Chapter XI: Appendix: IV

ON THE DOCTRINE OF UNDULATORY CURRENTS.

“_In this Specification the three words ‘oscillation,’
‘vibration’ and ‘undulation,’ are used synonymously._”--Graham
Bell, U.S. Patent, No. 174,465, filed Feb. 14, 1876.

In the preceding appendices it has been demonstrated that all that is essential in both transmitter and receiver of a Telephonic system was to be found existing in 1863 in the Telephone of Reis. There yet remains to be met the _doctrinaire_ objection that as Reis never explicitly mentions an undulatory current as distinguished from an intermittent one, he never intended to use such a current. This objection is advanced only by those persons who have committed themselves to the idea that speech cannot be transmitted by a transmitter which opens and closes the circuit.

It is certain that Reis did not in any of his writings explicitly name an undulatory current: but it is equally certain that, whether he mentioned it or not, he both used one and intended to use one. He did not concern himself as to the precise manner in which the current fluctuated provided only he attained the end in view--namely, that the vibrations of the armature of the receiver should be similar to those of the transmitter. This he did lay down with great clearness and emphasis as his guiding principle; and he cared not about the intermediate question as to how the current did the work. He told the world that the electromagnet at the receiving end must be magnetised and demagnetised correspondingly with the vibrations imparted by the air to the tympanum of his transmitter, in order that the armature might be set into vibrations similar to those of the speaker’s voice. If the tympanum of the transmitter vibrated or oscillated or undulated--the terms are synonymous--so must the armature of the receiver. Graham Bell has told us precisely the same thing: “The current traversing the coils of the electromagnet _E_ occasions an increase and diminution in its intensity” [that is to say, magnetises and demagnetises it], “and the armature _A_^1 is thrown into vibration” ... “and thus imparts to the air at _n_^1 a facsimile copy of the motion of the air that acted upon the membrane _n_.” Bell agrees then absolutely in every detail with what Reis said on this point. That sound-waves should be transmitted by a Telephone requires indeed a process of several stages. (1.) The sound-waves must strike upon the tympanum of the transmitter and make it undulate, or, oscillate, or vibrate--whichever term you please--in a corresponding manner. (2.) The undulating tympanum must act upon the circuit, and either itself induce undulating or vibrating currents (Bell’s plan, by magnetic induction), or else throw a current already flowing there, into undulations, or vibrations, or oscillations (Reis’s plan, by varying contact-resistance), but in either case these undulations of the current must correspond to the original undulations of the air-waves. (3.) The undulating, or vibrating, or oscillating current must run round the coils of the electromagnet and cause its magnetic force to undulate, or oscillate, or vibrate by demagnetising it and then magnetising it, but this also must be in a manner corresponding to the original undulations. (4.) Further, the armature of the receiver must be set into undulations, or vibrations, or oscillations corresponding to those of the force of the electromagnet, and therefore to the undulations of the current that is magnetising and demagnetising it, and therefore identically corresponding with the original undulations of the sound-waves. (5.) The armature must communicate its vibrations to the air and to the ear of the listener. Of these successive stages Reis explicitly told the world that his instrument was to do the first one and the last three, and he several times emphasized the statement, that the final undulations of the last stage were to be similar to the original undulations of the first stage. The air at the listening end, the armature of the receiver, and the magnetism of the magnet, were all to be set by the fluctuations of the current into undulations corresponding with those of the tympanum at the speaker’s end, and of the waves of his voice. It is perfectly clear therefore, that he regarded as self-evident the intermediate stage, and he did not dwell upon the necessity of the point, that his transmitting-current must also vibrate, because this was obviously so, and was only an intermediate matter of secondary moment. He chose rather to point out the necessity of unification between the first and last stages, leaving it to common sense to see that the “interruption” or the “opening and closing” of the circuit must be effected in a manner corresponding to the undulations of the impressed sound-wave. Had the “interruptions” not been of the nature of corresponding variations of contact, the current could not have been set into corresponding vibrations, and the armature of the electromagnet could not have reproduced the vibrations of the transmitter. Clearly Reis’s whole conception of telephony included as a minor and intermediate step the fact that the current was, by the action of the transmitter, caused to vary in strength in correspondence with the undulations of the tympanum--that, in fact, it was made to undulate by the action of the tympanum and of the interruptor which opened and closed the circuit in obedience to the undulations of the tympanum and in proportion to them.

