Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. by Robert Millikan;Samuel McMeen;George Patterson;Kempster Miller;Charles Thom
page 43 of 497 (08%)
page 43 of 497 (08%)
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could be shaken by means of the diaphragm, and the resistance of the
line circuit varied in this manner. An early and interesting form of such imperfect contact transmitter device consisted merely of metal conductors laid loosely in contact. A simple example is that of three wire nails, the third lying across the other two, the two loose contacts thus formed being arranged in series with a battery, the line, and the receiving instrument. Such a device when slightly jarred, by the voice or other means, causes abrupt variation in the resistance of the line, and will transmit speech. Early Conceptions. The conception of the possibility and desirability of transmitting speech by electricity may have occurred to many, long prior to its accomplishment. It is certain that one person, at least, had a clear idea of the general problem. In 1854, Charles Bourseul, a Frenchman, wrote: "I have asked myself, for example, if the spoken word itself could not be transmitted by electricity; in a word, if what was spoken in Vienna might not be heard in Paris? The thing is practicable in this way: [Illustration: Fig. 4. Reis Transmitter] "Suppose that a man speaks near a movable disk sufficiently flexible to lose none of the vibrations of the voice; that this disk _alternately makes and breaks_ the connection from a battery; you may have at a distance another disk which will simultaneously execute the same vibrations." The idea so expressed is weak in only one particular. This particular is shown by the words italicized by ourselves. It is impossible to transmit a complex series of waves by any simple series of makes and breaks. Philipp Reis, a German, devised the arrangement shown in Fig. 4 for the transmission of sound, letting |
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