The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1878-06-21
Sunset Cox On the Phonograph.

The idea of talking into machine--an
iron thing-seems absurd. But l have
talked with people not half SO interesting
[laughterl and whose tympanum was not
nearly so refined and sensitive as this me-
tallic 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 on the original. If may be
excused for personal allusion my first in
crest in this phase of poetic science was
awakeIad by the account given in the New
York Tribune "0f the first words spoken
into the instrument il, the Centennial
building by Sir William Thompson. He
picked up a chance paper; it gava an ac-
count of the st. Louis Convention. He read:
sssS. S. Cox has arrived" Laughter.
Owing to the sibilants in the name, the
articulation was imperfect. But that is cor
rected now. Edison. in late number of
1pplet0a's Science Monthly, accounts for il,
by the fact that to make such sounds you
want to talk into smaller hole with sharp
edges. Then, the consonants which hiss
the ss-es SO sharply are sounded with the
serene sweetness of summer sunset.
daughter There is no doubt that the
plate of the phonograph may be made du-
rable. It is separable from the cylinder.
Letters, instead of being mailed, may be
sent by telephone, and they will talk out
loud when they get them. One may have
pigeon-hole full of love letters from diff
ferent persons on TIN foil and all the inter-
jections and sighs and protestations repro
dueable 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
squan on entering life. daughter How
pleasant the first lisp for milk or ma, mush
or pa. daughter. Another use would be
not less marvellous. There would be no
dead languages. Dialect, brogue and pro-
nunciation would be restored by turn Of
the cylinder. All the sounds of nature from
the enlivening chlrrup Of the Nebraska
grasshopper to the hoarse thunder of Nj
agara; all the music of the world from the
thrilling trills of Patti to the turbulent d.
apason of Congressional chorus.
Laughter. IF one may hear out of "ear
shot" if one may hear a sound shot under
the ocean from one hemisphere to an
other, if soon ones words may be made into
lightning and then transformed back into
audible words, why may not the dead speak
to The living The phonograph completes
the circle by covering the tenth muse with
something more than the fading wreaths
of poetry. Why may we not soon learn to
bear one another think ? Or, perhaps,
transfuse one mind with another Marvel.
GUS muse Of Mechanism What Wagner
shall sing thy music of the future
This invention would rise to its highest do
mestic interest, / think, at d party of an
cient maidens. What record of gossip
might be made il one of these Instruments
were wound UP and set agoing under the
tea-table And yet these phenomena are
not SO wonderful as the spectroscope, which
tells the very elements of'the farthest fixed
star by little bars. The one is at home and
in our midst, doing familiar service the
other ranges through the. faTthest stellar
spaces, aud By recording it's observation,
makes the nebula no longer Hypothetical,
but gives intelligent and staunch unity to
the Universe of God.