A difficulty has been raised by telegraph operators that opening and closing the circuit means opening and closing the circuit in abrupt alternations of make-and-break. Reis never said so. Reis never used the phrase in this restricted and technical sense. He was not a professional telegraphist, and, as pointed out in Appendix I., he so arranged his contacts with the following springs and other contrivances, that the “opening and closing” of the circuit should not and could not be abrupt. A Reis transmitter is no more a “make-and-break” instrument than the Blake transmitter is. Both will give undulatory currents by opening and closing the circuit to a greater or less degree, if spoken gently to. Both will give abrupt makes-and-breaks of the circuit if shouted to, in spite of the following-springs, which are used to prevent abrupt interruptions. The term “opening and closing” which Reis applied to his transmitter, is used by him in exactly the same way as the phrase is used by engineers in describing the action of the governing throttle-valve of a steam-engine. The function of the governor, we are told in treatises on engineering, is to open and close the throttle-valve in a manner corresponding to the fall or rise of the governor-balls. No one in his senses imagines that the opening and closing action here referred to means an absolutely abrupt intermittence in the supply of steam. If the governor-balls rise a little by increase of speed, there is a corresponding closing, proportionate in amount to the amount of rise. If any person were to impress an oscillatory motion of rise and fall upon the governor, the supply of steam would be thrown into corresponding undulations. The matter stands precisely so with Reis’s “interruptor” or “regulator;” it opens and closes the circuit in a manner corresponding with the undulations communicated to it. If it did not, it would violate the principle of correspondence so emphatically laid down by Reis.

It is, however, true that Reis’s instruments, in spite of springs and adjusting screws, and other devices to prevent abrupt make-and-break occurring, were prone, by reason of the very lightness of the parts, to break contact, if too loudly spoken to. They share this fault with the more perfect transmitters of Blake and Berliner which are used to-day so generally. The undulatory currents of these transmitters are, like those of Reis’s transmitters, liable to an occasional abrupt interruption, which, though it may not seriously affect the intelligibility of the words, does, to some extent, mar the perfection of the articulation. Still, in practice, to judge by the instruments used in the telephone exchanges of Great Britain, the Blake transmitter with its liability to make-and-brake abruptly is a more satisfactory instrument than the Bell transmitter, which is not used at all. Now the Bell transmitter working on the principle of which Bell is the first and undisputed inventor, is one in which the degree of contact in the circuit is never changed: for it works by the principle of “induction,” whereby currents are set up in a circuit that is never opened or closed, either partially or wholly. Nevertheless the Blake transmitter, which opens and closes the circuit in proportion to the undulations of the tympanum, is the more satisfactory instrument for producing the undulating currents required to procure the all-essential correspondence between the undulations of the tympanum of the transmitter and those of the armature of the receiver. To sum the matter up, it appears that an instrument which opens and closes the circuit on Reis’s principle of transmitting is in practice a more satisfactory transmitter of undulatory currents than Bell’s transmitter which cannot open or close the circuit in the least. Reis, with his instruments, transmitted speech--as Herr Hold tells us (p. 126)--when the words spoken were not too loud. That is a proof that he did really use, whether he knew it or not, undulatory currents of electricity: and an undulatory current is none the less an undulatory current, even if occasionally abruptly interrupted. A speech is none the less a speech, even if the orator sneeze once or twice while speaking. Nay, we may go further, and say that an undulatory current is an undulatory current, even though the finer ripples of the waves are lost in transmission. This is what seems to have been the case with Reis’s instruments as they were in 1861 and 1862. The consonants were satisfactorily transmitted, and so were all musical tones within the range of the instrument. But the finer ripples of the vowels were lost somehow in transmission. Reis, whose innate honour and modesty led him always rather to understate than overstate the facts, most frankly acknowledged this, nay even invited attention to the fact, and discussed the imperfection from a high scientific standpoint. He proposed to rely for the correctness of his views upon the actual recorded curves of sound-waves, as taken down automatically by the then newly-invented phonautograph of Scott (see p. 60). It is perfectly marvellous how precise his views were upon the correspondence between the graphic curve or wave-form of a sound and the actual sound itself; a precision amply justified by the experience and the discoveries of the last ten years.

