THE PHONOGRAPH OUTDONE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5394, 11 July 1878, Page 2

THE PHONOGRAPH OUTDONE.

From the report given in Nature of the Royal Society’s meeting on 9th May last, we learn that already the telephone and the phonograph are thrown into the shade by a wonderful discovery made by Professor Hughes that certain substances can be rendered sensitive to extremely feeble sounds, and that by a simple contrivance sounds that are otherwise inaudible can he conveyed to the ear. The instrument founded upon this discovery lias been named the 44 microphone,” and will perform the same office to the sense of hearing as the microscope does to seeing. Although this instrument is not yet perfected, its performances are already truly marvellous. A fly moving on a table under an inverted tumbler is heard to walk with a peculiar tramp of its own. The brushing of a camelhair pencil ou a wooden surface is heard as a crackling noise of such intensity as to be almost painful to the ears. By inserting this little instrument (which is merely a glass tube two inches long and one-fourth of an inch in diameter, and containing four separate pieces of charcoal saturated with globules of mercury) in the circuit of a telephone, the most minute sounds are conveyed to an enormous distance, so that the beating of the pulse, the ticking of a watch, or even the tramp of a fly, can be heard at. the distance of a hundred miles from the source of the sound.