Heroes of the Telegraph [102]
shall soon see those three inventions working unitedly; for the microphone might make the telephone sounds so powerful as to enable them to be printed by phonograph as they are received, and thus a durable record of telephonic messages would be obtained. We can now transmit sound by wire, but it may yet be possible to transmit light, and see by telegraph. We are apparently on the eve of other wonderful inventions, and there are symptoms that before many years a great fundamental discovery will be made, which will elucidate the connection of all the physical forces, and will illumine the very frame-work of Nature.
In 1879, Professor Hughes endowed the scientific world with another beautiful apparatus, his 'induction balance.' Briefly described, it is an arrangement of coils whereby the currents inducted by a primary circuit in the secondary are opposed to each other until they balance, so that a telephone connected in the secondary circuit is quite silent. Any disturbance of this delicate balance, however, say by the movement of a coil or a metallic body in the neighbourhood of the apparatus, will be at once reported by the induction currents in the telephone. Being sensitive to the presence of minute masses of metal, the apparatus was applied by Professor Graham Bell to indicate the whereabouts of the missing bullet in the frame of President Garfield, as already mentioned, and also by Captain McEvoy to detect the position of submerged torpedoes or lost anchors. Professor Roberts-Austen, the Chemist to the Mint, has also employed it with success in analysing the purity and temper of coins; for, strange to say, the induction is affected as well by the molecular quality as the quantity of the disturbing metal. Professor Hughes himself has modified it for the purpose of sonometry, and the measurement of the hearing powers.
To the same year, 1879, belong his laborious investigations on current induction, and some ingenious plans for eliminating its effects on telegraph and telephone circuits.
Soon after his discovery of the microphone he was invited to become a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a few years later, in 1885 he received the Royal Medal of the Society for his experiments, and especially those of the microphone. In 1881 he represented the United Kingdom as a Commissioner at the Paris International Exhibition of Electricity, and was elected President of one of the sections of the International Congress of Electricians. In 1886 he filled the office of President of the Society of Telegraph Engineers and of Electricians.
The Hughes type-printer was a great mechanical invention, one of the greatest in telegraphic science, for every organ of it was new, and had to be fashioned out of chaos; an invention which stamped its author's name indelibly into the history of telegraphy, and procured for him a special fame; while the microphone is a discovery which places it on the roll of investigators, and at the same time brings it to the knowledge of the people. Two such achievements might well satisfy any scientific ambition. Professor Hughes has enjoyed a most successful career. Probably no inventor ever before received so many honours, or bore them with greater modesty.
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APPENDIX. ---------
I. CHARLES FERDINAND GAUSS.
CHARLES FERDINAND GAUSS was born at Braunschweig on April 30, 1777. His father, George Dietrich, was a mason, who employed himself otherwise in the hard winter months, and finally became cashier to a TODTENCASSE, or burial fund. His mother Dorothy was the daughter of Christian Benze of the village of Velpke, near Braunschweig, and a woman of talent, industry, and wit, which her son appears to have inherited. The father died in 1808 after his son had become distinguished. The mother lived to the age of ninety-seven, but became totally blind. She preserved her low Saxon dialect, her blue linen dress and simple country manners, to the last, while living beside her son at the Observatory of Gottingen. Frederic,
In 1879, Professor Hughes endowed the scientific world with another beautiful apparatus, his 'induction balance.' Briefly described, it is an arrangement of coils whereby the currents inducted by a primary circuit in the secondary are opposed to each other until they balance, so that a telephone connected in the secondary circuit is quite silent. Any disturbance of this delicate balance, however, say by the movement of a coil or a metallic body in the neighbourhood of the apparatus, will be at once reported by the induction currents in the telephone. Being sensitive to the presence of minute masses of metal, the apparatus was applied by Professor Graham Bell to indicate the whereabouts of the missing bullet in the frame of President Garfield, as already mentioned, and also by Captain McEvoy to detect the position of submerged torpedoes or lost anchors. Professor Roberts-Austen, the Chemist to the Mint, has also employed it with success in analysing the purity and temper of coins; for, strange to say, the induction is affected as well by the molecular quality as the quantity of the disturbing metal. Professor Hughes himself has modified it for the purpose of sonometry, and the measurement of the hearing powers.
To the same year, 1879, belong his laborious investigations on current induction, and some ingenious plans for eliminating its effects on telegraph and telephone circuits.
Soon after his discovery of the microphone he was invited to become a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a few years later, in 1885 he received the Royal Medal of the Society for his experiments, and especially those of the microphone. In 1881 he represented the United Kingdom as a Commissioner at the Paris International Exhibition of Electricity, and was elected President of one of the sections of the International Congress of Electricians. In 1886 he filled the office of President of the Society of Telegraph Engineers and of Electricians.
The Hughes type-printer was a great mechanical invention, one of the greatest in telegraphic science, for every organ of it was new, and had to be fashioned out of chaos; an invention which stamped its author's name indelibly into the history of telegraphy, and procured for him a special fame; while the microphone is a discovery which places it on the roll of investigators, and at the same time brings it to the knowledge of the people. Two such achievements might well satisfy any scientific ambition. Professor Hughes has enjoyed a most successful career. Probably no inventor ever before received so many honours, or bore them with greater modesty.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
APPENDIX. ---------
I. CHARLES FERDINAND GAUSS.
CHARLES FERDINAND GAUSS was born at Braunschweig on April 30, 1777. His father, George Dietrich, was a mason, who employed himself otherwise in the hard winter months, and finally became cashier to a TODTENCASSE, or burial fund. His mother Dorothy was the daughter of Christian Benze of the village of Velpke, near Braunschweig, and a woman of talent, industry, and wit, which her son appears to have inherited. The father died in 1808 after his son had become distinguished. The mother lived to the age of ninety-seven, but became totally blind. She preserved her low Saxon dialect, her blue linen dress and simple country manners, to the last, while living beside her son at the Observatory of Gottingen. Frederic,