demonstrated; for in that instrument, as we have seen, the movements
of the minute piece of metal attached (at least in the earlier forms
of the instrument) to the centre of the receiving membrane, suffice,
when precisely copied by the similar central piece of metal in the
transmitting membrane, to cause the words which produced the motions of
the receiving or hearing membrane to be uttered (or seem to be uttered)
by the transmitting or speaking membrane.
It was reserved, however, for Edison (of New Jersey, U.S.A., Electrical
Adviser to the Western Union Telegraph Company) to show how advantage
might be taken of this discovery to make a diaphragm speak, not
directly through the action of the movements of a diaphragm affected by
spoken words or other sounds, and therefore either simultaneously with
these or in such quick succession after them as corresponds with the
transmission of their effects along some line of electrical or other
communication, but by the mechanical reproduction of similar movements
at any subsequent time (within certain limits at present, but probably
hereafter with practically unlimited extension as to time).
The following is slightly modified from Edison’s own description of the
phonograph:—
The instrument is composed of three parts mainly; namely, a receiving,
a recording, and a transmitting apparatus. The receiving apparatus
consists of a curved tube, one end of which is fitted with a
mouthpiece. The other end is about two inches in diameter, and is
closed with a disc or diaphragm of exceedingly thin metal, capable of
being thrust slightly outwards or vibrated upon gentle pressure being
applied to it from within the tube. To the centre of this diaphragm
(which is vertical) is fixed a small blunt steel pin, which shares the
vibratory motion of the diaphragm. This arrangement is set on a table,
and can be adjusted suitably with respect to the second part of the
instrument—the recorder. This is a brass cylinder, about four inches
in length and four in diameter, cut with a continuous V-groove from
one end to the other, so that in effect it represents a large screw.
There are forty of these grooves in the entire length of the cylinder.
The cylinder turns steadily, when the instrument is in operation,
upon a vertical axis, its face being presented to the steel point of
the receiving apparatus. The shaft on which it turns is provided with
a screw-thread and works in a screwed bearing, so that as the shaft
is turned (by a handle) it not only turns the cylinder, but steadily
carries it upwards. The rate of this vertical motion is such that the
cylinder behaves precisely as if its groove worked in a screw-bearing.
Thus, if the pointer be set opposite the middle of the uppermost part
of the continuous groove at the beginning of this turning motion, it
will traverse the groove continuously to its lowest part, which it will
reach after forty turnings of the handle. (More correctly, perhaps, we
might say that the groove continuously traverses past the pointer.)
Now, suppose that a piece of some such substance as tinfoil is wrapped
round the cylinder. Then the pointer, when at rest, just touches the
tinfoil. But when the diaphragm is vibrating under the action of aerial
waves resulting from various sounds, the pointer vibrates in such a way
as to indent the tinfoil—not only to a greater or less depth according
to the play of the pointer to and fro in a direction square to the face
of the diaphragm, but also over a range all round its mean position,
corresponding to the play of the end of the pointer around _its_ mean
position. The groove allows the pressure of the pointer against the
tinfoil free action. If the cylinder had no groove the dead resistance
of the tinfoil, thus backed up by an unyielding surface, would stop
the play of the pointer. Under the actual conditions, the tinfoil
is only kept taut enough to receive the impressions, while yielding
sufficiently to let the play of the pointer continue unrestrained.
If now a person speaks into the receiving tube, and the handle of
the cylinder be turned, the vibrations of the pointer are impressed
upon the portion of the tinfoil lying over the hollow groove, and are
retained by it. They will be more or less deeply marked according to
the quality of the sounds emitted, and according also, of course, to
the strength with which the speaker utters the sounds, and to the
nature of the modulations and inflexions of his voice. The result is
a message verbally imprinted upon a strip of metal. It differs from
the result in the case of Barlow’s logograph, in being virtually a
record in three dimensions instead of one only. The varying depth of
the impressions corresponds to the varying height of the curve in
Barlow’s diagrams; but there the resemblance ceases; for that was
the single feature which Barlow’s logographs could present. Edison’s
imprinted words show, besides varying depth of impression, a varying
range on either side of the mean track of the pointer, and also—though
the eye is not able to detect this effect—there is a varying rate of
progression according as the end of the pointer has been swayed towards
or from the direction in which, owing to the motion of the cylinder,
the pointer is virtually travelling.
