He had succeeded in producing, artificially, certain of the vowel sounds by causing tuning-forks of different pitch to vibrate simultaneously by means of an electric current. Mr. Ellis was kind enough to grant me an interview for the purpose of explaining the apparatus employed by Helmholtz in producing these extraordinary effects, and I spent the greater part of a delightful day with him in investigating the subject. At that time, however, I was too slightly acquainted with the laws of electricity fully to understand the explanations given; but the interview had the effect of arousing my interest in the subjects of sound and electricity, and I did not rest until I had obtained possession of a copy of Helmholtz’ great work,[1] and had attempted, in a crude and imperfect manner it is true, to reproduce his results. While reflecting upon the possibilities of the production of sound by electrical means, it struck me that the principle of vibrating a tuning-fork by the intermittent attraction of an electro-magnet might be applied to the electrical production of music. I imagined to myself a series of tuning-forks of different pitches, arranged to vibrate automatically in the manner shown by Helmholtz, each fork interrupting at every vibration a voltaic current; and the thought occurred, “Why should not the depression of a key like that of a piano direct the interrupted current from any one of these forks, through a telegraph wire, to a series of electro-magnets operating the strings of a piano or other musical instrument, in which case a person might play the tuning-fork piano in one place and the music be audible from the electromagnetic piano in a distant city?” The more I reflected upon this arrangement the more feasible did it seem to me; indeed, I saw no reason why the depression of a number of keys at the tuning-fork end of the circuit should not be followed by the audible production of a full chord from the piano in the distant city, each tuning-fork affecting at the receiving end that string of the piano with which it was in unison. At this time the interest which I felt in electricity led me to study the various systems of telegraphy in use in this country and in America. I was much struck with the simplicity of the Morse alphabet, and with the fact that it could be read by sound. Instead of having the dots and dashes recorded upon paper, the operators were in the habit of observing the duration of the click of the instruments, and in this way were enabled to distinguish by ear the various signals.