This matter of representing sounds--or rather the varying density of the air in the sound-wave--by a graphic curve, was a vital one to Reis. Had he had a less clear view of the nature of sound-waves than that afforded by a graphic _curve_, I doubt whether he would ever have grasped the problem of the telephone--that the final vibrations, or undulations, or oscillations of the armature in the receiver must _correspond with_--must be the very counterpart of--those of the tympanum of the transmitter. The clearness with which Reis saw this is only surpassed by the clearness with which he expressed himself upon it. For him a sound was simply a complicated series of variations in the density of the air, and capable, in all its complexity, of being represented by the rise and fall of an undulatory _curve_. “Every tone, and every combination of tones, evokes in our ear vibrations ... the motions of which may be represented by a _curve_” (p. 54). “That which is perceived by the auditory nerve ... _may be represented graphically according to its duration and magnitude by a curve_” ... (p. 53). “Our ear can perceive absolutely nothing more than is capable of being represented by _similar curves_” (p. 53). The curves with which he accompanied his original memoir--and now reproduced in facsimile, from Legat’s plates, at the end of this volume--are evidence of the thoroughness of his grasp on the undulatory principle. And he explicitly states this principle amongst “the various requisite conditions which must be fulfilled by the transmitting _and receiving_ apparatus for the solution of the problem that has been set” (Legat’s Report, p. 71). He declared that so soon as it should become possible “at any place, and _in any prescribed manner_” (that is to say, whether by electric undulations or by mechanical undulations, as in the string of the toy telephone, or by any other means), “to set up vibrations whose _curves_ are like those of any given tone or combination of tones,” we should then receive the same impression as that tone or combination of tones would have produced upon us.

So much for Reis’s principle of correspondence of undulations between the transmitter and the receiver; we have seen how clear and precise, yet how comprehensive it was, and how the general proposition necessarily included within itself, as an intermediate step, the particular minor proposition that the undulations of the current must also be in correspondence with the voice.

Keeping these points in mind, it is very remarkable that when Graham Bell, fourteen years later, followed Reis “into the field of telephonic research,” he selected the very same method of expressing the relations between sounds and the undulations which corresponded with them. To show how remarkably in agreement the views of Reis and Bell are upon this question of representing by a curve the undulations which correspond to the voice, we select the following paragraphs and place them in parallel columns.

_Reis._

That which is perceived by
the auditory nerve ... may
be =represented graphically=,
according to its duration and
magnitude by a =curve=.--(Memoir
‘On Telephony’ in the
Jahresbericht of the Physical
Society of Frankfurt-a.-M.
1860-61, p. 59.) [p. 53.]

=The height or depth of
the sound produced= ...
depends upon =the number of
vibrations made in a given
time=.--(_Ib._ p. 63.) [p. 59.]

_Bell._

Electrical undulations, induced
by a body capable of
inductive action, can be =represented
graphically=, without
error by the same sinusoidal
=curve= which expresses the vibration
of the inducing body
itself, and the effect of its vibration
upon the air; for, as
stated above, the rate of oscillation
in the electrical current
corresponds to the =rate of vibration=
of the inducing body--that
is, to =the pitch of the
sound produced=.--(Specification
of U. S. Patent No.
174,465, dated March 7, 1876.)

_Reis._

The greater the condensation
of the sound-conducting
medium at any given moment,
the greater will be the =amplitude=
of vibration of the membrane.--(_Ib._
p. 58.) [p. 52.]

_Bell._

The intensity of the current
varies with the =amplitude= of
the vibration--that is, with
the loudness of the sound;--(_Ib._)

_Reis._

... each tone is dependent
not only on the number of
vibrations of the medium, but
also on the =condensation or
rarefaction= of the same.--(Legat’s
Report, Zeitschrift des
D.-Oesterr. Telegr. Vereins,
1863, p. 125.) [p. 77.]

_Bell._

and the polarity of the current
corresponds to the direction of
the vibrating body,--that is,
to the =condensations and
rarefactions= of air produced
by the vibration.--(_Ib._)

_Reis._

Let us exhibit the condensation
curves for three tones--each
singly (Plate I): then,
by adding together the ordinates
corresponding to equal
abscissæ, we can determine
new ordinates and develop a
new curve which we may call
the =combination-curve=. Now
this gives us just exactly what
our ear perceives from the
=three simultaneous tones=.--(Memoir
‘On Telephony,’
p. 59.) [p. 54.]

