“I knew Philipp Reis, now deceased, during his life-time.... About the year 1859, he was employed by my father, then proprietor and director of the Friedrichsdorf Garnier Institute, as teacher of mathematics and natural sciences. He employed his hours of leisure in experimenting for himself in a house occupied by himself, and in which he had established a physical laboratory with a view mainly of realizing an idea which he had conceived sometime before of transmitting the human voice over divers metallic conductors by means of a galvanic current.... I remember especially, that, standing at the end of the wire or conductor, Mr. Reis speaking through his instrument, I distinctly heard the words: ‘Guten Morgen, Herr Fischer’ (Good morning, Mr. Fischer); ‘Ich komme gleich’ (I am coming directly); ‘Passe auf!’ (Pay attention!); ‘Wie viel Uhr ist es?’ (What o’clock is it?); ‘Wie heisst du?’ (What’s your name?) We often spoke for an hour at a time. The distance was about 150 feet. “Léon Garnier.” * * * * * Ernest Horkheimer, Esq. “Manchester, _Dec. 2, 1882_. “Professor S. P. Thompson, “Dear Sir, “In reply to your favour of 31st instant, I shall be very happy to give you all the information I can with respect to the telephonic experiments of my late friend and teacher Mr. Philipp Reis. I would express my gratification at finding that you are trying to put my old teacher’s claims on their just basis. I have always felt that in this race for telephonic fame, his claims have been very coolly put aside or ignored. That he did invent the Telephone there is not the remotest doubt. I was, I think, a great favourite of his; and at the time his assumption was that I was destined for a scientific career, either as a physicist or a chemist; and I believe that he said more to me about the telephone than to any one; and I assisted him in most of his experiments prior to the spring of 1862. “Philipp Reis intended to transmit speech by his telephone--this was his chief aim; the transmitting of musical tones being only an after-thought, worked out for the convenience of public exhibition (which took place at the Physical Society at Frankfort-on-the-Main). I myself spent considerable time with him in transmitting words through the instruments. We never (in my time) got the length of transmitting complete sentences successfully, but certain words, such as ‘_Wer da?_’ ‘_gewiss_,’ ‘_warm_,’ ‘_kalt_,’ were undoubtedly transmitted without previous arrangement. I believe Reis made similar experiments with his brother-in-law. [Illustration: Fig. 35.] [Illustration: Fig. 36.]