An exactly similar arrangement applied to a metallic circuit is shown in Fig. 129. In thus placing the battery in series in the circuit between the two stations, as shown in Figs. 128 and 129, it is obvious that the transmitter at each station is compelled to vary the resistance of the entire circuit comprising the two lines in series, in order to affect the receiver at distant stations. This is in effect making the transmitter circuit twice as long as is necessary, as will be shown in the subsequent systems considered. Furthermore, the placing of the battery in series in the circuit of the two combined lines does not lend itself readily to the supply of current from a common source to more than a single pair of lines.

Fig. 129. Battery in Series with Two Lines
[View full size illustration.]

Series Substation Circuit. The arrangement at the substations—consisting in placing the transmitter and the receiver in series in the line circuit, as shown in Figs. 128 and 129—is the simplest possible one, and has been used to a considerable extent, but it has been subject to the serious objection, where receivers having permanent magnets were used, of making it necessary to so connect the receiver in the line circuit that the steady current from the battery would not set up a magnetization in the cores of the receiver in such a direction as to neutralize or oppose the magnetization of the permanent magnets. As long as the current flowed through the receiver coils in such a direction as to supplement the magnetization of the permanent magnets, no harm was usually done, but when the current flowed through the receiver coils in such a way as to neutralize or oppose the magnetizing force of the permanent magnets, the action of the receiver was greatly interfered with. As a result, it was necessary to always connect the receivers in the line circuit in a certain way, and this operation was called poling.

In order to obviate the necessity for poling and also to bring about other desirable features, it has been, until recently, almost universal practice to so arrange the receiver that it would be in the circuit of the voice currents passing over the line, but would not be traversed by direct currents, this condition being brought about by various arrangements of condensers, impedance coils, or induction coils, as will be shown later. During the year 1909, however, the adoption by several concerns of the so-called "direct-current" receiver has made it necessary for the direct current to flow through the receiver coils in order to give the proper magnetization to the receiver cores, and this has brought about a return to the very simple form of substation circuit, which includes the receiver and the transmitter directly in the circuit of the line. This illustrates well an occurrence that is frequently observed by those who have opportunity to watch closely the development of an art. At one time the conditions will be such as to call for complicated arrangements, and for years the aim of inventors will be to perfect these arrangements; then, after they are perfected, adopted, and standardized, a new idea, or a slight alteration in the practice in some other respect, will demand a return to the first principles and wipe out the necessity for the things that have been so arduously striven for.

Fig. 130. Bridging Battery with Repeating Coil
[View full size illustration.]

Bridging Battery with Repeating Coil. As pointed out, the placing of the battery in series in the line circuit in the central office is not desirable, and, so far as we are aware, has never been extensively used. The universal practice, therefore, is to place it in a bridge path across the line circuit, and a number of arrangements employing this basic idea are in wide use. In Fig. 130 is shown the standard arrangement of the Western Electric Company, employed by practically all the Bell operating companies. In this the battery at the central office is connected in the middle of the two sides of a repeating coil so that the current from the battery is fed out to the two connected lines in multiple.