Note 10 — ANNO DOMINI 2071.

I now remembered that a machine bearing that name, and answering that description, had been invented as far back as 1861 by a certain Reis; also that it was based upon the following law, as discovered and laid down by Page; namely, that when an electric current passes through a wire coiled round an iron bar, and the current is continually interrupted, there arises a sound or a tone, the height or depth of which is entirely dependent on the number of vibrations produced by the interruptions of the current, according to their succeeding each other with more or less velocity. This recurring to my mind, I now replied that the telephon was indeed not quite unfamiliar to me, in proof of which I went back to the history of its first invention; I also gave a description of Reis’ little instrument, by which the sound of the human voice could be transmitted through very great distances; and finally, I added my surmise or natural conviction that such an instrument must have been considerably improved upon in the course of more than two centuries.10 I was happy to notice the excellent impression visibly produced by my words; there now arose a tolerably general murmur of “whoever now would have taken the telephon to be so old an affair?” As for me, I was complimented on my antiquarian knowledge, and, thanks to the amiable disposition of the visitors towards me, I was not long in discovering what had been going on. That which every one now was so anxious to explain to me amounted, in a few words, to this. The North-American papers had of late been indulging in the most extravagant terms of praise with regard to a lady singer who, according to the Yankee critics, was possessed of a voice such as no mortal had ever yet heard of, surpassing in compass and quality everything that could be imagined; a talent whereby all the artists of former ages—if history could be relied on—ladies like Catalani, Malibran, Henriette Sonntag, Jenny Lind, or the Pattis, were really no more in comparison than a cricket to a nightingale.