trated paper, gave a brief and lucid
description as follows:

"We know that sounds are made by vibrations, and are made sensible to
the ear by the same vibrations, which are reproduced by the intervening
medium. But the intensity of the vibrations diminishes very rapidly with
the distance; so that even with the aid of speaking-tubes and trumpets
it is impossible to exceed somewhat narrow limits. Suppose a man speaks
near a movable disk sufficiently flexible to lose none of the vibrations
of the voice; that this disk alternately makes and breaks the connection
with a battery; you may have at a distance another disk which will
simultaneously execute the same vibrations.... Any one who is not deaf
and dumb may use this mode of transmission, which would require no
apparatus except an electric battery, two vibrating disks, and a wire."

This would serve admirably for a portrayal of the Bell telephone, except
that it mentions distinctly the use of the make-and-break method (i.
e., where the circuit is necessarily opened and closed as in telegraphy,
although, of course, at an enormously higher rate), which has never
proved practical.

So far as is known Bourseul was not practical enough to try his own
suggestion, and never made a telephone. About 1860, Reis built several
forms of electrical telephonic apparatus, all imitating in some degree
the human ear, with its auditory tube, tympanum, etc., and examples
of the apparatus were exhibited in public not only in Germany, but in
England. There is a variety of testimony to the effect that not only
musical sounds, but stray words and phrases, were actually transmitted
with mediocre, casual success. It was impossible, however, to maintain
the devices in adjustment for more than a few seconds, since the
invention depended upon the make-and-break principle, the circuit being
made and broken every time an impulse-creating sound went through it,
causing the movement of the diaphragm on which the sound-waves impinged.
Reis himself does not appear to have been sufficiently interested in the
marvellous possibilities of the idea to follow it up--remarking to the
man who bought his telephonic instruments and tools that he had shown
the world the way. In reality it was not the way, although a monument
erected to his memory at Frankfort styles him the inventor of the
telephone. As one of the American judges said, in deciding an early
litigation over the invention of the telephone, a hundre