The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1889-09-06
WONDERFUL EDISON.
He Tells of Yet More Wonderful Things
That He Is to Bring Forth.

He Tells of Yet More Wonderful Things
That He Is to Bring Forth.
The reporter asked Mr.. Edison If it
was true that he had invented machine
by the aid of which man in New York
would be able TO see everything that his
wife was doing In Paris.
II don't know" said Mr.. Edison, laugh
ing, THAT that would be real benefit to
humanity. The women certainly would
protest. But, speaking seriously, am
at work ON an invention which will al
low a man in Wall street not only to
telephone to a friend in the Central park,
but TO see that friend while he is chat
ting telephonically with him. This in
vention would be useful and practical,
and l see no reason why it should not
soon become a reality, and one of the
first things that l shall do when / get
back to America will be to set up this
contrivance between my laboratory and
my telephone workshops. Moreover, |
have already obtained satisfactory re-
suits in reproducing images at that dis
tance, which is only about 1 900 feet 1t
would be ridiculous to dream of seeing
any one between New York and Paris.
The round form of the earth, if there
were no other difficulty in the way, would
make the thing impossible"
Speaking of the phonograph, the re-
porter asked if 1t had reached its highest
degree of perfection.
"Almost, think" said Mr. Edison.
Sin the last Instruments turned out of
my workshops. You must know that
the ordinary phonograph employed in
commerce does not begin to compare
with the latest machines that use in my
private experiments. With the latter l
can obtain sound powerful enough to
reproduce phrases of speech that can
be heard perfectly by large audience.
Ny last ameliorations were with the as
pirate sounds, which are the weak point
of the graphophone. tor seven months
worked from eighteen to twenty hours
day upon the single sound 'specia'
would say to the instrument 'specia,'
and it would always say 'pecia, and /
couldn't make it say anything else. 1t
was enough to make me crazy. But /
stuck to it until l succeeded, and now
you can read q thousand words of IA
newspaper at the rate Of 150 words a
minute, and the instrument will repeat
them to you without an omission. You
can imagine the difficulty of the task
that | accomplished when tell you that
the impressions made upon the cylinder
are not more than one millionth part of
an inch in depth, and are completely in
visible even with the aid of a micro
scope"
Reporter-And what new discoveries
will be made in electricity?
Mr.. Edison-Ah, that would be diff
cult to say. We may some day come
upon one of the great secrets of nature.
! am always ON the look out for some
thing which will help me to solve the
problem of navigating the air. have
worked hard upon this subject, but I am
very much discouraged. We may find
something new before that comes, but
that will come.
Mr.. Edison further said that the great
development of electricity will come
when we find more economical method
of producing it. During his trip across
the ocean he remained for hours on deck
looking at the waves, and he says that it
made him wild when he saw so much
force going to waste. but one of these
days." he continued, 1--WE will chain all
that-the falls of Niagara as well as the
Withstand that will be the millennium
of electricity. y."-Courrier des Etats- Unis.