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Figure 3. — Page from Note- 

 book of Charles Sumner 

 Tainter. describing an experi- 

 ment in sound recording. The 

 Tainter noteboolis, preserved in 

 the U.S. National Museum, 

 describe experiments at the 

 Volta Laboratory, in the i88o's. 

 The Graphophone patents of 

 1886, were the result of this 

 research. (Smithsonian photo 



44312.) 



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The experimental machines built at the Volta 

 Laboratory include both disc and cylinder types, and 

 an interesting "tape" recorder. The records used 

 with the machines and now in the collections of the 

 U. S. National Mu.seiim, are believed to be the oldest 

 reproducible records preserved anywhere in the 

 world. While some are scratched and ci.icked, 

 others are still in good condition. 



By 1881 the Volta associates had succeeded in 

 improving an Edison tinfoil machine to some extent. 

 \Vax was piu in the grooves of the heavy iron cylinder, 

 and no tinfoil was used. Rather than apply for a 

 patent at that time, however, they deposited the 

 machine in a sealed box at the .Smithsonian, and 

 specified that it was not to be opened without the 



con.sent of two of the three men. In 1937 Tainter 

 (fig. 1) was the only one still living, so the box was 

 opened with his permission. 



For the occasion, the heirs of Alexander Graham 

 Bell gathered in Washington, but Tainter was too 

 old and too ill to come from San Diego. 



The sound vibrations had been indented in the 

 wax which had been applied to the Edison phono- 

 graph. The following is the text of the recording: 

 "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 

 than are dreamed of in your philosophy. I am a 

 graphophone and my mother was a phono-jraph."' 

 Remarked Mrs. Gilbert Orosvenor.' RelPs daughter, 



PAPER 5: 



* .\s quoted by The Washington Herald, October 28, 1937. 

 PHONOGRAPH AT ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL's VOLTA LABORATORY 73 