_Bell._

The combined effect of A
and B, when induced simultaneously
on the same circuit,
is expressed by the curve
A + B, Fig. 4, which is the
algebraical sum of the sinusoidal
curves A and B. This
curve A + B also indicates the
actual motion of the air when
=two musical notes= considered
are sounded =simultaneously=....
(_Ib._) The
electrical movement, like the
aerial motion, can be represented
by a sinusoidal curve, or
by the =resultant of several=
sinusoidal =curves=.--(_Ib._)

The very remarkable agreement of the preceding passages receives a most striking confirmation by comparing the curves respectively drawn by Reis and by Bell. These are facsimiled below, Reis’s “combination”-curve (Fig. 47) from Plate I. of his Memoir (also Plate I. of this volume), and Bell’s “resultant”-curve (Fig. 48) from Fig. 4 of his United States Patent Specification No. 174,465.

The most casual observer cannot fail to notice here that the three lines of undulatory curves of Bell’s specification are practically identical with the three lower lines of undulatory curves of Reis’s memoir. They are, moreover, in each case introduced for the sake of showing how a complex curve corresponds to a compound undulation.

_Reis._.

_Bell._.

Far be it from me even to hint that either curve was plagiarised from the other. Bell tells us that his curve is to represent electrical oscillations, which, he adds, have the same curve as that both of the vibrating body and of the air. Reis tells us that his curve is to represent the oscillations of a tympanum, or of the air, or of the magnetisation of the magnet, or of the armature at the receiving end. How the magnetization of the electro-magnet was made to vary “correspondingly with the condensations and rarefactions of the air,” as represented by such a curve, Reis did not explicitly say, but left to the common sense of his readers to infer. Though the inference was obvious, Bell, who possibly had not then read Reis’s researches, seized upon this intermediate stage of the process employed by Reis, and probably quite unconscious that Reis had already employed it, announced it as a discovery of his own; and then, losing sight of the point that all that was wanted was to secure correspondence between the initial and final stage, he magnified to an absurd and unwarranted importance this intermediate correspondence of the vibrations of the current with those of the tympanum, which correspondence any one reading Reis’s papers would know at once Reis had implicitly assumed and actually employed when he transmitted articulate speech.

If we pass from the method of graphically representing undulations by curves, and proceed to compare the language in which Reis described the action of his machine in reproducing the undulations imparted to the transmitter, with that in which Graham Bell described the action of his machine some fourteen years later, we shall find[53] an agreement even more precise.

_Reis._

The =electromagnet= ...
will be demagnetised and magnetised
correspondingly with
the condensations and rarefactions
of the mass of air, ... and
=the armature ... will be
set into vibrations= similar to
those of the =membrane= in
the transmitting apparatus.--(Legat’s
Report, Zeitschrift,
p. 128, 1862.) [p. 77.]

_Bell._

The current traversing the
coils of the =electromagnet E=,
occasions an increase and diminution
in its intensity, and =the
armature A^1 is thrown into
vibrations= ... and thus imparts
to the air at _n^1_ a =facsimile=
copy of the motion of
the air that acted upon the
=membrane= _n_.--(Specification
of British Patent, No. 4765,
Dec. 9th, 1876, p. 17.)

_Reis._

The transmitter, Fig. A,
consists of a =conical tube= ...
closed by a =membrane= ... by
speaking ... into the tube ...
there will be evoked a motion
of the =membrane= ... (_op. cit._)

_Bell._

A =cone A= is used to converge
sound vibrations upon
the =membrane=.

When a sound is uttered in
the cone the =membrane= _a_ is
set in vibration....

_Reis._

The apparatus ... offers
the possibility of =creating
these vibrations= in every
fashion that may be desired,
and the employment of electro-galvanism
gives us the possibility
of calling into life, at
any given distance, =vibrations
similar to the vibrations=
that have been produced, and
in this way to reproduce at any
place the tones that have been
originated at another place.--(Legat’s
Report, _op. cit._)

_Bell._

... and thus electrical =undulations
are created= upon the
circuit E _b_ _e_ _f_ _g_.... The
undulatory current passing
through the electromagnet _f_
influences its armature _h_ to
copy the motion of the armature
_c_.... These =undulations
are similar in form
to the air undulations
caused by the sound=.

