Heroes of the Telegraph

The success of the Hughes type-printer may be said to have covered its author with titles and scientific honours, and placed him above the necessity of regular employment. He left America, and travelled from place to place. For many years past, however, he has resided privately in London, an eminent example of that modesty and simplicity which is generally said to accompany true genius. Mechanical invention is influenced to a very high degree by external circumstances. It may sound sensational, but it is nevertheless true, that we owe the microphone to an attack of bronchitis. During the thick foggy weather of November 1877, Professor Hughes was confined to his home by a severe cold, and in order to divert his thoughts he began to amuse himself with a speaking telephone. Then it occurred to him that there might be some means found of making the wire of the telephone circuit speak of itself without the need of telephones at all, or at least without the need of one telephone, namely, that used in transmitting the sounds. The distinguished physicist Sir William Thomson, had lately discovered the peculiar fact that when a current of electricity is passed through a wire, the current augments when the wire is extended, and diminishes when the wire is compressed, because in the former case the resistance of the material of the wire to the passage of the current is lessened, and in the latter case it becomes greater.