Chapter III: Part 3

Desiring more detailed information of the ocean-bed along the proposed route, Field secured the assistance of the United States and British governments. Lieutenant Berryman, U.S.N., in the _Arctic_, and Lieutenant Dayman, R.N., in the _Cyclops_, made a careful survey. Their soundings revealed a ridge near the Irish coast, but the slope was gradual and the general conditions seemed especially favorable.

The preliminary work had been done by an American company with Field at the head and Morse as electrician. Now Field went to England to secure capital sufficient for the larger enterprise. With the assistance of Mr. J.W. Brett he organized the Atlantic Telegraph Company, Field himself supplying a quarter of the capital. Associated with Field and Brett in the leadership of the enterprise was Charles Tiltson Bright, a young Englishman who became engineer for the new company.

Besides the enormous engineering difficulties of producing a cable long enough and strong enough, and laying it at the bottom of the Atlantic, there were electrical problems involved far greater than Morse seems to have realized. It had been discovered that the passage of a current through a submarine cable is seriously retarded. The retarding of the current as it passes through the water is a difficulty that does not exist with the land telegraph stretched on poles. Faraday had demonstrated that this retarding was caused by induction between the electricity in the wire and the water about the cable. The passage of the current through the wire induces currents in the water, and these moving in the opposite direction act as a drag on the passage of the message through the wire. What the effect of this phenomenon would be on a cable long enough to cross the Atlantic wan a serious problem that required deep study by the company's engineers. It seemed entirely possible that the messages would move so slowly that the operation of the cable, once it was laid, would not pay.

Faraday failed to give any definite information on the subject, but Professor William Thomson worked out the law of retardation accurately and furnished to the cable-builders the accurate information which was required. Doctor Whitehouse, electrician for the Atlantic Company, conducted some experiments of his own and questioned the accuracy of Thomson's statements. Thomson maintained his position so ably, and proved himself so thoroughly a master of the subject that Field and his associates decided to enlist him in the enterprise. This addition to the forces was one of the utmost importance. William Thomson, later to become Lord Kelvin, was probably the ablest scientist of his generation, and was destined to prove his great abilities in his early work with the Atlantic cable.

William Thomson was born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1824. His father was a teacher and took an especially keen interest in the affairs of his boys because their mother had died while William was very young. When William was eight years of age his father removed to Glasgow, Scotland, where he had secured the chair of mathematics in Glasgow University. His early education he secured from his father, and this training, coupled with his natural brilliancy, enabled him to develop genuine precocity. At the age of eight he attended his father's university lectures as a visitor, and it is reported that on one occasion he answered his father's questions when all of the class had failed. At the age of ten he entered the university, together with his brother James, who was but two years older. The brothers displayed marked interest in science and invention, eagerly pursued their studies in these branches, and performed many electrical experiments together.

James took the degrees B.A. and M.A. in successive years. Though William also passed the examinations, he did not take the degrees, because he had decided to go to Cambridge, and it was thought best that he take all his degrees from that great school. In writing to his older brother at this time, William was accustomed to sign himself "B.A.T.A.I.A.P.," which signified "B.A. to all intents and purposes." After finishing their work at Glasgow the boys traveled extensively on the Continent.

At seventeen William entered St. Peter's College, Cambridge University, taking courses in advanced mathematics and continuing to distinguish himself. He took an active part in the life of the university, making something of a record us an athlete, winning the silver sculls, and rowing on a 'varsity crew which took the measure of Oxford in the great annual boat-race. He also interested himself in literature and music, but his real passion was science. Already he had written many learned essays on mathematical electricity and was accomplishing valuable research work. On the completion of his work at Cambridge he secured a fellowship which brought him an income of a thousand dollars a year and enabled him to pursue his studies in Paris.

When he was but twenty-two years of age he was made professor of natural philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Though young, he proved entirely successful, and wan immensely popular with his students. At that time the university had no experimental laboratory, and Professor Thomson and his pupils performed their experiments in the professor's room and in an abandoned coal-cellar, slowly developing a laboratory for themselves. His development continued until, when at the age of thirty-three he was called upon to assist with the work of laying an Atlantic cable, he was possessed of scientific attainments which made him invaluable among the cable pioneers.

IX

THE PIONEER ATLANTIC CABLE

Making the Cable--The First Attempt at Laying--Another Effort
Checked by Storm--The Cable Laid at Last--Messages Cross the
Ocean--The Cable Fails--Professor Thomson's Inventions and
Discoveries--Their Part in Designing and Constructing an Improved
Cable and Apparatus.

Field and his business associates were extremely anxious that the cable be laid with all possible speed, and little time was allowed the engineers and electricians for experimentation. The work of building the cable was begun early in 1857 by two English firms. It consisted of seven copper wires covered with gutta-percha and wound with tarred hemp. Over this were wound heavy iron wires to give protection and added strength. The whole weighed about a ton to the mile, and was both strong and flexible. The distance from the west coast of Ireland to Newfoundland being 1,640 nautical miles, it was decided to supply 2,500 miles of cable, an extra length being, of course, necessary to allow for the inequalities at the bottom of the sea, and the possibility of accident.

