Many varieties of the Hughes microphone under different names are now employed as transmitters in connection with the Bell telephone.  Figure 58 represents a simple micro-telephone circuit, where M is the Hughes microphone transmitter, T the Bell telephone receiver, JB the battery, and E E the earth-plates; but sometimes a return wire is used in place of the “earth.”  The line wire is usually of copper and its alloys, which are more suitable than iron, especially for long distances.  Just as the signal currents in a submarine cable induce corresponding currents in the sea water which retard them, so the currents in a land wire induce corresponding currents in the earth, but in aerial lines the earth is generally so far away that the consequent retardation is negligible except in fast working on long lines.  The Bell telephone, however, is extremely sensitive, and this induction affects it so much that a conversation through one wire can be overheard on a neighbouring wire.  Moreover, there is such a thing as “self-induction” in a wire—­that is to say, a current in a wire tends to induce an opposite current in the same wire, which is practically equivalent to an increase of resistance in the wire.  It is particularly observed at the starting and stopping of a current, and gives rise to what is called the “extra-spark” seen in breaking the circuit of an induction coil.  It is also active in the vibratory currents of the telephone, and, like ordinary induction, tends to retard their passage.  Copper being less susceptible of self-induction than iron, is preferred for trunk lines.  The disturbing effect of ordinary induction is avoided by using a return wire or loop circuit, and crossing the going and coming wires so as to make them exchange places at intervals.  Moreover, it is found that an induction coil in the telephone circuit, like a condenser in the cable circuit, improves the working, and hence it is usual to join the battery and transmitter with the primary wire, and the secondary wire with the line and the receiver.

The longest telephone line as yet made is that from New York to Chicago, a distance of 950 miles.  It is made of thick copper wire, erected on cedar poles 35 feet above the ground.

Induction is so strong on submarine cables of 50 or 100 miles in length that the delicate waves of the telephone current are smoothed away, and the speech is either muffled or entirely stifled.  Nevertheless, a telephone cable 20 miles long was laid between Dover and Calais in 1891, and another between Stranraer and Donaghadee more recently, thus placing Great Britain on speaking terms with France and other parts of the Continent.

Figure 59 shows a form of telephone apparatus employed in the United Kingdom.  In it the transmitter and receiver, together with a call-bell, which are required at each end of the line, are neatly combined.  The transmitter is a Blake microphone, in which the loose joint is a contact of platinum on hard carbon.  It is fitted up inside the box, together with an induction coil, and M is the mouthpiece for speaking to it.  The receiver is a pair of Bell telephones T T, which are detached from their hooks and held to the ear.  A call-bell B serves to “ring up” the correspondent at the other end of the line.