Bell listened a moment, and
said, "Signor Brignolli, who is assisting at a concert in Providence
Music Hall, will now sing for us." In a moment the cadence of the
tenor's voice rose and fell, the sound being faint, sometimes lost, and
then again audible. Later, a cornet solo played in Somerville was very
distinctly heard. Still later, a three-part song floated over the wire
from the Somerville terminus, and Mr. Bell amused his audience
exceedingly by exclaiming, "I will switch off the song from one part of
the room to another, so that all can hear." At a subsequent lecture in
Salem, Massachusetts, communication was established with Boston,
eighteen miles distant, and Mr. Watson at the latter place sang "Auld
Lang Syne," the National Anthem, and "Hail Columbia," while the
audience at Salem joined in the chorus.'
Bell had overcome the difficulty which baffled Reis, and succeeded in
making the undulations of the current fit the vibrations of the voice as
a glove will fit the hand. But the articulation, though distinct, was
feeble, and it remained for Edison, by inventing the carbon transmitter,
and Hughes, by discovering the microphone, to render the telephone the
useful and widespread apparatus which we see it now.
Bell patented his speaking telephone in the United States at the
beginning of 1876, and by a strange coincidence, Mr.
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