The British and American governments had already provided subsidies, and they now supplied war-ships for use in the work of laying the cable. The _Agamemnon_, one of the largest of England's war-ships, and the _Niagara_, giant of the United States Navy, were to do the actual work of cable-laying, the cable being divided between them. They were accompanied by the United States frigate _Susquehanna_ and the British war-ships _Leopard_ and _Cyclops_. In August of 1857 the fleet assembled on the Irish coast for the start, and the American sailors landed the end of the cable amid great ceremony.

The work of cable-laying was begun by the _Niagara_, which steamed slowly away, accompanied by the fleet. The great cable payed out smoothly as the Irish coast was left behind and the frigate increased her speed. The submarine hill with its dangerous slopes was safely passed, and it was felt that the greatest danger was past. The paying-out machinery seemed to be working perfectly. Telegraphic communication was constantly maintained with the shore end. For six days all went well and nearly four hundred miles of cable had been laid.

With the cable dropping to the bottom two miles down it was found that it was flowing out at the rate of six miles an hour while the _Niagara_ was steaming but four. It was evident that the cable was being wasted, and to prevent its running out too fast at this great depth the brake controlling the flow of the cable was tightened. The stern of the vessel rising suddenly on a wave, the strain proved too great and the cable parted and was lost. Instant grief swept over the ship and squadron, for the heart of every one was in the great enterprise. It was felt that it would be useless to attempt to grapple the cable at this great depth, and there seemed nothing to do but abandon it and return.

The loss of the cable and of a year's time--since another attempt could not be made until the next season--resulted in a total loss to the company of half a million dollars. Public realization of the magnitude of the task had been awakened by the failure of the first expedition and Field found it far from easy to raise additional capital. It was finally accomplished, however, and a new supply of cable was constructed.

Professor Thomson had been studying the problems of submarine telegraphy with growing enthusiasm, and had now arrived at the conclusion that the conductivity of the cable depended very largely upon the purity of the copper employed. He accordingly saw to it that in the construction of the new section all the wires were carefully tested and such as did not prove perfect were discarded. In the mean time the engineers were busy improving the paying-out machinery. They designed an automatic brake which would release the cable instantly upon the strain becoming too great. It was thus hoped to avoid a recurrence of the former accident. Chief-Engineer Bright also arranged a trial trip for the purpose of drilling the staff in their various duties.

The same vessels were provided to lay the cable on the second attempt and the fleet sailed in June of 1858, this time without celebration or public ceremony. On this occasion the recommendation of Chief-Engineer Bright was followed, and it was arranged that the _Niagara_ and _Agamemnon_ should meet in mid-ocean, there splice the cable together and proceed in opposite directions, laying the cable simultaneously. On this expedition Professor Thomson was to assume the real scientific leadership, Professor Morse, though he retained his position with the company, taking no active part.

The ships had not proceeded any great distance before they ran into a terrible gale. The _Agamemnon_ had an especially difficult time of it, her great load of cable overbalancing the ship and threatening to break loose again and again and carry the great vessel and her precious cargo to the bottom. The storm continued for over a week, and when at last it had blown itself out the _Agamemnon_ resembled a wreck and many of her crew had been seriously injured. But the cable had been saved and the expedition was enabled to proceed to the rendezvous. The _Niagara_, a larger ship, had weathered the storm without mishap.

The splice was effected on Saturday, the 26th, but before three miles had been laid the cable caught in the paying-out machinery on the _Niagara_ and was broken off. Another splice was made that evening and the ships started again. The two vessels kept in communication with each other by telegraph as they proceeded, and anxious inquiries and many tests marked the progress of the work. When fifty miles were out, the cable parted again at some point between the vessels and they again sought the rendezvous in mid-Atlantic. Sufficient cable still remained and a third start was made. For a few days all went well and some four hundred miles of cable had been laid with success as the messages passing from ship to ship clearly demonstrated. Field, Thomson, and Bright began to believe that their great enterprise was to be crowned with success when the cable broke again, this time about twenty feet astern of the _Agamemnon_. This time there was no apparent reason for the mishap, the cable having parted without warning when under no unusual strain.

The vessels returned to Queenstown, and Field and Thomson went to London, where the directors of the company were assembled. Many were in favor of abandoning the enterprise, selling the remaining cable for what it would bring, and saving as much of their investment as possible. But Field and Thomson were not of the sort who are easily discouraged, and they managed to rouse fresh courage in their associates. Yet another attempt was decided upon, and with replenished stores the _Agamemnon_ and _Niagara_ once again proceeded to the rendezvous.

The fourth start was made on the 29th of July. On several occasions as the work progressed communication failed, and Professor Thomson on the _Agamemnon_ and the other electricians on the _Niagara_ spent many anxious moments fearing that the line had again been severed. On each occasion, however, the current resumed. It was afterward determined that the difficulties were because of faulty batteries rather than leaks in the cable. On both ships bad spots were found in the cable as it was uncoiled and some quick work was necessary to repair them before they dropped into the sea, since it was practically impossible to stop the flow of the cable without breaking it. The _Niagara_ had some narrow escapes from icebergs, and the _Agamemnon_ had difficulties with ships which passed too close and a whale which swam close to the ship and grazed the precious cable. But this time there was no break and the ships approached their respective destinations with the cable still carrying messages between them. The _Niagara_ reached the Newfoundland coast on August 4th, and early the next morning landed the cable in the cable-house at Trinity Bay. The _Agamemnon_ reached the Irish coast but a few hours later, and her end of the cable was landed on the afternoon of the same day.

