the Western Union Telegraph Company, which early embarked in the
telephone business--at one time seemed likely to force the Bell
Company out of business. But Emile Berliner and Francis Blake
finally came to the rescue with an excellent instrument, and the
suggestion of an English clergyman, the Reverend Henry Hummings,
that carbon granules be used on the diaphragm, made possible the
present perfect instrument. The magneto call bell--still used in
certain backward districts--for many years gave fair results for
calling purposes, but the automatic switch, which enables us to
get central by merely picking up the receiver, has made possible
our great urban service. It was several years before the
telephone makers developed so essential a thing as a satisfactory
wire. Silver, which gave excellent results, was obviously too
costly, and copper, the other metal which had many desirable
qualities, was too soft. Thomas B. Doolittle solved this problem
by inventing a hard-drawn copper wire. A young man of twenty-two,
John J. Carty, suggested a simple device for exorcising the
hundreds of "mysterious noises" that had made the use of the
telephone so agonizing. It was caused, Carty pointed out, by the
circumstance that the telephone, like the telegraph, used a
ground circuit for the return wire; the resultant scrapings and
moanings and howlings were merely the multitudinous voices of
mother earth herself. Mr. Carty began installing the metallic
circuit in his lines that is, he used wire, instead of the
ground, to complete the circuit. As a result of this improvement
the telephone was immediately cleared of these annoying
interruptions. Mr. Carty, who is now Chief Engineer of the
American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and the man who has
superintended all its extensions in recent years, is one of the
three or four men who have done most to create the present