fancied one that could see or feel; and
imagination grew busy in picturing the outcome of it. Since it was
practically equivalent to a limitless extension of the vocal powers,
the ingenious journalist soon conjured up an infinity of uses for the
telephone, and hailed the approaching time when ocean-parted friends
would be able to whisper to one another under the roaring billows of the
Atlantic. Curiosity, however, was not fully satisfied until Professor
Bell, the inventor of the instrument, himself showed it to British
audiences, and received the enthusiastic applause of his admiring
countrymen.

The primitive telephone has been greatly improved, the double
electro-magnet being replaced by a single bar magnet having a small coil
or bobbin of fine wire surrounding one pole, in front of which a thin
disc of ferrotype is fixed in a circular mouthpiece, and serves as a
combined membrane and armature. On speaking into the mouthpiece, the
iron diaphragm vibrates with the voice in the magnetic field of the
pole, and thereby excites the undulatory currents in the coil, which,
after travelling through the wire to the distant place, are received in
an identical apparatus. [This form was patented January 30, 1877.] In
traversing the coil of the latter they reinforce or weaken the magnetism
of the pole, and thus make the disc armature vibrate so as to give out
a mimesis of the original voice. The sounds are small and elfin, a minim
of speech, and only to be heard when the ear is close to the mouthpiece,
but they are remarkably distinct, and, in spite of a disguising twang,
due to the fundamental note of the disc itself, it is easy to recognise
the speaker.

This later form was publicly exhibited on May 4, 1877 at a lecture
given by Professor Bell in the Boston Music Hall. 'Going to the small
telephone box with its slender wire attachments,' says a report, 'Mr.
Bell coolly asked, as though addressing some one in an adjoining room,
"Mr. Watson, are you ready!" Mr. Watson, five miles away in Somerville,
promptly answered in the affirmative, and soon was heard a voice singing
"America."....Going to another instrument, connected by wire with
Providence, forty-three miles distant, Mr. Bell listened a moment, and
said, "Signor Brignolli, who is assisting at a concert in Providence
Music Hall, will now sing for us." In a moment the cadence of the
tenor's voice rose and fell, the sound being faint, sometimes lost, and
then again audible.