Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone or the Picture That Saved a Fortune

t believe it

, I'm sur

sy chair in the library. The elderly gentleman--his hair was

this is too much. To transmit pictures over a telephone wire, so that persons cannot only see to whom they are talking, as we

tarted on it. As for wasting my time, well, I haven't anything in particular to do, now that my giant cannon

ng around idle isn't good for anyone--man or boy, young or

only to be disappointed in the end. It can't be done, Tom, it can

ed confidentl

ne so far, than I like to admit. But I'm going to stick at it, and before this year is out I'll guarantee, Father, that you can be at one end of the telephone wire

a louder laugh. Instead of being angry, Tom only rega

Dad. Go ah

nything else. The idea of talking over a wire and, at the same time, havi

ughed at Bell, when he said he could send a human voice over a copper spring; but Bell

he human voice--or any other sound--and fix it on a wax cylinder or a hard-rubber plate--but he did it, and we have the phonograph. And folks laughed at Santos Dumont, at the

ingly impossible schemes, but they made good. And you've made good lots of times where I thought you wouldn't. But just stop to consider for a mom

about the room so rapidly that Eradicate, the old colored servant,

must be pow'fully pre

ws when I planned my electric rifle," went on Tom. "But I made it, an

g light waves--one of the most delicate forms of motion

alt in front of his parent. "What is light, an

Tom, I sup

. Now, then, we have sound waves, or vibrations, traveling at the rate of a mile in a little less than five seconds; that is, with the air at a temperatur

econd of time. So we have sound, one kind of wave motion, or energy; we have light, a higher degree of vibration or wave motio

y nearly as fast as light--if not faster. So I believe that electric

to prove it," went on Tom, earnestly--"why can't I send

nt for a moment. T

e. Maybe there's something in your photo telephone afte

r of him in argument, that Mr. Swift held to his own views; but he wanted to bri

recent hydroplane tests at Monte Carlo, photographs taken of some of the events in the morning, and afternoon, were developed in the evening,

t right

ook a photograph, and made a copper plate of it, as they would for a half-tone illustration. This gave them a picture with ridges and depressions in copper, little hills and valleys,

got a varying degree of electrical current. Where the needle touched a high place in the copper plate the contact was good, and there was a strong cu

needle, moving across the copper plate, made electrical contacts of different degrees of strength, it worked a delicate galvanometer on the receiving end. The galvanometer caused a beam of light to vary--t

e was printed it would come out black, because more light comes through the light places on a photograph negative than through the dark places. And so, with the galvanome

telephone

y want to send photographs by wire. What I'm aiming at is to make an apparatus so that when you go into a telephone booth to

im as in a look

glass. It will be just as if you were talking over a telephone in an

you going t

sensitive to light, and which makes a good or a poor electrical conductor according as more or less li

good arguments," said Mr. Swift. "But then, it all comes down to this: What g

t you are talking to the party you think you are. As it is now, unless you know the person's voice, you can't

s that could be made over the telephone if the two parties could not only hear but see each other. It would be a dead sure thing then. And Mr. Brown wouldn't have to take Mr.

say no more against your plans. I wish you al

feel that way when you un

he heads of father and son sounded a rattling, crashing noise, and the w

yeah! Dere's a man on de roof an' he am all tangled up suthin' scandalous