Multiple Electrode. To remedy this difficulty the so-called
multiple-electrode transmitter was brought out. This took a very great
number of forms, of which the one shown in Fig. 39 is typical. The
diaphragm shown at _1_, in this particular form, was made of thin pine
wood. On the rear side of this, suspended from a rod _3_ carried in a
bracket _4_, were a number of carbon rods or pendants _5_, loosely
resting against a rod _2_, carried on a bracket _6_ also mounted on
the rear of the diaphragm. The pivotal rod _3_ and the rod _2_,
against which the pendants rested, were sometimes, like the pendant
rods, made of carbon and sometimes of metal, such as brass. When the
diaphragm vibrated, the intimacy of contact between the pendant rod
_5_ and the rod _2_ was altered, and thus the resistance of the path
through all of the pendant rods in multiple was changed.

[Illustration: Fig. 39. Multiple-Electrode Transmitter]

A multitude of forms of such transmitters came into use in the early
eighties, and while they in some measure remedied the difficulty
encountered with the Blake transmitter, _i.e._, of not being able to
carry a sufficiently large current, they were all subject to the
effects of extreme sensitiveness, and would rattle or break when
called upon to transmit sounds of more than ordinary loudness.
Furthermore, the presence of such large masses of material, which it
was necessary to throw into vibration by the sound waves, was
distinctly against this form of transmitter. The inertia of the moving
parts was so great that clearness of articulation was interfered with.

Granular Carbon. The idea of employing a mass of granular carbon,
supported between two electrodes, one of which vibrated with the sound
waves and the other was stationary, was proposed by Henry Hunnings in