t that he heard the sound of a sick
person's voice more distinctly than usual, when he had the spatula
connected with the wire and battery in his mouth.

[Illustration: FIGS. 1 AND 2.--1849.]

The apparatus he used for this purpose is shown in Fig. 1. It consists of
an oval disk or spatula of copper attached to a wire which was coiled and
supported in an insulating handle of cork. To ascertain that he was able
to hear the sound, he covered the device with a funnel of pasteboard,
shown in the adjoining figure, and held it to his ear, and thought that
he heard the sound more distinctly.

These instruments were constructed in 1849 in Havana, where Meucci was
mechanical director of a theater. In May, 1851, he came to this country,
and settled in Staten Island, where he has lived ever since. It was not
until a year later that he again took up his telephonic studies, and then
he tried an arrangement somewhat different from the first. He used a tin
tube, Figs. 3 and 4, and covered it with wire, the ends of which were
soldered to the tongue of copper. With this instrument, he states, he
frequently conversed with his wife from the basement of his house to the
third floor, where she was confined as an invalid.

[Illustration: FIGS. 3 AND 4.--1852.]

Continuing his experiments, he conceived the idea of using a bobbin of
wire with a metallic core, and the first instrument he constructed on
this idea is shown in Fig. 5. It consisted of a wooden tube and
pasteboard mouth piece, and supported within the tube was a bundle of
steel wires, surrounded at their upper end by a bobbin of insulated wire.
The diaphragm in this instrument, was an animal membrane, and it was slit
in a semicircle so as to make a flap or valve which responded to the air
vibrations. This was the first instrument in which he used a bobbin, but
the articulation naturally left much to be desired, on account of the use
of the animal membrane. Meucci fixes the dates from the fact that
Garibaldi lived with him during the years 1851-54, and he remembers
explaining the principles of his invention to the Italian patriot.

After constructing the instrument just described, Meucci devised another
during 1853-54. This consisted of a wooden block with a hole in the
center which was filled with magnetic iron ore, and through the center of
which a steel wire passed. The magnetic iron ore was surrounded by a coil
of insulated copper wire. But an important improvement was intro