_Reis._
As soon therefore as it shall
be possible ... to set up
vibrations whose =curves are
like= those of any given tone or
combination of tones, we shall
receive the same impression
as that tone or combination of
tones would have produced
upon us.--(Memoir ‘On Telephony,’
p. 60.) [p. 55.]

_Bell._

--that is, they are represented
graphically by =similar
curves=....

A similar sound to that
uttered into A is then heard to
proceed from I.--(Specification
of U. S. Patent, No. 174,465.)

_Reis._

=Any sound will be reproduced=,
if strong enough to set
the membrane in motion.--(Letter
to Mr. Ladd, 1863.)
[p. 84.]

_Bell._

There are many other uses
to which these instruments
may be put, such as ... the
telegraphic transmission of
noises or =sounds of any
kind=.--(_Ib._)

I would have it understood
that what I claim is:--...
Tenth. In a system of
electric telegraph or telephony
consisting of transmitting and
receiving instruments united
upon an electric circuit, I claim
the production in the armature
of each receiving instrument
of any given motion by subjecting
said armature to an attraction
varying in intensity, however
such variation may be
produced in the magnet, and
hence =I claim the production
of any given sound or
sounds from the armature
of the receiving instrument=
by subjecting said armature
to an attraction varying
in intensity in such manner
=as to throw the armature
into that form of vibration
that characterizes the
given sound= or sounds.--(Specification
of British Patent,
No. 4765, Dec. 9, 1876.)

_Reis._
=the armature= belonging to
the magnet =will be set into
vibrations similar to those
of the membrane in the
transmitting apparatus=.--(Legat’s
Report, 1862.) [p. 77.]

One cannot help thinking that some claims to great inventions are just a little “too previous.”

If it should still be said that Reis’s method of transmitting speech, whether it did its work by undulatory currents or no, was avowedly _imperfect_, and that therefore such a claim as that quoted above is justified by the subsequent invention of an instrument the articulation of which was more reliable, let us compare what each inventor has said about the imperfections[54] of his own instrument.

_Reis._

That which has here been
spoken of will still require
considerable improvement,
and in particular mechanical
science must complete the
apparatus to be used.--(Legat’s
Report, 1862.) [p. 78.]

_Bell._

It is a mistake, however, to
suppose that the articulation
was by any means perfect....
Still the articulation was there,
and I recognized the fact that
the indistinctness was entirely
due to the imperfection of the
instrument.--(‘Researches in
Telephony,’ Journal of Soc. of
Telegr. Engineers, Dec. 1877.)

If it should be said that Bell is here speaking only of an early and experimental form, and not of his real invention, it should be remembered that Bell here refers to the apparatus with cone and membrane, identical with that exhibited at Glasgow in September, 1876, by Sir William Thomson (who had received it from Bell) and by him described as the very “hardihood of invention,” and “by far the greatest of all the marvels of the electric telegraph.” It certainly worked upon the principle of undulatory currents,[55] whether it articulated or not. Bell had himself, speaking in May 1876, before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences upon his researches, even more explicitly admitted the imperfections of his own instrument.

The effects were not sufficiently
distinct to admit of
sustain ed conversation through
the wire. Indeed, as a general
rule, =the articulation was
unintelligible=, excepting
when familiar sentences were
employed.--(Proceedings of
American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, vol. xii. p. 7.)

Yet this most imperfect machine, of which the articulation was, as a general rule, unintelligible, had, two months previously, had a patent granted to it as a new invention, the claim being for “the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically, as herein described, by causing electrical undulations similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sounds, substantially as set forth.”

If then mere mechanical imperfections do not make an invention any the less a true invention capable of legal recognition, it would be dishonest to the last degree to deny to Philipp Reis the honour of his invention, of which he honestly and openly stated both the successes and the imperfections. He told the world what he aimed at, and in what measure success had crowned his aims. His claim to be the inventor of the Telephone he considered to be justified by that measure of success. If he was so far in advance of his time that the world was unprepared to receive or use the splendid discovery which he gave freely to it, that was not his fault; nor does neglect or apathy make him in one single degree the less entitled to the credit of his inventions. _Tulit alter honores_ has not unfrequently been truly said concerning the men of genius who have had the misfortune to live in advance of the age.

