cal basis of sound, and seems to have had no idea
of its possible use in telephony.

That an electro-magnet could vibrate a tuning-fork and so produce
sound was an entirely new and fascinating idea to the youth. It
appealed to his imagination, quickened by his knowledge of speech.
"Why not an electrical telegraph?" he asked himself. His idea seems to
have been that the electric current could carry different notes over
the wire and reproduce them by means of the electro-magnet. Although
Bell did not know it, many others were struggling with the same
problem, the answer to which proved most elusive. It gave Bell a
starting-point, and the search for the telephone began.

Sir Charles Wheatstone was then England's leading man of science,
and so Bell sought his counsel. Wheatstone received the young man
and listened to his statement of his ideas and ambitions and gave
him every encouragement. He showed him a talking-machine which
had recently been invented by Baron de Kempelin, and gave him the
opportunity to study it closely. Thus Bell, the eager student, the
unknown youth of twenty-two, came under the influence of Wheatstone,
the famous scientist and inventor of sixty-seven. This influence
played a great part in shaping Bell's career, arousing as it did his
passion for science. This decided him to devote himself to the problem
of reproducing sounds by mechanical means. Thus a new improvement in
the means of human communication was being sought and another pioneer
of science was at work.

The death of the two brothers of the young scientist from
tuberculosis, and the physician's report that he himself was
threatened by the dread malady, forced a change in his plans and
withdrew him from an atmosphere which was so favorable to the
development of his great ideas. He was told that he must seek a new
climate and lead a more vigorous life in the open. Accompanied by his
father, he removed to America and at the age of twenty-six took up the
struggle for health in the little Canadian town of Brantford.

He occupied himself by teaching his father's system of visible speech
among the Mohawk Indians. In this work he met with no little success.
At the same time he was gaining in bodily vigor and throwing off the
tendency to consumption which had threatened his life. He did not
forget the great idea which filled his imagination and eagerly sought
the telephone with such crude means as were at hand. He succeeded in
designing a piano