The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1878-05-17

"The idea of talking into a machine
an iron thing-seems absurd. But
have talked with people not half so in
teresting Ilaughter1 and whose tym-
panum was not nearly so refined and
sensitive as this metallic sheet. The
dead metal is sensitive-more so than
our nerve power, quicker than our
speech-faculty. Ear and tongue are
one, and each, in the telephone, an i'm
provement Of the original. If may be
excused for personal allusion my first
interest in this phase Of poetic science
was awakened by the account given in
the New York Tribune of the first words
spoken into the instrument in the Gen.
tennial building by Sir VIM. Thompson.
He picked up chance paper; it gave
an account of the ST. Louis Convention.
He read: IS. s. Cox has arrived
Laughter Owing to the sibilants in
the name, the articulation was imper-
feet, but that is corrected now. Edison,
in late number Of Applctoa's Science
Monthly, accounts for II by the fact that
10 make such sounds you want 10 talk
into a smaller hole with sharp edges.
Then, the consonants which hiss the
ss-es so sharply are sounded with the
serene sweetness Of summer sunset.
Laughter There is no doubt that the
plate Of the monograph may be made
durable. 1t Is separabe from the cylin-
der. Letters, instead Of being mailed,
may be sent by telephone, and they will
talk out loud when you get them. One
may have a pigeon-hole full Of love-let-
tiers from different persons on tin-foil,
and all the intersections and sighs and
professions reproducable in tones.
This would be touching Laughter
Even the prattle Of childhood
or babyhood may be preserved.
Think of it! How pleasant to
know in after years what was the
tenor and effect Of your first squat
on entering life. Laughter. How
pleasant the first lisp for milk or ma,
mush or pa. Laughter. Another
use would be not less marvellous. There
would no dead languages. Dialect,
brogue and pronunciation would be re-
stored by turn Of the cylinder. All the
sounds Of nature, from the enlivening
chirrup 81 the Nebraska grasshopper to
the h0arse thunder Of Niagara, all the
music OF the world, from the thrilling
trilIs Of Patti to the turbulent diapason OF
congressional chorus Laughter
Ii one may hear out Of "ear-shot," If
one may hear sound shot under the
ocean. from one hemisphere 70 another,
il soon ones words may be made into
lightning and then transformed back
into audlh words, why may not the
dead speak to the living? The phono-
graph completes the circle by covering
The tenth muse, with something more
than the fading wreaths Of poetry.
Why may we not soon learn 10 hear one
anothcrthink? Or, perhaps, transfuse
one mind with anotherP Marvellous
muse Of mechanism, What Wagner
shall sing thy music N, the future. This
invention would rise 10 It's highest do
nestle interest, | think, at party of
ancient maidens. What record Of
gossip might be made II one Of these
instruments were wound up and set
going under tho tea-tablep And yet
these phenomena are not 80 wonderful
as the spcctrnscope, which tells the very
elements 81 the iarthest fixed stars by
little bars. The one i AZ home and in
our midst, doing familiar service; the
other ranges through the fartherest
stellar spaces, and by recording ~ oh
servatiOn MAKES the nehulm no longer
hypothetical, but gives intelligent and
staunch unity 20 the universe "a tsOd.
--------~.- <--
An Irishman, who lived in an attic,
ha;nu aekpd what part az the house h0