A VERITABLE TALKING MACHINE
What is described as the most wonderful contrivance of the day is the phonograph, the invention of an American electrician named Edison, who is also the inventor of the quadruplex system of telegraphy. The phonograph is composed of a brass cylinder about four inches in diameter and about ten inches long, with axles ten inches long on which a thread is cut, coming from either end and passing through nut journals. To one of those axles a crank is attached, by which the cylinder is turned, moving either way as the crank is moved. The cylinder, from one end of it to the other, has small lines cut into it and running around it. By the side of the cylinder and resting on it is. a pin attached to a vibrating plate, over which is a mouthpiece with a small hole leading to the plate immediately oyer the hole. When the phonograph is to be used a sheet of lead paper is spread over the cylinder, the words or sounds to be reproduced are made very close to the mouthpiece, arid the vibration in the air occasioned by their utterances causes the plate fo move and the pin indents the lead paper upon the cylinder, which, by the' way, is turned by means of tne "crank during the operation. The words being spoken the paper is indented by the pin and the crank turns the.cvhndeAback to its
starting point. A funnel is then placed over the mouth-piece. Mr Edison used one made of a plain piece of writing paper. The cylinder is then turned over the same space it originallytraversed, and the sounds are reproduced accurately and can be heard for several feet around the instrument, varying always with the loudness of the tone in which the words were spoken to the machine. After rereceiving the indentations made by the pin the lead paper can be t;iken off the cylinder, and by replacing it at, any other time the words can be exactlv reproduced. On New Year's Day a practical trial of the instrument was made in the .presence of the electricians and several of the leading men of New York with pronounced success. The phonograph was afterwards adjusted to the telephone, and by this means a conversation was sent a distance of seven miles.
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Bibliographic details
Clutha Leader, Volume V, Issue 196, 12 April 1878, Page 7
Word Count
389A VERITABLE TALKING MACHINE Clutha Leader, Volume V, Issue 196, 12 April 1878, Page 7
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