Nevertheless, I propose in another section to go a little further and to prove a technical point of highest interest; namely, that there is not in the Telephone Exchanges of England to-day, any single telephone to be found in which the fundamental principles of Reis’s Telephone are not the essential and indispensable features. These considerations being, however, of a strictly technical nature, will be best considered in an Appendix. As, however, we are able to show that those instruments which are now in daily use for transmitting speech, embody the two fundamental principles upon which Reis based the instrument which he called “Das Telephon,” it would be dishonest to the memory of the deceased inventor to claim anything less than that he was the “first and true inventor” of the Telephone.
CHAPTER IV.
CONTEMPORARY DOCUMENTS.
The following documents, drawn from the scientific literature of the time, are placed in chronological order, beginning with the first memoir published by Philipp Reis himself, in the Jahresbericht of the Physical Society of Frankfort, for the year 1860-61. Every care has been taken that the translations here given shall be faithful in every detail to the originals. All notes and comments by the translator are distinguished by being enclosed in square brackets.
[1.] On Telephony by the Galvanic Current.
By Philipp Reis.
[Translated from the Annual Report (Jahresbericht) of the Physical Society of Frankfurt-am-Main, for 1860-1861.]
The surprising results in the domain of Telegraphy, have often already suggested the question whether it may not also be possible to communicate the very tones of speech direct to a distance. Researches aiming in this direction have not, however, up to the present time, been able to show any tolerably satisfactory result, because the vibrations of the media through which sound is conducted, soon fall off so greatly in their intensity that they are no longer perceptible to our senses.
A reproduction of the tones at some distance by means of the galvanic current, has perhaps been contemplated; but at all events the practical solution of this problem has been most doubted by exactly the very persons who by their knowledge and resources should have been enabled to grasp the problem. To one who is only superficially acquainted with the doctrines of Physics, the problem, if indeed he becomes acquainted with it, appears to offer far fewer points of difficulty because he does not foresee most of them. Thus did I, some nine years ago (with a great penchant for what was new, but with only too imperfect knowledge in Physics), have the boldness to wish to solve the problem mentioned; but I was soon obliged to relinquish it, because the very first inquiry convinced me firmly of the impossibility of the solution.
Later, after further studies and much experience, I perceived that my first investigation had been very crude and by no means conclusive: but I did not resume the question seriously then, because I did not feel myself sufficiently developed to overcome the obstacles of the path to be trodden.