MR. EDISON'S "SPANCTROPHONE."

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 79, 5 April 1879, Page 2

MR. EDISON'S "SPANCTROPHONE."

» i . . , We remember meeting Mr. E»li-ion. •ome year* ago, when he was moat deeply absorbed in hi* experiment* relating to the oonductibjlity of nound through »nriou« medium*, and had a long and interesting conversation \.-!tn him upon that •uljeot. We convened upon the wellknown fact that tho saw*, medium trans-

mission baa different properties at different tmrce. We both cited instances in which a mvi forty-three yean old though wing his utmost strength of lung* and voice, could not shout toud esoagh at half-past six in the morning to awaken a dot nine years old, just on the other side of a lath and plaster partition, while at eleven o'clock that night the same boy would hear a low whistle in the street, through three doors and two flights of stairs, and would spring instantly out of a sound sleep in response to it. it was a belief of Mr. Edison's at that time that sound could be made to travel as rapidly as feeling, and to "teat the matter, he had invented adelieate machine called the spanctrophoue, which he was just about trying when we met him. We were greatly interested in the machine and readily agreed to assist in the experiment . , . By t&e old of Mr. Edison and a small coin we enticed into the liboratory a boy about seven years old. After many times reassuring him, and promising hixa solemnly that he would not be hurt, we got the machine attached to him, and the great inventor laid the boy across his knees in the most approved old-fashioned Solomonie method. On a disc of the machine delicate indices were to record one the exact time of the sound of the spank, the other the exact second the boy howled. The boy was a little suspicious at this paint of the experiment, and, with his Lead partly turned, was glaring fearfully at the inventor. Mr. Edison raised his hand. A piercing howl rent the air, followed by a,sharp concussion like the snapping of a musket cap. And, when we examined the dial plate of the machine infallible science proudly demonstrated that the boy howled sixty-eight seconds before he was slapped. They boy weat downstairs in three strides, with an injured look upon his fearful face. Mr. Edison threw the machine out of the window after the urchin, and we felt that it was no time to intrude upon the sorrows of a great soul writhing under a humiliating sense of failure. We have never met Mr. Edison since, but we have always thought he didn't know much about boys, or he would kuow how utterly unreliable the best of them would be for a scientific experiment. —American Paper.