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Show II NOTABLE EVENT IN , TELEPHONE HISTORY Earliest long Distance Line ut 27 Miles Xong, Now 16,000 Miles Is Ordinary. I Special lo Tho Tribune, j DSTON, April 2. It Is a quarter of of a century since the beginning i-J oC long- distance telephony, i Before 1879, no telephone mes- i sage had beon transmitted from one city to another, and the Idea that the sound 1 of the human voice could be carried over a wire forty or Gfty miles In length ! was not generally entertained. J Three y6ara after the Invention of ) Alexander Graham Bell h'ad been ex it liibited at the Centennial exposition at f Philadelphia and had excited the curi osity of the world, rather as a scientific scienti-fic novelty than a practical utility, these men In the New England company au-thorized au-thorized the construction of a line from J Boston to Lowell, a distance of twenty- J seven miles. When the wire had been A strung It was found that they were right I i " uioir expectations, ana tho voice or a I person speaking in Boston could bo J heard by the person at tho receiver in Even then the public failed to grasp I tho significance of this achievement, and It was regarded largely, as an ex-3 ex-3 periment until a business transaction, involving several hundred thousand dol- !' lars, was brought to a successful con summation by conferences over tho line between tho two Massachusetts cities. Papers were drawn at Boston, agreed to by those present and then read to the parties In "Lowell. Amendments were suggested and discussed, until the document docu-ment was satisfactory to all the persona I' interested. Igj Use of Copper Wire. I1; Tho news of this transaction spread far and wide and did much to awaken fi in the minds of business men a realiza- it( tlon of tho commercial possibilities of l the telephone, j From the first It was evident that l some better conductor must be found than tho Iron wire then In Use, and ; within six years from the da to of the , Lowell experiment a hard-drawn copper wire had been made and tested in actual ; . operation, and tho ability to converse J 1 over Ions' distances, as the term Is un derstood today, has been the result of Hfc The first experimental line In which WM I copper wire was used was that from j Boston to New York, completed in 1SS4 and this was in turn followed by ex- WM tensions to Philadelphia and other points of commercial importance, so i? that the cities in the eastern section of mm.' the country were soon linked together. Then the lines were pushed westward, i and on October 21, 1S92, Prof. Bell, in the H. 1 presence of a company of distinguished electricians and officers of telephone 1 companies, spoke into a transmitter in i the city of New York, and the message jj was heard In Chicago. Less than three ii, months later Gov. "William E. Russell H'l of Massachusetts, surrounded by a 1) group of men prominent in the affairs of the Bay State, opened the line from Boston to Chicago. Hunting- Harvard's President. . In what unexpected ways the long distance telephone fits Into the occur-fences occur-fences of every day life was early 11-lustrated 11-lustrated by an incident In the visit of a distinguished educator to the fair. It j was one of the first and most notable in- Mj stances in which the telephone has been used to locate a man visiting a city far from his home. An Important matter at Harvard university required tho ac- tlon of President Eliot, then in Chicago. The residence at which he was a guest 1 was called by telephone, only to learn that President Eliot had left for the fair a few minutes before the message Hrr '-'as received, and was not expected to return until late in the evening. It was explained to the president's host that the question was one of emergency, and the Chicago man called upon the presl- deni of the telephone company for as-ilstarce. as-ilstarce. The police department of tho fair was at once communicated with by H' telephone, and by means of the same Instrument a description of President M, Shot was given to the guards at tho H entrance gates, with Instructions that when he entered the grounds he was to be requested to go to the office of tho 1 ohlef of pellet. Consequently, much to the surprise of 1 - the head of the university, as he passeu H i the turnstile, an officer approached him. H and after asking his name told him that 1 he was wanted at headquarters. Pres- ident Eliot was escorted to the presence of the chief, and then learned that he H was desired at the telephone exhibit. H I On reaching that point the full nature 1 1 of the errand was explained to him, and J he was soon placed In telephone com- munlcation witli Harvard university. 1 What was done that day, probably for I Hie first time, has now become of com- j mon occurrence, and It frequently hap- pens that telephone messages are sent broadcast to locate some man who Is traveling from place to place. HI Miles of long-Distance Lines, The long distance lines havo grown apace, until, In this period of twenty-Hl twenty-Hl five years, the total amount of such j wire In tho Beli telephone system has Ven-ched to about 270,000 miles, which In turn connects to local lines of about n.OOO.OOO miles, all arranged in such a H! manner that through the various switchboards tho circuit can bo branched from point to point to reach . the desired destination, the longest cir- cult ever made being: that from Boston j' to Little Rock, about 1930 miles. This was an emergency case, as a man wished to ask for information and re-celve re-celve a reply at once relative to some fluctuations in the cotton market. H So universal Is long distance tele- H phoning that It is hard to realize that H twenty-five years ago It was practically 1 unknown. Many business men talk j dally with associates hundreds of miles away, and one concern in an Eastern H t Ity uses every morning a line 1500 miles In length. H While the art of long distance telc- phony has not yet reached a point H where people on the Pacific coast may talk to those on tho Atlantlo seaboard und tho newr of towns on tho Great j Lakes bo trai.uiued by telephone to I iho cities on the Gulf, nevertheless 50,- ' 000,000 of the 90,000,000 people In the 1 ' United States are within reach of the 1 telephones of tho Bell system, and the 1 close of the next auarter century, flffy H years from tho date of tho opening of H that twenty-seven-mile lino between Boston und Lowell, Is likely to see a tel. ephono In every hamlet In the country, H perhaps with power to transmit tho wound of the human voice from one end j of tho land to the other. |