Philipp Reis: Inventor of the Telephone. Silvanus P. Thompson

was stuck loosely into one of the f-shaped holes of the violin (see Fig. 19): subsequently the needle was fixed by its lower end to the bridge of the violin. These details were furnished by Herr Peter, of Friedrichsdorf, music-teacher in Garnier’s Institute, to whom the violin belonged, and who gave Reis, expressly for this purpose, a violin of less value than that used by himself in his profession. Reis, who was not himself a musician, and indeed had so little of a musical ear as hardly to know one piece of music from another, kept this violin for the purpose of a sounding-box. It has now passed into the possession of Garnier’s Institute. It was in this form that the instrument was shown by Reis in October 1861 to the Physical Society of Frankfort.

      Second Form.—The Cigar-box Receiver.

      Fig. 20.

      Later a shallow rectangular wooden box was substituted for the violin, and the spiral was laid horizontally upon it (Fig. 20). The date when this modification was made was either at the end of 1861 or the early spring of 1862. A cigar-box was the actual sounding-box, and the needle was supported within the coil, but not touching it, with its ends resting upon two wooden bridges.

      Third Form.—The Electro-magnet Receiver.

      Though the precise history of this form of telephonic receiver is defective, there can be little doubt that it was conceived by Reis amongst his earliest researches. When there were in common use so many electric and telegraphic instruments in which an electro-magnet is employed to move an armature to and fro, it is not surprising that Reis should have thought of availing himself of this method for reproducing the vibrations of speech. Speaking of the two parts of his invention, the Transmitter and the Receiver, Reis himself says:[5] “The apparatus named the ‘Telephone,’ constructed by me, affords the possibility of evoking sound-vibrations in every manner that may be desired. Electro-magnetism affords the possibility of calling into life at any given distance vibrations similar to the vibrations that have been produced, and in this way to give out again in one place the tones that have been produced in another place.” A remark, almost identical with this, is also made by Inspector von Legat (see p. 74) in his Report on Reis’s Telephone. It may be here remarked that the form of this receiver is known only from the figure and description given in that Report, and from the extract therefrom printed in Kuhn’s ‘Handbook’ (see p. 109). Reis seems to have very soon abandoned this form, and to have returned to the needle, surrounded by a coil, in preference to the electro-magnet. The electro-magnet form is, however, of great importance, because its principle is a complete and perfect anticipation of that of the later receivers of Yeates, of Gray, and of Bell, who each, like Reis, employed as receiver an electro-magnet the function of which was to draw an elastically mounted armature backwards and forwards, and so to throw it into vibrations corresponding to those imparted to the transmitting apparatus. Fig. 21 shows the disposition of the electro-magnet, and of its vibratory armature upon a sounding-board. This apparatus was a good deal larger than most of Reis’s instruments. The sounding-board was nearly a foot long: the coils of the electro-magnet were six inches long, and over an inch thick. The armature, a rod of iron of elliptical section, was affixed cross-wise at the end of a “light and broad” vertical lever, about seven inches long, which seems to have been made of wood, as in Legat’s Report it is also denominated as a “plank” (Balken).

      Fig. 21.

      Fourth Form.—The Knitting-needle Receiver.

      Fig. 22.

      Fig. 23.

      The final form adopted by Reis for his Reproducing-apparatus is that commonly known as the Knitting-needle Receiver. It differs only from the first form in that the needle and its surrounding spiral no longer stand upright on a violin, but lie horizontally upon a rectangular sounding-box of thin pine wood. The coil of silk-covered copper wire is wound upon a light wooden bobbin, instead of being twisted round the needle itself. Two wooden bridges stand upon the sounding-box, and through these pass the protruding ends of the needle, whilst an upper box or lid, hinged to the lower at the back, is added above. Figs. 22 and 23 show this form, the former being reproduced from Reis’s own Prospectus (see p. 85), the latter being from Müller-Pouillet’s ‘Text-book of Physics’ (see p. 95). Herr Albert, mechanician, of Frankfort, who made and sold the Reis telephones, says that the upper box was added at his suggestion. Originally it was so constructed (see Fig. 22), that when closed it pressed upon the steel needle. In the instruments of later date, the notches which fitted over the needle were cut so deeply (see Fig. 23), that the lid did not press upon the wire. Reis’s own instructions are (see p. 86) that the sound is intensified by firmly pressing the lid against the needle, as was done occasionally by the listeners who pressed their ears against the lid in order to hear more distinctly. The little key seen at the end of the sounding-box, in Fig. 22, was used for interrupting the current and so to telegraph back signals to the transmitter.

CHAPTER III.

       THE CLAIM OF THE INVENTOR.

       Table of Contents

      In the present century, when so many facilities exist for the diffusion of knowledge, and when every new discovery and invention is eagerly welcomed and immediately noised abroad to every country of the globe, it is hard to believe that the inventor of an instrument of the highest scientific value, destined to play an important part in social and commercial life, should have been suffered to live and die in unrecognised obscurity. Still harder is it to believe that his invention passed into almost complete oblivion, unacknowledged by most of the leading scientific men of his day and generation. But hardest of all is it to believe that when at last attempts were made to give to him, whose name and fame had thus been permitted to languish, the credit of the splendid researches in which he wore his life away, those attempts could be met on the one hand by an almost complete apathy, and on the other by a chorus of denial, not only that any such invention was made, but that the inventor had ever intended to invent anything of the kind. Yet nothing less than this has happened. Philipp Reis, the inventor of the Telephone, the first to scheme, and carry out into execution, an instrument for conveying to a distance by means of electric currents the tones of human speech and human song, is no longer amongst the living. He cannot reclaim for himself the honours that have been showered upon the heads of others, who, however worthy of those honours they were—none will deny that—were only not the first to deserve them. In his quiet grave, in the obscurity of the German village where his daily work was done, he sleeps undisturbed by the strife of tongues. To him it matters nothing now, whether his genius be recognised and his invention applauded, or whether ignorance, and calumny, and envy, alike decry both. Nevertheless, the memory of him and of his work will live, and will descend to posterity as of one whom his own generation knew not, whose peculiar greatness passed unheeded save by a chosen few. Nor will posterity be the less ready to accord honour to him who in his own day could not even obtain justice. Yet something