It was during this time that Reis undertook the first experimental researches of an original nature. Working almost alone, and without any scientific guide, he was led into lines of thought not previously trodden. He had conceived an idea that electrical forces could be propagated across space without any material conductor in the same way as light is propagated. He made many experiments on the subject, the precise nature of which can never now be known, but in which a large concave mirror was employed in conjunction with an electroscope and a source of electrification. The results which he obtained he embodied in a paper, of which no trace now remains, bearing as its title ‘On the Radiation of Electricity.’ This paper he sent in 1859 to Professor Poggendorff for insertion in Poggendorff’s well-known ‘Annalen der Physik.’ Greatly to his disappointment the memoir was not accepted by Professor Poggendorff. Its rejection was a great blow to the sensitive and highly strung temperament of the young teacher; and as will be seen was not without its consequences. The other piece of original work undertaken at this time was the research which resulted in his great invention--the Telephone. From the brief biographical notes written by the lamented inventor in 1868 we extract the following:-- “Incited thereto by my lessons in Physics in the year 1860, I attacked a work begun much earlier concerning the organs of hearing, and soon had the joy to see my pains rewarded with success, since I succeeded in inventing an apparatus, by which it is possible to make clear and evident the functions of the organs of hearing, but with which also one can reproduce tones of all kinds at any desired distance by means of the galvanic current. I named the instrument ‘Telephon.’ The recognition of me on so many sides, which has taken place in consequence of this invention, especially at the Naturalists’ Association (Versammlung Deutscher Naturforscher) at Giessen, has continually helped to quicken my ardour for study, that I may show myself worthy of the luck that has befallen me.” His earliest telephones were made by his own hands, in a little workshop behind his house, whence he laid on wires into an upper room. He also carried a wire from the physical cabinet of Garnier’s Institute across the playground into one of the class-rooms for experimental telephonic communication; and a firmly established tradition of the school is still preserved, that the boys were afraid of making a noise in that class-room for fear Herr Reis should hear them in his place amongst his favourite instruments.