The public, because of the repeated failures, had come to look upon the cable project as a sort of gigantic wild-goose chase. The news that a cable had at last been laid across the ocean was received with incredulity. Becoming convinced at last, there was great rejoicing in England and America. Queen Victoria sent to President Buchanan a congratulatory message in which she expressed the hope "that the electric cable which now connects Great Britain with the United States will prove an additional link between the two nations, whose friendship is founded upon their mutual interest and reciprocal esteem." The President responded in similar vein, and expressed the hope that the neutrality of the cable might be established.

Honors were showered upon the leaders in the enterprise. Charles Bright, the chief engineer, was knighted, though he was then but twenty-six years of age. Banquet after banquet was held in England at which Bright and Thomson were the guests of honor. New York celebrated in similar fashion. A grand salute of one hundred guns was fired, the streets were decorated, and the city was illuminated at night. The festivities rose to the highest pitch in September with Field receiving the plaudits of all New York. Special services were held in Trinity Church, and a great celebration was held in Crystal Palace. The mayor presented to Field a golden casket, and the ceremony was followed by a torchlight parade. That very day the last message went over the wire.

The shock to the public was tremendous. Many insisted that the cable had never been operated and that the entire affair was a hoax. This was quickly disproved. Aside from the messages between Queen and President many news messages had gone over the cable and it had proved of great value to the British Government. The Indian mutiny had been in progress and regiments in Canada had received orders by mail to sail for India. News reached England that the mutiny was at an end, and the cable enabled the Government to countermand the orders, thus saving a quarter of a million dollars that would have been expended in transporting the troops.

The engineers to whom the operations of the cable had been intrusted had decided that very high voltages were necessary to its successful operation. They had accordingly installed huge induction coils and sent currents of two thousand volts over the line. Even this voltage had failed to operate the Morse instruments, the drag by induction proving too great. The strain of this high voltage had a very serious effect upon the insulation. Abandoning the Morse instruments and the high voltage, recourse was then had to Professor Thomson's instruments, which proved entirely effective with ordinary battery current.

Because of the effect of induction the current is much delayed in traveling through a long submarine cable and arrives in waves. Professor Thomson devised his mirror galvanometer to meet this difficulty. This device consists of a large coil of very fine wire, in the center of which, in a small air-chamber, is a tiny mirror. Mounted on the back of the mirror are very small magnets. The mirror is suspended by a fiber of the finest silk. Thus the weakest of currents coming in over the wire serve to deflect the mirror, and a beam of light being directed upon the mirror and reflected by it upon a screen, the slightest movement of the mirror is made visible. If the mirror swings too far its action is deadened by compressing the air in the chamber. The instrument is one of the greatest delicacy. Such was the greatest contribution of Professor Thomson to submarine telegraphy. Without it the cable could not have been operated even for a short period. Had it been used from the first the line would not have been ruined and might have been used for a considerable period.

Professor Thomson together with Engineer Bright made a careful investigation of the causes of failure. The professor pointed out that had the mirror galvanometer been used with a moderate current the cable could have been continued in successful operation. Ha continued to improve this apparatus and at the same time busied himself with a recording instrument to be used for cable work. Both Thomson and Bright had recommended a larger and stronger cable, and other failures in cable-laying in the Red Sea and elsewhere in the next few years bore out their contentions. But with each failure new experience was gained and methods were perfected. Professor Thomson continued his work with the utmost diligence and continued to add to the fund of scientific knowledge on the subject. So it was that he was prepared to take his place as scientific leader of the next great effort.

X

A SUCCESSFUL CABLE ATTAINED

Field Raises New Capital--The _Great Eastern_ Secured and
Equipped--Staff Organized with Professor Thomson as Scientific
Director--Cable Parts and is Lost--Field Perseveres--The Cable
Recovered--The Continents Linked at Last--A Commercial
Success--Public Jubilation--Modern Cables.

The early 'sixties were trying years for the cable pioneers. It required all of Field's splendid genius and energy to keep the project alive. In the face of repeated failures, and doubt as to whether messages could be sent rapidly enough to make any cable a commercial success, it was extremely difficult to raise fresh capital. America continued to evince interest in the cable, but with, the Civil War in progress it was not easy to raise funds. But no discouragement could deter Field. Though he suffered severely from seasickness, he crossed the Atlantic sixty-four times in behalf of the great enterprise which he had begun.

