But what is that compared to the greater wonders of the telephone? That a man can "talk into" the little instrument, and his voice be heard and recognized, and his words understood, by his friend in a city five hundred or one thousand miles away, is indeed a miracle. Consider for a moment what is done by means of the switchboard in the central telephone office of a great city. Every one of the thousands of subscribers has his own instrument for transmitting and receiving messages. One of these subscribers rings a bell in his house or his business office which rings another bell at the central station; the attendant inquires "Hello! what number?" and receives a reply, "four, naught, eight, Tremont." The attendant by a simple switch, turned by a touch of the hand, makes the connection and rings the bell of that subscriber whose number is "408 Tremont." Number "408 Tremont" steps to the instrument and in a quiet voice says "Hello! who is it?" Thus these two persons are placed in direct communication, and can talk with each other, back and forth, as long as they please.
This conversation is carried on between two different sections of the city where these two men live, but the same conversation may with equal ease be carried on between Boston and New York, between Boston and Washington, or between New York and Chicago. Thus time and distance are annihilated and the whole world stands, as it were, face to face.
But the marvel does not end here. The above conversation is carried on by means of a continuous wire which runs from one place to the other. If there are parallel wires, strange to say, the vibrations carried on in the one wire are liable to create, by induction, similar vibrations in the parallel wire. Here is an illustration:
Nearly twenty years ago, soon after the invention came into use, three gentlemen in Providence, Rhode Island, put up a private line between their three houses, making a circuit. Upon this line they carried on experiments and made a number of important discoveries. The evening was the time when they principally used their private telephone line. On a certain Tuesday evening these three gentlemen, conversing one with another, suddenly found themselves listening to strains of music. All three of them heard the same thing: the sound of a cornet and of one or two other musical instruments; then singing and a soprano voice. They wrote down the names of the pieces that were sung and the tunes that were played upon the instruments. They had no knowledge of the source of these sounds.
The next day, and for days following, these gentlemen went about the city inquiring of their friends everywhere if they knew of a concert on that Tuesday night where such pieces were sung and such tunes were played. Nobody had any knowledge of the affair. At length one of the gentlemen published an article in the Providence Journal, describing what he had heard through his telephone wire on that Tuesday evening, giving the date, and asking any one who could inform him what the concert was and where it was, to give him the desired information. Then it transpired that this concert was a telephonic experiment.
The performers were at Saratoga, New York, and they were connected by a telephone wire with friends in New York City. The experiment had plainly demonstrated that the sounds made in singing and in playing numerous instruments could be clearly understood, by means of the telephone, from Saratoga to New York City. But it proved more than this. The vibrations in that telephone wire between Saratoga and New York induced the same vibrations in the parallel wire of the Western Union Telegraph Company. These vibrations were continued through New York City to Providence and onward. The private telephone line of these gentlemen was parallel to the wire of the Western Union Company which had been thus affected, and these vibrations were picked off from the telegraph wire and conveyed by this parallel telephone wire to the receivers at these three houses.
What will be the next wonderful invention? The telegraph transmits your thoughts and delivers them in writing; the telephone transmits your thoughts and delivers them to the ear by sounds. Some day, perhaps, you may step into a cabinet in Boston and have your photograph taken in New York City by aid of an electric wire, the telephote. Just as the telephone transmits the sounds, the telephote may transmit the light and give not only light and shade, but the colors of the solar spectrum.