The daily intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Territory [i.e. Wash.]) 1876-1881, 1878-06-22
Sunset Cox on the Phonograph

The idea of talking into a machine
AN iron thing--seems absurd. But
l have talked with people not half so
interesting laughter and whose tym-
panum was not nearly 90 refined and
sensitive as this metallic sheet. The
dead metal is sensitivs-more 80 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 II may be
excused for personal allusion. my drst
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 Centennial building by Sir
william Thompson. He picked up .
chance paper 1t gave an account of
the St. Louis Convention. He read !:
IS 5. Cox has arrived" Laughter. I
Owing to the sibilants in the name the
articulation was imperfect. but that 10
corrected now. Ellison, In q late
number of Applston's Science Monthly,
accounts for it by the fact that to make
such sounds you want to talk into a
small hole with sharp edges. Then
the consonsnts which hiss the ss-es so
sharply are sounded with the serene
sweetness of Summer sunset. Laugh
ter. There is no doubt that the plate
of the phonagraph may be made dur
able. 1t is separsble from the cylen-
der. Letters, instead of being mailed,
may be sent by telephone. and they
will talk out loud when they get them
One may have a pigeon hole full Of
love letters from different persons OH tin
foil, and all the interjections. and sighs
and protestatlons reproduceabld in
tones. This would be touching.
Laughter. Even the prattle of child.
hood or babyhood may be preserved.
Think Of it How pleasant to know
III after years what was the tone and
effect of your first squall Oh entering
life Laughter Another use would
not be marvellous. There would be no
dead languages. Dialect, brogue and
pronunciation would be restored by a
turn of the cylender. All the sounds
of nature from the ealivening chirrup
of the Nebraska grasshopper to- the
hoarse thunder of Niagra ali the
music of the wood. from the thrilling
trills OF Patti to the turbulent dia-
pason of congressional chorus.
Laughter Ii one may hear out of
ear shot," if one may hear a sound
shot under the ocean from one hemis-
phere to another, if soon ones words
may be turned into lightning and then
transformed back into audible words.
why may not the dead speak to the
living: The photograph completes
the circle by covering the tenth muse
with something more than the fading
wreaths of poetry. Why may we not
soon learn To hear one another think
Or. perhaps. transfuse one mind with
another ? Marvellous muse of mechan-
ism What Wagner shall sing the
music of the future ! This invention
would rise to its highest domestic in
terest. | think, at party of ancient
maiuens. What record of gossip
might be made if one of these instru-
mentS were wound up and set agoing
under the tca-table And yet these
phenomena are not SO wonderful as the
spectroscope. which tells the very ele-
ments Of the farthest fixed star by
little bars. The one is at home aud in
our midst. doing familiar service; the
other ranges through the fartherest
steller spaces and by recording its
obser walton, makes the nebulse on
longer hypothetical. but gives intel
ligent and stancE unity to the Universe
of God.