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281
Heroes of the Telegraph
·
John Munro
179
Bell's
invention
has
been
contested
over
and
over
again,
and
more
than
one
claimant
for
the
honour
and
reward
of
being
the
original
inventor
of
the
telephone
have
appeared.
The
most
interesting
case
was
that
of
Signor
Antonio
Meucci,
an
Italian
emigrant,
who
produced
a
mass
of
evidence
to
show
that
in
1849,
while
in
Havanna,
Cuba,
he
experimented
with
the
view
of
transmitting
speech
by
the
electric
current.
He
continued
his
researches
in
1852-3,
and
subsequently
at
Staten
Island,
U.S.;
and
in
1860
deputed
a
friend
visiting
Europe
to
interest
people
in
his
invention.
In
1871
he
filed
a
caveat
in
the
United
States
Patent
Office,
and
tried
to
get
Mr.
Grant,
President
of
the
New
York
District
Telegraph
Company,
to
give
the
apparatus
a
trial.
Ill-health
and
poverty,
consequent
on
an
injury
due
to
an
explosion
on
board
the
Staten
Island
ferry
boat
Westfield,
retarded
his
experiments,
and
prevented
him
from
completing
his
patent.
Meucci's
experimental
apparatus
was
exhibited
at
the
Philadelphia
Exhibition
of
1884,
and
attracted
much
attention.
But
the
evidence
he
adduces
in
support
of
His
early
claims
is
that
of
persons
ignorant
of
electrical
science,
and
the
model
shown
was
not
complete.
The
caveat
of
1871
is
indeed
a
reliable
document;
but
unfortunately
for
him
it
is
not
quite
clear
from
it
whether
he
employed
a
'lovers'
telephone,'
with
a
wire
instead
of
a
string,
and
joined
a
battery
to
it
in
the
hope
of
enhancing
the
effect.
'I
employ,'
he
says,
'the
well
known
conducting
effect
of
continuous
metallic
conductors
as
a
medium
for
sound,
and
increase
the
effect
by
electrically
insulating
both
the
conductor
and
the
parties
who
are
communicating.
It
forms
a
speaking
telegraph
without
the
necessity
of
any
hollow
tube.'
In
connection
with
the
telephone
he
used
an
electric
alarm.
It
is
by
no
means
evident
from
this
description
that
Meucci
had
devised
a
practicable
speaking
telephone;
but
he
may
have
been
the
first
to
employ
electricity
in
connection
with
the
transmission
of
speech.
[Meucci
is
dead.]
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