It was necessary to raise three million dollars to provide a cable of the improved type decided upon and to install it properly. The English firm of Glass, Eliot & Company, which was to manufacture the cable, took a very large part of the stock. The new cable was designed in accordance with the principles enunciated by Professor Thomson. The conductor consisted of seven wires of pure copper, weighing three hundred pounds to the mile. This copper core was covered with Chatterton's compound, which served as water-proofing. This was surrounded by four layers of gutta-percha, cemented together by the compound, and about this hemp was wound. The outer layer consisted of eighteen steel wires wound spirally, each being covered with a wrapping of hemp impregnated with a preservative solution. The new cable was twice as heavy as the old and more than twice as strong, a great advance having been made in the methods of manufacturing steel wire.

It was decided that the cable should, be laid by one vessel, instead of endeavoring to work from two as in the past. Happily, a boat was available which was fitted to carry this enormous burden. This was the _Great Eastern_, a mammoth vessel far in advance of her time. This great ship of 22,500 tons had been completed in 1857, but had not proved a commercial success. The docks of that day were not adequate, the harbors were not deep enough, and the cargoes were insufficient. She had long lain idle when she was secured by the cable company and fitted out for the purpose of laying the cable, which was the first useful work which had been found for the great ship. The 2,300 miles of heavy cable was coiled into the hull and paying-out machinery was installed upon the decks. Huge quantities of coal and other supplies were added.

Capt. James Anderson of the Cunard Line was placed in command of the ship for the expedition, with Captain Moriarty, R.N., as navigating officer. Professor Thomson and Mr. C.F. Varley represented the Atlantic Telegraph Company as electricians and scientific advisers. Mr. Samuel Canning was engineer in charge for the contractors. Mr. Field was also on board.

It was on July 23, 1865, that the expedition started from the Irish coast, where the eastern end of the cable had been landed. Less than a hundred miles of cable had been laid when the electricians discovered a fault in the cable. The _Great Eastern_ was stopped, the course was retraced, and the cable picked up until the fault was reached. It was found that a piece of iron wire had in some way pierced the cable so that the insulation was ruined. This was repaired and the work of laying was again commenced. Five days later, when some seven hundred miles of cable had been laid, communication was again interrupted, and once again they turned back, laboriously lifting the heavy cable from the depths, searching for the break. Again a wire was found thrust through the cable, and this occasioned no little worry, as it was feared that this was being done maliciously.

It was on August 2d that the next fault was discovered. Nearly two-thirds of the cable was now in place and the depth was here over one mile. Raising the cable was particularly difficult, and just at this juncture the _Great Eastern's_ machinery broke down, leaving her without power and at the mercy of the waves. Subjected to an enormous strain, the precious cable parted and was lost. Despite the great depth, efforts were made to grapple the lost cable. Twice the cable was hooked, but on both occasions the rope parted and after days of tedious work the supply of rope was exhausted and it was necessary to return to England. Still another cable expedition had ended in failure.

Field, the indomitable, began all over again, raising additional funds for a new start. The _Great Eastern_ had proved entirely satisfactory, and it was hoped that with improvements in the grappling-gear the cable might be recovered. The old company gave way before a new organization known as the Anglo-American Telegraph Company. It was decided to lay an entirely new cable, and then to endeavor to complete the one partially laid in 1865.

With no services other than private prayers at the station on the Irish shore, the _Great Eastern_ steamed away for the new effort on July 13, 1866. This time the principal difficulties arose within the ship. Twice the cable became tangled in the tanks and it was necessary to stop the ship while the mass was straightened out. Most of the time the "coffee-mill," as the seamen called the paying-out machinery, ground steadily away and the cable sank into the sea. As the work progressed Field and Thomson, who had suffered so many failures in their great enterprise, watched with increasing anxiety. They were almost afraid to hope that the good fortune would continue.

Just two weeks after the Irish coast had been left behind the _Great Eastern_ approached Newfoundland just as the shadows of night were added to those of a thick fog. On the next morning, July 28th, she steamed into Trinity Bay, where flags were flying in the little town in honor of the great accomplishment. Amid salutes and cheers the cable was landed and communication between the continents was established. Almost the first news that came over the wire was that of the signing of the treaty of peace which ended the war between Prussia and Austria.

Early in August the _Great Eastern_ again steamed away to search for the cable broken the year before. Arriving on the spot, the grapples were thrown out and the tedious work of dragging the sea-bottom was begun. After many efforts the cable was finally secured and raised to the surface. A new section was spliced on and the ship again turned toward America. On September 7th the second cable was successfully landed, and two wires were now in operation between the continents. Thus was the great task doubly fulfilled. Once again there were public celebrations in England and America. Field received the deserved plaudits of his countrymen and Thomson was knighted in recognition of his achievements.

The new cables proved a success and were kept in operation for many years. Thomson's mirror receiver had been improved until it displayed remarkable sensitiveness. Using the current from a battery placed in a lady's thimble, a message was sent across the Atlantic through one cable and back through the other. Professor Thomson was to give to submarine telegraphy an even more remarkable instrument. The mirror instrument did not give a permanent record of the messages. The problem of devising a means of recording the messages delicate enough so that it could be operated with rapidity by the faint currents coming over a long cable was extremely difficult. But Thomson solved it with his siphon recorder. In this a small coil is suspended between the poles of a large magnet; the coil being free to turn upon its axis. When the current from the cable passes through the coil it moves, and so varies the position of the ink-siphon which is attached to it. The friction of a pen on paper would have proved too great a drag on so delicate an instrument, and so a tiny jet of ink from the siphon was substituted. The ink is made to pass through the siphon with sufficient force to mark down the message by a delightfully ingenious method. Thomson simply arranged to electrify the ink, and it rushes through the tiny opening on to the paper just as lightning leaps from cloud to earth.

