for his own
suggestions. It was Watson who took the telephone as Bell had made it,
really a toy, with its diaphragm so delicate that a warm breath would
put it out of order, and toughened it into a more rugged machine. Bell
had used a disc of fragile gold-beaters' skin with a patch of sheet-iron
glued to the centre. He could not believe, for a time, that a disc of
all-iron would vibrate under the slight influence of a spoken word. But
he and Watson noticed that when the patch was bigger the talking was
better, and presently they threw away the gold-beaters' skin and used
the iron alone.

Also, it was Watson who spent months experimenting with all sorts and
sizes of iron discs, so as to get the one that would best convey the
sound. If the iron was too thick, he discovered, the voice was shrilled
into a Punch-and-Judy squeal; and if it was too thin, the voice became a
hollow and sepulchral groan, as if the speaker had his head in a barrel.
Other months, too, were spent in finding out the proper size and shape
for the air cavity in front of the disc. And so, after the telephone had
been perfected, IN PRINCIPLE, a full year was required to lift it out
of the class of scientific toys, and another year or two to present it
properly to the business world.

Until 1878 all Bell telephone apparatus was made by Watson in Charles
Williams's little shop in Court Street, Boston--a building long since
transformed into a five-cent theatre. But the business soon grew too big
for the shop. Orders fell five weeks behind. Agents stormed and fretted.
Some action had to be taken quickly, so licenses were given to four
other manufacturers to make bells, switchboards, and so forth. By this
time the Western Electric Company of Chicago had begun to make the
infringing Gray-Edison telephones for the Western Union, so that there
were soon six groups of mechanics puzzling their wits over the new
talk-machinery.

By 1880 there was plenty of telephonic apparatus being made, but in
too many different varieties. Not all the summer gowns of that year
presented more styles and fancies. The next step, if there was to be
any degree of uniformity, was plainly to buy and consolidate these six
companies; and by 1881 Vail had done this. It was the first merger in
telephone history. It was a step of immense importance. Had it not been
taken, the telephone business would have been torn into fragments by the
civil wars between rival inventors.

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