But posterity does not let the names of such truly great ones perish in the dust. The inventor of the Telephone will be remembered and honoured in the coming if not in the present age.

SCHEDULE OF AUTHORITIES

Key to Title of Work:

A. ‘Jahresbericht des Physikalischen Vereins zu Frankfurt-am-Main’
B. ‘Fortschritte der Physik’ (Krönig and Beetz)
C. Dingler’s ‘Polytechnisches Journal’
D. ‘Polytechnisches Central-Blatt’(Schnedermann and Böttcher)
E. Böttger’s ‘Polytechnisches Notizblatt’
F. ‘Didaskalia’
G. ‘Zeitschrift des Deutsch-Oesterreichischen Telegraphen Vereins’
(Dr. Brix)
H. Kuhn’s ‘Handbuch der angewandten Elektricitätslehre’
I. Pisko’s ‘Die Neueren Apparate der Akustik’
J. (Pisko’s) ‘Hessler’s Lehrbuch der Technischen Physik’
K. Müller Pouillet’s ‘Lehrbuch der Physik’

+----------+------------+--------+---------------------+-------------+
| Title | Place of | Date. | Volume and | British |
| of Work. | Issue. | | Page. | Museum. |
+----------+------------+--------+---------------------+-------------+
| A. | Frankfurt |{1860-1 | p. 57 }| Ac. 4428 |
| | -a.-M. |{1863 | p. 129 }| |
| | | | | |
| B. | Berlin |{1861 | xvii. p. 171-173 }| Ac. 3775 |
| | |{1863 | ----? p. 96 }| |
| | | | | |
| C. | Stuttgart | 1863 |{clxviii. p. 185-187}| Pp. 1780 |
| | | |{clxix. p. 23 }| |
| | | |{clxix. p. 399 }| |
| | | | | |
| D. | Cassel | 1863 | xxix. p. 858 | Pp. 1615 b. |
| | | | | |
| E. | Mainz | 1863 |{No. 6 }| Pp. 1787 |
| | | |{No. 15 }| |
| | | | | |
| F. | Frankfurt | 1862 | May 8, May 14 | .. |
| | -a.-M. | | | |
| | | | | |
| G. | Berlin | 1862 | ix. p. 125 | .. |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| H. | Leipzig | 1866 | p. 1017-1021 | 2244 i |
| | | | | |
| I. | Vienna | 1865 |{p. 94-103 }| 8705 cc. |
| | | |{p. 241-243 }| |
| | | | | |
| J. | Vienna | 1866 | Vol. I. p. 648 | .. |
| | | | | |
| K. | Brunswick | 1868 | Vol. II. p. 386-388 | .. |
| | | | | |
+----------+------------+--------+---------------------+-------------+

AND REFERENCES.

Key to references:
1. Royal Society.
2. Ronald’s Library.
3. Institution Civil Engineers.
4. Royal Institution.
5. Great Seal Patent Office.
6. School of Mines.
7. University College, London.
8. Bodleian Library, Oxford.
9. King’s College.
10. Oxford University Museum Library.

+---------+-----+---+---+-------+------+---+-----+---------+---+---+
| Title | 1. | 2.| 3.| 4. | 5. | 6.| 7. | 8. | 9.|10.|
| of Work.| | | | | | | | | | |
+---------+-----+---+---+-------+------+---+-----+---------+---+---+
| A. |1846 | ..| ..| .. | .. | ..| .. | .. | ..| ..|
| |-1860| | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| B. | x | ..| x | x |6546, | x | x | .. | x | x |
| | | | | |118 E | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| C. | x | ..| x | x |1296, | x | .. | .. | ..| ..|
| | | | | | 94 A | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| D. | .. | ..| ..| .. |1132, | ..| .. | .. | ..| ..|
| | | | | | 94 I | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| E. | .. | ..| ..| .. | .. | ..| .. | .. | ..| ..|
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| F. | .. | ..| ..| .. | .. | ..| .. | .. | ..| ..|
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| G. | .. | ..| x | .. |9511, | ..| .. | .. | ..| ..|
| | | | | | 24 E | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| H. | .. | x | ..| x |13146,| ..| .. |198 e 133| ..| ..|
| | | | | |163 C | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| I. | x | ..| ..| .. | .. | ..| .. | .. | ..| x |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| J. | .. | x | ..| .. | .. | ..| .. | .. | ..| ..|
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| I. | .. | ..| ..|A newer| .. | x |(Ed. | .. | ..| x |
| | | | |edition| | |1876)| | | |
| | | | |(1872) | | | | | | |
+---------+-----+---+---+-------+------+---+-----+---------+---+---+