We may say of the record thus obtained that it is sound presented
in a visible form. A journalist who has written on the phonograph
has spoken of this record as corresponding to the crystallization of
sound. And another who, like the former, has been (erroneously, but
that is a detail) identified with myself, has said, in like fanciful
vein, that the story of Baron Münchausen hearing words which had been
frozen during severe cold melting into speech again, so that all the
babble of a past day came floating about his ears, has been realized
by Edison’s invention. Although such expressions may not be, and in
point of fact are not, strictly scientific, I am not disposed, for my
own part, to cavil with them. If they could by any possibility be taken
_au pied de la lettre_ (and, by the way, we find quite a new meaning
for this expression in the light of what is now known about vowels
and consonants), there would be valid objection to their use. But, as
no one supposes that Edison’s phonograph really crystallizes words or
freezes sounds, it seems hypercritical to denounce such expressions as
the critic of the _Telegraphic Journal_ has denounced them.
To return to Edison’s instrument.
Having obtained a material record of sounds, vocal or otherwise,
it remains that a contrivance should be adopted for making this
record reproduce the sounds by which it was itself formed. This is
effected by a third portion of the apparatus, the transmitter. This
is a conical drum, or rather a drum shaped like a frustum of a cone,
having its larger end open, the smaller—which is about two inches in
diameter—being covered with paper stretched tight like the parchment
of a drumhead. In front of this diaphragm is a light flat steel spring,
held vertically, and ending in a blunt steel point, which projects
from it and corresponds precisely with that on the diaphragm of the
receiver. The spring is connected with the paper diaphragm by a silken
thread, just sufficiently in tension to cause the outer face of the
diaphragm to be slightly convex. Having removed the receiving apparatus
from the cylinder and set the cylinder back to its original position,
the transmitting apparatus is brought up to the cylinder until the
steel point just rests, without pressure, in the first indentation
made in the tinfoil by the point of the receiver. If now the handle is
turned at the same speed as when the message was being recorded, the
steel point will follow the line of impression, and will vibrate in
periods corresponding to the impressions which were produced by the
point of the receiving apparatus. The paper diaphragm being thus set
into vibrations of the requisite kind in number, depth, and side-range,
there are produced precisely the same sounds that set the diaphragm of
the receiver into vibration originally. Thus the words of the speaker
are heard issuing from the conical drum in his own voice, tinged
with a slightly metallic or mechanical tone. If the cylinder be more
slowly turned when transmitting than it had been when receiving the
message, the voice assumes a base tone; if more quickly, the message
is given with a more treble voice. “In the present machine,” says the
account, “when a long message is to be recorded, so soon as one strip
of tinfoil is filled, it is removed and replaced by others, until the
communication has been completed. In using the machine for the purpose
of correspondence, the metal strips are removed from the cylinder
and sent to the person with whom the speaker desires to correspond,
who must possess a machine similar to that used by the sender. The
person receiving the strips places them in turn on the cylinder of
his apparatus, applies the transmitter, and puts the cylinder in
motion, when he hears his friend’s voice speaking to him from the
indented metal. And he can repeat the contents of the missive as often
as he pleases, until he has worn the metal through. The sender can
make an infinite number of copies of his communication by taking a
plaster-of-Paris cast of the original, and rubbing off impressions from
it on a clean sheet of foil.”
I forbear from dwelling further on the interest and value of this
noble invention, or of considering some of the developments which it
will probably receive before long, for already I have occupied more
space than I had intended. I have no doubt that in these days it will
bring its inventor less credit, and far less material gain, than would
be acquired from the invention of some ingenious contrivance for
destroying many lives at a blow, bursting a hole as large as a church
door in the bottom of an ironclad, or in some other way helping men to
carry out those destructive instincts which they inherit from savage
and brutal ancestors. But hereafter, when the representatives of the
brutality and savagery of our nature are held in proper disesteem, and
those who have added new enjoyments to life are justly valued, a high
place in the esteem of men will be accorded to him who has answered
one-half of the poet’s aspiration,
“Oh for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!”
