coopera- 

 tive companies, thirty-one owned in partner- 

 ship and 113 in the hands of private individu- 

 als, a total of 680 telephone companies in the 

 Dominion. There are in all 371,000 telephones 

 in use, .for the maintenance of which 890,000 

 miles of wire are required. The cost of the 

 entire property and equipment of Canadian 

 telephone companies is approximately $57,000,- 

 000. The diagram in this article shows the 

 proportion of telephones in Canada to those in 

 use in the entire world. E.E.B. 



Consult Wilder's Telephone Principles and 

 Practice; Gibson's How Telegraphs and Tele- 

 phones Work. 



TELEPHONE, WIRELESS. See WIRELESS 

 TELEPHONE. 



TELESCOPE, tel'eskohp, a long tube hav- 

 ing an arrangement of lenses, used for viewing 

 distant objects like the stars. It was the tele- 

 scope that gave to man an idea of the vastness 

 of the universe and of the smallness of his own 

 world, floating like a grain of sand in the im- 

 mensity of space. It overthrew existing notions 

 of man's destiny and importance in the scheme 

 of things and forced him to shape a new phi- 

 losophy. In fact, the revolution wrought by 