FOOTNOTES:

[53] In making these comparisons in parallel columns, I wish to repudiate in the most emphatic way any sinister inference that might be drawn as to Graham Bell’s use of descriptions and curves identical in so many points with those of Reis. For, in the first place, I believe Professor Bell to be incapable of such contemptible appropriations, and the candour with which he has himself invited comparison by giving various references to Reis’s papers, itself precludes such inference. In the second place, I do not think that at the date of these quotations Bell understood German sufficiently well to comprehend Reis’s very precise statement of the problem of the Telephone. I simply exhibit these parallel extracts to show the thoroughness with which Reis had grappled with the problem with which, fourteen years later, Bell also grappled; and to prove in the most irrefragable manner, from the necessary identity in the terms selected for expressing the facts of the solution of the problem, that the problem to which each found a solution was identical. The circumstance that does, however, puzzle me, and which does not appear in these parallel extracts, is that, whilst in his original memoir, Reis speaks in detail of the auditory ossicles and their movements as having suggested his transmitter, and casually mentions the phonautograph of Scott in support of his views, Bell, in his original lecture before the American Academy, speaks in detail of Scott’s phonautograph as having suggested his transmitter, and casually refers to the auditory ossicles and their movements.

[54] Reis’s failures were chiefly with the vowels, Bell’s more particularly with the consonants. Reis’s contacts were liable to break, and the following-springs of his contact-regulators too little pliable. Bell’s transmitter could not open and close the circuit proportionally with the motions of the tympanum, and owing to the sluggishness due to self-induction in the coils of his telephone, the induced undulations of the current failed to come up in suddenness to those of the tympanum. In consequence _whip_ sounded like _whim_, and _kiss_ like _kith_, even in the perfected Bell Telephones made two years after Bell’s first “improvements” in telephony were patented.

[55] The following very remarkable passage occurs in the evidence given by Professor Graham Bell concerning Reis’s Telephones. (See published volume of ‘Proceedings in the United States Patent Office before the Commissioner of Patents.’ _Evidence for A. G. Bell_, p. 14.)

_Question 37._ “If a Reis Telephone, made in accordance with the descriptions published before the earliest dates of your invention, would in use transmit and receive articulate speech as perfectly as the instruments did which were used by you on June 25, 1876, at the Centennial, would it be proof to you that such Reis’s Telephones operated by the use of undulatory movements of electricity in substantially the same way as your instruments did upon the occasion referred to?”

_Answer by Bell._ “The supposition contained in the question cannot be supposed. Were the question put that if I were to hear an instrument give forth articulate speech transmitted electrically as perfectly as my instruments did on the occasion referred to in the question, I would hold this as proof that the instrument had been operated by undulatory movements of electricity, I would unhesitatingly answer, Yes.”

Surely no better authority is needed to support the proposition that if Reis made his Telephone speak, as he said he did, he employed undulatory currents.

ADDITIONAL PREFERENCES CONCERNING REIS’S TELEPHONE.

Schenk’s _Philipp Reis, der Erfinder des Telephons_, 1878.

Sack’s _Die Entwickelung der elektrischen Telephonie_, 1878.

Ferguson’s _Electricity_ (Ed. 1867), p. 257.

Wiedemann’s _Galvanismus_ (1874), Vol. ii. p. 598.

_Gartenlaube, die_; for 1863, No. 51, p. 807-809.

_Aus der Natur_; for 1862, xxi. p. 470-474.

_Cosmos_, Vol. xxiv. p. 349 (1864).

_Proc. Lit. Phil. Soc. Manchester_ (1865), Nov. 10, 1864.

_Rep. Brit. Assoc_. (1863), p. 19.

_Die Geschichte und Entwickelung des elektrischen
Fernsprechwesens_, 1880. (Officially issued from the Imperial
German Post-Office, Berlin.)

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