Feb. 23, 1883.] 



KNO"^//LEDGE 



11.3 



stamens among most catkin-bearers tend to run in fours, 

 eights, or twelves, as thougli you had always either one, two, 

 or three florets under each Iiract. 



All these trees are wind-fertilised, and in all, therefore, 

 the catkins are more or less long and pendulous, while the 

 traces of their original derivation from distinct and brigh1> 

 coloured ancestors are well preserved in the series of 

 changes throughout But the willows are catkin-bearers 

 which have found means to develop honey-glands, and to 

 allure the spring bees as insect fertilisers to their sweet- 

 scented llowers. Hence, not only are their bright golden 

 or silky w hite clusters far more conspicuous and beautiful 

 than those of any other group in the whole family, but 

 tliey are also remarkable for their stiff, upright position, 

 which, of course, is better adapted than the pendulous 

 habit for their peculiar mode of fertilisation. Moreover, 

 in the willows we iinally lose sight altogether of the 

 original arrangement by which tliree florets were congre- 

 gated side by side under a single liract In the male 

 catkin of our sallows here, only two stamens are found 

 within each scale, while in the purple willow the number 

 is further reduced to one. This is quite what one might 

 expect from their recurrence to the more economical 

 method of insect-fertilisation, for plants which get 

 their pollen conveyed in this safe and sure manner from 

 head to head seldom need so large a number of stamens as 

 those which depend entirely for the due setting of their 

 seeds upon the wasteful and unconscious wind. However, 

 even in this last and furthest development of the catkin- 

 bearing type we are not left wholly without traces of the 

 intermediate steps. For in the pretty almond willow, 

 there are three stamens, and in the bay willow of northern 

 England there arc five; which leads us back directly to the 

 oaks, with from si.x to twelve, and the beech, with from 

 eight to a dozen. Thus, strange as it seems, each single 

 scale of the common sallow, enclosing a pair of long 

 stamens, is really the final degenerate descendant of three 

 distinct and perfect petal-bearing llowers, subtended by a 

 large enclosing bract I know nowhere in nature a more 

 admirable example of the way in which analogous or inter- 

 mediate forms enable us to trace out the pedigree of a 

 very abnormal or greatly altered type from wholly unlike 

 and apparently unconnected ancestors. 



A NEW TELEPHONE. 



THE monopoly of telephone business acquired by the 

 United Telephone Company (albeit at a very 

 heavy cost for patents) has had that effect upon the com- 

 mercial and scientific progress of telephony which usually 

 attends such monopolies. A company with a huge capital 

 finds, as a rule, little dilliculty in overcoming its weak 

 competitors, and as often as not it has the option of 

 either buying or fighting them out of the market. Then, 

 having the business in its own hands, it can charge its 

 own price, and, generally speaking, conduct matters as it 

 pleases. There is also to be observed a reluctance to 

 adopt new forms of apparatus or machinery, preferring to 

 progress, the saving which results from using up older and 

 less perfect forms. One other consequence is that in- 

 ventors, or would-be inventors, are oftener than otherwise 

 discouraged, and so improvements which might possibly 

 have proved to be great boons to the general body are lost, 

 buried — may be for ages — in dense oblivion. This has, 

 we fear, been our experience in matters telephonic We 

 have now, however, to chronicle the introduction of an 

 instrument which, while it possesses the advantages of a 

 Bell telephone, differs from it very materially, both in con- 



struction and principle, and threatens, therefore, if properly 

 managed, to become a successful competitor of the older 

 instrument Even were it to do no more than bring down 

 the price charged for the existing types, it will have accom- 

 plished a most valuable task. 



The general construction of this new telephone receiver 

 may be gathered from the accompanying diagrams, of 

 which Fig. 1 represents the more essential parts of the 

 instrument, with its connections. The instrument consists 

 of a thin wire. A, of iron, steel, or other magnetic metal 

 attached to two discs, DD, which may be of thin wood, 

 metal, or other more or less sonorous material ; on the 

 wire, A, is wound in the first place an insulated conducting 

 wire, W, completing the circuit of a local battery, B, in 

 which circuit may be introduced any known telephonic 

 transmitting instrument, T ; also on the wire. A, is wound 

 in the second place an insulated wire, X, forming part of 

 the line circuit, LL', communicating with a distant station. 

 When electrical impulses are set up in the line, LL', at 

 the distant station by a telephonic transmitter, sounds 

 corresponding with those that caused the impulses are 

 emitted by th<! instrument illustrated. 



The principle involved here is easily understood. It is 

 well known that when an iron wire or rod is magnetised, it 

 suffers a slight increase in length, accompanied by a compen- 

 sating decrease in its lateral dimensions or cross section. 

 On the cessation of the current (or the removal of the in- 

 ducing magnet) the iron returns to its latent magnetic 

 condition, and a decrease in length results. This molecular 

 cll'ect is distinctly audible under favourable circumstances. 

 Messrs. Alabaster, Gatehouse, i Kempe take advantage of 

 this fact in the construction of their receiver. The current 

 from the local battery, B, is continuous, and its eflect upon 

 the iron wire is, therefore, to make it practically a per- 

 manent magnet. When the current arrives from the 

 distant station along the wire, LL', it, in passing through 

 the fine-wire coil, X, induces a current in the thick-wire 

 coil, W, connected with the battery. The direction of the 

 current induced in W varies, of course, with the current in 

 the coil, X, and, accordingly, an increase or decrease in the 

 strength of the battery current flowing through the coil, 

 W, is produced, and the iron wire, A, is subjected to pro- 

 portionately varying degrees of magnetisation. The minute 

 contractions and elongations so produced in A necessarily 

 cause corresponding vibrations in the attached wooden 

 diaphragms, DD, which perform in this way the function 

 of sounding-boards to A. 



