April II, 1878J 



NATURE 



469 



gradual preparation of elaborate maps of the German 

 and Austrian Alps, At present it is engaged on a map of 

 the Salzkammergut, on a scale of i : 100,000. 



A LUNAR LANDSCAPE 



■jV/TESSRS. GAMMON AND VAUGHAN, No. 28, 

 ■^'-^ Old Bond Street, have at present on view a picture 

 in which the artist, Olafs Winkler, of Weimar, has 

 endeavoured to represent a lunar landscape. Prof. C. 

 Bruhns, of Leipzig, has assisted him in the parts of the 

 treatment which are directly scientific. 



The painter has not trusted all to his imagination. 

 He has, to the best of his knowledge and ability, sought 

 to stick rigidly to truth, and to paint a lunar landscape 

 such as it would appear, so far as human observa- 

 tion has hitherto ascertained, to a human eye, were it at 

 all possible for a man to be transplanted to the moon and 

 observe through his earthly eyes, only for a moment, 

 nature as she manifests herself on the surface of our 

 satellite. From the merely artistic point of view the 

 artist fears his task may be a thankless one, for since 

 the moon has no atmosphere, there is neither aerial 

 perspective nor diffusion of light, but it is precisely this 

 point which should make our artist all the more inter- 

 ested in this unique production. The shadow of a body 

 in the foreground will appear quite as black as the sky itself 

 which closes the landscape like a flat steep wall, broken 

 only by the quiet light of the stars. All lights appear 

 equally strong at a distance and close at hand, and this also 

 holds with the local colouring. In a word, there is want- 

 ing in the lunar landscape that which lends to our earth 

 perspective, richness or tone, modulation, softness, and 

 temper. It is our atmosphere we have to thank for 

 most of the multitudinous coloured phenomena of the 

 terrestrial landscape — phenomena which in our satellite 

 are impossible. The sunlight falls upon the hills with 

 blinding brightness, and cuts sharply across the deep 

 black shadows. Its intensity rivals the electric light, 

 and light effects of such a kind are far beyond the 

 reach of our palettes. We must resort to some expedient 

 to be able to introduce a medium between the extreme 

 contrast of light and shade, a sort of half-tone, which, at 

 the same time, must be the chief tone of the picture ; 

 this Herr Winkler has sought in the light of the earth, 

 the true "earthshine." 



The artist has chosen the time of sunset, and the 

 region he has selected lies in the northern part of 

 the moon. The spectator is supposed to be on the front 

 slope of a mountain, the continuation of which in the 

 background comes out as a closed ridge. At his feet one 

 of the numerous maria spreads out, filled up with rills, 

 circular hills, and large and small craters, stretching away 

 to the distant mountain referred to. Before, us in the 

 black sky, hangs the moon's moon, our earth. She 

 sheds her pale, ash-coloured light over the rent, desolate, 

 dead stone-fields. Only the highest points of the 

 mountain-tops still glow in the light of the setting sun, 

 no longer red, as here, but dazzlingly white, in conse- 

 quence of the absence of atmospheric absorption. The 

 earth is at the period of her course between Sagittarius 

 and the Scorpion, An tares being nearly in the middle of 

 the picture. Against his persuasion he has been com- 

 pelled to make the milky way very weak, and the stars 

 somewhat large in proportion to the earth. 



Herr Winkler, in a paper read at the last meeting of the 

 German Association, stated that his first impulse to 

 undertake the picture was derived from Nasmyth and 

 Carpenter' s work on the moon. 



Our only criticism of the picture refers to the colour of 

 the earth and of the true earthshine. We doubt whether 

 the earth is quite red enough, especially at the edges, and 

 we doubt again whether, with the earth as ruddy as it 

 is, the colour of the lunar landscape itself should not be 



rather^more in harmony with it, as it is the true light 

 source. 



The picture is an admirable performance, and the 

 science of it is so true that, as we hinted before, those 

 of our artists who care to have a natural basis for their 

 depiction of natural phenomena will learn much from 

 this attempt to deal with a new order of phenomena. 



EDISON'S TALKING-MA CHINE 1 



lyrR. THOMAS A. EDISON has recently invented an 

 ■'■"-^ instrument which is undoubtedly the acoustic marvel 

 of the century. It is called the " Speaking Phonograph," 

 or, adopting the Indian idiom, one may aptly call it " The 

 Sound- Writer who Talks.'" Much curiosity has been 

 expressed as to the workings of this instrument, so I 

 purpose giving an account of it. 



All talking-machines may be reduced to two types. 

 That of Prof. Faber, of Vienna, is the most perfect 

 example of one type; that of Mr. Edison is the only 

 example of the other. 



P^aber worked at the source of articulate sounds, and 

 built up an artificial organ of speech, whose parts, as 

 nearly as possible, perform the same functions as corre- 

 sponding organs in our vocal apparatus. A vibrating 

 ivory reed, of variable pitch, forms its vocal chords. 

 There is an oval cavity, whose size and shape can be 

 rapidly changed by depressing the keys on a key-board. 

 A rubber tongue and lips make the consonants ; a little 

 windmill, turning in its throat, rolls the letter r, and a 

 tube is attached to its nose when it speaks French. 

 This is the anatomy of this really wonderful piece of 

 mechanism. 



Faber attacked the problem on its physiological side. 

 Quite differently works Mr. Edison : he attacks the 

 problem, not at the source of origin of the vibrations 

 which make articulate speech, but, considering these 

 vibrations as already made, it matters not how, he makes 

 these vibrations impress themselves on a sheet of metallic 

 foil, and then reproduces from these impressions the 

 sonorous vibrations which made them. 



Faber solved the problem by reproducing the mechani- 

 cal causes of the vibrations making voice and speech ; 

 Edison solved it by obtaining the mechanical effects of 

 these vibrations. Faber reproduced the movements of 

 our vocal organs ; Edison reproduced the motions which 

 the drum-skin of the ear has when this organ is acted on 

 by the yibrations caused by the movements of the vocal 

 organs. 



Figs, I and 2 will render intelligible the construction of 

 Mr. Edison's machine. A cylinder, F, turns on an axle 

 which passes through the two standards, A and B. On 

 one end of this axle is the crank, D ; on the other the fly- 

 wheel, E, The portion of this axle to the right of the 

 cylinder has a screw-thread cut on it, which, working in a 

 nut. A, causes the cylinder to move laterally when the 

 crank is turned. On the surface of the cylinder is scored 

 the same thread as on its axle. At F (shown in one-half 

 scale in Fig. 2) is a plate of iron. A, about x\t> of an inch 

 thick. This plate can be moved toward and from the 

 cylinder by pushing in or pulling out the lever H G, which 

 turns in an horizontal plane around the pin i. 



The under side of this thin iron plate, A (Fig. 2), presses 

 against short pieces of rubber tubing, x and x, which lie 

 between the plate and a spring attached to E. The end 

 of this spring carries a rounded steel point, P, which 

 enters slightly between the threads scored on the cylinder 

 C. The distance of this point, P, from the cylinder is 

 regulated by a set-screw, s, against which abuts the lever, 

 H G. Over the iron plate. A, is a disc of vulcanite, B B, 



» The figures in this article are taken from " Sound, a Series of Simple, 

 Entertaining, and Inexpensive Experiments in the Phenomena of Sound, for 

 the Use of Students of every Age." By Alfred M. Mayer. Vol. n. of 

 " Experimental Science Series for Beginners." (Now in press and soon to be 

 published by 1). Appleton and Co.) 



