First Transcontinental Telephone Call -- January 25, 2015

100 years ago today, on 25-January-1915, Alexander Graham Bell, who is often called the inventor of the telephone, made the first transcontinental telephone call from Manhattan to San Francisco.  Bell's old associate Thomas Watson answered the call in San Francisco.  This was done to promote the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, which would open in San Francisco on 02-March-1915.  From the Bennington Evening Banner, 27-January-1915. 

BOSTON CALLS SAN FRANCISCO

Direct Telephone Line Open Across the Continent

SPEECH CARRIED 3500 MILES

Bell Telephone Engineers Extend Long Distance Line to the Pacific Coast --- Science and Inyentive Genius Finally Overcome Great Obstacles

WHAT IT MEANS TO TELEPHONE FROM BOSTON TO SAN FRANCISCO
Distance -- 3503 miles.
Twelve States Covered.
Miles of Copper Wire -- 14,020.
Weight of Wire Over 3000 tons. 
Poles on Line -- Over 140,000.
Speed -- One-fifteenth of second.

Crossing the continent from Boston to San Francisco in one-fifteenth of a second is an actual accomplishment.  Direct conversation between the two cities so far apart was established for the first time, the other day, over the longest telephone line in the world more than 3500 miles.  The successful consummation of this great work is an epoch in history -- the acme of telephone attainment.  It is an achievement made possible only by the scientific study and persistent effort of the engineers of the great Bell system.

As an event, it is on a parity with the opening of the Panama canal. It is another connecting link that physically binds the far east and the far west of America into one complete union.

Four Thousand Miles Instantly

One-fifteenth of a second! Like a flash of lightning goes the spoken word through storm and sunshine over thousands of miles. It starts in Boston at 4 p. m. and, paradoxically, reaches San Francisco three hours earlier. The time schedule has been turned topsy turvy. While you wink, your speech has been carried nearly half way around the world.

Imagine a giant with lungs powerful enough to carry his voice 3500 miles through the air. Picture him standing on the dome of the Massachusetts State house and yelling "Hello" as loud as he could. Four hours later it would-be faintly heard at the Panama-Pacific exposition.  Blow up a million pounds of dynamite in Boston common and the sound would travel but a few miles. And yet the telephone Wizards with a tiny wire have outdistanced nature, Surely brains and energy have won a great victory

In 1849 "Pike's peak or bust" was the slogan that dominated those tardy pioneers and urged them forward. In 1909, to paraphrase this, the slogan of the telephone engineers was "the Golden Gate or bust." That was the goal upon which they set their eyes more than five years ago. The long distance lines had already been extended as far west as Omaha. Two years ago Denver became a reality by
telephone, and now, in one long jump of over 1500 miles, the Pacific coast has been reached.

Think for a moment what the open line of the Boston-8an Francisco direct line means. It has made Massachusetts and California neighbors. It will carry the business message from the Atlantic to the Pacific quicker than a man can write a letter and it gives him an answer at once. It has annihilated distance, its commercial value is priceless.

Boston Men Built the Line

Across twelve .states! Do you realize what that means? Have you ever traveled to the farwest? On the fastest trains it takes five days and five nights -- 120 hours -- to go from Boston to San Francisco. And yet it will only be a little while before the business man can sit comfortably in his office and travel instantly by telephone between the two cities over tons of copper wire.

The opening of this line has a peculiar significance to the people of Boston and New England, for it was in Boston that Professor Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, less than forty years ago. A little later the longest toll line in the world stretched from Boston to Lowell and the service was poor and intermittent. How marvelous has been the progress.

And the men who were associated with Bell in those telephone pioneer days and developed his great idea until one in every eight persons in the United States is connected by telephone, are Boston men. Many of them are living today.

Theodore N. Vail, president of the American Telephone and Telegraph company, has been in the telephone business almost from the beginning.  Today he is perhaps the greatest constructive business man in the world.

John J. Carty, chief engineer of the company, the master mind in scientific telephony, was a Cambridge boy who worked as an operator in the early days for $5 a week.

Thomas D. Lockwood, general patent attorney of the company, a telephone expert for nearly forty
years, lives in Melrose.

Thomas A. Watson, the youthful mechanic who assisted Bell in his early experiments and who was the first person in the world to hear the human voice over a wire, lives in Braintree and in Boston. 

Some Facts and Figures

At the present time there are two complete physical circuits. each 3505 miles long, between the two cities.  Then, by means of a wonderful development of' electrical study, in the transposition of the two circuits according to a certain scientific formula, a third circuit, called a "phantom" circuit is created, making it possible for six people to talk at one time -- three at each end -- over these two pair of wires.