Professor, now Sir, Thomson continued to take an active part in the work of designing and laying new cables. Not only did he contribute the apparatus and the scientific information which made cables possible, but he attained renown as a physicist and a scientist in many other fields. In 1892 he was given the title of Lord Kelvin, and it was by this name that he was known as the leading physicist of his day. He survived until 1907.

To Cyrus W. Field must be assigned a very large share of the credit for the establishment of telegraphic communication between the continents. He gave his fortune and all of his tremendous energy and ability to the enterprise and kept it alive through failure after failure. He was a promoter of the highest type, the business man who recognized a great human need and a great opportunity for service. Without his efforts the scientific discoveries of Thomson could scarcely have been put to practical use.

The success of the first cable inspired others. In 1869 a cable from France to the United States was laid from the _Great Eastern_. In 1875 the Direct United States Cable Company laid another cable to England, which was followed by another cable to France. One cable after another was laid until there are now a score. This second great development in communication served to bring the two continents much closer together in business and in thought and has proved of untold benefit.

XI

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, THE YOUTH

The Family's Interest in Speech Improvement--Early Life-Influence of
Sir Charles Wheatstone--He Comes to America--Visible Speech and the
Mohawks--The Boston School for Deaf Mutes--The Personality of Bell.

The men of the Bell family, for three generations, have interested themselves in human speech. The grandfather, the father, and the uncle of Alexander Graham Bell were all elocutionists of note. The grandfather achieved fame in London; the uncle, in Dublin; and the father, in Edinburgh. The father applied himself particularly to devising means of instructing the deaf in speech. His book on _Visible Speech_ explained his method of instructing deaf mutes in speech by the aid of their sight, and of teaching them to understand the speech of others by watching their lips as the words are spoken.

Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh in 1847, and received his early education in the schools of that city. He later studied at Warzburg, Germany, where he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. He followed very naturally in the footsteps of his father, taking an early interest in the study of speech. He was especially anxious to aid his mother, who was deaf.

As a boy he exhibited a genius for invention, as well as for acoustics. Much of this was duo to the wise encouragement of his father. He himself has told of a boyhood invention.

My father once asked my brother Melville and myself to try to
make a speaking-machine, I don't suppose he thought we could
produce anything of value, in itself. But he knew we could not
even experiment and manufacture anything which even tried to
speak, without learning something of the voice and the
throat; and the mouth--all that wonderful mechanism of sound
production in which he was so interested.

So my brother and I went to work. We divided the task--he was
to make the lungs and the vocal cords, I was to make the mouth
and the tongue. He made a bellows for the lungs and a very
good vocal apparatus out of rubber. I procured a skull and
molded a tongue with rubber stuffed with cotton wool, and
supplied the soft parts of the throat with the same material
Then I arranged joints, so the jaw and the tongue could move.
It was a great day for us when we fitted the two parts of the
device together. Did it speak? It squeaked and squawked a
good deal, but it made a very passable imitation of
"Mam-ma--Mam-ma." It sounded very much like a baby. My father
wanted us to go on and try to get other sounds, but we were so
interested in what we had done we wanted to try it out. So we
proceeded to use it to make people think there was a baby in
the house, and when we made it cry "Mam-ma," and heard doors
opening and people coming, we were quite happy. What has
become of It? Well, that was across the ocean, in Scotland,
but I believe the mouth and tongue part that I made is in
Georgetown somewhere; I saw it not long ago.

The inventor tells of another boyhood invention that, though it had no connection with sound or speech, shows his native ingenuity. Again we will tell it in his own words.

I remember my first invention very well. There were several of
us boys, and we were fond of playing around a mill where they
ground wheat into flour. The miller's son was one of the
boys, and I am afraid he showed us how to be a good deal of a
nuisance to his father. One day the miller called us into the
mill and said, "Why don't you do something useful instead of
just playing all the time?" I wasn't afraid of the miller as
much as his son was, so I said, "Well, what can we do that
is useful?" He took up a handful of wheat, ran it over in his
hand and said: "Look at that! If you could manage to get the
husks off that wheat, that would be doing something useful!"

So I took some wheat home with me and experimented. I found
the husks came off without much difficulty. I tried brushing
them off and they came off beautifully. Then it occurred to me
that brushing was nothing but applying friction to them. If
I could brush the husks off, why couldn't the husks be rubbed
off?

There was in the mill a machine--I don't know what it was
for--but it whirled its contents, whatever it was, around in
a drum. I thought, "Why wouldn't the husks come off if the raw
wheat was whirled around in that drum?" So back I went to the
miller and suggested the idea to him.

"Why," he said, "that's a good idea." So he called his foreman
and they tried it, and the husks came off beautifully, and
they've been taking husks off that way ever since. That was
my very first invention, and it led me to thinking for myself,
and really had quite an influence on my way and methods of
thought.

