792 EEPOET— 1888. 



generally assemble together in Section G of the British Association to discuss the 

 ' practical application of the most important principles of natural philosophy which 

 has, in a considerable degree, realised the anticipations of Bacon and changed the 

 aspect and state of affairs in the whole world.' 



I cannot pretend to have given a survey of all the practical applications of 

 electricity. I have entirely neglected its applications to physical research, its assist- 

 ance in securing minute and accurate observations, the marvellous precision and 

 delicacy of its measurement. I have but briefly indicated the present area covered 

 by the new and rapidly growing industry. Five million people upon the globe are 

 now dependent on the electric current for their daily bread. Scarcely a week 

 passes without some fresh practical application of its principles, and we seem to be 

 only on the shore of that sea of economy and beneficence which expands with every 

 new discovery of the properties of electricity, and spreads already beyond the mental 

 grasp of any one single worker. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. The Fhonograph. By Colonel G. E. Goukatjd. 



2. The Graphophone.^ By Henkt Edmunds. 



A review of the interesting history of the art of recording and reproducing 

 sound shows that Dr. Hooke in 1681 exhibited some experiments before the Royal 

 Society demonstrating how musical notes and other sounds could be produced by 

 means of toothed wheels rapidly rotated. In 1854 Charles Bourseuil proposed to use 

 two diaphragms, connected by an electric wire, and, by speaking into one of them, 

 reproduce the spoken sounds at any distance in the other. This idea was actually 

 carried out by Philipp Reis five years later. The Phonautograph was patented 

 by Leon Scott in 1857 ; and Faber constructed a complicated speaking machine 

 which pronounced a few words and sentences most unsatisfactorily. But in 1876 

 appeared the Bell Telephone, the first really perfect instrument for the transmission 

 of speech. In April, 1877, M. Charles Gros deposited a paper at the Academy of 

 Sciences in Paris on ' A process of recording and reproducing audible phenomena,' 

 in which he proposed to obtain tracings of sound-waves by means of a vibrating 

 membrane. Then, by going over these tracings with a stylus attached to another 

 membrane, the sounds would be reproduced. Consequently, to M. Gros belongs 

 the credit of having suggested a means of mechanically recording and reproducing 

 Bpoken sounds. Later in the year Mr. Thomas Alva "Edison realised this idea in 

 his phonograph. IMr. Edmunds described it in a report to the ' Times ' on February 

 17, 1878. Shortly afterwards Mr. W. H. Preece exhibited at the Royal Institu- 

 tion the first phonograph made in this country under Mr. Edmunds' instructions. 

 This instrument created a great sensation, and glowing anticipations were enter- 

 tained of its future application, but it was found that its articulation was far too 

 imperfect, and its general performance too crude, to admit of its being used for 

 any practical purpose ; and Mr. Edison himself gave it up, applying himself to 

 other work, even allowing his two English patents to lapse. But in 1881, Pro- 

 fessor Graham Bell, inventor of the Telephone, with Dr. Chichester A. Bell, and 

 Mr. Charles Sumner Tainter, formed the Volta Laboratory Association in Wash- 

 ington for the purpose of investigating the art of transmitting, recording, and re- 

 producing sound. They conducted many elaborate experiments, and, among other 

 things, sought for and discovered the cause of the failure of the Edison Phonograph. 

 They 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 

 hody ; and this discovery enabled them to produce a really practical instrument, 

 which they termed the * Graphophone.' Instead of tinfoil, Mr. Tainter employed 



' Printed in extenso in Engineering, vol. xlvi. p. 319. 