There are 14,020 miles of hard drawn copper wire in both of these circuits. Each circuit mile of wire
weighs 870 pounds, so that the entire weight of both circuits -- four wires -- is over 3000 tons. This tremendous weight is supported by 140,000 poles.
Telephoning over such a great distance would have been absolutely impossible without another wonderful invention -- the repeating, or loading coils. Without any technical description, it is sufficient to say that these loading coils are placed at various points along the line and give the
electrical waves additional force and power.

The line from Boston to San Francisco runs direct to Buffalo, 465 miles; thence to Chicago; 605 miles, to Omaha 500 miles, to Denver. 685 miles, to Salt Lake City 680, miles and to San Francisco 770 miles, a total of 3505 miles.

A spur line runs from Chicago to Pittsburg, 545 miles, and thence to New York, 310 miles. Another spur connects Buffalo and New York, 350 miles.

On the same day the line between Boston and San Francisco was opened telephone conversation was established between New York and San Francisco. Professor Bell talked from the New York end and his early associate, Thomas A. Watson, from San Francisco.

An interesting fact in connection with the opening of this line is that Professor Bell used at the New York end an exact reproduction of his first crude instrument. At first it could be used only a few feet. That that Instrument could be used in talking between New York and San Francisco is due to the skill and inventions of those engineers who followed Bell after his retirement from the telephone business, in the perfection of the telephone and of switchboards, cables and the hundreds of other accessors
to successful telephone transmission.

Looking Backward to the Beginning

On the evening of Oct. 9, 1876, the first long conversation over the telephone was made by Bell and Watson.  They talked for three hours over a telegraph line between Boston and Cambridge. It was the wonder of the day. In May, 1877, a Charlestown man leased two telephones -- the first money ever paid for telephone service. The same month the first tiny and crude telephone exchange was born with five telephones connected.

By August there were 778 telephones in use -- all in Boston and four men had an absolute monopoly of the telephone business. A little later Theodore N. Vail was prevailed upon to resign from the government mail service and become general manager of a little telephone company that was hardly organized and had no money. Month after month the little Bell company lived from hand to mouth. No salaries were paid in full. Often for weeks, they were not paid at all. In 1880 John J. Carty timidly asked for a job as operator in the Boston exchange. He showed such an aptitude for the work that he was soon made one of the captains.

In 1893 Boston and New York were talking to Chicago, Milwaukee, Pittsburg and Washington, and one-half the people of the United States were within talking distance of each other.  The thousand-mile talk had ceased to be a fairy tale.

Several years later the. line was pushed over the plains to Omaha, and subsequently nearly 600 miles were added, enabling, the spoken word in Boston to be heard in Denver.

The Boston-San Francisco line will probably not be offered for general commercial use until the early summer. 

Telephone engineers have dreamed of the time when the wires would span the continent. That time has come. For the; moment it seems as though there is no other great thing for which to strive. And yet progress in telephony in the United States is making such tremendous strides that no man can prophesy the wonderful things that may be done in the future.

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Today is the start of Catholic Schools Week.

I'm grateful that my parents put me in Catholic schools for 12 years.  I'm also grateful to my teachers. 

Good Shepherd in Pacifica gave our daughter a great education and continues to do the same for many other children. They are having an open house today from 11am to 2pm.  The school is worth considering if you live in or near Pacifica: http://goodshepherdschool.us/

Reminiscences of an Active Life #13 -- February 9, 2009

Doctor Peter Henri Van Der Weyde was born in Nymegen, Holland in 1813. He went on to live a remarkable life of achievement in the sciences and the arts. He died in America in 1895.

While serving as editor of Manufacturer and Builder Magazine, he wrote many articles, including the ones which gave this blog its name. In 1893 and 1894, he published a 23-part (!) memoir in the same periodical. Here is the thirteenth part. He begins to discuss his career as an inventor.

George B Scott invented an improved stock ticker.

The image comes from The Telephone, an article that Doctor Van Der Weyde published in the May, 1869 issue. It depicts the receiver of his telephone.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

Part Nine

Part Ten

Part Eleven

Part Twelve

---

Reminiscences of an Active Life.

BY DR. P. H. VAN DER WEYDE.

From Manufacturer and Builder, Volume 26, Issue 2, February 1894

(Continued from page 21.)

7th. Career as an Inventor. -- Space did not permit me to add at the end of page 21, that I not only continue to take a keen interest in the progress of the natural sciences, but also intend to furnish some contributions to that progress, such as I have done in times past, either by pointing out new directions in which success may be expected, or by making practical improvements and exhibiting or publishing the same.

Thus, for instance, I was the first who advised Mr. Prescott of the Western Union Telegraph Company to apply the dynamo, in place of galvanic batteries, for the production of the currents required for their extensive system, which was then already outgrowing the capacity of all the batteries for which room could be found in their new building at the corner of Dey street and Broadway, so that additional batteries had been placed in other buildings.