Up to his sixteenth year young Bell's reading consisted largely of novels, poetry, and romantic tales of Scotch heroes. But in addition he was picking up some knowledge of anatomy, music, electricity, and telegraphy. When he was but sixteen years of age his father secured for him a position as teacher of elocution and this necessarily turned his thought into more serious channels. He now spent his leisure studying sound. During this period he made several discoveries in sound which were of some small importance.

When he was twenty-one years of age he went to London and there had the good fortune to come to the attention of Charles Wheatstone and Alex J. Ellis. Ellis was at that time president of the London Philological Society, and had translated Helmholtz's _The Sensation of Tone_ into English. He had made no little progress with sound, and demonstrated to Bell the methods by which German scientists had caused tuning-forks to vibrate by means of electro-magnets and had combined the tones of several tuning-forks in an effort to reproduce the sound of the human voice. Helmholtz had performed this experiment simply to demonstrate the physical basis of sound, and seems to have had no idea of its possible use in telephony.

That an electro-magnet could vibrate a tuning-fork and so produce sound was an entirely new and fascinating idea to the youth. It appealed to his imagination, quickened by his knowledge of speech. "Why not an electrical telegraph?" he asked himself. His idea seems to have been that the electric current could carry different notes over the wire and reproduce them by means of the electro-magnet. Although Bell did not know it, many others were struggling with the same problem, the answer to which proved most elusive. It gave Bell a starting-point, and the search for the telephone began.

Sir Charles Wheatstone was then England's leading man of science, and so Bell sought his counsel. Wheatstone received the young man and listened to his statement of his ideas and ambitions and gave him every encouragement. He showed him a talking-machine which had recently been invented by Baron de Kempelin, and gave him the opportunity to study it closely. Thus Bell, the eager student, the unknown youth of twenty-two, came under the influence of Wheatstone, the famous scientist and inventor of sixty-seven. This influence played a great part in shaping Bell's career, arousing as it did his passion for science. This decided him to devote himself to the problem of reproducing sounds by mechanical means. Thus a new improvement in the means of human communication was being sought and another pioneer of science was at work.

The death of the two brothers of the young scientist from tuberculosis, and the physician's report that he himself was threatened by the dread malady, forced a change in his plans and withdrew him from an atmosphere which was so favorable to the development of his great ideas. He was told that he must seek a new climate and lead a more vigorous life in the open. Accompanied by his father, he removed to America and at the age of twenty-six took up the struggle for health in the little Canadian town of Brantford.

He occupied himself by teaching his father's system of visible speech among the Mohawk Indians. In this work he met with no little success. At the same time he was gaining in bodily vigor and throwing off the tendency to consumption which had threatened his life. He did not forget the great idea which filled his imagination and eagerly sought the telephone with such crude means as were at hand. He succeeded in designing a piano which, with the aid of the electric current, could transmit its music over a wire and reproduce it.

While lecturing in Boston on his system of teaching visible speech, the elder Bell received a request to locate in that city and take up his work in its schools. He declined the offer, but recommended his son as one entirely competent for the position. Alexander Graham Bell received the offer, which he accepted, and he was soon at work teaching the deaf mutes in the school which Boston had opened for those thus afflicted. He met with the greatest success in his work, and ere long achieved a national reputation. During the first year of his work, 1871, he was the sensation of the educational world. Boston University offered him a professorship, in which position he taught others his system of teaching, with increased success.

The demand for his services led him to open a School of Vocal Physiology. He had made some improvements in his father's system for teaching the deaf and dumb to speak and to understand spoken words, and displayed great ability as a teacher. His experiments with telegraphy and telephony had been laid aside, and there seemed little chance that he would turn from the work in which he was accomplishing so much for so many sufferers, and which was bringing a comfortable financial return, and again undertake the tedious work in search for a telephone.

Fortunately, Bell was to establish close relationships with those who understood and appreciated his abilities and gave him encouragement in his search for a new means of communication. Thomas Sanders, a resident of Salem, had a five-year-old son named Georgie who was a deaf mute. Mr. Sanders sought Bell's tutelage for his son, and it was agreed that Bell should give Georgie private lessons for the sum of three hundred and fifty dollars a year. It was also arranged that Bell was to reside at the Sanders home in Salem. He made arrangements to conduct his future experiments there.

Another pupil who came to him about this time was Mabel Hubbard, a fifteen-year-old girl who had lost her hearing and consequently her powers of speech, through an attack of scarlet fever when an infant. She was a gentle and lovable girl, and Bell fell completely in love with his pupil. Four years later he was to marry her and she was to prove a large influence in helping him to success. She took the liveliest interest in all of his experiments and encouraged him to new endeavor after each failure. She kept his records and notes and wrote his letters. Through her Bell secured the support of her father, Gardiner G. Hubbard, who was widely known as one of Boston's ablest lawyers. He was destined to become Bell's chief spokesman and defender.

Hubbard first became aware of Bell's inventive genius when the latter was calling one evening at the Hubbard home in Cambridge. Bell was illustrating some mysteries of acoustics with the aid of the piano. "Do you know," he remarked, "that if I sing the note G close to the strings of the piano, the G string will answer me?"

