The transmission of the rhythm of an air is of course a very simple matter. I have seen the following passage from “Lardner’s Museum of Science and Art,” 1859, quoted as describing an anticipation of the telephone, though in reality it only shows what every one who has heard a telegraphic indicator at work must have noticed, that the click of the instrument may be made to keep time with an air. “We were in the Hanover Street Office, when there was a pause in the business operations. Mr. M. Porter, of the office at Boston—the writer being at New York—asked what tune we would have? We replied, ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and to our surprise he immediately complied with our request. The instrument, a Morse one, commenced drumming the notes of the tune as perfectly and distinctly as a skilful drummer could have made them at the head of a regiment, and many will be astonished to hear that ‘Yankee Doodle’ can travel by lightning.... So perfectly and distinctly were the sounds of the tunes transmitted, that good instrumental performers could have no difficulty in keeping time with the instruments at this end of the wires.... That a pianist in London should execute a fantasia at Paris, Brussels, Berlin, and Vienna, at the same moment, and with the same spirit, expression, and precision as if the instruments at these distant places were under his fingers, is not only within the limits of practicability, but really presents no other difficulty than may arise from the expense of the performances. From what has just been stated, it is clear that the time of music has been already transmitted, and the production of the sounds does not offer any more difficulty than the printing of the letters of a despatch.” Unfortunately, Lardner omitted to describe how this easy task was to be achieved. Reuss first in 1861 showed how a sound can be transmitted. At the sending station, according to his method, there is a box, into which, through a pipe in the side, the note to be transmitted is sounded. The box is open at the top, and across it, near the top, is stretched a membrane which vibrates synchronously with the aerial vibrations corresponding to the note. At the middle of the membrane, on its upper surface, is a small disc of metal, connected by a thin strip of copper with the positive pole of the battery at the transmitting station. The disc also, when the machine is about to be put in use, lightly touches a point on a metallic arm, along which (while this contact continues) the electric current passes to the wire communicating with the distant station. At that station the wire is carried in a coil round a straight rod of soft iron suspended horizontally in such a way as to be free to vibrate between two sounding-boards. After forming this coil, the wire which conveys the current passes to the earth-plate and so home. As already explained, while the current passes, the rod of iron is magnetized, but the rod loses its magnetization when the current ceases.