THE REAR VIEW OF PART OF THE SWITCHBOARD SHOWN ON PAGE 314 



"The two States of New York and Pennsylvania have as many telephones as the whole 

 of Great Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Serbia, and Russia combined, while Ohio and 

 Illinois have as many as Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey combined" (see 

 page 321). 



for the first time. I made with my own 

 hands for Dr. Bell, under his direction, 

 the first speaking- telephone the world has 

 ever seen, but there were 16 months' hard 

 work after that before. Dr. Bell thought 

 his baby was big enough and strong 

 enough to talk outdoors. 



On the 9th day of October, 1876, a 

 very important day in the history of the 

 telephone, Dr. Bell had obtained permis- 

 sion to use a wire running from Boston 

 to Cambridge, about 3 miles long, and on 

 that evening I went out with one of the 

 best telephones that had been devised up 

 to that date, and Dr. Bell proceeded to 

 Boston with its duplicate. I waited out 

 at the Cambridge factory until Dr. Bell 

 signaled on the telegraph instrument that 

 he was ready. I think I was then more 

 excited than I ever was before in my life, 



or ever have been since, and I connected 

 up the telephone to listen to what Dr. Bell 

 would say, and I could not hear the faint- 

 est sound. 



I shouted back in the telephone and 

 listened again, and there was nothing but 

 the blackest, dreadful silence. I knew 

 that we were working against the most 

 delicate electrical current that had ever 

 been used for any practical purpose, and 

 as I could not hear his voice I thought 

 that the delicate current must have leaked 

 off of every insulator so that none of it 

 got across the Charles River to where I 

 was. 



I had almost made up my mind to dis- 

 connect the telephone and telegraph back 

 to Dr. Bell that while his telephone might 

 do very well for speaking tubes, it never 

 would compete with the telegraph. Then 



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