Philipp Reis: Inventor of the Telephone / A Biographical Sketch

by Silvanus P. Thompson

[10.] On the Improved Telephone.

[Translated from the original notice which appeared in Böttger’s ‘Polytechnisches Notizblatt,’ 1863, No. 15, p. 225, and in Dingler’s ‘Polytechnisches Journal,’ 1863, vol. clxix. p. 399.]

At the meeting of the Physical Society of Frankfort-on-the-Main, on the 4th of July, a member of this Society, Herr Ph. Reis, of Friedrichsdorf, near Homburg-vor-der-Höhe, exhibited some of his improved Telephones (means for the reproduction of tones at any desired distance by the galvanic current). It is now two years since Herr Reis first gave publicity to his apparatus,[31] and though even already at that time the performances of the same in their simple artless form were capable of exciting astonishment, yet they had then the great defect that experimenting with them was only possible to the inventor himself. The instruments exhibited in the above-named meeting scarcely reminded one of the earlier ones. Herr Reis has also striven to give them a form pleasing to the eye, so that they may now occupy a worthy place in every Physical Cabinet. These new apparatus may now also be handled by every one with facility, and work with great certainty. Melodies gently sung at a distance of about 300 feet were repeated by the instrument which was set up, much more distinctly than previously. The scale was reproduced especially sharply. The experimenters could even communicate words to one another, though certainly indeed only such as had often been heard by them. In order moreover that others who are less accustomed [to experimenting] may be able to understand one another through the apparatus, the inventor has placed on the side of the same a little arrangement,[32] which according to his explanation is completely sufficient, the speed of communication of which is indeed not so great as that of modern Telegraphs, but which works quite certainly, and requires no special skill on the part of the one experimenting with it.

We would bring to the notice of gentlemen who are professional physicists that the inventor of these interesting pieces of apparatus now has them prepared for sale under his oversight (the important parts he makes himself), and the same can be procured from him direct, or through the mechanician, Mr. Wilhelm Albert, of Frankfort-on-the-Main, at 14 and at 21 florins, in two qualities, differing only in external adornment.

[A review, written by Dr. Röber of Berlin, of this and other articles relating to the Telephone appeared subsequently in the ‘Fortschritte der Physik,’ 1863, p. 96.]

[Another consequence of the publicity thus given to the Telephone was the appearance of an article on that instrument, under the title of “Der Musiktelegraph,” in a popular illustrated weekly family paper, ‘Die Gartenlaube,’ published at Leipzig. This article, from the pen, it is believed, of Dr. Oppel of Frankfort, is made up chiefly of slightly altered extracts from the previously quoted documents. The form of the instrument described is identical with that described in Reis’s ‘Prospectus,’ and the figure given in the ‘Gartenlaube,’ No. 51, p. 809, is a reprint, apparently from the same wood-block of the figure which heads Reis’s Prospectus, and which is reproduced on p. 86 of this work. The only passage of further interest is a brief sentence relating to the exhibition of the Telephone at the German Naturalists’ Assembly at Stettin in 1863, and is as follows:—]

[11.]

“Now in order also to give to a still wider circle, especially to technologists (Fachmännern), the opportunity of witnessing with their own eyesight the efficiency of this apparatus,—lately, in fact essentially improved,—Professor Böttger of Frankfort-on-the-Main exhibited several experiments therewith at the meeting of the German Naturalists (Naturforscher) and Physicians recently held at Stettin, in the Section for Physics; which [experiments] would certainly have been crowned with still greater success if the place of meeting had been in a less noisy neighbourhood, and had been filled with a somewhat less numerous audience.”

[The next extract is a brief record from the Report of a scientific society meeting in Giessen, which during the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 had become disorganised, and which in 1867 published a condensed account of its proceedings for the preceding years. Amongst those proceedings was a lecture by the late Professor Buff, at which Reis’s Telephone was shown, and at which Reis himself is believed to have been present.]