Megaphone

“ It was used on shipboard in enabling the officers to convey orders during windy weather from one part of the deck to another, or to the rigging, and in its more modern form, the megaphone (q.v.) is extensively employed. ”

“ A single receiver can be used but a pair of receivers connected with a head-band gives far better results. Then again the higher the resistance of the receivers the more sensitive they often are and those wound to as high a resistance as 3,200 ohms are made for use with the best sets. To make the incoming signals, conversation or music, audible to a room full of people instead of to just yourself you must use what is called a loud speaker. In its simplest form this consists of a metal cone like a megaphone to which is fitted a telephone receiver. ”

“ These telephone girls are the human part of a great communication machine. They are weaving a web of talk that changes into a new pattern every minute. How many possible combinations there are with the five million telephones of the Bell System, or what unthinkable mileage of conversation, no one has ever dared to guess. But whoever has once seen the long line of white arms waving back and forth in front of the switchboard lights must feel that he has looked upon the very pulse of the city's life. ”

“ We ask in vain for an answer to the question which is upon the lips of every one-What next? The microphone has proved itself highly useful in strengthening the sounds given out by the telephone, and it is probable that we shall soon see those three inventions working unitedly; for the microphone might make the telephone sounds so powerful as to enable them to be printed by phonograph as they are received, and thus a durable record of telephonic messages would be obtained. We can now transmit sound by wire, but it may yet be possible to transmit light, and see by telegraph. ”

“ Just the same, only in radio telephony we are confronted by a problem not met with in wireless telegraphy. We have not only to transmit sound, such as isolated dots and dashes, but to send through the air every rise and fall and inflection of the human voice just as it is recorded in the minute lines of a phonographic record. ”

“ Moreover it should not be forgotten that the wires connecting up the telephone may be lengthened to any desired extent, so that, in the words of Professor Hughes, 'the beating of a pulse, the tick of a watch, the tramp of a fly can then be heard at least a hundred miles from the source of sound.' If we whisper or speak distinctly in a monotone to the pencil, our words will be heard in the telephone; but with this defect, that the TIMBRE or quality is, in this particular form of the instrument, apt to be lost, making it difficult to recognise the speaker's voice. ”

“ It is rather to make the telephone as universal as the water faucet, to bring within speaking distance every economic unit, to connect to the social organism every person who may at any time be needed. Just as the click of the reaper means bread, and the purr of the sewing-machine means clothes, and the roar of the Bessemer converter means steel, and the rattle of the press means education, so the ring of the telephone bell has come to mean unity and organization. ”

“ When a telephone is placed in circuit with a telegraph line, the telephone is found seemingly to emit sounds on its own account. The most extraordinary noises are often produced, the causes of which are at present very obscure. One class of sounds is produced by the inductive influence of neighbouring wires and by leakage from them, the signals of the Morse alphabet passing over neighbouring wires being audible in the telephone, and another class can be traced to earth currents upon the wire, a curious modification of this sound revealing the presence of defective joints in the wire. ”

“ The telephone enables us to speak to distances far beyond the reach of eye or ear, 'to waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole; 'the phonograph enables us to seal the living speech on brazen tablets, and store it up for any length of time; while it is the peculiar function of the microphone to let us hear those minute sounds which are below the range of our unassisted powers of hearing. ”

“ The insignificant amount of current required to operate a telephone receiver makes it possible to furnish the music of these dynamos to many and far distant telephones. This naturally suggests the idea of having a great musician perform upon the keyboard and have many auditors scattered about the city in their private homes or even in many public halls, for the telephone receiver can readily be made audible to a good-sized audience. ”

“ The wire chiefs must detect trouble under a thousand disguises. Perhaps a small boy has thrown a snake across the wires or driven a nail into a cable. Perhaps some self-reliant citizen has moved his own telephone from one room to another. Perhaps a sudden rainstorm has splashed its fatal moisture upon an unwiped joint. Or perhaps a submarine cable has been sat upon by the Lusitania and flattened to death. But no matter what the trouble, a telephone system cannot be stopped for repairs. ”

“ CHAPTER IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ART
Four wire-using businesses were already in the field when the telephone was born: the fire-alarm, burglar-alarm, telegraph, and messenger-boy service; and at first, as might have been expected, the humble little telephone was huddled in with these businesses as a sort of poor relation. To the general public, it was a mere scientific toy; but there were a few men, not many, in these wire-stringing trades, who saw a glimmering chance of creating a telephone business. ”

“ Railways and steamships had begun this work of binding man to man by "nobler and cunninger methods." The telegraph and cable had gone still farther and put all civilized people within sight of each other, so that they could communicate by a sort of deaf and dumb alphabet. And then came the telephone, giving direct instantaneous communication and putting the people of each nation within hearing distance of each other. ”

“ To serve as an ear, the telephone must be able to take up quickly and nicely the sound-waves of the air. A tightened drum-head will do that; or better, a strip of goldbeaters'-skin drawn tightly over a ring or the end of a tube. But these would not help Professor Bell, the inventor of the telephone we shall describe, since he wanted an ear that would translate the waves of sound into waves of electricity, which would travel farther and faster than sound-waves could. ”

“ In general, the lesson in Europe is this, that the telephone is what a nation makes it. Its usefulness depends upon the sense and enterprise with which it is handled. It may be either an invaluable asset or a nuisance.
Too much government! That has been the basic reason for failure in most countries. Before the telephone was invented, the telegraph had been made a State monopoly; and the tele-phone was regarded as a species of telegraph. The public officials did not see that a telephone system is a highly complex and technical problem, much more like a piano factory or a steel-mill. ”

