6 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 
The invention was introduced into England last year, 
where it has received marked attention. Telephonic com- 
munication has been established between the mainland and 
Jersey. Several business houses have been connected with the 
private residences of their principals, whilst at the Prescott 
Colliery, near Liverpool, remarkable success has attended some 
experiments made under the superintendence of Sir W. 
Thomson. In these experiments 600 yards of ordinary electric 
wire were used, the end in one instance being at the bottom of 
the pit, while the other end, to which the tubes or trumpet-like 
orifices, which resemble ordinary stethoscopes, were attached, 
were brought into the office of the Company, some distance from 
the pit’s mouth. While one of the Government Colliery Inspee- 
tors and others went to the bottom of the pit, the majority of 
the audience remained in the office. Complete success crowned 
the experiment—which was merely to test the telephone as a 
means of communication. Questions asked in the office were 
answered instantaneously from the pit—even the cheering of the 
colliers at a distance from the instrument was distinctly heard. 
The telephone was afterwards applied to test the ventilation of 
the mine, and so adjusted in connection with the air-measurer 
in the mine, that the overseer above ground could ascertain at 
once at what rate of current the air was running in the mine. 
It is hardly possible to conceive a greater benefit to colliers 
than this discovery entails. Sir William Thomson expressed his 
own amazement at the great improvement which the instrument 
had undergone since he tested it at Philadelphia, and stated that 
if such admirable results had been accomplished by the tclephone 
while still in embryo, what may not be hoped from the future? 
At the meeting of the British Association in Plymouth, im 
August last, Professor Graham Bell himself explained the pro- 
cesses by which the telephone had been brought to its present 
state. He stated that it had been evolved from a study of the 
mechanism of the human ear. What ultimate form it might yet 
assume he did not know ; it was as yet only in its embryo state; 
experiments and investigations were still being carried on by 
