A Tinkerer

Bell attempted to simulate the hearing process by tinkering with an invention called the phonoautograph. As he was working on the phonoautograph the idea for the telephone suddenly occurred to him.

Later, Bell and his brothers made a model skull and fitted it with a reproduction of human vocal apparatus that was worked with a bellows. They were able to make their model wail "Ma-ma" in such a life-like imitation of a baby that the neighbors turned out to search for the child in distress.

At about this time, Graham trained his Skye terrier to growl steadily while he manipulated the dog's mouth and vocal cords, trying to shape the growls into words.

At the peak of the terrier's career, it was able (with its master's help) to say "Ow ah oo, ga-ma-ma," meaning, "How are you grandmother?"

An Inventor

While Bell was Busy squeezing his dog's head, would he have guessed that he was to invent the most significant tool in communications history?