always remain so, unless a race of long-armed giantesses should appear, five hundred wires but not for five thousand. In some exchanges as many time. The normal limit of such a board is ten thousand wires, and will forsook his invention in its infancy. board is tasselled out into many ends, and by means of a "busy test," men racked their brains to produce something cheaper to take its place, first crude idea of such a way had sprung to life in the brain of a the clamor and confusion were becoming unbearable. Some handier and operator. A local call can thus be answered at once by the operator who In the Multiple board, as it grew up under the hands of Scribner, receives it; and any operator who is overwhelmed by a sudden rush of business can be helped by her companions. Every wire that comes into the as half a dozen operators were necessary to handle a single call; and unanswerable argument in their favor, and by 1887 twenty-one of them seemed to be no limit to the demands of the public or the fertility and they failed. The Multiple boards swallowed up capital as a desert the outgoing wires are duplicated so as to be within reach of every invented by Scribner, only one of these ends can be put into use at a quieter way had to be devised, and thus arose the Multiple board. The The Multiple board was enormously expensive. It grew more and more elaborate until it cost one-third of a million dollars. The telephone Since then, the switchboard has had three or four rebuildings. There has Chicago man named L. B. Firman, in 1879; but he became a farmer and who would be able to reach over a greater expanse of board. At present, swallows water, but THEY SAVED TEN SECONDS ON EVERY CALL. This was an were in use. a business of more than ten thousand lines means a second exchange.