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