This did not impress the lawyer, who asked its significance.

"It is a fact of tremendous importance," answered Bell. "It is evidence that we may some day have a musical telegraph which will enable us to send as many messages simultaneously over one wire as there are notes on that piano."

From that time forward Hubbard took every occasion to encourage Bell to carry forward his experiments in musical telegraphy.

As a young man Bell was tall and slender, with jet-black eyes and hair, the latter being pushed back into a curly tangle. He was sensitive and high-strung, very much the artist and the man of science. His enthusiasms were intense, and, once his mind was filled with an idea, he followed it devotedly. He was very little the practical business man and paid scant attention to the small, practical details of life. He was so interested in visible speech, and so keenly alert to the pathos of the lives of the deaf mutes, that he many times seriously considered giving over all experiments with the musical telegraph and devoting his entire life and energies to the amelioration of their condition.

XII

THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE

The Cellar at Sanderses'--Experimental Beginnings--Magic Revived in
Salem Town--The Dead Man's Ear--The Right Path--Trouble and
Discouragement--The Trip to Washington--Professor Joseph Henry--The
Boston Workshop--The First Faint Twang of the Telephone--Early
Development.

Alexander Graham Bell had not resided at the Sanderses' home very long before he had fitted the basement up as a workshop. For three years he haunted it, spending all of his leisure time in his experiments. Here he had his apparatus, and the basement was littered with a curious combination of electrical and acoustical devices--magnets, batteries, coils of wire, tuning-forks, speaking-trumpets, etc. Bell had a great horror that his ideas might be stolen and was very nervous over any possible intrusion into his precious workshop. Only the members of the Sanders family were allowed to enter the basement. He was equally cautious in purchasing supplies and equipment lest his very purchases reveal the nature of his experiments. He would go to a half-dozen different stores for as many articles. He usually selected the night for his experiments, and pounded and scraped away indefatigably, oblivious of the fact that the family, as well as himself, was sorely in need of rest.

"Bell would often awaken me in the middle of the night," says Mr. Sanders, "his black eyes blazing with excitement. Leaving me to go down to the cellar, he would rush wildly to the barn and begin to send me signals along his experimental wires. If I noticed any improvement in his apparatus he would be delighted. He would leap and whirl around in one of his 'war-dances,' and then go contentedly to bed. But if the experiment was a failure he would go back to his work-bench to try some different plan."

In common with other experimenters who were searching for the telephone, Bell was experimenting with a sort of musical telegraph. Eagerly and persistently he sought the means that would replace the telegraph with its cumbersome signals by a new device which would enable the human voice itself to be transmitted. The longer he worked the greater did the difficulties appear. His work with the deaf and dumb was alluring, and on many occasions he seriously considered giving over his other experiments and devoting himself entirely to the instruction of the deaf and dumb and to the development of his system of making speech visible by making the sound-vibrations visible to the eye. But as he mused over the difficulties in enabling a deaf mute to achieve speech nothing else seemed impossible. "If I can make a deaf mute talk," said Bell, "I can make iron talk."

One of his early ideas was to install a harp at one end of the wire and a speaking-trumpet at the other. His plan was to transmit the vibrations over the wire and have the voice reproduced by the vibrations of the strings of the harp. By attaching a light pencil or marker to a cord or membrane and causing the latter to vibrate by talking against it, he could secure tracings of the sound-vibrations. Different tracings were secured from different sounds. He thus sought to teach the deaf to speak by sight.

At this time Bell enjoyed the friendship of Dr. Clarence J. Blake, an eminent Boston aurist, who suggested that the experiments be conducted with a human ear instead of with a mechanical apparatus in imitation of the ear. Bell eagerly accepted the idea, and Doctor Blake provided him with an ear and connecting organs cut from a dead man's head. Bell soon had the ghastly specimen set up in his workshop. He moistened the drum with glycerine and water and, substituting a stylus of hay for the stapes bone, he obtained a wonderful series of curves which showed the vibrations of the human voice as recorded by the ear. One can scarce imagine a stranger picture than Bell must have presented in the conduct of those experiments. We can almost see him with his face the paler in contrast with his black hair and flashing black eyes as he shouted and whispered by turns into the ghastly ear. Surely he must have looked the madman, and it is perhaps fortunate that he was not observed by impressionable members of the public else they would have been convinced that the witches had again visited old Salem town to ply their magic anew. But it was a new and very real and practical sort of magic which was being worked there.

His experiments with the dead man's ear brought to Bell at least one important idea. He noted that, though the ear-drum was thin and light, it was capable of sending vibrations through the heavy bones that lay back of it. And so he thought of using iron disks or membranes to serve the purpose of the drum in the ear and arrange them so that they would vibrate an iron rod. He thought of connecting two such instruments with an electrified wire, one of which would receive the sound-vibrations and the other of which would reproduce them after they had been transmitted along the wire. At last the experimenter was on the right track, with a conception of a practicable method of transmitting sound. He now possessed a theoretical knowledge of what the telephone he sought should be, but there yet remained before him the enormous task of devising and constructing the apparatus which would carry out the idea, and find the best way of utilizing the electrical current for this work.

