Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1903-09-12
A Wonderful Machine

A Wonderful Machine
Drop a nickel in the slot and see the
play and hear the actors speak their
lines.
See Sir Henry Irving, stoop should
cred, stride forth from the field of bat
tie, the while you hear him cry '.My
kingdom for horse"
See champion Jeffries rush and lunge
and hear the mad crowd shout. even
as you see those at the ringside jump
to their feet and wave their arms.
All this and more is promised for the
elevated stations and OF her public plac-
es when a new invention is given to the
world.
While Berlin according to recent dis
patches, is celebrating the experiments
of Oscar Messter, who is perfecting an
apparatus combining the phonograph
and moving picture machine, a COM
pany in this city has been quietly man
ufacturing machines of the same prin-
ciple for the last six months. George
w. Peck, former governor of Wiscon-
sin, is director in the concern, and
he is in Chicago arranging for the in
PRODUCTION of the invention to the pub
lie.
The idea of coordinating the motion
pictures and the sounds which natural
y accompany such action has engaged
the thought. of inventors ever since
the phonograph and moving picture
mechanism were brought independent
y to their present degree of develop
ment. It has remained, however, for
an obscure inventor to complete the
first machine of the sort. He is L. F.
Solon, former member of the Wiscon-
sin legislature and recently
resident of Duluth. He is now in Chi
cago experimenting the manufacture
of his machines, which will be placed
on exhibition this week. Twenty ma
chimes have been completed at the fac
tory OF R. j. White at Chicago,
The company handling the machines
is capitalized at $3,OO0,O0O, and is
seeking patents covering every sort of
combination of the talking and moving
picture machines. The machine itself
resembles the moving picture cabinets
which crowd the downtown penny ar
cades. In the upper half of the case
is the motion picture mechanism. and
in the lower part the phonograph, SO
adjusted that every motion in the pic
ture corresponds to the speech, if any,
in the phonograph below.
A cylinder revolving at lightning
speed carries the roll of pictures, while
in the talking mechanism wax eylin-
ders are automatically switched off
and on as the scene in the llama
changes above.
The person who drops the nickel
places the tubes from the phonograph
to his ears and Immediately is inform.
ed that he should look through the
bulls eyes above and see the first scene
LOT Hamlet" At the word you see
the soldiers marching back and forth
and hear the cIank Of their arms. Then
they gesture and speak ominously of
apparition which has late appeared
Hamlet appears before your vision.
then the ghost and you hear it say:
II am thy fathers spirit, doomed for
a certain term to walk the night"
Or the picture cylinder may be re-
placed by another charged with stereop-
tican views, to be slowly revolved, and
while you gaze upon the scenes of pic
turesque Europe the voice in the pho
nograph will say:
Now. behold upon your right the far
famed Mont Blanc, capped with eter-
nal snow.
You ascend the mountain, hear the
crash of avalanches, peer into yawning
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