I should like you to notice that the energy with which we moved the telegraph instrument did not come from the distant station. It was a local battery which worked the receiving instrument, but this battery was controlled by the incoming æther waves affecting the tube of filings. There is really no mystery about the matter, but I am anxious not to take credit for anything more wonderful than we have actually accomplished. We electrons have rendered a very great service to man by enabling him to communicate with his friends who are far out on the ocean, and cut off from all possible chance of material communication. We are willing to serve man on land also, though we very much prefer the ordinary marching arrangement if he will provide a connecting wire. The fact is that we find it very much more difficult to send æther waves over land than we do over water. I have heard some men ask how many different telegraph instruments may be worked at one place simultaneously without confusion. That is a question for man himself to answer. We electrons are able to produce any variety of waves of different frequency or length; it remains only for man to construct apparatus that will respond only to a definite rate of waves. I hear that man has made considerable progress in tuning the wireless instruments. Some men are eager to get us to carry messages through space across the great oceans from shore to shore. We shall not refuse, provided man supplies sufficient energy, but I must admit that we electrons prefer the submarine cable. Of course man may put this down to our laziness; we certainly prefer as little severe straining as possible. I have been telling you of my earliest and only personal experience in connection with space telegraphy. I understand that greatly improved methods have been adopted since that time, but I have never happened to drift in their direction. CHAPTER XI HOW WE REPRODUCE SPEECH _THE SCRIBE'S NOTE ON CHAPTER ELEVEN_ In the first part of this chapter the electron explains the part it plays in ordinary telephony. The reader will picture the transmitting instrument at the one end of the line influencing the receiving instrument at the distant end. Towards the end of the chapter the electron turns its attention to the newer subject of _wireless telephony_, which has been accomplished now over a distance of several hundred miles. CHAPTER XI HOW WE REPRODUCE SPEECH My scribe suggested a rather clumsy title for this chapter--"Electrons _versus_ atoms as carriers of speech." I expect he made this suggestion without much thought, for there are two serious objections to such a title. In the first place, we are not carriers of speech. We are controlled by speech at one end of the telephone line, and we make a reproduction of the speech at the distant end of the line. No sound passes between the two places; there is only a movement of electrons along the connecting line.