Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1890-02-22
BEFORE EDISON'S TIME.
OLD STORIES AND FlcTIoNs ABOUT
THE PHoNocRAPH.

vention In 1850 A Story from the
Hfoon-In the Airy Realms Of Ancient
Fancy-Baron Munchausen and the Horn,
No invention, no discovery, has ever come
unheralded. The world wakes up some fine
morning and rubs Its startled eyes TO find that
America, the steam engine, the printing
press, have been added to Its possessions, and
forgets that it dreamed of these things over
night The new fact which civilized man
claims as a sign OF his Advancement was
happily imagined by some primeval savage.
America was discovered before Columbus;
the steam engine was anticipated by the pre-
Christian Heiro; the printing press was fore
Swallowed 1900 years ago by the brick stamps
Of the Egyptians,
THE PHoNoGRAPH BRFoRE InunoN.
But the monograph That, at least, is
new; nothing like 1t has ever been known 10
man-has ever been dreamed Of by man.
Wrong again. Something Just like It was
invented when Edison was barely out of his
cradle, and more or less dim premonitions of
the modern marvel haunted the brains of our
ancestors for centuries back. In the year
1850 the famous Able Migne read paper
before the British association describing an
instrument called the phonautograph, which
had been recently invented by a young
Frenchman, NJ E. L. Scott. "The phonauto-
graph consists Of a tube enlarged at one end
In the same manner as trumpet, in order TO
concentrate the sounds, wlech are conveyed
through 1t to thin membrane tightly
strained over the other end of the instrument
This membrane carries affixed to it an ex-
cessively light stylus or pencil, which is put
In motion by every vibration produced by
the action Of the air upon the membrane.
"Behind this stylus a band of paper, COW
cred with lampblack, is unrolled by clock
work, and as this band passes along the point
Of the stylus traces upon the lampblack all
the curvilinear and rectilinear movements
originating in the vibrations Of the mem
brane, and thus produces In its own peculiar
characters a faithful reproduction of the
sound.n The instrument was still in the
rough, however, and the able went on to ex-
plain that while 1t was fairly successful with
musical sounds the human voice presented
certain difficulties at present. Nevertheless,
he had little doubt that eventually the pho
nautograph would supersede stenography,
and would register for future generations
not only the words but the very tones of
famous actors and orators. But M. Scott
seems to have been unable to conquer the
difficulties lying in his path, and he and his
invention disappeared from view.
So much for ON actual anticipation of Edi-
sons idea. In the realm of imagination q
very curious forecast may be found In Cyreno
de Bergerac's "Voyage to the Moon,n the
book from which Swift did not disdain to
borrow ideas Cyreno's imaginary traveller
tells OF a wonderful book presented to him
by lunar inhabitant, a book with neither
leaves nor letters, a book made wholly for
the ears and not the eyes, $50 that when any
body has a mind to read 1t he winds up that
machine with great many little springs,
then he turns the hand to the chapter which
he desires, and straight as from the mouth Of
man, or a musical instrument, proceed all the
distinct and different sounds which all the
lunar grandees make use of for expressing
their thoughts instead Of language"
In No. 254 of The Tattler Sir Richard
Steele pretends to have come in possession of
an unpublished manuscript by Sir John Man
deville, which gives some account In his
usual veracious manner, ''of the freezing and
thawing Of several short speeches In Nova
Zembla." ~ need not inform my readers"
adds Sir Richard, that the author Of 'Hudi-
bras alludes to this strange quality In that
cold climate, when, speaking of abstracted
notions clothed In visible shape, he adds
that simile:
Like words CONCEALED In northern air.
THE CREW WAS REALLY AMAZED
Mandeville's pretended story tells how the
weather was 10 cold that he and his COM
panions ON shipboard found themselves de-
prived Of the benefit OF speech--their words
froze in the air before they could reach the
ears Of the person to whom they were spoken
This distressing state of affairs lasted for
three weeks. At length thaw set in "Our
cabin was Immediately filed with dry,
Gathering sound which afterward found to
be the cracking of consonants that broke
above our heads and were often mixed with
gentle Kissing, which Imputed to the letter
sthat comes so frequently in the English Ian
| guage.
II soon after felt a breeze of whispers rush
| ing by my ear, for those being of soft and
| gentle substance Immediately lquified in the
warm wind that blew across our cabin. These
were soon followed by syllables and short
words, and at length by entire sentences,
that melted sooner or later, as they were
more or less CONCEALED; so that we now heard
everything that had been spoken during the
whole three weeks that we had been silent
IL I may use that expression. My reader will
easily imagine how the whole crew was
amazed TO hear every man talking and see
no man opening his mouth"
A still mightier liar than even Steeles
Vaudeville, the famous Baron Munchausea,
had very similar tale to tell. He informs
Us that, travelling one severe winters day in
Russia. the position tried vainly to wind his
horn in the open air Later, when the com
pany were assembled around the kitchen fire
of hostelry, they heard q sudden tereng,
tereng, teng teng. I'VE looked around and
now found the reason why the position had
not been able TO sound his horn; his tunes
were frozen up in the horn aud now came
out by thawing, plain enough, and much to
the credit Of the driver, so that the honest
fellow entertained us for some time with
variety of tunes without putting his mouth
TO his horn"
Surely lfunchausen's horn Is no bad proto-
type of El,ison's phonograph- Chicago News.
prsuarinsx to Kick.