* * * * *
NOTE.—Since the present paper was written, M. Aurel de Ratti has
made some experiments which he regards as tending to show that there
is no mechanical vibration. Thus, “when the cavities above and below
the iron disc of an ordinary telephone are filled with wadding, the
instrument will transmit and speak with undiminished clearness. On
placing a finger on the iron disc opposite the magnet, the instrument
will transmit and speak distinctly, only ceasing to act when sufficient
pressure is applied to bring plate and magnet into contact. Connecting
the centre of the disc by means of a short thread with an extremely
sensitive membrane, no sound is given out by the latter when a message
is transmitted. Bringing the iron cores of the double telephone in
contact with the disc, and pressing with the fingers against the
plate on the other side, a weak current from a Daniell cell produced
a distinct click in the plate, and on drawing a wire from the cell
over a file which formed part of the circuit, a rattling noise was
produced in the instrument.” If these experiments had been made
before the phonograph was invented, they would have suggested the
impracticability of constructing any instrument which would do what the
phonograph actually does, viz., cause sounds to be repeated by exciting
a merely mechanical vibration of the central part of a thin metallic
disc. But as the phonograph proves that this can actually be done,
we must conclude that M. Aurel de Ratti’s experiments will not bear
the interpretation he places upon them. They show, nevertheless, that
exceedingly minute vibrations of probably a very small portion of the
telephonic disc suffice for the distinct transmission of vocal sounds.
This might indeed be inferred from the experiments of M. Demozet, of
Nantes, who finds that the vibrations of the transmitting telephone
are in amplitude little more than 1-2000th those of the receiving
telephone.
_THE GORILLA AND OTHER APES._
About twenty-five centuries ago, a voyager called Hanno is said to
have sailed from Carthage, between the Pillars of Hercules—that is,
through the Straits of Gibraltar—along the shores of Africa. “Passing
the Streams of Fire,” says the narrator, “we came to a bay called the
Horn of the South. In the recess there was an island, like the first,
having a lake, and in this there was another island full of wild men.
But much the greater part of them were women, with hairy bodies, whom
the interpreters called ‘Gorillas.’ Pursuing them, we were not able to
take the men; they all escaped, being able to climb the precipices;
and defended themselves with pieces of rock. But three women, who bit
and scratched those who led them, were not willing to follow. However,
having killed them, we flayed them, and conveyed the skins to Carthage;
for we did not sail any further, as provisions began to fail.”[35]
In the opinion of many naturalists, the wild men of this story
were the anthropoid or manlike apes which are now called gorillas,
rediscovered recently by Du Chaillu. The region inhabited by the
gorillas is a well-wooded country, “extending about a thousand miles
from the Gulf of Guinea southward,” says Gosse; “and as the gorilla
is not found beyond these limits, so we may pretty conclusively infer
that the extreme point of Hanno was somewhere in this region.” I must
confess these inferences seem to me somewhat open to question, and
the account of Hanno’s voyage only interesting in its relation to the
gorilla, as having suggested the name now given to this race of apes.
It is not probable that Hanno sailed much further than Sierra Leone;
according to Rennell, the island where the “wild men” were seen, was
the small island lying close to Sherbro, some seventy miles south of
Sierra Leone. To have reached the gorilla district after doubling Cape
Verd—which is itself a point considerably south of the most southerly
city founded by Hanno—he would have had to voyage a distance exceeding
that of Cape Verd from Carthage. Nothing in the account suggests that
the portion of the voyage, after the colonizing was completed, had
so great a range. The behaviour of the “wild men,” again, does not
correspond with the known habits of the gorilla. The idea suggested
is that of a species of anthropoid ape far inferior to the gorilla in
strength, courage, and ferocity.