I did not then realize the fact that it is much easier to introduce an improvement, if you give to those by whose instrumentality it has to be done, a chance to make some money out of it. Nobody could make money out of my advice except, ultimately, the company, and so nothing was done until a certain Mr. Field from California, who had been shrewd enough to push through the Patent Office the application of the dynamo, which he had not invented, to telegraphy, which also he had not invented -- in fact, the combination of Pacinottis and Grammes joint invention -- to the invention of Henry and Morse, and who asked $100,000 for his patent, which the Western Union Company paid, and of which Mr. Field obtained a part.

I had the satisfaction of seeing that my expectations were verified to such an extent that the Western Union Company do not use any more batteries at all, but transmit all their messages by means of dynamos, of which they have a great number, large and small, in their cellars. It is the same with the so-called ticker which transmits the condition of the stock market, and of which the office adjoins the Stock Exchange. Here powerful dynamos are located in the basement, while the operators work it on the top story by means of the most ingenious and complicated con
trivances and improvements, of which science is indebted to the genius of Mr. Scott.

In regard to the telephone, I did not confine myself to mere advice, but as soon as I found a description of the instrument as invented by the German schoolmaster, Reiss, in a newly-published German book, and in the Polytechnic Journal, I made telephones and exhibited them before the Polytechnic Section of the American Institute, which then was located in rooms in the Cooper Union building.

I improved the instrument by adding adjusting screws (which Reiss instrument did not have), so that I could regulate the pressure between the point and the vibrating plate. I regret that I did not patent this improvement, which is applied at the present time to all transmitters, and is of equal importance as the retracting spring to the sounder. The latter was a feature of the Page patent, which the Western Union Company bought from his widow, and was one of the claims which that
company set up in the prosecution of certain electric manufacturers who used it in some of their contrivances.

I also prepared a patent application explaining the substitution of the human voice for the sounder in the transmission of telegraphic messages. However, at the suggestion of some of my friends, that the manipulation of the telegraph key was so
handy, and was much easier than singing or tooting in the telephone, I abandoned the idea. This was fully a year before Prof. Bell applied for his telephone patent, as is proved by reports in the papers of that period, such as the Tribune and others.

As the telephone transmitted the pitch and duration of sounds perfectly, I used it only for musical melodies. I did not conceive how it could be possible that so simple an instrument could transmit articulate speech, which would involve the transformation of various sonorous vibrations in the air into articulate electric vibrations, to go through a wire, and that then these electric vibrations could be re-transformed into articulate aerial vibrations. I must confess that I do not yet fully understand all the details of this phenomenon, but know that it is an established fact.

One cause of my doubt, was that I had been carefully examining a talking machine then on exhibition, and was impressed with the complexity of its construction, and therefore expressed my opinion in the February number of the MANUFACTURER AND BUILDER for 1870, that we must not expect to be able to transmit all the various
letters of the alphabet as used in articulate speech, but only vibrations, differing in velocity and in duration (rhythm).

In the descriptions of Reiss' telephones and experiments, which then had happened to come to my knowledge, no mention whatever was made that spoken words had been transmitted and understood, wherefore my patent application was confined to the production of long and short sounds of various pitch -- in fact, to the imitation
of the dots and dashes of the sounder. However, my first and principal claim was very broad, and worded as follows: "1st. I claim the substitution of the human voice in place of the key, and the telephone receiver in place of the sounder, for the
transmission of telegraphic messages."

If this claim had been entered and granted (for which there was no reason to doubt, as it was both new and useful), it would have anticipated Bell, who applied long afterward; while in addition to this, my old telephones (of which an illustrated description will be given in the next issue of this journal) were far superior to any of the contrivances which Bell illustrated and described in his first application for a patent. They were soon entirely abandoned as useless.

In order to moderate some prevailing exagerated and sanguine expectations, I also expressed my conviction, that, considering the resistance and inductive impediments of a submarine conductor, there was no hope that we ever would be able to sing "Yankee Doodle" through the Atlantic cable so that our English cousins could hear and understand it.

(To be continued.)

The Telephone (1869) -- January 17, 2008

Doctor P. H. Van der Weyde, who wrote the articles which gave this blog its name, published this article about the telephone in Manufacturer and Builder in 1869. I find the date interesting, since I was always taught that Alexander Graham Bell had invented the telephone in 1876. It turns out lots of people were working on the problem for a long time. This is true about most problems. This article did not carry a by-line, but books about the telephone patent disputes named Doctor V as the author.

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Manufacturer and Builder Volume 1, Issue 5, May 1869

The Telephone.

