Masterpieces of Science 



case a person might play the tuning fork piano 

 in one place and the music be audible from the 

 electro-magnetic piano in a distant city. 



The more I reflected upon this arrangement 

 the more feasible did it seem to me; indeed, I 

 saw no reason why the depression of a number 

 of keys at the tuning fork end of the circuit should 

 not be followed by the audible production of a 

 full chord from the piano in the distant city, each 

 tuning fork affecting at the receiving end that 

 string of the piano with which it was in unison. 

 At this time the interest which I felt in electricity 

 led me to study the various systems of telegraphy 

 in use in this country and in America. I was 

 much struck with the simplicity of the Morse 

 alphabet, and with the fact that it could be 

 read by sound. Instead of having the dots and 

 dashes recorded on paper, the operators were 

 in the habit of observing the duration of the 

 click of the instruments, and in this way were 

 enabled to distinguish by ear the various signals. 



It struck me that in a similar manner the dura- 

 tion of a musical note might be made to repre- 

 sent the dot or dash of the telegraph code, so that 

 a person might operate one of the keys of the 

 tuning fork piano referred to above, and the dura- 

 tion of the sound proceeding from the corre- 

 sponding string of the distant piano be observed 

 by an operator stationed there. It seemed to 

 me that in this way a number of distinct tele- 

 graph messages might be sent simultaneously 

 from the tuning fork piano to the other end of the 

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