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Others had thought of the idea that if a current of elecâ€" tricity could be sent over wire then perhaps so could sound. Young Béll went a step further. He reasoned that to transâ€" mit sound over wire electrically he would have to generate an electrical current that would. as he put it, "undulate‘", or form waves in the same way sound shapes air waves. _ His knowledge of the anatomy of the human ear helped him figure out a practical method for shaping the electrical current. Bell came to the conclusion that a sipgle memâ€" brane, or diaphram, would act like the ear drum. Tiny particles of air set in motion by the voice of the speaker, would move the diaphram of the transmitter in direct At the turn of the century telephone linemen became heroes to small boys and bustleâ€"clad ladies. Sometimes they liked to show off a bit as shown here when they arranged themâ€" selves (about 1906) on the crossbars and up the sides of a sturdy pole. They used horses and wagon to carry their heavy equipment. The linemen often walked miles to do their work of keeping the telephone lines repaired or stringing new telephone lines around the country. Bell‘s invention 100 years young! _ _ prBel m ww lng \My' one businessâ€" Em n of telenhony Ik t proportion to the intensity and pitch of various sounds and In Halifax, N.S., the Marine and Fisheries Department leased two of the newfangled instruments for telephone serâ€" vice between their wharf and office. > An enterprising livery stable owner, Israel Evans of Chatham, rented telephones to connect his stables with all the hotels in to wn. « When you décided to lease two or more telephones in those days it wasn‘t a matter of calling the telephone comâ€" pany to send aroumgne installer ; it was up to the subscribâ€" er to provide the netessary wire and also look after the installation himself. | As a matter of fact there were no installers and really no telephone companies as we know them today. The telephone was considered an adjunct to the telegraph businessâ€"it ofâ€" ten was referred to as the talking telegraphâ€"and teleâ€" phone service, such as it ?s. was run mostly by telegraph companies. As there were 8 dozen or so telegraph companies there was considerable competition for the struggling new telephone business. C ~ The talking telegraph grew in popularity in spite of dire predictions. So much so they had to start telephone exâ€" changes so that the various telephone lessees could talk to other adventurous souls who had acquired telephones. Canada‘s first telephone exchange was opened in Hamilâ€" ton on July 18. This was the first exchange in the British Empire. The first in the world had been opened a few months earlier (January 1878) in New Haven, Conn. In 1884 the first exchange was opened in the Twin Cities in Christian Kumpf‘s bookstore at the corner of King and Erb Streets. One year dater the first area directory was pubâ€" lished containing 22 subscribers names. Today there are 97 461 telephones in the Kitchenerâ€"Waterloo exchange‘ Competition took on some weird aspects at times. Men went around selling sound boxes or soâ€"called acoustic teleâ€" phones made out of cigar boxes connected with piano wire. Thomas Ahearn of Ottawa used two cigar boxes to make one of the first pairs of telephones in Canada and with these doâ€"itâ€"yourself gadgets he made one telephone call of over 110 miles distance. The Bell Telephone Company of Canada~was incorporated in 1880. The idea was to have the telephone business run by Canadians for Canadians. (Alexander Graham Bell‘s Canâ€" adian patent had been sold to an American company.) The new company took over the telephone licenses, plant and Toronto got its first exchange in April 1879, and Montreal in May that year. This is a model of Alexander Graham Bell‘s first telephone â€" the gallows frame telephone â€" through which speech sounds were first transmitted electrically in 1875. He worked out the deâ€" sign for it at the Bell Homestead in Brantford in the summer of 1874. goodwill of many of the companies then operating in Canada. Then the company made special efforts to improve equipment and service. As early as 1881 Bell Telephone had exchanges in operation in 40 cities including Montreal. Ottawa, Quebec, Hamilton, London, Windsor, Woodstock, Ont., Guelph, Brantford, St. Thomas, Cornwall, Saint John, N.B. and Halifax. By 1889 there were 6,550 miles of Awire and 3,670 miles of poles in long distance service. That year Bell Company sold its plant in New Brunsâ€" wick to the newlyâ€"formed New Brunswick Telephone Company. Saint John had 374 subscribers, Fredericton 108, Moncton 81, and Woodstock 82. There were about 20 miles of long distance lines near Moncton. . In 1889 Bell also transferred 310 telephones to the Victoria and Esquimault Telephone Company. The governments of the three prairie provinces took over telephone service from the Bell Telephone in the early part of the 20th centuryâ€"Manitoba and Alberta in 1908 and Saskatchewan in 1909. â€" Alexander Graham Bell was foresighted enough to visâ€" ualize what his telephone might bring about. As early as 1878 he predicted that some day there would be networks of cables and wire underground or overhead throughout cities, just as there were networks of water and gas pipes, and that cities would be connected by wires ‘"and a man in one part of the country,‘‘ he said, ‘"may communicate by wordâ€"of mouth with another in a distant place."‘ Two years before this, on Aug. 10, 1876, Bell had made the world‘s first long distance telephone call in a test over eight miles of telegraph line between Brantford and Paris, Ont., with the battery in Toronto 58 miles away. But it was more than an experiment when on Oct. 18, 1892, he officially opened the New Yorkâ€"Chicago telephone line. On Jan. 25, 1915 he took part in ceremonies opening the first transcontinental line with a call from New York to San Francisco. The first Montrealâ€"toâ€"Vancouver long distance call was made Feb. 17, 1916. The Canadian Telecommunications Carriers Association was formed in 1972 to, among other things: ‘"foster and promote the development of telecommunications in all its forms", and "‘develop and coâ€"ordinate views and policies affecting the telecommunications industry on a national basis." + The various major Canadian telephone companies joined together in 1931 to form the Transâ€"Canada Telephone System In 1932 they inaugurated the first complete allâ€"Canadian long distance network. _ _ Alexander Graham Bell‘s comparatively simple invention has lead to satellites in space capable of giving us telephone, television and other connections to anywhere in the world and even out of it. # We can talk to astronauts on the moon or get news of events almost instantaneously as they are happening on the other side of the world. We can send streams of data across Canada or across the ocean with incredible speed or libraries can keep millions of words of information on file in a computer and send it to other libraries across the country. . And it all started because a thoughtful young man wonâ€" dered whether a current of electricity could undulate and thus carry sound over wire. So the telephone was conceived 100 years ago. _ f For further information write to Mrs. M. Lester city hall Brantford, Ontario. _ _* . Watertoo Chronicle, Wednesday, July 10, 1974 23