The next accounts which have been regarded as relating to the gorilla
are those given by Portuguese voyagers. These narratives have been
received with considerable doubt, because in some parts they seem
manifestly fabulous. Thus the pictures representing apes show also
huge flying dragons with a crocodile’s head; and we have no reason for
believing that batlike creatures like the pterodactyls of the greensand
existed in Africa or elsewhere so late as the time of the Portuguese
voyages of discovery. Purchas, in his history of Andrew Battell,
speaks of “a kinde of great apes, if they might so bee termed, of the
height of a man, but twice as bigge in feature of their limmes, with
strength proportionable, hairie all over, otherwise altogether like
men and women in their whole bodily shape, except that their legges
had no calves.” This description accords well with the peculiarities
of gorillas, and may be regarded as the first genuine account of these
animals. Battell’s contemporaries called the apes so described Pongoes.
It is probable that in selecting the name Pongo for the young gorilla
lately at the Westminster Aquarium, the proprietors of this interesting
creature showed a more accurate judgment of the meaning of Purchas’s
narrative than Du Chaillu showed of Hanno’s account, in calling the
great anthropoid ape of the Gulf of Guinea a gorilla.
I propose here briefly to sketch the peculiarities of the four apes
which approach nearest in form to man—the gorilla, the chimpanzee, the
orang-outang, and the gibbon; and then, though not dealing generally
with the question of our relationship to these non-speaking (and, in
some respects, perhaps, “unspeakable”) animals, to touch on some points
connected with this question, and to point out some errors which are
very commonly entertained on the subject.
It may be well, in the first place, to point out that the terms “ape,”
“baboon,” and “monkey” are no longer used as they were by the older
naturalists. Formerly the term “ape” was limited to tailless simians
having no cheek-pouches, and the same number of teeth as man; the
term “baboon” to short-tailed simians with dog-shaped heads; and the
term “monkey,” unless used generically, to the long-tailed species.
This was the usage suggested by Ray, and adopted systematically
thirty or forty years ago. But it is no longer followed, though no
uniform classification has been substituted for the old arrangement.
Thus Mivart divides the apes into two classes—calling the first the
_Simiadæ_, or Old World apes; and the second the _Cebidæ_, or New World
apes. He subdivides the _Simiadæ_ into (1) the _Siminæ_, including the
gorilla, chimpanzee, orang, and gibbon; (2) the _Semnopithecinæ_; and
(3) the _Cynopithecinæ_; neither of which subdivisions will occupy much
of our attention here, save as respects the third subdivision of the
_Cynopithecinæ_, viz., the _Cynocephali_, which includes the baboons.
The other great division, the _Cebidæ_, or New World apes, are for the
most part very unlike the Old World apes. None of them approach the
gorilla or orang-outang in size; most of them are long-tailed; and the
number and arrangement of the teeth is different. The feature, however,
which most naturalists have selected as the characteristic distinction
between the apes of the Old World and of the New World is the position
of the nostrils. The former are called Catarhine, a word signifying
that the nostrils are directed downwards; the latter are called
Platyrhine, or broad-nosed. The nostrils of all the Old World apes are
separated by a narrow cartilaginous plate or septum, whereas the septum
of the New World apes is broad. After the apes come, according to
Mivart’s classification, the half-apes or lemuroids.
I ought, perhaps, to have mentioned that Mivart, in describing the
lemuroids as the second sub-order of a great order of animals, the
Primates, speaks of a man as (zoologically speaking) belonging to the
first sub-order. So that, in point of fact, the two sub-orders are the
Anthropoids, including the Anthropos (man) and the Lemuroids, including
the lemur.
The classification here indicated will serve our present purpose
very well. But the reader is reminded that, as already mentioned,
naturalists do not adopt at present any uniform system of
classification. Moreover, the term _Simiadæ_ is usually employed—and
will be employed here—to represent the entire simian race, _i.e._,
both the Simiadæ and the Cebidæ of Mivart’s classification.
