duced
here in the shape of an iron diaphragm. With this apparatus greatly
improved effects were obtained.

[Illustration: FIG. 5.--1853.]

In 1856 Meucci first tried, he says, a horseshoe magnet, as shown in Fig.
6, but he went a step backward in using an animal membrane. He states
that this form did not talk so well as some which he had made before, as
might be expected.

During the years 1858-60 Meucci constructed the instrument shown in Fig.
7. He here employed a core of tempered steel magnetized, and surrounded
it with a large coil. He used an iron diaphragm, and obtained such good
results that he determined to bring his invention before the public. His
national pride prompted him to have the invention first brought out in
Italy, and he intrusted the matter to a Mr. Bendalari, an Italian
merchant, who was about to start for that country. Bendalari, however,
neglected the matter, and nothing was heard of it from that quarter. At
the same time Meucci described his invention in _L'Eco d'Italia_, an
Italian paper published in this city, and awaited the return of
Bendalari.

Meucci, however, kept at his experiments with the object of improving his
telephone, and several changes of form were the result. Fig. 8 shows one
of these instruments constructed during 1864-65. It consisted of a ring
of iron wound spirally with copper wire, and from two opposite sides iron
wires attached to the core supported an iron button. This was placed
opposite an iron diaphragm, which closed a cavity ending in a mouthpiece.
He also constructed the instrument which is shown in Fig. 9, and which,
he says, was the best instrument he had ever constructed. The bobbin was
a large one, and was placed in a soapbox of boxwood, with magnet core and
iron diaphragm. Still seeking greater perfection, Meucci, in 1865, tried
the bent horseshoe form, shown in Fig. 10, but found it no improvement;
and, although he experimented up to the year 1871, he was not able to
obtain any better results than the best of his previous instruments had
given.

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--1856.]

When Meucci arrived in this country, he had property valued at $20,000,
and he entered into the brewing business and into candle making, but he
gradually lost his money, until in 1868 he found himself reduced to
little or nothing. To add to his misery, he had the misfortune of being
on the Staten Island ferryboat Westfield when the latter's boiler
exploded with such terrible effe