This simple experiment shows the remarkable fact that a plate of metal is able to reproduce faithfully all the vibrations communicated to it by the human voice, and from this fact it follows that if we can communicate the vibrations set up in one plate by the voice, to another plate at a distance of 100 miles, we shall be able to speak to a listener at the further plate just as if he were close to us. A stretched string or wire transmits the vibrations fairly well up to a certain distance, but beyond this distance the vibrations become weaker and weaker until no sound at all reaches the air. By the aid of electricity, however, we can transmit the vibrations to a tremendous distance, the range being limited only by the imperfections of our apparatus. The first attempt at the construction of an electric telephone, that is an instrument by means of which the vibrations set up by the voice or by a musical instrument are transmitted by electricity, was made in 1860 by Johann Philipp Reis, a teacher in a school at Friedrichsdorf, in Germany. His transmitting apparatus consisted of a box having a hole covered by a tightly stretched membrane, to which was attached a little strip of platinum. When the membrane was made to vibrate by sounds produced close to the box, the strip of platinum moved to and fro against a metal tip, which closed the circuit of a battery. The receiver was a long needle of soft iron round which was wound a coil of wire, and the ends of the needle rested on two little bridges of a sounding box. The vibrations of the membrane opened and closed the circuit at a great speed, and the rapid magnetization of the needle produced a tone of the same pitch as the one which set the membrane vibrating. This apparatus transmitted musical sounds and melodies with great accuracy, but there is considerable difference of opinion as to whether it was able to transmit speech. Professor Sylvanus Thompson distinctly states that Reis’s telephone could and did transmit speech, but other experts dispute the fact. We probably shall be quite safe in concluding that this telephone did transmit speech, but very imperfectly. In any case it is certain that the receiver of this apparatus is not based on the same principle as the modern telephone receiver.