These instruments were constructed in 1849 in Havana, where Meucci was mechanical director of a theater.  In May, 1851, he came to this country, and settled in Staten Island, where he has lived ever since.  It was not until a year later that he again took up his telephonic studies, and then he tried an arrangement somewhat different from the first.  He used a tin tube, Figs. 3 and 4, and covered it with wire, the ends of which were soldered to the tongue of copper.  With this instrument, he states, he frequently conversed with his wife from the basement of his house to the third floor, where she was confined as an invalid.

[Illustration:  FIGS. 3 AND 4.—­1852.]

Continuing his experiments, he conceived the idea of using a bobbin of wire with a metallic core, and the first instrument he constructed on this idea is shown in Fig. 5.  It consisted of a wooden tube and pasteboard mouth piece, and supported within the tube was a bundle of steel wires, surrounded at their upper end by a bobbin of insulated wire.  The diaphragm in this instrument, was an animal membrane, and it was slit in a semicircle so as to make a flap or valve which responded to the air vibrations.  This was the first instrument in which he used a bobbin, but the articulation naturally left much to be desired, on account of the use of the animal membrane.  Meucci fixes the dates from the fact that Garibaldi lived with him during the years 1851-54, and he remembers explaining the principles of his invention to the Italian patriot.

After constructing the instrument just described, Meucci devised another during 1853-54.  This consisted of a wooden block with a hole in the center which was filled with magnetic iron ore, and through the center of which a steel wire passed.  The magnetic iron ore was surrounded by a coil of insulated copper wire.  But an important improvement was introduced here in the shape of an iron diaphragm.  With this apparatus greatly improved effects were obtained.

[Illustration:  FIG. 5.—­1853.]

In 1856 Meucci first tried, he says, a horseshoe magnet, as shown in Fig. 6, but he went a step backward in using an animal membrane.  He states that this form did not talk so well as some which he had made before, as might be expected.

During the years 1858-60 Meucci constructed the instrument shown in Fig. 7.  He here employed a core of tempered steel magnetized, and surrounded it with a large coil.  He used an iron diaphragm, and obtained such good results that he determined to bring his invention before the public.  His national pride prompted him to have the invention first brought out in Italy, and he intrusted the matter to a Mr. Bendalari, an Italian merchant, who was about to start for that country.  Bendalari, however, neglected the matter, and nothing was heard of it from that quarter.  At the same time Meucci described his invention in L’Eco d’Italia, an Italian paper published in this city, and awaited the return of Bendalari.