"Do you see that church spire yonder?"
"I do," replied the other.
"Well, I can see a fly crawling on it! Can you?"
His companion looked at it attentively a moment, and said, slowly,
"No, I can't see it, but," placing his hand behind his ear and leaning forward, "I can hear it walk!"
Something quite as remarkable as the hearing the foot-step of a fly on a church steeple a mile distant was accomplished a few weeks ago, when, by means of a slender wire attached to an ordinary telephone, the sound of the "voice of many waters," situated 500 miles away, was distinctly heard in New York city.
The National Electric Light Association held its last annual meeting in New York, and in the Industrial Arts Building were exhibited the latest appliances of electricity; but of all the wonderful demonstrations of that strange power which slips so swiftly and silently along a slender wire, the most novel, if not the most wonderful, was the transmitting the roar of the Falls of Niagara through the long-distance telephone by means of the power generated by the cataract itself.
The meaning of the Indian name Niagara is "thunder of the waters," and it certainly was a most original idea to place this thunder on exhibition—"thunder on tap," a humorist might call it. The point chosen for collecting the sound was near the Cave of the Winds, where at the foot of the cliff one can get nearer to the waterfall than at any other point. The Cave of the Winds is between Goat and Luna islands, and is reached by the Biddle Stairway, a frail-looking structure built on the face of the cliff, and the adventurous tourist who ventures down this winding stair is almost deafened by the noise of the water as it strikes the great rocks that lie just below him.
MOUTH OF THE TUNNEL.