interesting points and details; and to some readers it may seem
incomplete in its references to the work of other men than Edison, whose
influence on telephony as an art has also been considerable. In reply to
this pertinent criticism, it may be pointed out that this is a life of
Edison, and not of any one else; and that even the discussion of his
achievements alone in these various fields requires more space than the
authors have at their disposal. The attempt has been made, however,
to indicate the course of events and deal fairly with the facts. The
controversy that once waged with great excitement over the invention
of the microphone, but has long since died away, is suggestive of the
difficulties involved in trying to do justice to everybody. A standard
history describes the microphone thus:

"A form of apparatus produced during the early days of the telephone
by Professor Hughes, of England, for the purpose of rendering faint,
indistinct sounds distinctly audible, depended for its operation on the
changes that result in the resistance of loose contacts. This apparatus
was called the microphone, and was in reality but one of the many forms
that it is possible to give to the telephone transmitter. For example,
the Edison granular transmitter was a variety of microphone, as was also
Edison's transmitter, in which the solid button of carbon was employed.
Indeed, even the platinum point, which in the early form of the Reis
transmitter pressed against the platinum contact cemented to the centre
of the diaphragm, was a microphone."

At a time when most people were amazed at the idea of hearing, with
the aid of a "microphone," a fly walk at a distance of many miles, the
priority of invention of such a device was hotly disputed. Yet without
desiring to take anything from the credit of the brilliant American,
Hughes, whose telegraphic apparatus is still in use all over Europe, it
may be pointed out that this passage gives Edison the attribution of at
least two original forms of which those suggested by Hughes were mere
variations and modifications. With regard to this matter, Mr. Edison
himself remarks: "After I sent one of my men over to London especially,
to show Preece the carbon transmitter, and where Hughes first saw it,
and heard it--then within a month he came out with the microphone,
without any acknowledgment whatever. Published dates will show that
Hughes came along after me."

There have been other ways also