Heroes of the Telegraph

Bourseul deserves the credit of being perhaps the first to devise an electric telephone and try to make it; but to Reis belongs the honour of first realising the idea. A writer may plot a story, or a painter invent a theme for a picture; but unless he execute the work, of what benefit is it to the world? True, a suggestion in mechanics may stimulate another to apply it in practice, and in that case the suggester is entitled to some share of the credit, as well as the distinction of being the first to think of the matter. But it is best when the original deviser also carries out the work; and if another should independently hit upon the same idea and bring it into practice, we are bound to honour him in full, though we may also recognise the merit of his predecessor. Bourseul's idea seems to have attracted little notice at the time, and was soon forgotten. Even the Count du Moncel, who was ever ready to welcome a promising invention, evidently regarded it as a fantastic notion. It is very doubtful if Reis had ever heard of it. He was led to conceive a similar apparatus by a study of the mechanism of the human ear, which he knew to contain a membrane, or 'drum,' vibrating under the waves of sound, and communicating its vibrations through the hammer-bone behind it to the auditory nerve. It therefore occurred to him, that if he made a diaphragm in imitation of the drum, and caused it by vibrating to make and break the circuit of an electric current, he would be able through the magnetic power of the interrupted current to reproduce the original sounds at a distance.