AN AMAZING INVENTION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1072, 20 July 1912, Page 4

AN AMAZING INVENTION.

Cables to the Australian papers contain some interesting details oi the remarkable results that have been obtained by means of the ortophone, an invention by a Frenchman, M. Fournier Dalbe, which makes light audible. It is reported on the authority of the Condon Daily Chronicle that with highly sensitive receivers, such as used by wireless operators, one can hear the rasping sounds made by electric lights, and M. Dalbe says tliat experiments which he has carrried out show that the moon makes a noise that is quite audible, and that the sun roars like a cataract.

The wonders of the ortophone were practically demonstrated at the exhibition now being held in London in connection with the Opticial Conference. A blind man stood in the middle of a large room, and, without using his sense of touch, told how many windows were in Hie room, and bow many persons there were between himself and one of the walls. He did all this by his sense of hearing, by hearing, through the ortophone, the noises made by light and shade. The invention is based on seleniums property ot being affected by light.

Mr Dalbe, the inventor, contrives to make the effect ot light on its passage in electric currents through seleuiumjappreciable in a telephone receiver. The clockwork mechanism can be so readjusted as to make darkness audible and bright, and light silent or vice versa.