Reis imagined that electricity could be propagated through space, as light can, without the aid of a material conductor, and he made some experiments on the subject. The results were described in a paper 'On the Radiation of Electricity,' which, in 1859, he posted to Professor Poggendorff; for insertion in the well-known periodical, the ANNALEN DER PHYSIK. The memoir was declined, to the great disappointment of the sensitive young teacher.

Reis had studied the organs of hearing, and the idea of an apparatus for transmitting sound by means of electricity had been floating in his mind for years. Incited by his lessons on physics, in the year 1860 he attacked the problem, and was rewarded with success. In 1862 he again tried Poggendorff, with an account of his 'Telephon,' as he called it;[The word 'telephone' occurs in Timbs' REPOSITORY OF SCIENCE AND ART for 1845, in connection With a signal trumpet operated by compressed air.] but his second offering was rejected like the first. The learned professor, it seems, regarded the transmission of speech by electricity as a chimera; but Reis, in the bitterness of wounded feeling, attributed the failure to his being 'only a poor schoolmaster.'