Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/429

Rh

HE desire to transmit speech over long distances probably dates back to the first wide separation of loved and beloved. That many methods have been suggested for the transmission of speech is of record. That speech has been mechanically or acoustically transmitted over many hundred feet of taut string and practically straight wires, during several hundred years, is true. That the 'lover's telephone' is a toy that has amused several generations is well known. That there were musical (not speech) telephones and sound (not speech) microphones nearly a century ago is an interesting fact. That prior to 1876, many men devoted much thought to the problem of the electrical transmission of speech is granted.

Nevertheless, the facts are that no authentic record has been found proving the existence of a practical method of speech transmission over long-distances, either electrical or mechanical, prior to the invention of the electric-speaking telephone by Alexander Graham Bell.

Moreover, while certain devices not invented by him are in use on telephone lines, each and all are but refinements or conveniences of the system. The broad fundamental method conceived by Alexander Graham Bell, in 1874, underlies the electrical transmission of speech in any form, and in any portion of the world. And Bell's method has been in no wise changed since its promulgation in letters-patent, in 1876, though thousands of the brightest minds in all civilized countries have striven for nearly thirty years to find another way, some other way, any other way, to transmit speech electrically.

Eighteen months passed by after the method conceived and perfected by Alexander Graham Bell became public property, and tens of thousands of Bell's telephones went into daily commercial use, before the first of the many claimants publicly asserted a prior right to the discovery of the art of transmitting speech electrically. Yet, not one could make his apparatus convey speech, except through a utilization of Bell's method and, in some cases, only by using Bell's receiver.

Thus the only reasonable conclusion that men in search of the truth can arrive at is 'that for physical and mathematical reasons it is not possible to have any method except the way that Alexander Graham Bell found.' And that was the sworn testimony unwillingly given by the experts employed by the followers in his footsteps. For the