The second was the historical fact that the most eminent electrical scientists of Europe and America had seen Bell's telephone at the Centennial and had declared it to be NEW--"not only new but marvellous," said Tyndall.

And the third was the very significant fact that no one challenged Bell's claim to be the original inventor of the telephone until his patent was seventeen months old.
The patent itself, too, was a remarkable document.

It was a Gibraltar of security to the Bell Company.

For eleven years it was attacked from all sides, and never dented.

It covered an entire art, yet it was sustained during its whole lifetime.