Dkcembee 16, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



865 



tution of Civil Engineers, on November 1st, is 

 of such interest that we regret that limits of 

 space do not permit its publication in full. The 

 government of the United States must soon face 

 the problem of the control of the telegraph and 

 telephone, and the account .given by BIr. Preece 

 of the condition of affairs in Great Britain may 

 be quoted. He says: " I vi'as sent, in 1877, 

 together with Sir Henry Fischer, to investigate 

 the telegraph system of the American continent, 

 and especially to inquire into the accuracy of 

 the incredible report that a young Scotchman 

 named Bell had succeeded in transmitting the 

 human voice along wires to great distances by 

 electricity. I returned from the States with 

 the first pair of practical instruments that 

 reached this country. They differed but little 

 from the instrument that is used to-day to 

 receive the sounds. The receiver, the part 

 of the telephone that converts the energy of 

 electric currents into sounds that reproduce 

 speech, sprang nearly perfect in all its 

 beauty and startling effect from the bands 

 of Graham Bell. But the transmitting por- 

 tion, that part which transforms the energy 

 of the human voice into electric currents, 

 has constantly been improved since Edison 

 and Hughes showed us how to use the vary- 

 ing resistance of carbon in a loose condition, 

 subject to change of pressure and of motion 

 under the influence of sonorous vibrations. 

 The third portion, the circuit, is that to the 

 improvement of which I have devoted my spe- 

 cial attention. Speech is now practically pos- 

 sible between any two postofiices in the United 

 Kingdom. We can also speak between many 

 important towns in England and France. It is 

 theoretically possible to talk with every capital 

 in Europe, and we are now considering the 

 submersion of special telephone cables to Bel- 

 gium, Holland and Germany. The progress of 

 the use of the telephone in Great Britain has 

 been checked by financial complicat ons. It 

 fell into the hands of the company promoter. 

 It has remained the shuttlecock of the Stock 

 Exchange. It is ine function of the Postmaster- 

 General to work for the public every system of 

 inter-commuuication of thought which affects 

 the interests of the whole nation. Telephony 

 is an Imperial business, like the Post and the 



Telegraph. It ought to be in the hands of the 

 State. * * * Two causes exist to impede this 

 desirable .absorption, the fear of being 'done' 

 by watered and inflated capital, and the as- 

 sumed bad bargain made in absorbing the 

 telegraphs in 1869. The former is a mere 

 bugbear. The public does not want to pur- 

 chase stock. It wants to acquire a plant 

 and business, which can be easily and fairly 

 valued. The latter is a gross fallacy. The 

 business of the telegraph companies — practi- 

 cally an unlimited monopoly — was purchased 

 on absolutely fair terras, viz.: 20 years' pur- 

 chase of the net profits. The sum paid was 

 £4,989,048. The number of messages then 

 sent in one year was about 5,000,000, and the 

 gross income about £500,000. The income has 

 now grown to £3,071,723, the number of mes- 

 sages has reached 83,029,999, and the capi- 

 tal account which was closed in 1891, viz.: 

 £10,131,129, including the cost of the Post 

 Office extensions, remained the same. If a 

 syndicate desired now to re-purchase the busi- 

 ness and acquire the plant they would have to 

 find a capital of over £30,000,000. In what 

 respect, then, was the transfer of the telegraphs 

 to the State a failure? Our magnificent system 

 has been built virtually out of revenue; our 

 tariff is very cheap; scarcely a village of any 

 consequence is without its telegraph; our press 

 is virtually subsidized by having its news sup- 

 plied at much less than cost price ; we can rely 

 upon safe and accurate delivery and upon 

 speedy despatch of messages. We lead the 

 world. There has been no failure and there 

 was no bad bargain. 



Lord Lister, President of the Royal Society, 

 has addressed an official letter to the Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, asking its opinion as to 

 the advisability of forming an International 

 Scientific Association, representing the chief 

 scieniiflc academies and societies of the world. 

 The Paris Academy has decided to discuss this 

 question in a secret session. 



President Putnam has called a meeting of 

 the Council of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, on Tuesday, December 



