The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-05-14
WILL KEEP MUSIC ON TAP.
PERFECTED PHONC
GRAPH.
EDISON'S
The Inventor Going to Lay Hold of
Sounds Whose Pitch is Too High for
the Human Ear-You Can Box Up
Conversation.
Erom the Mem York Sun.


A. Edison, but he was up to his neck in
work, as usual His portly form was clad
in light gray suit, and black Derby of
several seasons ago was set well back en- his
head, revealing the seat Of his inventive
faculties. He escorted a party into the
large library, where liveried waiter served
a lunch, which the guests washed down
with an insidious electrical punch, minor,
but very notable invention of Mr. Edison.
About three months ago he moved into his
new laboratory, which is a brick building,
200 by Is feet, and is three stories high. 1t
is finished in hard wood On the first floor
is the library, 60x60 feet. 1t contains 16,
600 scientific books, Including some
very rare ones. In the center are
tropical and native plants. On
the second floor are various rooms
and machine shops for experimental work.
No manufacturing is done in the building,
but about 100 employees daily assist Mr.
| Edison there i'll his researches. On the top
| floor Is the lecture room, in which weekly
| lectures are delivered to the employees by
Mr. Arthur Kennedy, ON subjects relating
to their work. Here also Mr.. Edison tests
what ne considers his greatest and most
| practical invention, the monograph or
talking machine. 1t was to see the work
ings of this machine that Mr.. Ellison opened
his building to visitors yesterday. Screwed
to tables in different parts of the room
| we're three of the perfected monographs
which are the same in principle as the old
machine which Mr.. Edison invented about
| ten years ago. The mechanism, however
| is different. The following is Secretary A
| o. Tate's description:
| 1t consists of a box II inches SQUARE. which
contains the motor. The armature is simply a
| rim nf fol
| pieces or bars around the rim. The box also
contains the eccentric governor, The shaft on
which the hollow receiving cylinder is placed is
| four inches long, and has 300 threads to the
inch. The shaft feeds the spectacle containing
| in one ring the transmiiter and receiver The
recorder is a steel knife fastened in the dia-
phragm, and the receiver is delicate metal
needle. operating on what are called phono-
graph blanks, which are cylinders of wax or
composition metal These are what the inn
presSions are made on, and they taper inside so
as TO bind on the shaft.
A man in New York can talk a cylinder
full, mail it to Europe, and the person re-
ceiving it there can put it on his photograph
and grind out the message punctured upon
1t Ill this city. Each cylinder will hold
1000 words. After it has been used there
is a scraping attachment which scrapes Off
the used surface, and the cylinder can be
| used over twenty-one times. Thus each
blank will take down and repeat q 600
which engages a left-hand thread, and is
used when it is necessary to repeat any pass
| age. Mr.. Edison had brought from New
York ur@-smembers of FLANDERS or
chestra TO experiment on the power
of the instrument correctly to reproduce
musical sounds. One of his assistants
played airs from ''Evangelinen on the piano,
| and the instrument reproduced them. There
| is tube leading from the instrument.
which divides into two tubes, and on the
end of each is an attachment by which it
| can be fastened to the ear and only the per-
| on to whose ears the tubes are fastened
knows the secrets which the little wax cylin-
ders are unfolding The piano which Mr..
Edison uses in his experiments cost him
nearly $4,000. 1t was made for little Josef
| Hoffman, and Mr.. Edison says it has paid
for itself ten times over in the pleasure
which it has given HIM by filling his little
! machines with sweet sounds long tin
funnel, like an overgrOwn fish horn, was
attached to the instrument and Orlando
| Heerwagen played into its mouth Roff's
| "Cavatlna" on violin. Sweety and
distinctly the sounds came back
afterward when the tubes were attached
to the ears. Prof Hoffman played several
selections on the piano with equal success
| Herr Schliekaw, with his cornet, blew into
the funnel when Love is Young -
Another funnel was inserted, and the in
| strument reproduced the sound SO that it
| could be distinctly heard at a distance of
| seventy-tive feet. The airs were played
second time louder and when reproduced
could be heard in another room more than
| 100 feet away. AT another instrument,
meanwhile, some of the visitors were anus
ing themselves by gu ting Shakespeare at
the unoffendlng machine. One of them was
considerably surprised when ne talked a
| cylinder full of interesting information, and
at the end the tube yelled back at him,
You're bloody liar.n The machine hal
been doctored by some wag During all the
afternoon there was one experiment that
Mr. Edison refused to try, and that was the
| ability of the instrument to reproduce the
melody of an orchestra. He said:
Gentlemen, she WON'T do it. 1t is not
perfected enough yet, think"
Yielding at last, he allowed the musi-
| clans, with cornet, clarionet, piano and VIC
| lin, to play popular air into the funnel
His face expressed doubt all the while they
were playing. 1t was an extreme test for
his invention, and one that had never been
made. After they had finished the current
was turned on, and the inventor put the
tubes to his ears Instantly his face Lit IN.
by Jove, she works" he cried Sure
enough, the melody was perfect, and each
instrument could be distinguished from the
rest. The musicians could hardly believe
their senses when they heard their own
mu,ic coming out of the little brown box.
Increasing the speed of the motor gives a
higher tone to all sounds reproduced For
instance, when cornet IS played into the
funnel the highest note possible to a cornet
will be reproduced still higher by simply
increasing the number of revolutions This
fact Mr.. Edison intends shall be of practical
use to science. The ordinary humiu ear is
| capable Of recognizing sound, of between
sixteen and $1,000 vibrations per second.
There is a theory that certain small insects
produce sounds which exceed IS, 900 vbra-
tions, and to which, therefore, sthe
human ear is deaf. 1t is Mr. Edisons
plan to confne such insects in the
photograph and record on the wax by
means of the delicate diaphragm the sound
made by them. Then by reducing the
speed of the motor the sound will b. lowered
in pitch, and thus, perhaps, be audible. In
this way he is going to find out scientifically
whether Keats knew what he was talking
about when he said that heard melodi 5
were sweet but those unheard were sweetcr.
At any rate, he hopes thus to settle the
question as to whether these insects really
do produce sound, and also to enlarge the
science of acoustics by reproducing other
sounds higher and lower than we now recog-
nize.
Mr.. Edison remarked that he had bean
up all the night before working on an APP
phcstlon of the photograph which is in
tended to amuse children. He had been