The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-11-22
The monograph.

American an instrument is described as
the invention of Mr.. Edison, Of New
JERSEY, by means of which the words
of man may be audibly reproduced at
will years after they have been uttered
As is the case in Mr.. Edison's speaking
telephone. the tones are propagafed
from vibrating metallic diaphragm,
but in the phonograph. as the new con-
triyance is called. the vibrations of the
plate are recorded by indentations in a
strip of paper which. by simple piece
OF mechanism, may afterward be made
to communicate the original vibrations
to another diaphragm, and thus bring
out the words as they were at first
heard If it shall ever be possible to
reproduce the quality of a voice, upon
which the recognition of speaker
largely depends, the photograph will
place it in our power to listen to the
voices of the dead long after the lips
which uttered them shall have crum-
bled into dust Even now mannerism
of speech, through which frieEds un-
mistakabIy recognize each other even
when the voice of the speaker is dis
guised, and which are therefore most
Intimately connected with personality.
can be re-echoed-at least in plausible
theory-by means of this instrument,
through which any man may, if he
choose, make for himself a Comtean
sort of Immortality. which at any mo-
ment may be quickened, at the pleasure
of his survivors. This, however, he
might do as effectually by simply COM
hitting his precepts to writing, chirog-
raphy being quite as characteristic as
peculiarities of diction. We imagine
that it will be long time before we
shall be able to preserve the voices of
our ancestors in our houses. as the Egyp-
tians kept the mummied bodies of
theirs; but the promise and potency II
the monograph point to day in which
unlocking of that vast library, the air,
OF which Charles Babbage said that it
contained, in indclible characters, all
that !" man has ever said or woman
whispered. People who wish to put
themselves on record will have only 10
breathe in the monograph, and then
when they are dead they may be made
TO speak as il they were actually in the
flesh, only that they must be content
with repeating all and originating moth
ing.
A further development in the repro
duction of men whose bodies and forces
have been dissipated in various forms
of energy and matter will be their pre-
sentation before our eyes as they looked
when living. Possibly this desirable
object might be accomplished by taking
a great number of life-size photographs
of the subject from different points of
view, coloring them properly and then
reproducing them by means of mirrors,
whereupen the man would appear to
us as he did in life; and since one set of
photographs might be rapidly or grad
ually changed for others, bodily move
ments might berepresented which would
be quite as natural as the tones of his
voice resounding through the phono-
graph in keeping with the movements
Of the phantasmagory. The produc-
ton of historical plays in which the
phantoms of the real actors in the
scenes depicted should walk the stage
and speak with the very echo of the
voices of the long-dead would be easily
possible, provided only that in life they
had suited the action to the word and
the word to the action in the presence
of skilled phonographists and artists of
the camera. Great men, unless also
they were very good men with heart
for the future entertainment and in
struction of the race, might refuse to
mouth their words before the phono-
graph, but when once one of them had
been induced to do SO all the rest
would follow, and the giants among us
would be reproduced for our children's
children unto many generations. There
seems to be nothing absolutely impos-
sible in this notion, but we can consci-
entiously say that we trust it will never
be made real.-N Y. World.