The Telephone
More than two centuries ago, Robert Hooke, in the preface to his “Micrographia,” said,—
“And as glasses have highly promoted our seeing, so ’tis not improbable but that there may be found many mechanical inventions to improve our other senses, of hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. ’Tis not impossible to hear a whisper at a furlong’s distance, it having been already done; and perhaps the nature of the thing would not make it more impossible, though that furlong should be ten times multiplyed. And though some famous authors have affirmed it impossible to hear through the thinnest plate of Muscovy glass; yet I know a way by which ’tis easie enough to hear one speak through a wall a yard thick. It has not been yet thoroughly examin’d how far Otocousticons may be improv’d, nor what other ways there may be of quick’ning our hearing, or conveying sound through other bodies then [than] the air: for that is not the only medium. I can assure the reader, that I have, by the help of a distended wire propagated the sound to a very considerable distance in an instant, or with as seemingly quick a motion as that of light, at least incomparably swifter then [than] that which at the same time was propagated through the air; and this not only in a straight line, or direct, but in one bended in many angles.”