. Bulletin. Science. Figure 6o.—Bell's "harp" apparatus. From G. Prescott, The Speaking Telephone, New York, 1878, p. 67. Bell had visited Joseph Henry at the Smithsonian Institution and discussed with him some of the prob- lems involved in the reproduction of sound. Bell showed Henry how an empty coil might produce audible sound, and Henry demonstrated a Reis telephone to Bell.*' Some experiments that Bell performed in June 1875 indicated that his speculations of the previous summer concerning a magneto telephone might be feasible after all. During an attempt to send three messages
. Bulletin. Science. Figure 6o.—Bell's "harp" apparatus. From G. Prescott, The Speaking Telephone, New York, 1878, p. 67. Bell had visited Joseph Henry at the Smithsonian Institution and discussed with him some of the prob- lems involved in the reproduction of sound. Bell showed Henry how an empty coil might produce audible sound, and Henry demonstrated a Reis telephone to Bell.*' Some experiments that Bell performed in June 1875 indicated that his speculations of the previous summer concerning a magneto telephone might be feasible after all. During an attempt to send three messages over his nrultiple telegraph. Bell found that one magnetized reed could actuate another one without a battery in the circuit. Thereupon Bell instructed his associate, Thomas A. Watson,^" to make two instruments, and to use in each instrument a magne- tized reed attached to a membrane diaphragm. The reed acted as an armature to an electromagnet, and the electromagnet was in turn connected to another similar instrument. But while sounds and changes of pitch were audible in its receiver, this membrane telephone (fig. 61) could not reproduce speech. In spite of its failure to transmit articulate speech, Bell drew up patent specifications (fig. 62) for his 49 United States Reports, 1887, vol. 126, pp. 1-584; Alexander G. Bell, The Bell Telephone: The Deposition oj Alexander Graham Bell in the Suit Brought by the United States to Annul the Bell Patents, Boston, 1908; Catherine Mackenzie, Alexander Graham Bell: The Man Who Contracted Space, Boston and New York, 1928; F. L. Rhodes, Beginnings oj Telephony, New York, 1929; A. G. Bell, patent 161739 (April 6, 1875). Many of Bell's instruments for harmonic telegraphy and for telephony are preserved in the Museum of History and Technology of the Smithsonian Institution. The Reis instrument that Henry showed Bell may be seen in the Museum {USNM 1S09T7). 5" Thomas A. Watson, Exploring Life: The Autobiography of Thomas A. Wat
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