And now, turning to the Anthropoid apes, we find ourselves at the
outset confronted by the question, Which of the four apes, the gorilla,
the orang-outang, the chimpanzee, or the gibbon, is to be regarded
as nearest to man in intelligence? So far as bodily configuration is
concerned, our opinion would vary according to the particular feature
which we selected for consideration. But it will probably be admitted
that intelligence should be the characteristic by which our opinions
should be guided.
The gibbon may be dismissed at once, though, as will presently appear,
there are some features in which this ape resembles man more closely
than either the gorilla, the orang-outang, or the chimpanzee.
The gorilla must, I fear, be summarily ejected from the position of
honour to which he has been raised by many naturalists. Though the
gorilla is a much larger animal than the chimpanzee, his brain barely
equals the chimpanzee’s in mass. It is also less fully developed in
front. In fact Gratiolet asserts that of all the broad-chested apes,
the gorilla is—so far as brain character is concerned—the lowest
and most degraded. He regards the gorilla’s brain as only a more
advanced form of that of the brutal baboons, while the orang’s brain
is the culminating form of the gibbon type, and the chimpanzee’s the
culminating form of the macaque type. This does not dispose of the
difficulty very satisfactorily, however, because it remains to be shown
whether the gibbon type and the macaque type are superior as types to
the baboon types. But it may suffice to remark that the baboons are
all brutal and ferocious, whereas the gibbons are comparatively gentle
animals, and the macaques docile and even playful. It may be questioned
whether brutality and ferocity should be regarded as necessarily
removing the gorilla further from man; because it is certain that the
races of man which approach nearest to the anthropoid apes, with which
races the comparison should assuredly be made, are characterized by
these very qualities, brutality and ferocity. Intelligence must be
otherwise gauged. Probably the average proportion of the brain’s weight
to that of the entire body, and the complexity of the structure of
the brain, would afford the best means of deciding the question. But,
unfortunately, we have very unsatisfactory evidence on these points.
The naturalists who have based opinions on such evidence as has been
obtained, seem to overlook the poverty of the evidence. Knowing as we
do how greatly the human brain varies in size and complexity, not only
in different races, but in different individuals of the same race, it
appears unsatisfactory in the extreme to regard the average of the
brains of each simian species hitherto examined as presenting the true
average cerebral capacity for each species.
Still it seems tolerably clear that the choice as to the race of apes
which must be regarded as first in intelligence, and therefore as on
the whole the most manlike, rests between the orang-outang and the
chimpanzee. “In the world of science, as in that of politics,” said
Professor Rolleston in 1862, “France and England have occasionally
differed as to their choice between rival candidates for royalty. If
either hereditary claims or personal merits affect at all the right
of succession, beyond a question the gorilla is but a pretender, and
one or other of the two (other) candidates the true prince. There is
a graceful as well as an ungraceful way of withdrawing from a false
position, and the British public will adopt the graceful course
by accepting forthwith and henceforth the French candidate”—the
orang-outang. If this were intended as prophecy, it has not been
fulfilled by the event, for the gorilla is still regarded by most
British naturalists as the ape which comes on the whole nearest to man;
but probably, in saying “the British public will adopt the graceful
course” in accepting the orang-outang as “the king of the Simiadæ,”
Professor Rolleston meant only that that course would be graceful if
adopted.
Before the discovery of the gorilla, the chimpanzee was usually
regarded as next to man in the scale of the animal creation. It was
Cuvier who first maintained the claim of the orang-outang to this
position. Cuvier’s opinion was based on the greater development
of the orang-outang’s brain, and the height of its forehead. But
these marks of superiority belong to the orang only when young. The
adult orang seems to be inferior, or at least not superior, to the
chimpanzee as respects cerebral formation, and in other respects seems
less to resemble man. The proportions of his body, his long arms,
high shoulders, deformed neck, and imperfect ears are opposed to its
claims to be regarded as manlike. In all these respects, save one, the
chimpanzee seems to be greatly its superior. (The ear of the chimpanzee
is large, and not placed as with us: that of the gorilla is much more
like man’s.)