Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/55

 direct wireless telephony will certainly, when supplemented by records of whatever kind, greatly facilitate commerce. The tedious process of writing a letter, posting it, and awaiting the reply, at present persisted in chiefly because it is so necessary to have some sort of documentary evidence of what has passed, will be largely dispensed with when we can secure an automatic record of what we say. Nearly everything will be done by word of mouth.

The great inconvenience, apart from the absence of record, which attaches to transactions or negotiations by telephone at the present day, is that a telephonic conversation is not nearly so satisfactory as a personal interview face to face. Gesture, attitude, the language of face and eyes, all do so much to elucidate communication in the latter way, that we lose a great deal when we meet an associate at the other end of a telephone wire. Well, the telephone of the new age will remove this drawback, or rather it will be supplemented by something which will do so. This invention, not at all difficult to imagine, I will call provisionally the teleautoscope. It will no doubt have some name equally barbarous. The teleautoscope can be explained in a single sentence. It will be an instrument for seeing by electricity. Whatever is before the transmitting teleautoscope