1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



137 



I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully 

 jnade: marvelous are thy works. — Psalm 139: 14. 



A few evenings ago a young lady at our 

 house stood before a little machine and sang 

 a prettly little melody. I had seen the same 

 thing before, and my imagination pictured 

 the machine listening intently with its head 

 tipp< d a little to one side. After she had 

 finished, the machine was asked to repeat to 

 us what it had heard; and, sure enough, the 

 whole piece was given back to us— not only 

 «very word, but every note and inflection. 

 The machine did not have it quite as loud, it 

 is true, as the original human voice; but it 

 was an exact copy. It is truly wonderful 

 how a human being remembers what he has 

 heard; but this little machine, costing only 

 Sl. few dollars, was away ahead in accuracy 

 of any human being who ever lived. It gave 

 an exact copy of what it had heard. You 

 are all familiar with it; in fact, these little 

 phonographs are in many of your homes.* 



A few issues back I spoke of hearing at 

 school in my boyhood of a machine that 

 would fasten your picture just as you stood 

 laefore a mirror. This little phonograph in 

 a like manner fastens the human voice, 

 •catches it, and holds it with fingers of steel; 

 ■and after this young lady who sang for us 

 that evening has been dead and gone a 

 thousand years that little cylinder will give 

 laack the tones of her voice, without a mis- 

 take. People forget; but machinery never 

 forgets. 



Philosophers and scientists have been puz- 

 zled since the world began to know how it is 

 that one can treasure up in his memory the 

 events of every-day life, and reproduce them 

 "fifty, sixty, or even seventy years later. 

 How is it possible that this little brain, 

 comparatively, of a single person, can take 

 •down and hold for future reference the 

 transactions of every day for a lifetime? 

 Who is there, who can meditate on the 

 above, who has not said to himself in the 

 language of the Psalmist, "I am fearfully 



* The machine mentioned above is really the property 

 of our five-year-old grandson, or at least he handles it 

 and calls it his, and he takes out the cylinders, puts in 

 others, and manages it with the air of an expert. His 

 favorite cylinder is a bell-ringing melody. It is just 

 ringing bells and nothing else; but the bells ring so as 

 to reproduce beautifully that little hymn in the Gospel 

 Hymns — 



" Ring the Bells of Heaven, there is Joy To-day." 



I agree with Wynne that this bell-ringing cylinder 

 throws all the rest in the shade. The melody is not 

 only beautiful, but the thought that the little instru- 

 ment can give out a clang of bells that might be sup- 

 posed to come from a church-steeple (if one did not see 

 the instrument) is but little short of miraculous; and 

 when you afterward examine the cylinder with a mag- 

 nify ing-glass, and see that those wonderful tones so 

 sharp and startling are the result of those little dots or 

 indentations almost microscopic in size, it makes one 

 feel as if he were getting an inner glimpse of the han- 

 diwork of the great Father who made the human eye, 

 the human ear, and this whole wonderful organism, 

 with the wonderful brain, the center and ruler of it all. 



and wonderfully made; marvelous are thy 

 works" ? It would be a big task to write 

 down in a book every word we utter, say in 

 one day. Why, bless me ! it would take a 

 big book to record just the sayings in one 

 day of some ivomen I know of; and this re- 

 minds me I believe some of the Spanish 

 women in Cuba would utter more words in 

 twenty minutes than anybody else I ever 

 heard talk in the whole world. I sometimes 

 wondered whether the listener understood it 

 all, or whether a part of it was simply to 

 astonish a stranger who happened to be 

 present. Well, let us get back to our theme. 



If it would take a big book to take down 

 all your talk in just one day, how much of a 

 book would it require for a whole year? 

 Now try to comprehend, if you please, how 

 many books it would take for sixty or sev- 

 enty years. Now just hold your breath. 

 None of us speak out loud all we think. 

 Will somebody make an estimate of the 

 number of books or libraries it would take 

 to give the history of all the thoughts and 

 actions of even a single person during his 

 whole life? But I have not got to the end 

 yet. There are in this world of ours about 

 If.OO million people; and each one of these 

 millions lives a human life more or less— has 

 thoughts and actions and words— yes, and a 

 memory, so that each person of ordinary 

 ability can state pretty positively all he has 

 not done in his life, even if he could not 

 enumerate all the things he has done. Do 

 you not agree that the Psalmist is right in 

 saying that we are fearfully and wonderful- 

 ly made? Scientists have at different times 

 tried to conjecture how the great Creator, 

 the all-wise Father, had managed to pack 

 into a little human brain the memory of all 

 that passes in a lifetime. I do not think 

 any of them presume to give any kind of 

 answer; and although it may be a little bit 

 audacious, suppose I undertake it. 



When listening to that phonograph it oc- 

 curred to me that memory might he some- 

 thing like that machine. When you buy 

 your machines you get for ten or fifteen 

 cents some plain smooth rolls without any 

 thing on them. One of these rolls will hold 

 a song or a hymn if it is not too long; but 

 with a magnifying-glass you can look at the 

 surface of the roll after it is indented, and 

 see where the steel point has made little 

 cavities of different depths and widths, and 

 different distances apart. When the ma- 

 chine "talks back" a suitable steel spring 

 or finger drops into these cavities. You 

 have probably seen the whole thing. So 

 have I; but yet it looks like witchcraft every 

 time I see it. Years ago they told us the 

 light of day is made of seven colors, and 

 that it couid be pulled apart to prove it. 

 They now tell us the human voice is made 

 up of a lot of vibrations— I do not know but 

 I should call them little explosions; and this 

 phonograph proves it. All the tones are 

 produced by vibrations of greater or less 

 force, and nearer together or further apart. 

 The indented cylinder proves it. Well, now, 

 these brains of ours take in not only sounds 



