Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-04-08
EDISON.
More About the Wonderful Inrento. and
HIS Inrentions
New York Graphic

New York Graphic1
We went over to Menlo Park. N. s. two
of us, to see Edison and his wonderful in
ventions and make some discoveries and
sketches for the Graphic. Menlo Park is
not park. It is not city. It is not a
town. 1t is not in any way related to Nun
go Park. the great Scotch-African. Al
though it is on the Pennsylvania railroad
Gust beyond Railway, it is not even stop
ping place, except when the station-agent
flags the train to take on waiting passen-
gers. It is composed wholly Of Edison's
his employees live. It is. in short, Edisonia,
and nothing else.
Just north of the track is a long, plain,
white wooden building, full of windows and
two stories high; this is the laboratory of the
Jersey Columbus whose name has suddenly
become famous. Many telegraph wires
are Iestooned from it. The first
moor IS occupied by scribes and
pooRAeepers IN one end, and at the other
some ten or twelve skillful workers in iron.
VINO, at anvil and forge, lathe and drill. are
Mostly engaged IN making patterns and
models for the genius of the establishment.
His iron ideas, in tangled shapes, are scat
tered and piled everywhere; turning-lathes
are thickly set on the floor, and the room is
filled with the screech of the tortured metal.
Upstairs we cimb-to room the size of
the building, with twenty windows on sides
and ends. It is walled with shelves and bot
ties, like an apothecary sho, thousands of
bottles of all sizes aud colors. In the cor
ner is cabinet organ. On benches and
tables are batteries of all descriptions micro
scopes, magnifying glasses. crucibles, re-
torts, an ash-covered forge. and all the an
paratus of a chemist. At table sit two
earnest men each holding alternately to
mouth and ear the mouthpiece of a tele-
phone.
Swell, what are you up to to-day?'' asks
an acquaintance who has sauntered in.
''We have got the Chicago telephone re-
peater in the circuit at last, and we are now
talking through 800 miles of wire, via St.
Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville, Washington
and Philadelphia parabola of the West.
1t doesn't work well yet. This is the largest
circuit ever attempted, and it would not be
possible without Edison's repeating ma
chine''
In the middle of the room is man about
five feet ten inches high, with thin face,
high cheek bones, and long, lean neck
He would not be picked out in crowd as a
man of more than ordinary intelligence, and
he is the person whom bunco-steerer would
be likely to take into his confidence Time
he evidently considers too valuable to waste
on personal decoration, for his boots have
not been blackened this week, and, although
he is ostensibly whiskerless, his beard has
had about five days. growth. His
hair is of a chestnut brown, and
| judge he cuts it himself, for it
stands up in an anxious way all over his
head, with striking tendency forward, and
at the crown it stiffiy radiates like the thorny
top of pineapple. There is quid of to-
bacco in his cheek. His mouth is sensitive.
the blue veins show on his hands, and the
fingers tlutter as if each had an intelligent
purpose: but the only feature that would inn
mediately attract the attention of stranger
as worth a second look is his keen, deep.
eager gray eye, which reveals the intensity
of the man. This is Thomas Alva Edison.
/" You have turned out good many inven-
tions, Mr.. Edison?''
Yes, he answers with perceptible
Western twang in his speech, Give made
some machines; but this is my baby" pat
ting the speaking phonograph and taking a
chair before it, ''and expect it to grow up
to be big Teller and support me in my old
age.''
Edison showed US his dismantled aerophone.
"Some of it started for Europe last week. y
said he, 'and l can't show you how it sounds.
But here, you see, is the same tympanum
that we use in the telephone and monographs:
we speak against this, and its vibrations, in
stead of pricking sheet of tin-foil, opens
and closes valve in the steam-pipe. and
thus gives to the whistle the articulations of
the human voice. It is much simpler than
the monograph, and it's audible speech can
be heard four miles, or even more. I will
guarantee that it shall read the Declaration
OF independence SO that every word will be
distinctly heard by every citizen of Manhat-
tan Island. It will call out all the stations
on railroad, and the locomotive will 90
through the country talking whatever the
engineer thinks it necessary to say. Steam
ers can converse at sea. Lighthouses can
warn ships in a storm. Fire districts can be
shouted; also information whether a fire is
spreading or is being mastered
81 Will have on exhibition at Paris said
Edison, .'eight telephones, besides my phon-
ograph and aerophone''
''To what uses do you expect the phono-
graph will be puts he was asked. "Sever-
all he replied.
81. For debating it will take the place of
shorthand reporters, as thus: man who
has many letters to write will talk them to
the phonograph, and send the sheets direct
ly to his correspondents, who will lay them
on the phonograph and hear what they have
to say. Such letters as 60 to people who have
no monographs, will be copied from the
machine by the Office boy.
"2. For reading. A frst-class elocution-
ist will read one of Dickens novels into the
photograph. 1t can all be printed on sheet
ten inches square. and these can be multi
Piled by the million copies by cheap pro
cess of electrotyping. These sheets will be
sold for, say 25 cents. A man is tired, and
his wife's eyes are failing, and so they sit
around and hear the telephone read from
this sheet, the whole novel, with all the ex-
preston of frst-class reader. See? A
company for printing these is already or
ganized in New York.
s'3. It will sing in the very voice of Patti
and Kellogg, so that every family can have
an opera any evening.
"a. It may be used as musical cornpo-
ser. When singing some favorite airs back
ward it hits some lovely airs, and 1 believe
musician could get one popular melody
every day by experimenting in that way.
Io1 d.