46 
THE FIEST TELEPHONE. 
wire may be extended for this purpose j ust as far as in direct 
Telegraphy, I give to my instrument the name ‘ Telephone.’ ” 
Toward the end of the memoir it is stated that until now it had 
not been possible to reproduce the tones of human speech with a 
distinctness sufficient to satisfy everybody ; adding ; “ the con- 
sonants are for the most part tolerably distinctly reproduced, but 
the vowels not yet to an equal degree.” The author of the 
memoir in which these statements occur had been led to his 
inveiition by a remarkably suggestive line of thought. He had 
wanted an instrument to transmit electrically everything and 
anything that a human ear could hear. Accordingly he took the 
human ear itself as a model. “How,” he argues, “could a 
single instrument reproduce at once the total actions of all the 
organs operated in human speech ? This was ever the cardinal 
question. At last 1 came by accident to put this question 
another way : How does our ear perceive the total (or resultant) 
vibrations of all the simultaneously-operant organs of speecli ? ” 
He then goes on to describe the action of the auditory 
ossicles when the ear is made the recipient of sound ; pointing 
out how they execute movements and exert forces upon one 
another in proportion to the condensations occurring in the 
sound-conducting medium and to the amplitudes of vibration of 
the tympanum. Having stated this law of proportion between 
the cause and its effect he goes on to speak of the graphic 
method of representing varying forces, such as those of sound- 
waves, by curves ; and emphatically lays down that the ear is 
absolutely incapable of perceiving anything more than can be 
expressed by such a curve. After giving samples of undulatory 
curves corresponding to musical and to discordant sounds, he 
makes the following significant remark : — “ So soon, therefore, 
as it is possible at any place and in any manner, to set up 
vibrations whose curves are like those of any given tone or 
combination of tones, we shall then receive the same impression 
