DEVELOPMENT OF THE TELEPHONE 



telegraphic ones. But it took many years of study 

 and experiment before the marvel was actually accom- 

 plished. In round numbers the practical wireless tele- 

 graph preceded the wireless telephone by a decade. 



In point of practical accomplishment, American in- 

 ventors have shown the way in the development of 

 wireless telephony, as they did half a century earlier in 

 telegraphy. And as the name of Morse must always 

 be associated with telegraphy, so the name of Dr. Lee 

 DeForest, a native of Western America, will always be 

 linked with practical wireless telephony. In 1907, 

 Doctor DeForest built his first instruments and trans- 

 mitted the music of a phonograph a few blocks to a 

 receiving station in New York. A few weeks later he 

 was able to report by voice the results of yacht races 

 a distance of about four miles. In the autumn of the 

 same year his instruments were installed on the ships 

 of the American fleet of war- vessels on their trip around 

 the globe, and kept those vessels in verbal communica- 

 tion with each other, in storm and calm, during the en- 

 tire voyage. A year later messages had been sent and 

 received a distance of over five hundred miles, and a 

 practical working-service between Chicago and Mil- 

 waukee put into operation. 



Theoretically there is very little difference between 

 the wireless telephone and the one requiring connect- 

 ing wires. The vibrations of the voice, in each instance, 

 affect a disk which releases electrical impulses of vary- 

 ing degree. In one case the speaker transmits his voice 

 along a wire, in the other through the air, just as he 

 might shout to a friend a block away, with this im- 



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