One may also be yet far removed from being able to carry on a conversation with a friend dwelling a hundred miles distant, and recognise his voice, as if he sat near us; but it can no longer be maintained that this is impossible. Indeed the probability that this will be attained[23] is already become as great as the probability of the reproduction of natural colours in photography has become through the notable researches of Niepce.
[The second public exhibition which Reis made of the telephone was, like the first, in Frankfort-on-the-Main, but this time before a Society known as the Freies Deutsches Hochstift, or Free German Institute, a kind of Athenæum Club for the city of Frankfort, now for many years established in the well-known house where the poet Goethe was born, in the Grosse Hirschgraben. In 1862, however, the Free German Institute held its meetings in another building known as the Saalbau. And on May the 11th of that year Philipp Reis lectured upon and exhibited the Telephone. A journal which appeared then, and still appears, in Frankfort, with the title of ‘Didaskalia,’ devoted to light literary and artistic news, popular science, and general intelligence of an informing character, ordinarily inserted notices of the chief meetings of the Hochstift. On this occasion a preliminary paragraph was inserted in the following terms:—]
[3.] Telephony, i.e. Sound-Transmission
[Translation from ‘Didaskalia,’ May 8th, 1862.]
The excellent physicist, Mr. Phil. Reis, of Friedrichsdorf, calls by this name his surprising invention for using the telegraph line to transmit really audible tones. Our readers will perhaps remember having heard some time since of this invention, the first trials with which Mr. Reis performed here in the Physical Society. Since then the invention has been constantly developed, and will, no doubt, become of great importance.
[The lecture which followed this announcement was duly given on the 11th of May. In the Saalbau there is a suite of four rooms. The Lecture to the assembled members of the Hochstift was delivered in the Auditorium, at one end of the suite: the wires were passed through the two intervening rooms to the fourth chamber, where the transmitter was placed, the doors being closed. The battery and wires were borrowed from the Physical Society for this occasion, permission for their use having been granted on May 2nd, as appears in a formal entry in the minute-book. The following notice of Reis’s discourse, believed to have been written by Dr. Volger, Founder and first President of the Hochstift, appeared in ‘Didaskalia’ for May 14th.]
[4.] Translation from ‘Didaskalia,’ 12th May, 1862.
Yesterday’s meeting of the Free German Institute was a very numerously attended one from the fact that the subject in the order of business, “Telephony by Transmission of the Galvanic Current,” as explained by the inventor himself, Mr. Phil. Reis, excites so great an interest that it rightly deserves the most general attention.
In a lecture exceedingly interesting, universally understood, clear, and concise, Mr. Reis gave a historical outline of the origin and development of his idea of the practical possibility of the transmission of tones in a galvanic way.
His first attempts were mostly unsuccessful in solving the cardinal question propounded by him. “How is it possible that a single instrument can reproduce at once the total action of all the organs operated in human speech?” Until finally it occurred to him to seek the solution of the problem in the question, “How does our ear take cognisance of the total vibrations of all the organs of speech acting at once?” or “How do we perceive the vibrations of several bodies sounding at once?”