(by Doctor P. H. Van der Weyde)

ONE of the most remarkable recent inventions connected with telegraphy is the telephone, an instrument which transmits directly the pitch of a sound by means of a telegraph-wire -- either an air-wire or submarine cable; so that, for instance, when the operator at one end of the wire sings or plays on an instrument any tune, as Yankee Doodle or Hail Columbia, it will be heard and distinguished plainly at the other end. This invention may, in its present state, have no direct practical application, but be a mere scientific, although highly interesting curiosity; but who can say that it does not contain the germ of a new method of working the telegraph, or some other useful practical purpose?

The telephone is not. the result of an accidental discovery, but of a thorough study of the laws of electromagnetism and of sound. It is founded on the fact that the difference in pitch of different tones is caused by different velocities of vibrations of the elastic sounding body; which vibrations are transmitted to and by the air with exactly the same velocity, and from the air may be communicated to a properly stretched membrane, like a piece of bladder or very thin sheet of India-rubber, stretched like a drumhead, which these also will vibrate with exactly the same velocity as the air and the original sounding body, be it the human voice, organ-pipe, string, or any musical instrument. If, now, at the centre of this little drum-head there be attached a small disk of some metal not easily burned by electric currents -- for instance, platinum -- while at the same time a platinum point may, by means of a screw, be so adjusted as to come very nearly in contact with this small platinum disk, it is clear that, when the membrane is put in vibration, a succession of contacts between the disk and point will be produced, of which the number in each second will exactly correspond with the number of vibrations in each second of the sounding body, or the tone produced by it. That part of the apparatus which serves to send off the tune or melody is represented in the illustration, Fig. 2. It consists simply of a square wooden box, provided at the side with a kind of mouth-piece similar to that of a speaking-tube, and at the top with an opening, over which the membrane just mentioned has been stretched. The small disk of platinum attached to the centre of this little drum-head is, by means of a very flexible strip of some metal that conducts well, attached to one pole of the galvanic battery, of which only one cup is represented in the figure, although for a long wire several cups will, of course, he required. The reason why this connection near the platinum disk is a flat, thin and flexible strip is, that any rigidity would interfere with the freedom of vibration of the membrane to which it is attached. The point coming in contact with this small vibrating disk is connected with the ground-wire, the other pole of the battery with the air wire or submarine cable. It is clear, from this explanation, that at every contact of the platinum point a wave of electricity will be sent over the wire, and as many waves in a second as there are contacts; and as there as many contacts as there are vibrations in every second, the number of electric waves will be always exactly equal to the number of vibrations corresponding with the pitch of each tone, be it fifty, one hundred, two hundred, or five hundred in every second.

The instrument in which this succession of waves is made audible at the other end of the telegraph-wire is founded on the fact, first investigated by Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, that iron bars, when becoming magnetic by means of electric currents passing around them, become slightly elongated, and at the interruption of the current are at once restored to their original length. It is represented in the cut, Fig. 3, and consists of an elongated wooden box, of which the top is made of thin pine wood, similar to the sounding-board of a stringed musical instrument, to which are attached two bridges carrying long pieces of moderately thick and very soft iron wire, which for nearly their whole length are surrounded by a coil similar to the coil of the electro magnets used in telegraphing. One end of this coil is attached to the telegraph-wire, the other to the ground-wire, as represented in the figure. At every instant that a contact is established at the station where the sound is produced, and a current wave thus transmitted, these wires will become magnetic, and consequently elongated, and they will be shortened again at every interruption of the current and as these currents and interruptions succeed each other with the same velocity as the sound vibrations, the elongations and shortenings of the magnetized iron wire will succeed each other with exactly the same velocity, and consequently they will be thrown into a state of longitudinal vibrations corresponding with the original musical tone, which vibrations will then be communicated to the sounding-board in exactly the same manner as is the case with the vibrations of the strings in all stringed instruments, thus becoming more audible at the receiving station.

It is clear, from the foregoing explanations, that no quality of tone can be transmitted. Much less can articulate words be sent, notwithstanding the enthusiastic prediction of some persons, who, when they first beheld this apparatus in operation, exclaimed, that now we would talk directly through the wire. It is from its nature able to transmit only pitch and rhythm, consequently melody, and nothing more. No harmony, nor different degree of strength or other qualities of tone can be transmitted; the receiving instrument in fact sings the melodies transmitted as it were with its own voice, resembling the humming of an insect, regardless of the quality of the tone which produces the original tune at the other end of the wire. This instrument is a German invention, and was first exhibited, in New-York, at the Polytechnic Association of the American Institute, by Dr. Van der Weyde. The original sounds were produced at the further extremity of the large building, (the Cooper Institute,) totally out of hearing of the association and the receiving instrument standing on the table of the lecture-room, produced with its own rather nasal twang the different tunes sung at the other end of the line, rather weakly, it is true, because of the weak battery used, but very distinctly and correctly.