Home › Contents › Edison's Phonograph

Edison's Phonograph

NE of the newest and registration on a sensitive surface of most important sound waves. Minute indentations are inventions in elec-cut around the wax surface of a cylinder tricity undoubted- in a spiral line as it revolves and is carly is Edison's Pho- ried forward by a screw. The delicate nograph. tracer is connected with a sensitive dia- It has been ex- phragm which is influenced by the sound hibited in nearly waves. When it is desired to reproduce all the large cities these sounds the cylinder is again set in and has proven a motion, and a corresponding tracer with revelation to those a blunt end, attached to a similar diawho would not be- phragm, follows the indentations and imlieve in the suc- pressions left by the cutting tracer, and cess of electrical invention. thus produces exactly similar sound The reader is probably aware that the waves as those which made the impresprinciple of the Phonograph is the mere sion. The hearing of the recorded sound a It is expected that is thus exactly the reverse process of two, three, etc. that which produced it. By means of a cylinders with messages recorded upon sort of funnel, the small end of which is them will be mailed in appropriate cases, placed toward the instrument, the sound as letters are now; the artificial and vibrations are thrown out into a hall hall tedious methods of writing may in time where an audience can hear, all at once. largely be superseded by the more rapid Edison confidently predicts that the in- and satisfactory and delightful method of strument will be brought to such perfec- speaking to a friend. Here is a mechanition that it will displace the stenographic cal and absolutely accurate stenographer , reporter, taking down a speech with per- a mechanical reporter, which will miss fect mechanical accuracy and repeating it nothing, not even a mistake, loses no for the compositor in the printing office. word, makes no blunders, has no trouble The instrument can be made to revolve to keep up with a speaker, is never deaf at any rate, slow or rapid, to accommo- nor dumb, nor ill nor tired, can do work date the party who wishes to take down by day or night, in darkness or light. Those to whom the slow process of manual its contents.

There are no possibilities of estimating transcription is a hindrance to the free the myriad uses to which it can be put. flow of thought itself, may here find an Already there are dolls that speak in a attentive auditor that can take down a human voice; we read of a clock that, at speech or any sort of communication as the hours, speaks distinctly and says one, fast as the tongue can talk. The Phonograph promises to become a from the wax cylinders on a permanent standard source of amusement and enter- surface not subject to injury, so that tainment. Automatic Phonographs, set copies may be indefinitely multiplied of in motion by the usual charm of a nickel any desired music or speech, and sold dropped in a slot, are ready to be set up like any other wares. in hotels, depots, steamboats or private A Phonograph at Westminster Abbey houses, wherever the throngs are found. recorded the whole proceedings at Stan- At Chicago, in a convention, the entire ley's wedding, even to the murmur of the proceedings were recorded on talking ma- crowd, and the great African explorer may chines and then carefully transcribed by at will reproduce the hour that gave him typewriter operators and sent in every his accomplished bride. direction. Songs of artists, speeches of There is one suggestion about the great orators, the whole proceedings of a Phonograph that is awe-inspiring. On a great public occasion may be thus in time delicate instrument even the peculiar put in safe storage for indefinite reproduc- soulful quality of voice for which there is tion. And we are informed that the next no word, is impressed and expressed, step will be to electrotype the impressions thus forming a record of the inner life.