Abstract
THE telephone has already become firmly established in America as a medium of daily communication. Eighty-five towns are thus connected, and to the various telephonic companies there are 70,000 subscribers, and the number is rapidly increasing. For some details as to the working of this method of intercommunication we are indebted to our French contemporary La Nature. If we enter the great hall of the central office of the Merchants' Telephone Exchange at 198, Broadway, New York (Fig. 1), we see a series of “Switchmen” engaged in establishing communications among the subscribers. There is a switchman corresponding with one of the subscribers who has called (Fig. 2); further on is another employe engaged in raising the notice signal. In the city, in the subscriber's house or office, is the office telephone, which is set up in a great number of houses; this model is very convenient for business, for it permits of speaking into the mouth-piece placed on the left, of listening with the telephone, which is unhooked to apply to the ear, and at the same time of taking notes on the desk with the free hand.
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The Telephonic Exchange in the United States . Nature 21, 495–497 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/021495a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/021495a0