understand the gestures he was making to me at that great
distance, the thought occurred to me to listen to the telephones
connected with the selenium receiver. Mr. Tainter saw me disappear from
the window, and at once spoke to the transmitter. I heard him distinctly
say, "Mr. Bell, if you hear what I say, come to the window and wave your
hat!" It is needless to say with what gusto I obeyed.'

The spectroscope has demonstrated the truth of the poet, who said that
'light is the voice of the stars,' and we have it on the authority
of Professor Bell and M. Janssen, the celebrated astronomer, that the
changing brightness of the photosphere, as produced by solar hurricanes,
has produced a feeble echo in the photophone.

Pursuing these researches, Professor Bell discovered that not only
the selenium cell, but simple discs of wood, glass, metal, ivory,
india-rubber, and so on, yielded a distinct note when the intermittent
ray of light fell upon them. Crystals of sulphate of copper, chips
of pine, and even tobacco-smoke, in a test-tube held before the beam,
emitted a musical tone. With a thin disc of vulcanite as receiver, the
dark heat rays which pass through an opaque screen were found to yield a
note. Even the outer ear is itself a receiver, for when the intermittent
beam is focussed in the cavity a faint musical tone is heard.

Another research of Professor Bell was that in which he undertook to
localise the assassin's bullet in the body of the lamented President
Garfield. In 1879 Professor Hughes brought out his beautiful induction
balance, and the following year Professor Bell, who had already worked
in the same field, consulted him by telegraph as to the best mode of
applying the balance to determining the place of the bullet, which had
hitherto escaped the probes of the President's physicians. Professor
Hughes advised him by telegraph, and with this and other assistance an
apparatus was devised which indicated the locality of the ball. A full
account of his experiments was given in a paper read before the American
Association for the Advancement of Science in August, 1882.

Professor Bell continues to reside in the United States, of which he is
a naturalised citizen. He is married to a daughter of Mr. Gardiner G.
Hubbard, who in 1860, when she was four years of age, lost her hearing
by an illness, but has learned to converse by the Horace-Mann system of
watching the lips. Both he and his father-in-law (who had a pecun