PHILIPP REIS:
INVENTOR OF
THE TELEPHONE.
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH,
WITH DOCUMENTARY TESTIMONY, TRANSLATIONS OF THE ORIGINAL PAPERS OF THE INVENTOR AND CONTEMPORARY PUBLICATIONS.
BY
SILVANUS P. THOMPSON, B.A., D.Sc., PROFESSOR OF EXPERIMENTAL PHYSICS IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, BRISTOL.
LONDON: E. & F. N. SPON, 16, CHARING CROSS.
NEW YORK: 35, MURRAY STREET.
1883.
PREFACE.
The title of this little work sufficiently indicates its natureand scope. The labour of preparing it has not been slight,and has involved the expenditure of much time in prosecutinginquiries both in this country and in Germanyamongst the surviving contemporaries of Philipp Reis. Toset forth the history of this long-neglected inventor and ofhis instrument, and to establish upon its own merits, withoutspecial pleading, and without partiality, the nature of thatmuch-misunderstood and much-abused invention, has beenthe aim of the writer. The thought that he might thus be ofservice in rendering justice to the memory of the departedworthy has inspired him to his task. He has nothing togain by making Reis’s invention appear either better orworse than it really was. He has therefore preferred to letthe contemporary documents and the testimony of eye-witnessesspeak for themselves, and has added that whichseemed to him desirable in the way of argument in the formof