234 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



" Nature " of August 30th, says that Mr. John 

 Tebbutt, Windsor, New South Wales, picked up 

 Encke's comet on the evening of July 8th ! What 

 has he done with it ? 



The use of electricity was the subject of a brilliant 

 address by Professor Ayrton at the meeting of the 

 British Association. The Professor insisted on the 

 great and undoubted future of electric power, and 

 suggested that the time will even come when coal 

 will be burned at the pit mouth for the purpose 

 of creating mechanical energy at towns distant from 

 the coal fields. Ere long he thinks it will be 

 cheaper to carry electricity along a wire than coal 

 along a railway. England would then resume her 

 green and beautiful appearance, electric machinery 

 at the pit mouth supplying power and light to distant 

 parts. Electricity is at present produced by the 

 , burning of coal in the steam-engine. Professor Ayrton 

 fancies that eventually electricity may be obtained by 

 the burning of coal direct, without the agency of the 

 steam engine, just as it is already obtained from 

 galvanic batteries by the direct consumption of zinc. 

 In America, says the Professor, there are already 

 twenty-two electric tramways, while in England there 

 are only four. In America there are six thousand 

 electro-motors working machinery, while in Great 

 Britain there are scarcely one hundred. The new 

 mountain railway at Lake Lucerne is worked by elec- 

 tricity produced by the river Aar, three miles away. 

 Electric trains, it is said, will never come into 

 collision, as they can be so arranged that one train 

 cannot get upon the section occupied by another 

 without losing its current. At present, when a train 

 stops at a station, the steam which drives it is largely 

 wasted. When the electric train stops its energy will 

 simply fly along the track for the use of distant trains 

 which are moving. The eloquent Professor waxed 

 warm with enthusiasm for a power which produces 

 energy in the day-time and light at night. Even 

 heat in time is to be supplied by the agency of the 

 fluid which has recently flashed brilliantly in our 

 autumn skies. 



In his paper on the Graphophone, read at the British 

 Association meeting, Mr. Edmunds stated that Pro- 

 fessor Bill and Mr. Tainter had found that tinfoil, as 

 used in that instrument, was far too pliable for the 

 purpose, as it always had a tendency to pucker and 

 destroy the symmetry of the sound-waves. They 

 perceived that no good result could be obtained by 

 merely indenting a pliable material ; it was necessary 

 to engrave a record in a solid resisting body ; and this 

 discovery enabled them to 'produce a really practical 

 instrument, which they termed the " Graphophone." 

 Instead of tinfoil, Mr. Tainter employed wax, 

 ploughing out, by means of a vibratory stylus, a 

 narrow undulating groove, which constituted a sound 

 record. Mr. Tainter has brought the experience of 

 many years to the perfection of the Graphophone. 



The pith of the invention appears to be the "re- 

 cording cylinder," six inches long by an inch-and-a- 

 quarter broad, formed of cardboard, coated with 

 wax. This is placed in a small lathe and rotated by 

 a treadle in contact with the "recorder," which 

 consists of a metal frame supporting a thin mica 

 diaphragm, in the centre of which is a steel point 

 that cuts a narrow groove on the surface of the 

 cylinder, according to the quality and intensity of 

 the sound spoken against it. The recorder is then 

 removed, and replaced by the "reproducer," 

 a light feather of steel that travels along the 

 grooves made on the cylinder, and transmits their 

 undulations to a small mica diaphragm, which 

 in its turn communicates its vibrations, as sound- 

 waves, to the ears of the auditor by means of two 

 india-rubber tubes, for Mr. Tainter found it best to^ 

 reduce the size of the record, and concentrate the 

 sound in this way, on account of the greater dis- 

 tinctness that was thus secured. The manipulation 

 of the Graphophone is very simple. It requires no 

 adjustment, no electric motor, no galvanic battery.. 

 The . foot supplies the motive power, and the 

 machine regulates its own speed by means of an 

 ingenious, but simple governor. Journalists and 

 reporters may dictate their articles and reports,, 

 leaving others to transcribe them. The principal of 

 a firm can speak his day's correspondence into the 

 machine, which will repeat it sentence by sentence, 

 to be written down in proper form by the clerk. 

 Purely verbal communication can be carried on 

 through the post by means of the record cylinders, 

 which are [ extremely light, although capacious 

 enough to hold one thousand words apiece. 



MICROSCOPY. 



New Slides. — We have received from Mr. J. Sinel, 

 Jersey, a set of admirably mounted and most useful 

 zoological slides as follows : — 1. Section of sponge 

 (Sycon) showing monads ; 2. Longitudinal section 

 through an expanded sea-anemone [Bunodes) ; 3. 

 Transverse section through sea-anemone {Tealia) ; 

 4. Expanded zoophytes {Campanula angulata), with, 

 parasitic diatoms ; 5- Section of compound ascidian 

 {Leptocliuum) ; 6. Eye of Sepia. The sponge slide 

 and that of Campanularia are unusually good, even 

 for Mr. Sinel. — Mr. Ernest Hinton has forwarded us 

 an exquisitely neat and cleanly mounted slide of a 

 scale-moss [Gcocalycea), showing the antheridium and 

 archegonium. The two latter are curiously con- 

 nected in a chalice-like crown at the summit of the 

 shoot, and they are mounted in their natural position. 

 This specimen is from Chapel le Dale, Yorkshire. — 

 Mr. Walter White, Litcham, Norfolk, has forwarded 

 us specimens of his botanical preparations which he 

 offers at the low price of six for a shilling. They 

 are marvels of cheapness as well as of neatness, and 



