1878.] 
The Phonograph. 245 
of the gas had assumed the liquid form under the influence 
of the 140 degrees of cold to which it was exposed. The 
tap closing the orifice of the tube was then opened, and a jet 
of oxygen spirted out with extraordinary violence. 
A ray of electric light being thrown on the escaping jet 
showed that it was chiefly composed of two parts ; — one 
central, and some centimetres long, the whiteness of which 
showed that the element was liquid, or even solid ; the other 
exterior, the blue tint of which indicated the presence of 
oxygen compressed and frozen in the gaseous state. 
VIII. THE PHONOGRAPH. 
O sooner had the wonderful simplicity and marvellous 
capabilities of Mr. Graham Bell’s articulating tele- 
phone been practically demonstrated in England 
than we were startled by an announcement in the American 
journals that another instrument had been invented, by Mr. 
T. A. Edison, which would not only receive and register, but 
also reproduce at any distant period, whatever sounds were 
uttered into it by the human voice. The first accounts 
of the wonders of the instrument were evidently some- 
what coloured : that it does, however, actually re-produce 
vocal sounds was demonstrated by Mr. W. H. Preece, at his 
LeCture on the Telephone, at one of the Friday evening 
meetings at the Royal Institution, when he exhibited the 
Phonograph for the first time in England. By the courtesy 
of the Editor of “ Engineering ” we are enabled to place 
before our readers drawings and descriptions of different 
forms of this instrument. 
Fig. 1 is a general view of Mr. Edison’s instrument, which 
has recently been brought to this country by Mr. Puscus, 
his representative. It consists of a brass cylinder, which, 
by a winch handle, can be rotated on a horizontal axis, upon 
which is fixed a heavy fly wheel for the purpose of control- 
ling, to some extent, its speed of rotation. One end of this 
horizontal axis is screwed, and turns in a screwed bearing, 
so that the cylinder is not only rotated on its axis, but has 
imparted to it a lateral movement from end to end when the 
winch is rotated. Around the circumference of the cylinder 
