78 PROFESSOR BARRETT, 
wax a little strip of platinum, corresponding to the hammer of the ear, 
and which closed or opened the electric circuit, precisely as in the instru- 
ments of a later date. The receiving instrument was a knitting needle 
surrounded with a coil of wire and placed on a violin to serve as a sound- 
ing board. It astonished everyone quite as much as the more perfect 
instruments of Bell now do. 
‘‘The instrument I have described has now passed into the hands of 
the Telegraph Department of the German Government.” 
The paper referred to in the foregoing letter is contained in the 
annual report of the Physical Society of Frankfort-on-Main for 
the year 1861. It is entitled “Telephony by means of electric 
currents” for the word telephone is first suggested by Reis in 
this paper as the name of his instrument. The transmitter is 
shown in fig. 3, instead of a cork a cubical wooden block is used 
with a conical orifice closed at the smaller end by a membrane. 
The accompanying diagram, fig. 4, shows the principle of Reis’s 
Fie. 3. 

