Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1889-09-12
EDISON'S WONDERS.
The Inventor Looks Forward to an
Electrical Millennium.
TCourier des Etats TInia- I


The reporter asked Mr.. Edison if it was
true that he had invented machine by
the aid of which a 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, "but that would be real benefit to
humanity. The women certainly would
protest But, speaking seriously l am at
work on an invention which will allow a
man in Wall street not only to telephone
to friend in Central Park, but to see that
friend while he is chatting telephonically
with him. This invention would be use
full and practical, and see no reason why
it should not soon become reality, and
one of the first things that 1 shall do when
/ get back to America will be to set up
this contrivauce between my laboratory
and my telephone work shops. Moreover,
| have already obtained satisfactory results
in reproducing images at that distance,
which is only about l 900 feet. 1t would
be ridiculous to dream ef 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 it had reached its highest
degree of perfection.
almost, l think" said Mr.. Edison, "in
the last instruments turned out OF my
workshops. You must know that the
ordinary phonOgraph employed in COM
merce does not begin to compare with the
latest machines that l use in my private
experiments. With the latter l can obtain
sound powerful enough to reproduce
phrases of a speech that can be heard per-
fectly by large audience. My last amel-
iorations were with the aspirate sounds,
which are the weak point of the graphic
phone For seven months l worked from
eighteen to twenty hours day upon the
single sound 'specis' l 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 thou
sand words of newspaper at the rate OF
hundred and fifty words minute, and the
instrument will repeat them to you with
out an omission. You can imagine the
difficulty of the task that l accomplished
when tell you that the impressions made
upon the cy Under are not more than one
millionth part of an inch in depth-and
are completely invisible even with the aid
of microscope"
Reporter-"And what new discoveries
will be made in electricity"
Mr.. Edison-"Ah, that would be difficult
to say. We may some day come upon one
of the great secrets of nature l am al
ways on the lookout for something that
will help me to solve the problem of navi-
eating the air. l have worked hard upon
this subject, but 1 am very much dis
couraged. 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 pro-
ducing it. During his trip across the
ocean he remained for hours on deck look
ing at the waves, and he said it made him
wild when he saw SO much force going to
waste. "But one of these days." he con-
tinued, "we will chain all that-the falls
of Niagara as well as the Withstand that
will be the millennium of electricity.