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The success of the Hughes type-printer may be said to have covered its
author with titles and scientific honours, and placed him above the
necessity of regular employment. He left America, and travelled from
place to place. For many years past, however, he has resided privately
in London, an eminent example of that modesty and simplicity which is
generally said to accompany true genius.
Mechanical invention is influenced to a very high degree by external
circumstances. It may sound sensational, but it is nevertheless true,
that we owe the microphone to an attack of bronchitis. During the thick
foggy weather of November 1877, Professor Hughes was confined to his
home by a severe cold, and in order to divert his thoughts he began to
amuse himself with a speaking telephone. Then it occurred to him that
there might be some means found of making the wire of the telephone
circuit speak of itself without the need of telephones at all, or at
least without the need of one telephone, namely, that used in
transmitting the sounds. The distinguished physicist Sir William
Thomson, had lately discovered the peculiar fact that when a current of
electricity is passed through a wire, the current augments when the wire
is extended, and diminishes when the wire is compressed, because in the
former case the resistance of the material of the wire to the passage of
the current is lessened, and in the latter case it becomes greater.
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