Léon Garnier.
[Herr Léon Garnier, Proprietor and Principal of the Garnier Institute at Friedrichsdorf, is the son of the late Burgomaster Garnier, who founded the establishment, and who, as previously narrated, encouraged Philipp Reis in his work and offered him the post of teacher of Natural Science. Herr Léon Garnier owns the small collection of instruments which Reis left behind, and which are preserved in the Physical Cabinet attached to the Institute, where also may be seen the gravitation machine—an ingenious combination of the principles of Atwood’s and Morin’s machines—and the automatic weather-recorder invented by Reis, both, however, very greatly out of repair. Herr Garnier has furnished to a friend the following particulars about Reis and his invention.]
“I knew Philipp Reis, now deceased, during his life-time.... About the year 1859, he was employed by my father, then proprietor and director of the Friedrichsdorf Garnier Institute, as teacher of mathematics and natural sciences. He employed his hours of leisure in experimenting for himself in a house occupied by himself, and in which he had established a physical laboratory with a view mainly of realizing an idea which he had conceived sometime before of transmitting the human voice over divers metallic conductors by means of a galvanic current.... I remember especially, that, standing at the end of the wire or conductor, Mr. Reis speaking through his instrument, I distinctly heard the words: ‘Guten Morgen, Herr Fischer’ (Good morning, Mr. Fischer); ‘Ich komme gleich’ (I am coming directly); ‘Passe auf!’ (Pay attention!); ‘Wie viel Uhr ist es?’ (What o’clock is it?); ‘Wie heisst du?’ (What’s your name?) We often spoke for an hour at a time. The distance was about 150 feet.
“Léon Garnier.”