The Wonder Book Of Knowledge Part 25

What Family has Over 9,000,000 Members?

Each female cod has more than 9,000,000 eggs, but the numbers are kept down by a host of enemies.

The most interesting species is the "Common" or "Bank Cod." Though they are found plentifully on the coasts of other northern regions, such as Britain, Scandinavia and Iceland, a stretch of sea near the coast of Newfoundland is the favorite annual resort of countless mult.i.tudes of cod, which visit the "Grand Banks" to feed upon the molluscous animals abundant there, and thus attract fleets of fishermen.

The sp.a.w.ning season on the banks of Newfoundland begins about the month of March and terminates in June; but the regular period of fis.h.i.+ng does not commence before April, on account of the storms, ice and fogs. The season lasts till the end of June, when the cod commence their migrations.

The average length of the common cod is about two and one-half or three feet, and the weight between thirty and fifty pounds, though sometimes cod are caught weighing three times as much. The color is a yellowish gray on the back, spotted with yellow and brown; the belly white or red, with golden spots in young specimens.

Few members of the animal creation are more universally serviceable to man than the codfish. Both in its fresh state and when salted and dried, it is a substantial and wholesome article of food. The tongue is considered a delicacy. The swimming-bladders or "sounds," besides being highly nutritious, supply, if rightly prepared, isingla.s.s equal to the best of that which is brought from Russia. The oil, which is extracted from the liver, is of great medicinal value, and contributes considerably to the high economic value of the cod.

The finest and palest oil is made from fresh and carefully cleaned liver, the oil being extracted either in the cold or by a gentle heat.

Only the pale oils are used in medicine; the dark oils are too rank and acrid, and they are only used in dressing leather.

The Story in the Telephone[14]

On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, standing in a little attic at No. 5 Exeter Place, Boston, sent through his crude telephone the first spoken words ever carried over a wire, and the words were heard and understood by his a.s.sociate, Thomas A. Watson, who was at the receiver in an adjacent room. On that day the telephone was born, and the first message went over the only telephone line in the world--a line less than a hundred feet long. On January 25, 1915, less than forty years later, this same Alexander Graham Bell, in New York, talked to this same Thomas A. Watson, in San Francisco, over a wire stretching 3,400 miles across the continent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DR. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL AT THE OPENING OF THE TRANSCONTINENTAL LINE

In front of Dr. Bell is the replica of his original telephone, and to his left is the gla.s.s case containing a piece of the wire over which Dr.

Bell and Mr. Watson carried on the first telephone conversation in the world.]

In that memorable year of 1876, Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, while visiting the Philadelphia Centennial, was attracted to Bell's modest telephone exhibit, picked up the receiver, listened as Professor Bell talked at the other end of the room, and, amazed at the wonder of the thing, cried out, "My G.o.d--it speaks!" From that time, the first telephone exhibit became the center of attraction at the exposition. Had Dom Pedro lived to see the Panama-Pacific Exposition he might have listened to Professor Bell talking not merely from the other end of a room, but from the other side of a continent.

Some idea of the rapid growth of the telephone business in the United States may be gathered from the statistician's figures, which show that in 1880 there were less than 100,000 telephones in use in this country, and in 1915 there were more than 9,000,000 telephones in the Bell System alone. Of the 14,000,000 telephones in the world, 10,000,000 are in this country. Sixty-five per cent of all the telephones in the world are in this country, although it has only five and five-tenths per cent of the world's population. The Bell System alone reaches 70,000 places, 5,000 more than the number of post-offices and 10,000 more than the number of railroad stations.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CENTRAL TELEPHONE EXCHANGE, NEW YORK CITY, 1880]

The telephone wire mileage in the United States is over 22,000,000 miles. In the Bell System there are over 18,000,000 miles of wire which carry over 26,000,000 telephone talks daily--or nearly 9,000,000,000 per year.

Essential Factor in American Life.

Such broad use is made of the telephone service of America that the progress in telephony is an essential factor in all American progress.

A visiting Englishman envying the light, airy accommodations in the tall office buildings in American cities, has sagely said that the skysc.r.a.per would be impossible without the adequate telephone service which is here provided.

In the housing of the people the telephone is a pioneering agent for better conditions. In the cities telephone service is indispensable in apartment houses and hotels which raise people above the noise and dust of the street. In the suburbs the telephone and the trolley make the waste places desirable homes, and although a man may walk some distance to reach some transportation line, the telephone must enter his own dwelling place before he is content to live there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TYPICAL OPERATING ROOM IN AN AMERICAN CITY, WITH THE MOST MODERN BELL SWITCHBOARD]

This desirable decentralization of the population in which the telephone has been so important a factor extends beyond the suburbs to the rural districts, and the American farmer with his wife and family is blessed by facilities for communication unknown in any other part of the world.

The fact that the farms and ranches in this country, and especially in the west, have been of comparatively large area, has had a tendency to make American farm life particularly lonely. It is safe to say that nothing has done more to relieve this loneliness and prevent the drift from the farms to the cities, than the widespread establishment of rural telephone service.

