very very awful till I recovered consciousness again Somewhere near a passing bell was tolling the dogs all round the neighbourhood were howling and in our shrubbery seemingly just outside a nightingale was singing I was dazed and stupid with pain and terror and weakness but the sound of the nightingale seemed like the voice of my dead mother come back to comfort me The sounds seemed to have awakened the maids too for I could hear their bare feet pattering outside my door I called to them and they came in and when they saw what had happened and what it was that lay over me on the bed they screamed out The wind rushed in through the broken window and the door slammed to They lifted off the body of my dear mother and laid her covered up with a sheet on the bed after I had got up They were all so frightened and nervous that I directed them to go to the diningroom and have each a glass of wine The door flew open for an instant and closed again The maids shrieked and then went in a body to the diningroom and I laid what flowers I had on my dear mothers breast When they were there I remembered what Dr Van Helsing had told me but I didnt like to remove them and besides I would have some of the servants to sit up with me now I was surprised that the maids did n
y was consequently due to the range and inflections of these movements The battery only intervened in order to communicate magnetic force to the inducer This use of induced currents in telephonic transmissions was already of great importance since various experiments subsequently made have proved their superiority to voltaic currents for this purpose But experience soon convinced Mr Bell that a powerful inductive apparatus worked by a battery was not only unnecessary for the action of this apparatus but that a permanent magnet very small and weak would provide sufficient currents This discovery in which as we have seen Mr Peirce had some share was of great importance since it became possible to reduce the size of the instrument considerably so as to make it portable and adapted for sending and receiving and it was shown that the telephone was the most sensitive of all instruments in revealing the action of currents If therefore Mr Bell was not the first to employ the successful mode of transmitting articulate words it must be said that he sought like Mr Gray to solve the problem by means of undulatory currents and that he obtained these currents by the effect of induction a system which as soon as it was perfected led to the important results with which we
ifficult to hear and it was necessary to cover the head with a hood to intercept external sounds This cannot be considered a satisfactory result yet the telephone may be of great service to an army by intercepting the enemys messages a bold man provided with a pocket telephone who placed himself in a retired spot might divert the current of the enemys telegraphic wire into his telephone and get possession of all his despatches as we saw was the case at Clermont He might even do this by diverting the current to earth or to a rail of the railway line These are suggestions for future research and it is probable that they may some day be turned to practical account Its application to the navyThe telephone may be of the greatest use in naval matters for the service of electrosemaphores for island forts and ships at anchor M Pollard says that ‘experiments made between the Préfecture Maritime at Cherbourg the semaphores and the forts on the mole demonstrate the advantage there would be in establishing telephones at these stations since they would ensure an easy communication between the vessels of a squadron and the land they are approaching By sinking small cables which come to the surface of the water along mooring chains and terminate in buoys or cases which remain permanently in the harbour the ships of war may in this way place themselves in communication with the Préfecture Maritime as they cast anchor and by temporarily connecting the vessels together with light cables the admiral may communicate freely with the whole squadron The telephone has been tried on board shi