ought that he was simply
throwing money away. The work was costly and slow, and finally, when
$50,000 had been spent without result, the stockholders of the company
refused to go further--all except Townsend. That enthusiast managed to
rake up another $500, which he sent to Drake, with instructions to make
it go as far as possible. It did not go very far--and yet far
enough--for one day the auger, which was down sixty-eight feet, struck a
cavity, and up came a flow of oil to within five feet of the surface.
Pumping began at the rate of five hundred barrels a day, and fortune
seemed in sight. But three months later, the company's works were
destroyed by fire, and before they could be rebuilt, scores of other
wells had been sunk, many of which were "gushers," requiring no pumping,
and the supply was soon so far in excess of the demand that the price
of oil tumbled to one dollar a barrel. Discouraged by all this, the
Seneca Company sold out its leases and disbanded, leaving Townsend and
Drake poorer than they had been before their great discovery.

* * * * *

Years ago, in 1790, to be exact, an Italian scientist named Galvani,
experimenting with the legs of a frog, happened to touch the exposed
nerves with a piece of metal, while the legs were lying across another
piece. He was astonished to see the legs contract violently. Further
experiments followed, and the galvanic battery resulted. Years later,
our own Professor Henry discovered that if an insulated wire carrying a
current of electricity was wrapped around a piece of soft iron, the
latter became a magnet. Out of these simple discoveries, came the
electric telegraph, and, still more wonderful, the telephone, by which
the human voice may be instantly projected hundreds of miles, not only
intelligibly, but with every tone and inflection reproduced. In an age
of wonders, this is surely one of the greatest.

On February 14, 1876, two applications were made at the patent office at
Washington for patents upon the conveyance of sound by electricity. One
was filed by Elisha Gray, the other by Alexander Graham Bell. They were
practically identical, but it was Bell's good fortune to be the first to
make his device practically effective, and so he may fairly be
considered the inventor of the telephone.

Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847, the son
of the famous Alexander Melville Bell, the inventor of the system by
wh