Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1878-07-28
new FELEPHoNIC WONDERS.
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n Device which VIII Enable the
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(From the New York Tribune.l
We appear TO be only at the beginning Of
discoveries in the line Of the telephone and
the phonograph. An entirely new field of
science has been opened; the limits can
not even be guessed. An instrument has
been devised that bears relation to our
capacity for hearing, similar to that which
the telescope or the microscope does for
vision, The new device magnifies sound.
1t IL appropriately called the microphone.
BY its means sounds so faint that they
have never before been heard by human
ears, may be made Of any degree OF loud
ness. A feathers edge brushed over the
sounding-board Of this instrument has
bccn made to crash upon the ears OF the
listeners. The touch Of the tip Of camel's
hair brush was the occasion Of "a crack
ling noise, the intensity Of which was al
most painful to the ear" The faint
whisper Of the human voice can be repro
duced In the loudest tones. "The maid
ems sigh may roar like the cataract Of
Niagara"
Professor d. E. Hughes has given full
account u the microphone in the Royal
Society OF London. aud described the steps
by which he was led to the invention. He
is most widely known In England as the
inventor Of type printing telegraph in
strument. which is an accomplished elec-
trician, the apparatus which he has en-
ploycd for his new experiments is Of the
simplest character. and the most trifiing
cost. With il he has made the steps OF a
house fly distinctly audible and all these
sounds after being intensified are trans
mitted to any needful distance by the ordi-
nary telephone. At rect mt exhibition Of
these experiments TO a few scientific
friends in London. all the astonishing
effects that hare been referred to were
easily produced except the fly performance.
With great difficulty the philosophers
found fly in the house. Yet with greater
difficulty they caught the insect. But the
final trouble was insurmountable the cap
turcd fly would stay on the glass tumbler
that imprisoned him; nothing could in
dnce him to walk on the sounding-board
which the tumbler covered. But witness
70 the scene, describing II TO Nat,re, found
consolation in watching Professor Huxley
talking with great solcmnity to glass tube
two inches long. his grave tones being
loudly cnunciated 10 q listener with tele-
phone in distant apartment.
The philosophy Of the new invention is
more difficult 10 explain than tho tele-
phone itself. The discovery has been made
by Professor Hughes that the vibrations OF
sound are produced with the greatest deli
cacy and increased force, by certain mate
rials interposed in an electric circuit. The
reproduced sounds gain their increase Of
power, doubtless, at the expense Of the
current. After large number OF exper-
imcnts, he gives the preference to carbon
for this purpose; especially to pieces Of
charcoal that has been heated TO vhiteness
and then plunged into mercury. These
pieces. in one Of his experiments. he placed
In glass tube, and brought . pressure on
them that squeezed their ends together.
This apparatus was made part Of . closed
electric circuit of three small cups.
Boil telephone was then introduced into
tho circuit and the whole thing was COM
plete. All that was necessary to do was to
talk 10 the tube, even at respectable dis
tancc from it, and the telephone repeated
the sound at any distance yet tried, with a
loudness dependent only on the pressure in
the tube.
1his disposes at once Of the fear that the
telephone was nearing the end Of its use
fuiness o. an instrument for conveying
speech. 1t is only at the beginning. With
such means there will be no obstacle 10 re-
porting . public speaker or singer; no
dificulty in fact In hearing whispers inau-
dible 10 unassisted ears. All that has ever
been imagined as among the possibilities OF
the phonograph or the telephone seems
now TO be outdone. Since the falling OF Q
pin can now be heard at the distance OF 100
miles, little will be needed to realize
Hoods metaphor that Silence herself may
be making row.