Bell's Telephonic Researches 



ble effects. I remember an experiment made 

 with this telephone, which at the time gave 

 me great satisfaction and delight. One of the 

 telephones was placed in my lecture room in the 

 Boston University, and the other in the base- 

 ment of the adjoining building. One of my 

 students repaired to the distant telephone to 

 observe the effects of articulate speech, while I 

 uttered the sentence, " Do you understand what I 



Fig. 8 



say?" into the telephone placed in the lecture 

 hall. To my delight an answer was returned 

 through the instrument itself, articulate sounds 

 proceeded from the steel spring attached to the 

 membrane, and I heard the sentence, "Yes, I 

 understand you perfectly." It is a mistake, 

 however, to suppose that the articulation was by 

 any means perfect, and expectancy no doubt had 

 a great deal to do with my recognition of the 

 sentence; still, the articulation was there, and I 

 recognized the fact that the indistinctness was 

 73 