The telephone development of the United States is not confined to the large centers of population, but is well distributed, the large number of farm telephones in this country being in strong contrast to the small number of farm telephones in European countries.

It is obvious that the ordinary methods of commerce and manufacture would have to be radically made over if the telephone service should lose any of its present efficiency or if it should fail to advance so as to meet the constantly increasing demands made upon it. With the first day of telephone congestion ordinary business would come to a standstill, and when an adjustment was made, everybody would find himself slowed down, doing less work in longer hours and at greater expense, and being unable to take advantage of opportunities for advancement which he had come to consider an inalienable right.

Not only would methods be changed, but the physical structure of business, especially in cities, would be completely metamorphosed. The top floors of office buildings and hotels would be immediately less desirable. In tall buildings the mult.i.tude of messengers and the frequent pa.s.sing in and out would demand the increase in elevator facilities and even the enlargement of halls and doorways. Many of the narrower streets would be impa.s.sable. Factories and warehouses now located in the open country where land is cheap and the natural conditions of working and living are most favorable, would be relocated in cities as close as possible to their administrative and merchandising headquarters.

It would be hard to find a line of business where progress would not be seriously r.e.t.a.r.ded by an impairment of the present telephone efficiency.

America Leads in Telephone Growth.

It is a far cry from Bell's first telephone to Universal Service.

Bell's invention had demonstrated the practicability of speech transmission, but there were many obstacles to overcome and many problems to be solved before the telephone could be of commercial value and take its place among the great public utilities.

Professor Bell had demonstrated that two people could talk to each other from connected telephones for a considerable distance. In order to be of commercial value, it was necessary to establish an intercommunicating system in which each telephone could be connected with every other telephone in the system. This has been accomplished through the invention of the multiple switchboard and a great number of inventions and improvements in all the apparatus used in the transmission of speech.

But it was an unexplored field into which the telephone pioneers so courageously plunged. There were no beaten paths, and the way was beset with unknown perils; there was no experience to guide. A vast amount of educational work had to be done before a skeptical public would accept the telephone at its true value, yet courage and persistency triumphed.

Discoveries and inventions followed scarcely less important than Professor Bell's original discovery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TYPICAL AMERICAN CENTRAL OFFICE BUILDING, SHOWING THE EFFICIENT ARRANGEMENT OF THE VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS]

That the United States has from the beginning far outstripped the rest of the civilized world in the growth of the telephone is shown by comparison.

In all Great Britain there are but 700,000 telephones as against 10,000,000 in the United States. France has slightly more than half as many as Greater New York. In Germany the telephone development is only one-fifth of that of the United States. Italy has not as many telephones as San Francisco, and all Russia, fewer than Chicago. Sweden, Norway and Denmark show a higher telephone development than the other European countries, but even in Denmark, where the telephone development is highest, we find but 3.9 telephones per hundred population--less than half the development in the United States.

The total number of telephones in all other European countries is considerably less than may be found in two American cities, Chicago and Philadelphia; all of South America has less than Boston, and the remainder of the world, including Asia, Africa and Oceanica, has less than the City of New York.

[Ill.u.s.tration: POLE LINE RUNNING THROUGH PRINc.i.p.aL STREET IN AN ITALIAN TOWN]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TYPICAL EXAMPLE OF AMERICAN POLE LINE CONSTRUCTION]

American Telephone Practice Superior.

The superior telephone development in America is largely due to the efficiency of American telephone equipment and practice. The mechanical development has not only kept pace with public needs, but has antic.i.p.ated them.

It is the practice of the Bell System, for example, to make what are called "fundamental development plans," in which a forecast is made of the telephone requirements of each American city twenty years ahead. The construction in each city is begun with these ultimate requirements in view. Underground conduits are built, central offices located and cables provided with an eye to the future, and if these plans are carried out important economies are obtained. If the plans are abandoned, the loss may be very great. Furthermore, there are sure to be times when the service will be interrupted and seriously impaired if such plans for the future are not made and consistently carried out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AMERICAN METHOD OF RAISING POLES BY DERRICK WITH POWER FURNISHED BY MOTOR-TRUCK.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ONE OF THE VARIED TYPES OF DESK TELEPHONES USED IN FRANCE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STANDARD AMERICAN DESK TELEPHONE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TILE CONDUITS USED IN AMERICAN UNDERGROUND CONSTRUCTION]

It is characteristic of the best telephone management that while it cannot always perfectly forecast the direction of immediate growth, it should be built far enough ahead of present requirements to have a pair of wires ready for each new customer. The fact that New York and other large American cities have a considerable investment in telephone plant constructed to meet a prospective demand, is the price which must be paid by any telephone management which really supplies the wants of the American people. Every additional subscriber that is connected with the system, requires sooner or later an outlay of new capital for his proportionate share of the whole plant, including equipment, wires, poles, cables, switchboards and real estate. In America the new subscriber finds his need antic.i.p.ated and the facilities provided.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THIS PRIVATE SWITCHBOARD, IN ONE AMERICAN HOTEL, IS LARGER THAN MANY A SWITCHBOARD ABROAD, WHICH SERVES A WHOLE CITY]