Deafening: Noise and the engineering of communication in the telephone system

Scientific men ... have elaborated theories of optics-and look at the result Wonderful mechanical adaptations of optical principles, before undreamt of, and which, otherwise, would never have been discovered. Might not an analogous result attend the philosophical investigation of the faculty of speech; and acoustic and articulative principles be developed, which would lead to mechanical inventions no less wonderful and useful than those in optics? A subject so little explored, and so open to operations, is, at least, full of promise to science.