"Every tone, and every combination of tones evokes in our ear, if it enters it, vibrations of the drum skin, the motions of which may be represented by a curve."
"As soon therefore, as it shall become possible , at any place in an y prescribed manner, to set up vibrations whose curves are like those of any given tone, or combination of tones, we shall then receive the same impression as that tone or combination of tones woud have produced upon us."
"My first phone was a cone shaped beer-barrel hollowed out. At one end of this cone was a tightly drawn susage skin which serves as a membrane. Attached to this is a platinum strip held in palce by sealing wax, this in turn corresponding to the hammer of the ear which closed or opened the electrical circuit. The receiver for this device is a knitting needle surrounded with a coil of w ire and placed on a violin to create a sounding board. This device astounded everyone when they first saw it!"
*It's important to note that the electral circuit created here was the first of its kind and would later be used to drive Bells work.
"Now this is a transmitter which I based on the construction of the human ear. I am not able to create flesh, but made a very interesting model of the ear with wood. My word, a three foot wooden ear. I imagined such a thing! The Tin Tube, Collar box Board Block, Hollow Tube, Wooden Cone, Hochstift Form, Lever Form, Transitional Form and The square box all evolved from th is wooden ear."
*The end of the aperture (a) was closed by a tin membraine (b), in imitation of the human tympanum. Against the centre of the tympanum rested the lower end of a little curved lever c, d, of platinum wire, which represented th e "Hammerbone" of the human ear. This curved lever was attached to the membrane by a drop of sealing wax, so that it followed every motion of the same. It was pivoted near its center by being soldered to a short cross-wire which served as an axis; this ax is passing on either side through a hole in a bent strip of tin-pate screwed to the back of the wooden ear. The upper end of the curved lever rested in loose contact against the upper end (g) of a vertical spring, about one (?) and resilient strip of pati num foil. An adjusting-screw, h, served to regulate the degree of contact between the vertical spring and the curved lever. The conducting-wires by which the current of electricity entered and left the apparatus were connected to the screws by which the t wo strips of tin-plate were fixed to the ear. In order to make sure that the current from the upper support of tin should reach the curved lever. Another strip of Platinum foil was soldered on the side of the former, and rested lightly against the end of the wire-axis, as shown in magnified detial in Fig. 6.
"If now any words or sounds (tones) of any kind were uttered in front of the ear the membrane is thereby set into vibrations, as in the human ear. The little cur ved level takes up these motions prescisely as the hammer- bone, of the human ear does; and like the "hammer"-bone, transfers them to that with which it was in contact. The result is that the contact of the upper end of the lever is caused to vary." < /FONT>
*With every rarefaction of the air the membrane moved forward and the upper end of the little lever moved backward and pressed more firmly than before against the spring, making better contact and allowing a stronger current to flow. At every condensation of the air the membrane moved backwards and the upper end of the lever moved forward so as to press less strongly than before against the spring, thereby making a less complete contact that before, and by thus partially interrupting th e passage of current, caused the current to flow less freely.
"The sound waves which entered the ear would in this fashion throw the electric current, which flowed through the point of variable contact, into undulat ions in strength. This principle of causing the voice to control the strength of an electric current by causing it to operate upon a loose or imperfect contact, runs throughout all of my work with telephonic transmitters."
*In lat er times such pieces of mechanism for varying the strength of an electric current have been termed current regulators. It would not be inappropriate to describe the mechanism which Reis thus invented as a combination of tympanum with an electric current - regulator.
"The Violin Receiver was the first receiver I made to receive a spoken work. I took a steel kn itting needle, round which I wound a spiral coil of silk-covered copper-wire. This wire was magnetised in varying degrees by successive currents, and when thus rapidly magnetised and demagnetised, emitted tones depending upon the frequency, strength, etc. , of the currents which flowed round it."
* It was soon found that the sounds it emitted required to be strengthened by the addition of a sounding-box, or resonant-case This was in the first instance attained by placing the needle upon the s ounding-board of a Violin. At the first trial it was stuck loosely into one of the f shaped holes of the violin. Subsequenty the needle was fixed by its lower end to the bridge of the violin.
"This is a receiver I tried with a cigar box instead of a violin."
* It was not until the third generation of receiver that Reis developed the Electro Magnet Recei ver, although one is not suprised by this since so much was being done with electro Magnets at this time.