peaking telegraph (the telephone)" ("Alexander Graham Bell" 2003 1). His research into finding ways for the deaf to communicate his use of the human ear meant that "(he) attached bones, a tympanum, magnets and smoked glass. He conceived the theory of the telephone: an electric current and be made to change intensity precisely as air density varies during sound production" ("Alexander Graham Bell" 2003 1). But, unlike the telegraph which uses intermittent current, the telephone "requires continuous current with varying intensity" (2003 2).
Early in 1874, Bell met Thomas A. Watson, a young machinist and technician with expertise in electrical engineering. "Watson became Bell's indispensable assistance and the two spent endless hours together experimenting with transmitting sound" ("Alexander Graham Bell" 1999 2). It was Watson, of course, who heard the first words actually uttered over the telephone. When Bell spilled some acid on his hands, he yelled "Watson, come here. I need you." Watson heard those words on what would become the telephone. The actual event may not have been so melodramatic.
He was tuning the receiver reeds and his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, was plucking the transmitting reeds to give him the pitch over the wire. In one transmitter the contact point was screwed down to
...