'How it Works' - The Telephone [antikvár]

A Ladybird Book Series 654 This book explains in simple terms how our telephone systems work and how we can make the best use of them. It also gives many interesting facts about the world-wide telephone service which through submarine cables, radio links and satellites enables us to speak with people many thousands of miles away. The author wishes to thank the Post Office for their kind help in providing the information on which this book is based. How telephones began In every aspect of our daily lives we need to communicate with one another. We do this mostly by speaking to other people and listening to what they have to say to us, and when we are close to them we can do this very easily. However, our voices will not travel very far even when we shout, and it is thanks to the invention of the telephone that we are still able to communicate with our fellow men and hold conversations when we are far apart. The telephone is a method of transmitting speech by electricity. It was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, a Scotsman who was born in Edinburgh in 1847. Bell, a teacher of elocution who later emigrated to Canada, spent all his spare time experimenting. So enthusiastic was he in his search for a means of transmitting human speech by electricity, that he left little time for his day-to-day work and at one time was almost penniless. On June 2nd, 1875, he heard the first sounds ever to be carried over wire. Some months later in 1876—using an instrument made from pieces of clock springs and electro-magnets—he spoke the first words ever to be sent over a distance by electricity.