The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1889. THE PHONOGRAPH.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2303, 16 December 1889, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1889. THE PHONOGRAPH.

The world is waiting for the wonderful instruments simultaneously invented ' by Edison in America and by M. Oour tonne in France, which are to perform for light what has been performed for sound by the telephone, so that distance may no longer present an obstacle to vision any more than it now does to hearing. Meantime it is interesting to read of what is being accomplished by another wonderful instrument, for which also the world is indebted to the prolific brain of the great American electrician — the phonograph. This curious invention receives and reteords sounds, and reproduces them when required, with unfailing exactitude, and is now being utilised by actors and others to enable them to listen to the sound of their own voices as they fall upon the ears of others, and to learn to modulate and manage them to the best advantage. It is also capable of being utilised for bottling up as it were tbe music of the best vocalists and the speeches of the best orators of the day to be reproduced and listened to I when and where, and as often as desired, i Indeed, in the United States, a phonograph can now be hired by any person I just as a sewing-machine or a piano, or bought outright if preferred, and we I suppose (bat ere long we may expect [ these instruments to be so cheapened as i to become within tho reach of everyone. I A.B yet they are somewhat expensive I luxuries. Some idea of the capabilities of this wonderful apparatus may be gathered from an account given by the '.' London Daiiy Telegraph " of an exploitation of its powers in the presence of Prince Bismarck, at Friedrichsruhe, the other day. The Chancellor first heard issuing thereform, " the ' Badetzki March ' of the Ji'mperor Francis' Grenadiers played on the 14th September ; then the ' Emperor Alexander' march, played the other j day by the band of tho regiment. At Princess Bismarck's request, Mr Wangemann (Mr Edison's Berlin representative) showed the roll with the voices of the Emperor's little sons, which greatly delighted the Chancellor and the Princeßs. Then came the cylinder with the amusing ' Potpourri,' containing among others, the voices of Frau Teresina Uessner, and the actors Sommerstorf and Eeicher. Tho Chancellor asked for an explanation of the apparatus, and observed that 'the ex planation made it very easy for him to understand it.' Ho thoa heard the air from • Norma,' as sung by Frau Lilli Lehmann, an air from Gounod's 1 Margaret,' as sung by Fraulein Loisinger, and Massenet's ' Maria Magdalena,' as sung by Miss Silvania, of Philadelphia. Then followed a piece by Chopin, played on the piano by Eogers Miclo, and ' Le Tour do Valso,' sung by the Parisian singer Pauluß. The Chancellor, who expressed his astonishment at the fidelity with which the instrument reproduced the tones, yielded to his wife's persuasion, and spoke into it. First he declaimed the little Ameri can national song, { In Good Old Colony Times,' which he has learned from his old friend Motley at Gottingen. Then ho recited the beginning of Uhland's poem, 'Als Kaiser Rothbart;' next the first verse of 'Gaudemus Igitur;' and finally. ( Allons, onfants de la patrie.' Then followed some words to his son Count Herbert, who is to try whether he can recognise his father's voice from the instrument. The Princess, Privy Councillor von Brauwer, and the Chancellor's three grandsons, who were present, at once recognised the voice, which, of course, sounded strange to tho Prince I himself. Among other remarks, the I Chancellor said the apparatus seemed to him a realisation of the Munchhausen story, in which the sound froze in tho horn, and was afterwards heard as the instrument began to thaw j but this beat Munchhausen hollow, for one could hear the same ten thousand times. The phonograph performed again for an hour and a half in the evening, and the Chancellor retired at a late hour, thanking Mr Edison's representative most cordially." The « Telegraph" adds that " One of the Bismarck phonograms, taken at Friedrichsruhe, is to be reproduced in enormous numbers — in 10,000 copies if necessary. Mr Edison will offer a copy to every important institution in Germany, in order that centuries hence all over Germany, wherever the portrait of the Chancellor hangs, his voice also may be heard." In the game way the voices of the great men of the present, or any future time, may be preserved for tho benefit of posterity, and succeeding generations may listen to the exact words in tbe exact tones of any orator or singer who has spoken or sung in tho presence of a phonograph. Truly we live in an age of wonderful inventions t