rubber, of brass, and of wood. These were all the materials at hand in tubular form, and we have had no opportunity since of extending the observations to other substances.
I am extremely glad that I have the opportunity of making the first publication of these researches before a scientific society, for it is from scientific men that my work of the last six years has received its earliest and kindest recognition. I gratefully remember the encouragement which I received from the late Professor Henry at a time when the speaking telephone existed only in theory. Indeed, it is greatly due to the stimulus of his appreciation that the telephone became an accomplished fact. I can not state too highly also the advantage I received in preliminary experiments on sound vibrations in this building from Professor Cross, and near here from my valued friend Dr. Clarence J. Blake. When the public were incredulous of the possibility of electrical speech, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Philosophical Society of Washington, and the Essex Institute of Salem recognized the reality of the results, and honored me by their congratulations. The public interest, I think, was first awakened by the judgment of the very eminent scientific men before whom the telephone was exhibited in Philadelphia, and by the address of Sir William Thomson before the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
At a later period, when even practical telegraphers considered the telephone as a mere scientific toy, Professor John Peirce, Professor Eli W. Blake, Dr. Channing, Mr. Clarke and Mr. Jones, of Providence, Rhode Island, devoted themselves to a series of experiments for the purpose of assisting me in making the telephone of practical utility; and they communicated to me, from time to time, the result of their experiments with a kindness and generosity I can never forget. It is not only pleasant to remember these things and to speak of them, but it is a duty to repeat them, as they give a practical refutation to the oft-repeated stories of the blindness of scientific men to unaccredited novelties, and of their jealousy of unknown inventors who dare to enter the charmed circle of science. I trust that the scientific favor which was so readily accorded to the telephone may be extended by you to this new claimant, the photophone.
