May 30, 1878] 



NATURE 



117 



by some wretched effusion of the Jingoid type, we shall 

 have those picturesque Italian girls, with their bandit- 

 looking companions, turning out for us a ballad by Sims 

 Reeves or Santley, or a witching air in the voice of Patti. 

 Alas ! the invention came just too late to preserve to us 

 for ever the matchless voice of Titiens, for now we need 

 not wish in vain for " the sound of a voice that is still." 



Music inevitably suggests love, and the tender cooings 

 of the "lover and his lass, with a heigh and a ho and 

 a heigh no nino." No longer will the far-separated pair 

 have to wait weary weeks or months for a clumsy letter, 

 when phonograph offices are as plentiful as telegraph 

 stations ; and when Mr. Edison has managed to make those 

 improvements on the instrument of which he is con- 

 fident, it will be quite possible for the fond pair to have 

 a daily meeting and exchange across the world all sorts 

 of tender cooings — for sounds of every kind can be 

 registered on and given out by the phonograph. 



Mr. Edison tells us that for these and similar purposes 

 he is now perfecting the instrument in mechanical 

 details. " The main utility of the phonograph, however, 

 being for the purpose of letter-writing and other forms 

 of dictation, the design is made with a view to its utility 

 for that purpose. 



" The general principles of construction are a flat plate 

 or disk, with spiral groove on the face, operated by clock- 

 work underneath the plate ; the grooves are cut very 

 closely together, so as to give a great total length to each 

 inch of surface — a close calculation gives as the capacity 

 of each sheet of foil, upon which the record is had, in 

 the neighbourhood of 40,000 words. The sheets being 

 but ten inches square, the cost is so trifling that but 100 

 words might be put upon a single sheet economically. 



" The practical application of this form of phonograph 

 for communications is very simple. A sheet of foil is 

 placed in the phonograph, the clock-work set in motion, 

 and the matter dictated into the mouth-piece without 

 other effort than when dictating to a stenographer. It is 

 then removed, placed in a suitable form of envelope, and 

 sent through the ordinary channels to the correspondent 

 for whom designed. He, placing it upon his phonograph, 

 starts his clock-work and listens to what his correspondent 

 has to say. Inasmuch as it gives the tone of voice of 

 his correspondent, it is ideniijfied. As it may be filed 

 away as other letters, and at any subsequent time repro- 

 duced, it is a perfect record. As two sheets of foil have 

 been indented with the same facility as a single sheet, 

 the * writer ' may thus keep a duplicate of his communi- 

 cation. 



"The phonograph letters may be dictated at home, or 

 in the office of a friend, the presence of a stenographer 

 not being required. The dictation may be as rapid as 

 the thoughts can be formed, or the lips utter them. The 

 recipient may listen to his letters being read at a rate of 

 from 1 50 to 200 words per minute, and at the same time 

 busy himself about other matters. Interjections, expla- 

 nations, emphasis, exclamations, etc., may be. thrown into 

 such letters, ad libitum. 



"The advantages of such an innovation upon the 

 present slow, tedious, and costly methods are too numer- 

 ous, and too readily suggest themselves, to warrant their 

 enumeration, while there are no disadvantages which will 

 not disappear coincident with the general introduction of 

 the new method." 



Then as to books there seems some chance that, ere 

 long the printer's, if not the publisher's, occupation will 

 be to a great extent gone, and the present unwieldy form 

 of communication between an author and his readers be 

 abolished. What would not one give to have the 

 ''Christmas Carol" bottled up for ever in Dickens's own 

 voice to be turned out at pleasure? Books, as Mr. 

 Edison truly says, would often be listened to where none 

 are read, and the possibilities of the instrument in this 

 direction may be learned from the fact that a book of 



40,000 words might be recorded on a single metal plate 

 ten inches square. We need not point out the uses to 

 which the invention might be put for the preservation of 

 the greatest efforts of our greatest orators, but when Mr. 

 Edison speaks of our thus collecting and preserving 

 " the last words of the dying member of the family " and 

 of great men, we feel as if he were approaching both 

 the ludicrous and the shocking. 



Then the compositor will be able to set up his type by 

 ear instead of eye, and we shall have phonographic 

 clocks which " will tell you the hour of the day, call you 

 to lunch, send your lover home at ten," &c. 



"Lastly, and in quite another direction, the phono- 

 graph y^WS. perfect the telephone, and revolutionise present 

 systems of telegraphy. That useful invention is now 

 restricted in its field of operation by reason of the fact 

 that it is a means of communication which leaves no 

 record of its transactions, thus restricting its use to 

 simple conversational chit-chat, and such unimportant 

 detaUs of business as are not considered of sufficient im- 

 portance to record. Were this different, and our tele- 

 phone conversation automatically recorded, we should 

 find the reverse of the present status of the telephone. 

 It would be expressly resorted to as a means of perfect 

 record. 



" * How can this application be made ? ' will probably 

 be asked by those unfamiliar with either the telephone or 

 phonograph. 



" Both these inventions cause a plate or disc to vibrate, 

 and thus produce sound-waves in harmony with those of 

 the voice of the speaker. A very simple device may be 

 made by Avhich the one vibrating disc may be made to do 

 duty for both the telephone and the phonograph, thus 

 enabling the speaker to simtiltaneously transmit and 

 record his message. What system of telegraphy can 

 approach that ? A similar combination at the distant end 

 of the wire enables the correspondent, if he is present, to 

 hear it while it is being recorded. Thus we have a mere 

 passage of words for the action, but a complete and 

 durable record of those words as the result of that action. 

 Can economy of time or money go further than to annihi- 

 late time and space, and bottle up for posterity the mere 

 utterance of man, without other effort on his part than to 

 speak the vvords ? 



"The telegraph company of the future — and that no 

 distant one — will be simply an organisation having a 

 huge system of wires, central and sub-central stations, 

 managed by skilled attendants, whose sole duty it wilL^jje 

 to keep wires in proper repair, and give, by switch or 

 shunt arrangement, prompt attention to subscriber No. 

 923 in New York, when he signals his desire to have 

 private commimication with subscriber No. looi in 

 Boston, for three minutes. The minor and totally in- 

 consequent details which seem to arise as obstacles in 

 the eyes of the groove-travelling telegraph-man, wedded 

 to existing methods, will wholly disappear before that 

 remorseless Juggernaut — " the needs of man ; " for, .will 

 not the necessities of man surmount trifles in order to 

 reap the full benefit of an invention which practically 

 brings him face to face with whom he will; and, better 

 still, doing the work of a conscientious and infallible 

 scribe ?" 



Mr. Edison is certainly very hopeful of the ^future of 

 the wonderful instrument he has invented, ,but we 

 think, not too hopeful ; for, after the invention itself 

 and its most recent development, the microphone, it 

 would be rash to say that any application of it is impos- 

 sible. Certainly some substitute or substitutes for.the 

 clumsy mode of recording our thoughts by pen and ink, 

 so inconsistent with the general rapidity of our time, 

 must be close at hand; and what form one of these 

 substitutes may take seems pretty clearly pointed out by 

 the actual uses to which Mr. Edison's invention has 

 been put. 



