If one could transport himself back to this early period and undergo the torture of using this primitive telephone, he would appreciate somewhat the labor, the patience, the inventive skill, and the business organization that have produced the modern telephone.

In the first place you would have no separate transmitter and receiver.

You would talk into a funnel-shaped contrivance and then place it against your ear to get the returning message.

In order to make yourself heard, you would have to shout like a Gloucester sea captain at the height of a storm.

More than the speakers' voices would come over the wire.