A TALKING MACHINE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume II, Issue 76, 18 May 1880, Page 2

A TALKING MACHINE.

♦ A machine with which a remarkably close imitation of human speech can be produced has been brought to England by the inventor, Herr Faber, and exhibited to the Physical Society and privately, for closer examination of its mechanism, to several well known scientific men. The Times remarks that it opens up an entirely different set of questions from those suggested by the performances of the phonograph, which A merely reproduces sounds uttered py^B the human voice. This talking ma^^| chine will give intelligible utteu|^^^| more or less distinct accordij^^^^^H words, to the ideas of the^^^^^^H

• „# = The machine is the product of v .tho continuous labor and ttudy of two members of the same family. iywaa begun in 1815 by one Joseph ,Jsftber, and so far elaborated in 1841 that it was exhibited in that year to the King of Bavana. The originator dying, he bequeathed the machine to his nephew, tho present owner, also named Joseph Faber, who had been associated with him in its construction, and since it be" came his property Herr Faber has almost doubled its power of articulation. The chief points of interest the machine has for the physicist, the physiologist, and, it may be added, the philologist, lie in the results obtained from theingenious contrivances by which the functions of the flexible and mobile organs of voice are performed. The principal features of the machine are, to begin with, the bellows, from which the air is driven with considerable but varying force by means of a pedal lever. The air passes in a horizontal stream through a small chamber, which represents the human larynx, and in the same right line out through the mouth. Tho lips and tongue are of indiarubber. and the lower jaw is movable Below the laryngeal apparatus, and opening from the chamber in •which, it is contained, is 1 another small chamber, about the size and shape of a lemon, from which a pipe curved upwards allows the air when driven through to escape. This supplies the place of the nose to the instrument, and when a valve is opened enables the sound of the letters m and n to be produced by the striking of the same keys with which the sounds of b or p are obtained. The larynx is, of course, the most complex part of the machine, and to Herr Faber is duo tho elaboration of this portion of the mechanism. Within a small oblong box, a narrow and exceedingly thin strip of hippopotamus bone strengthened by indinrubbev on one side, produces by its vibrations the speaking tone, J which may be called the fundamental sound to be subsequently modified. At the will of the operator the pitch can be raised or lowered, but not during the utterance of a word or sentence, so thnt in sayiDg 'Mariana," or " Commentv<nißportez vov.s" ('he machine talks French, German, Italian, or English), the key-note remains unaltered to the end.