A WONDERFUL MACHINE.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 November 1918, Page 3

A WONDERFUL MACHINE.

THAT GIVES THE BLIND SIGHT. NEW ALPHABET OF SOUNDS, An instrument; called the Optophone, lias been invented .by" Dr. E. E. Fournier d'Albe to enable blind people to read ordinary print by the transmission of the letter values into sound. It owes its existence, indirectly, to the fact that one day about 45 years ago an unsatisfactory feature was noticed in the working of the Trans-Atlantic cable station at Valcntia, off the coast of Ireland. The trouble was found to lie in the silenium used at the station, and this led to the discovery that sileniuin responds in a certain way When exposed .to light. Working from this fact Dr. Fournier d'Albe has produced his Octophone. The method employed is to throw intermittent light of five different "frequencies" on the type of aj ordinary hook or newspaper. The hook lies face downwards over the instrument. The reflected light is received on a silenimn tablet, which transmits to a telephone a set of sounds eorrc?ponding to the varying shapes of the letters. A Daily Chronicle representative wit- ■ nessed an interestins experiment at- the British Scientific Products Exhibition, at King's College- A blind girl. Miss Mary Jameson, who has acquired this new' alphabet of sound, submitted to a test, and read a portion of Dante's "Inferno." In conversation Miss .Jameson mentioned that it had. taken her 90 houra to familiarisp her=elf with the series of tiny sounds, almost like the dots and dashes of the Morse system, into which the alphabet of ordinary people had been translated. During the test the rate of reading was -about. one word a minute. But Miss Jameson said she is able to Toad the sounds more quickly when her attention is not divert- ' ed hr the presence of a number of listcninff Tieople. and the rate is ir> I creased with each attempt. ! "NAZoL""fo7lni!ueii2ft and (Mafffc