SCIENCE IN THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD 



at every vibration a voltaic current; and the thought 

 occurred, ' Why should not the depression of a key like 

 that of a piano direct the interrupted current from 

 any one of these forks, through a telegraph wire, to a 

 series of electromagnets operating the strings of a piano 

 or other musical instrument, in which case a person 

 might play the tuning-fork piano in one place and the 

 music be audible from the electromagnet 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 a 

 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 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 upon paper, the operators were in 

 the habit of observing the duration of the click in the 

 instruments, and in this way were enabled to distin- 

 guish by ear the various signals. 



"It struck me that in a similar manner the duration 

 of a musical note might be made to represent the dot or 

 dash of the telegraph code, so that a person might oper- 

 ate one of the keys of the tuning-fork piano referred to 

 above, and the duration of the sound proceeding from 

 the corresponding string of the distant piano be ob- 



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