The Project Gutenberg ebook of History of the United States, Volume 4, by
Download 7.23 Mb.
|
|
352 1884] THE MARCH OF INDUSTRY 353 
The Manhattan Elevated Railway, New York. 354 THE CEMENTED UNION [1877 One of the most interesting and valuable inventions of this or any century was that of the telephone, devised by Alexander Graham Bell, and first put to business use in 1877. For ten years Mr. Bell had been experimenting upon the possibility of conveying sound by means of the electric wire. In 1876 he had so far succeeded as to exhibit a pair of his instruments in successful operation at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. In April of the next year the Cambridge Water Board, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and many other corporations ordered the instrument for practical service. From this time the business grew with incredible rapidity. The American Bell Telephone Company was incorporated, and in January, 1886, had in use 330,000 telephones. There were this year in various cities of the United States 752 telephone exchanges. The total length of telephone wires operated by this company was 114,371 miles. In addition to the system which centred in the Bell Company there were several competing telephone establishments in continual litigation with the Bell. The total mileage of telephone wires in the United States in 1887 was estimated at 130,000 miles. There were the same year 170,000 miles of telegraph wire, besides private lines. Directory: pub -> gutenberg pub -> Acm word Template for sig site pub -> The german unification, 1815-1870 pub -> Baltic Olympiads in Informatics: Challenges for Training Together pub -> Preparation of Papers for ieee transactions on medical imaging pub -> Forthcoming meetings and conferences pub -> Asilomar Conference on Circuits, Systems & Computers, Pacific Grove, ca, November 1978, pp. 55 58 pub -> Forthcoming meetings and conferences pub -> Harmonised compatibility and sharing conditions for video pmse in the 7 9 ghz frequency band, taking into account radar use gutenberg -> The Project Gutenberg ebook of History of the World War, by Download 7.23 Mb. Share with your friends:
|