Off SOME MARVELS IN TELEGRAPH*. 265 



corresponding note, but these are synchronously strengthened 

 by thuds resulting from the lengthening of the iron when 

 magnetized. 



So far as its musical capabilities are concerned, Gray's 

 telephone can hardly be regarded as fulfilling all the hopes 

 that have been expressed concerning telephonic music. 

 "' Dreaming enthusiasts of a prophetic turn of mind fore- 

 told," we learn, " that a time would come when future Pattis 

 would sing on a London stage to audiences in New York, 

 Berlin, St Petersburg, Shanghai, San Francisco, and Con- 

 stantinople all at once." But the account of the first concert 

 given at a distance scarcely realizes these fond expectations. 

 When " Home, Sweet Home," played at Philadelphia, came 

 floating through the air at the Steinway Hall, New York, 

 " the sound was like that of a distant organ, rather faint, for 

 a hard storm was in progress, and there was consequently a 

 great leakage of the electric current, but quite clear and 

 musical. The lower notes were the best, the higher being 

 sometimes almost inaudible. ' The Last Rose of Summer,' 

 ' Com' e gentil,' and other melodies, followed, with more or 

 less success. There was no attempt to play chords," though 

 three or four notes can be sounded together. It must be 

 confessed that the rosy predictions of M. Strakosch (the 

 impresario) " as to the future of this instrument seem rather 

 exalted, and we are not likely as yet to lay on our music 

 from a central reservoir as we lay on gas and water, though 

 the experiment was certainly a very curious one." 



The importance of Mr. Gray's, as of La GOUT'S inven- 

 tions, depends, however, far more on the way in which they 

 increase the message-bearing capacity of telegraphy than on 

 their power of conveying airs to a distance. At the Phila- 

 delphia Exhibition, Sir W. Thomson heard four messages 

 sounded simultaneously by the Gray telephone. The Morse 

 alphabet was used. I have mentioned that in that alphabet 

 various combinations of dots and dashes are used to repre- 

 sent different letters ; it is only necessary to substitute the 

 short and long duration of a note for dots and dashes to have a 



