Show THE TELEPHONE JL A MODERN 1 INVENTION THAT HAS URIC hesss IN USE ESS IN INDIA TWO THOUSAND YEARS the principle of the telephone has been known for 2000 years in india was the rather incredible statement made recently by fred amesbury who has returned to new york after a two years sojourn in the land of sty striped aped tigers and wonderful fakirs fakiri 1 I do not fLa assert sert mark you continued mr Anres amesbury bury that they use the telephone ws as we use it or that they have any tem lein of general communication what I 1 do say is that the high caste people have a method of communicating with each other by vibratory action on a diaphragm just as we do but it is confined entirely to their temples and its existence has remained a secret until within a very few years 1 I was in a town called panl about two hundred miles from madras and while there became acquainted with an Eu english glish officer named harrington who was a prime favorite with the natives because on one occasion he be had saved a priest from drowning brownin he was a very genial pleasant fellow and had that peculiar magnetism about him that made and kept friends everywhere it was through that I 1 was enabled to learn the existence of telephone communication and to satisfy myself of us its antiquity there are two tw temples in the village about a mile apart in the interior and on the ground floor of each is a small circular structure which is guarded day and night irom from the natives as well as from strangers and is supposed to be the abiding place of the ide governing spirit but in realia reality is the terminus or of the telephone T line ine which is laid underground from one building to the other the superstitious natives regarded this little structure with the greatest awe and reverence because they had seen demonstrated before their eyes or rather ears the power of this spirit to ao communicate wita the other temple they were required to make their offerings in one building and make known their wishes and desires then immediately repairing to the second temple they would be informed of all they had said and done although neither priest had left his post this was regarded as a demonstration of the power ef cf the spirit we were unable to determine the composition of the wire that connected the two buildings it was some kind of metal but neither steel copper nor brass although it closely resembled the latter the transmitter was of wood and about the size of the head of a flour barrel and to establish connection instead of ringing a bell the person wishing to attract attention at the other end stood close to the curious looking thin thing and shouted boey boey boey chis this was an by a similar shout which while faint was distinct and could be heard two feet away after harrington and I 1 had gained the confidence of the priests or rather he had we were given carte blanchie blanc blan clie fie to do as we pleased and we talked to each other from one temple to the other for more than an hour and were enabled to make an incomplete investigation we learned that the telephone that we saw had been in use for thirty years the priests were very old men and they remembered thattie line of com commolli mulli cation had been renewed only once during their incumbency they showed us the remains of worm eaten transmitters and wooden conduits that roust must hilve have been hundreds of years old they claimed that the system had beenen existence since the creation and laughed at us when we told them that the same principle has only been applied in england and america within the last dozen years in every of india and in burnish burmah this system of secret communication exists although hundreds of travelers have ne versus never suspected it I 1 believe that it dates back fully two thousand years 11 new york graphic |