The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1878-03-22
THAT TALKING MACHINE.

The Wonders OF Prof Edison's Latest Dis
covery-Bottling Up the Human Voice for
Future Use.
The telephone is in use all over the
country (says the Inter Ocean, and the
photograph may be looked upon as an
accomplished fact. BY the use OF the
telephone one man in Chicago is enabled
to hold conversation with another in
Milwaukee, and by the use of the phon-
ograph conversation of to-day may be
preserved or corked up and repeated or
reproduced by the instrument two
weeks, six months, or twenty years later.
When the announcement was made that
speech could be photographed, as it
were, and that what man said could be
sent down in his own tone, and with his
characteristic emphasis, to future ages,
just as his photograph is transmitted,
people looked upon the whole story as
huge joke.
The photograph has been so far per-
fected that public exhibitions of its
talkability" have been given in New
York, and the papers OF that city have
much to say in the way of description
and speculation. The photograph
proper is thin plate of metal set in
rubber mouth-piece. This is placed in
an arm which swings in front OF brass
cylinder turned by crank. A blunt
pointed steel needle touches the plate
with one extremity, and bears lightly on
the grooved csliuder with the other
The cylinder is covered with sheet of
tin foil. The operator, turning the
crank, puts his mouth to the rubber and
talks loudly and strongly. The needle
follows the vibrations, and, dancing up
and down. dots the tin-foil with delicate
points. Where the sound is strong the
mark is well defined, and the laws of
sound as to clearness are followed in the
record.
To reproduce the sound the needle is
removed, the cylinder is turned back to
the first points of the record, and a
common tin resounding tube is fastened
to the disk. The crank is turned, and
the contents of the foil sheet are talked
back by the photograph, with great care
as to infection and emphasis. From
this tin-foil plate matrix in sulphur
may be taken, from which plates can be
multiplied indefinitely and at any time
while the matrix is in existence. In
this way one speech talked into the
photograph may be reproduced cent
ury after the time it was spoken and in
many places.
The possibilities of such an invention
are so great as to exceed the bounds of
credibility. AS the art of photography,
calling in the aid of the stereoscope,
brings to our parlors views of statuary
and the finest landscapes, so may the
photograph bring to our parlors the
singing of the most famous prima dome
or the speaking of the most eloquent
orators. In the future roll Of operate
gems, as sung by the PATHS, Missions and
Kelloggs of the age, will be an indis-
pensable adjunct of luxurious parlors,
and q bundle of short orations by the
best speakers will be found in every re-
putable school-room. monographs will
be as common as pianos, and will not
cost half as much, and the family will
call out singer or speaker thousand
miles from them, or a hundred years
dead, at their own sweet will.
If the telephone keeps up with the
times it will be possible to use it in con-
nection with the phonograph in taking
speeches delivered at distance, and in
bottling them up for future use. The
Photographic principle will doubtless
be applied to many things in common
use. Clocks will call or sing the hour
instead of striking, self-rocking cradles
will be mounted with monographs war
ranted to sing the best nursery rhymes,
and tell stories without end. Locomo-
tive whistles will be supplanted by pho
nographs of tremendous power, ready
to thunder out orders suited to the occa-
sion. 1t looks very much as though
this generation had missed good deal
of the fun that is to come to the fellows
who come after us.