Bell was now at a critical point in his career and was confronted by the same difficulty which assails so many inventors. In his constant efforts to achieve a telephone he had entirely neglected his school of vocal physiology, which was now abandoned. Georgie Sanders and Mabel Hubbard were his only pupils. Though Sanders and Hubbard were genuinely interested in Bell and his work, they felt that he was impractical, and were especially convinced that his experiments with the ear and its imitations were entirely useless. They believed that the electrical telegraph alone presented possibilities, and they told Bell that unless he would devote himself entirely to the improvement of this instrument and cease wasting time and money over ear toys that had no commercial value they would no longer give him financial support. Hubbard went even further, and insisted that if Bell did not abandon his foolish notions he could not marry his daughter.

Bell was almost without funds, his closest friends now seemed to turn upon him, and altogether he was in a sorry plight. Of course Sanders and Hubbard meant the best, yet in reality they were seeking to drive their protégé in exactly the wrong direction. As far back as 1860 a German scientist named Philipp Reis produced a musical telephone that even transmitted a few imperfect words. But it would not talk successfully. Others had followed in his footsteps, using the musical telephone to transmit messages with the Morse code by means of long and short hums. Elisha Gray, of Chicago, also experimented with the musical telegraph. At the transmitting end a vibrating steel tongue served to interrupt the electric current which passed over the wire in waves, and, passing through the coils of an electro-magnet at the receiving end, caused another strip of steel located near the magnet to vibrate and so produce a tone which varied with the current.

All of these developments depended upon the interruption of the current by some kind of a vibrating contact. The limitations which Sanders and Hubbard sought to impose upon Bell, had they been obeyed to the letter, must have prevented his ultimate success. In a letter to his mother at this time, he said:

I am now beginning to realize the cares and anxieties of being
an inventor. I have had to put off all pupils and classes, for
flesh and blood could not stand much longer such a strain as I
have had upon me.

But good fortune was destined to come to Bell along with the bad. On an enforced trip to Washington to consult his patent attorney--a trip he could scarce raise funds to make--Bell met Prof. Joseph Henry. We have seen the part which this eminent scientist had played in the development of the telegraph. Now he was destined to aid Bell, as he had aided Morse a generation earlier. The two men spent a day over the apparatus which Bell had with him. Though Professor Henry was fifty years his senior and the leading scientist in America, the youth was able to demonstrate that he had made a real discovery.

"You are in possession of the germ of a great invention," said Henry, "and I would advise you to work at it until you have made it complete."

"But," replied Bell, "I have not got the electrical knowledge that is necessary."

"Get it," was Henry's reply.

This proved just the stimulus Bell needed, and he returned to Boston with a new determination to perfect his great idea.

Bell was no longer experimenting in the Sanderses' cellar, having rented a room in Boston in which to carry on his work. He had also secured the services of an assistant, one Thomas Watson, who received nine dollars a week for his services in Bell's behalf. The funds for this work were supplied by Sanders and Hubbard jointly, but they insisted that Bell should continue his experiments with the musical telegraph. Though he was convinced that the opportunities lay in the field of telephony, Bell labored faithfully for regular periods with the devices in which his patrons were interested. The remainder of his time and energy he put upon the telephone. The basis of his telephone was still the disk or diaphragm which would vibrate when the sound-waves of the voice were thrown against it. Behind this were mounted various kinds of electro-magnets in series with the electrified wire over which the inventor hoped to send his messages. For three years they labored with this apparatus, trying every conceivable sort of disk. It is easy to pass over those three years, filled as they were with unceasing toil and patient effort, because they were drab years when little of interest occurred. But these were the years when Bell and Watson were "going to school," learning how to apply electricity to this new use, striving to make their apparatus talk. How dreary and trying these years must have been for the experimenters we may well imagine. It requires no slight force of will to hold oneself to such a task in the face of failure after failure.

By June of 1875 Bell had completed a new Instrument. In this the diaphragm was a piece of gold-beater's skin, which Bell had selected as most closely resembling the drum in the human ear. This was stretched tight to form a sort of drum, and an armature of magnetized iron was fastened to its middle. Thus the bit of iron was free to vibrate, and opposite it was an electro-magnet through which flowed the current that passed over the line. This acted as the receiver. At the other end of the wire was a sort of crude harmonica with a clock spring, reed, and magnet. Bell and Watson had been working upon their crude apparatus for months, and finally, on June 2d, sounds were actually transmitted. Bell was afire with enthusiasm; the first great step had been taken. The electric current had carried sound-vibrations along the wire and had reproduced them. If this could be done a telephone which would reproduce whole words and sentences could be attained.

So great was Bell's enthusiasm over this achievement that he succeeded in convincing Sanders and Hubbard that his idea was practical, and they at last agreed to finance him in his further experiments with the telephone. A second membrane receiver was constructed, and for many more weeks the experiments continued. It was found that sounds were carried from instrument to instrument, but as a telephone they were still far from perfection. It was not until March of 1876 that Bell, speaking into the instrument in the workroom, was heard and understood by Watson at the other instrument in the basement. The telephone had carried and delivered an intelligible message.