Morning journal and courier., 1880-03-23
Improvement on Congressmen.
Faber'S TaIkfDg-Ma chine Completed and successfully Tested.
 TFrom tha London Times

Faber'A TaIkfDg-Mach chine Completed
 and successfully Tested.
 From ths London Times.1
 A machine with which a remarkable close imitation of human speech can be produced has been brought to this counlry by the in yeEtor, Herr Fabsr, and exhibited to the Phy- sical society and privately, for closer examin- ation of it's mechanism, to several well-known scientific men. It opens up an entirely differ ent set of questions from those suggested by the performances of the photograph, which merely produces sounds uttered by the human voice. This talking machine will give intelli- g1ble utterances more or less distinct acco rd- ing to the words, to the ideas of the operator The machine is the product of the continuous labor and study of two members of the same family. It was begun in 1915 by one Joseph Faber, and so far elaborated in 1841 that 1t was exhibited in that year to the King of Ba- varia The originator, dying, bequeathed the machine to his nephew, the present owner also named Joseph Fabor, who had been as socated with him in its construction, and since 1t became his property Herr Faber has almost doubled it's powers of articulation. The chief points of interest the machine has for the physicist, the physiologist and it may be added for the philologist. lie in the results obtained from the ingenious contrivanoes by which the functions of the flexible and mobile organs of voice are performed. The princi- pal features of the machine are, to begin WlLu3 bu0 DSAlOWS. 1rOm WHICH the R1f Is 0r1V- en with considerable but varying force, by means of pedal lever. The air passes in a horizontal stream through small chamber, which represents the human larynx, and in the same right line out through the mouth. The lips and tongue are of india-rubber, and the lower jaw is movable. Below the laryn- zeal apparatus, and opening from the chamber in which it is contained, is another smaller chamber about the sizs and shape of lemon, from which pipe curved upwards allows the air when driven through to escape. This supplies the place of the nose to the instru- ment, and when Q valve is opened enables the sound of the letter m and n to be produc cd by the striking of the same keys with which the sounds of b or are obtained. The larynx is, of course, the most complex part of the machine, and to Herr Faber is due the elaboration of this portion of the mechanism. Within small oblopg box, narrow and ex- ceediDgly thin strip of hippopotamus bone, strengthened by india-rubber on one side, produces by it's vibrations the speaking tone, which may be called the fundamental sound to be subsequently, modified. At the will of the operator the pitch can be raised or low cred, but not during the utterancs Of a word or sentence, so that in saying Mariana" or Comment vous portez Vous P (the machine talks French, German, Italian or EnRIish) the keynote remains unaltered to the end In front of the vocal chord and within the laryp- zeal chamber are stops or diaphragms, placed vertically, and rising and falling like the wards of Chubb's lock, but different in thai each stop is a complex machine in itself, hay ing within, moved by spring, another stoI by means of which orifice at the base + enlarged or diminished. Herr Faber hal taken another liberty with nature, for besidel placing the nose below the mouth, for th' sake of convenience, he has placed the teetf in the larynx, or, more strictly speaking, witi