“ Loud-Speaking Telephones.—By the use of vacuum-tube amplifiers in connexion with specially developed transmitters and receivers, supplemented by large projecting horns, the human voice may be magnified thousands of millions of times so that a public speaker can make himself heard by a vastly greater number of people than ever before. By the use of apparatus and methods of this kind developed by the Bell Telephone System, President Harding's inaugural address in 1921 was heard by over 100,000 listeners standing in an open space of more than 10 ac. ”

“ THE TELEPHONE AND PHONOGRAPH. No invention of modern times equals in interest the Telephone. It has remained for an American to solve the problem of communication between persons at a distance from each other. Scientists, by means of electricity and sound, have devised an apparatus for transmitting the voice to a distance of hundreds of miles. To Alexander Graham Bell, of Massachusetts, and to Elisha P. Gray, of Chicago, is due the honor of originating this wonderful invention. ”

“ At the other end of the line the second disc re-creates these vibrations, which impinge upon the nerve-wires of an ear, and are thus carried to the consciousness of another brain.
And so, notwithstanding all that has been done since Bell opened up the way, the telephone remains the acme of electrical marvels. No other thing does so much with so little energy. No other thing is more enswathed in the unknown. Not even the gray-haired pioneers who have lived with the telephone since its birth, can understand their protege. ”

“ The idea of installing a telephone in this office is not in itself a novel one, as you may recollect that the suggestion has cropped up in the correspondence that has passed between us...."
And now, as I have said, the telephone is installed. The instrument is fashioned in a severe style (receiver and mouth-piece mounted on an ebonite column of the Roman Doric Order) , and it stands for all to see as a symbol that in the seclusion of our offices we are in touch with the world at large. ”

“ The proprietors of the Telephone, the invention of Alexander Graham Bell, for which patents have been issued by the United States and Great Britain, are now prepared to furnish Telephones for the transmission of articulate speech through instruments not more than twenty miles apart. Conversation can be easily carried on after slight practice and with the occasional repetition of a word or sentence. On first listening to the Telephone, though the sound is perfectly audible, the articulation seems to be indistinct ”

“ The minutest vibrations conveyed to the stand are perceived at the receiver as loud noises. The tread of a fly walking over the board, S, is heard like the tramp of a horse, and the ticks of a watch are audible in the receiver when the ear is several inches away from it. The slight touch of a feather on the stand is distinctly audible, and a current of air impinging upon it is reproduced as the noise of a stream of water. The microphone is, in fact, the most sensitive detector of vibrations that is known, and its employment as a transmitter has brought the telephone to its present perfection. ”

“ Telegraphs and cables were invented. The lightning became a carrier of thought, and the nations became neighbors. Anaesthetics were discovered and pain was lost in sleep. Surgery became a science. The telephone was invented—the telephone that carries and deposits in listening ears the waves of words. The phonograph, that catches and retains in marks and dots and gives again the echoes of our speech.
Then came electric light that fills the night with day, and all the wonderful machines that use the subtle force—the same force that leaps from the summer cloud to ravage and destroy. ”

“ To make the telephone an annex of the post office or the telegraph has become absurd. There are now in the whole world very nearly as many messages sent by telephone as by letter; and there are THIRTY-TWO TIMES as many telephone calls as telegrams. In the United States, the telephone has grown to be the big brother of the telegraph. It has six times the net earnings and eight times the wire. And it transmits as many messages as the combined total of telegrams, letters, and railroad passengers. ”

“ An indication at every street corner as to the direction to take to reach the point—or perhaps better, the conspicuous advertisement of the nearest call-point over every post pillar-box and inside every front door—may enable the veriest stranger to call assistance, and minimize the chances of time being lost in search of the instrument. It is immaterial for the moment whether the helpers are called by bell outside a fire-station, by a messenger from some special messenger service, by a call through a telephone, or by an electric or automatic appliance. ”

“ I traced the wires from the place they entered the building and sure enough I found a relay with a high resistance coil in the circuit. I cut it out with a piece of wire across the binding posts and rushed back to my telephone and listened. That was the trouble. Plainly as one could wish came Bell’s “ahoy,” “ahoy!” [1] I ahoyed back, and the first long distance telephone conversation began. Skeptics had been objecting that the telephone could never compete with the telegraph as its messages would not be accurate. ”

“ The voice, whether in speaking or singing, has a weird curious sound in the telephone. It is in a measure ventriloqual in character; and with the telephone held an inch or two from the ear, it has the effect as if some one were singing far off in the building, or the sound were coming up from a vaulted cellar or through a massive stone wall.
'Proceeding to our next experiment, we joined up the telephones in one office to several wires in succession, putting ourselves in circuit with lines going to various distances and working with different instruments. ”

“ It has become so truly an organ of the social body that by telephone we now enter into contracts, give evidence, try lawsuits, make speeches, propose marriage, confer degrees, appeal to voters, and do almost everything else that is a matter of speech.
In stores and hotels this wire traffic has grown to an almost bewildering extent, as these are the places where many interests meet. The hundred largest hotels in New York City have twenty-one thousand telephones—nearly as many as the continent of Africa and more than the kingdom of Spain. In an average year they send six million messages. ”

“ Another more recent and perhaps still more wonderful achievement in modern telegraphy is the invention of the telephone and microphone, by means of which the human voice is transmitted through the electric conductor, by mechanism that imposes through its extreme simplicity. ”