THE PHONOGRAPH
AT the opening of the Electrical Show in New York City in October, 1908,
to celebrate the jubilee of the Atlantic Cable and the first quarter
century of lighting with the Edison service on Manhattan Island, the
exercises were all conducted by means of the Edison phonograph. This
included the dedicatory speech of Governor Hughes, of New York; the
modest remarks of Mr. Edison, as president; the congratulations of the
presidents of several national electric bodies, and a number of vocal
and instrumental selections of operatic nature. All this was heard
clearly by a very large audience, and was repeated on other evenings.
The same speeches were used again phonographically at the Electrical
Show in Chicago in 1909--and now the records are preserved for
reproduction a hundred or a thousand years hence. This tour de force,
never attempted before, was merely an exemplification of the value
of the phonograph not only in establishing at first hand the facts of
history, but in preserving the human voice. What would we not give to
listen to the very accents and tones of the Sermon on the Mount, the
orations of Demosthenes, the first Pitt's appeal for American liberty,
the Farewell of Washington, or the Address at Gettysburg? Until Edison
made his wonderful invention in 1877, the human race was entirely
without means for preserving or passing on to posterity its own
linguistic utterances or any other vocal sound. We have some idea how
the ancients looked and felt and wrote; the abundant evidence takes us
back to the cave-dwellers. But all the old languages are dead, and the
literary form is their embalmment. We do not even know definitely how
Shakespeare's and Goldsmith's plays were pronounced on the stage in
the theatres of the time; while it is only a guess that perhaps Chaucer
would sound much more modern than he scans.
The analysis of sound, which owes so much to Helmholtz, was one step
toward recording; and the various means of illustrating the phenomena of
sound to the eye and ear, prior to the phonograph, were all ingenious.
One can watch the dancing little flames of Koenig, and see a voice
expressed in tongues of fire; but the record can only be photographic.
In like manner, the simple phonautograph of Leon Scott, invented about
1858, records on a revolving cylinder of blackened paper the sound
vibrations transmitted through a membrane to which a tiny stylus is
attached; so that a human mouth uses a pen and inscribes its sign vocal.
Yet after all we are just as far away as ever from enabling the young
actors at Harvard to give Aristophanes with all the true, subtle
intonation and inflection of the Athens of 400 B.C. The instrument
is dumb. Ingenuity has been shown also in the invention of
"talking-machines," like Faber's, based on the reed organ pipe. These
automata can be made by dexterous manipulation to jabber a little, like
a doll with its monotonous "ma-ma," or a cuckoo clock; but they lack
even the sterile utility of the imitative art of ventriloquism. The real
great invention lies in creating devices that shall be able to evoke
from tinfoil, wax, or composition at any time to-day or in the future
the sound that once was as evanescent as the vibrations it made on the
air.
Contrary to the general notion, very few of the great modern inventions
have been the result of a sudden inspiration by which, Minerva-like,
they have sprung full-fledged from their creators' brain; but, on the
contrary, they have been evolved by slow and gradual steps, so that
frequently the final advance has been often almost imperceptible. The
Edison phonograph is an important exception to the general rule; not,
of course, the phonograph of the present day with all of its mechanical
perfection, but as an instrument capable of recording and reproducing
sound. Its invention has been frequently attributed to the discovery
that a point attached to a telephone diaphragm would, under the effect
of sound-waves, vibrate with sufficient force to prick the finger. The
story, though interesting, is not founded on fact; but, if true, it is
difficult to see how the discovery in question could have contributed
materially to the ultimate accomplishment. To a man of Edison's
perception it is absurd to suppose that the effect of the so-called
discovery would not have been made as a matter of deduction long
before the physical sensation was experienced. As a matter of fact, the
invention of the phonograph was the result of pure reason. Some time
prior to 1877, Edison had been experimenting on an automatic telegraph
in which the letters were formed by embossing strips of paper with the
proper arrangement of dots and dashes. By drawing this strip beneath a
contact lever, the latter was actuated so as to control the circuits and
send the desired signals over the line. It was observed that when the
strip was moved very rapidly the vibration of the lever resulted in
the production of an audible note. With these facts before him, Edison
reasoned that if the paper strip could be imprinted with elevations
and depressions representative of sound-waves, they might be caused to
actuate a diaphragm so as to reproduce the corresponding sounds.
The next step in the line of development was to form the necessary
undulations on the strip, and it was then reasoned that original sounds
themselves might be utilized to form a graphic record by actuating a
diaphragm and causing a cutting or indenting point carried thereby to
vibrate in contact with a moving surface, so as to cut or indent the
record therein. Strange as it may seem, therefore, and contrary to the
general belief, the phonograph was developed backward, the production of
the sounds being of prior development to the idea of actually recording
them.
Mr. Edison's own account of the invention of the phonograph is intensely
interesting. "I was experimenting," he says, "on an automatic method
of recording telegraph messages on a disk of paper laid on a revolving
platen, exactly the same as the disk talking-machine of to-day. The
platen had a spiral groove on its surface, like the disk. Over this was
placed a circular disk of paper; an electromagnet with the embossing
point connected to an arm travelled over the disk; and any signals given
through the magnets were embossed on the disk of paper. If this disk was
removed from the machine and put on a similar machine provided with
a contact point, the embossed record would cause the signals to be
repeated into another wire. The ordinary speed of telegraphic signals
is thirty-five to forty words a minute; but with this machine several
hundred words were possible.
"From my experiments on the telephone I knew of the power of a diaphragm
to take up sound vibrations, as I had made a little toy which, when
you recited loudly in the funnel, would work a pawl connected to the
diaphragm; and this engaging a ratchet-wheel served to give continuous
rotation to a pulley. This pulley was connected by a cord to a little
paper toy representing a man sawing wood. Hence, if one shouted: 'Mary
had a little lamb,' etc., the paper man would start sawing wood. I
reached the conclusion that if I could record the movements of the
diaphragm properly, I could cause such record to reproduce the original
movements imparted to the diaphragm by the voice, and thus succeed in
recording and reproducing the human voice.
"Instead of using a disk I designed a little machine using a cylinder
provided with grooves around the surface. Over this was to be placed
tinfoil, which easily received and recorded the movements of the
diaphragm. A sketch was made, and the piece-work price, $18, was marked
on the sketch. I was in the habit of marking the price I would pay on
each sketch. If the workman lost, I would pay his regular wages; if he
made more than the wages, he kept it. The workman who got the sketch was
John Kruesi. I didn't have much faith that it would work, expecting that
I might possibly hear a word or so that would give hope of a future for
the idea. Kruesi, when he had nearly finished it, asked what it was for.
I told him I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk
back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was
put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb,' etc. I adjusted the
reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. I was never so
taken aback in my life. Everybody was astonished. I was always afraid
of things that worked the first time. Long experience proved that
there were great drawbacks found generally before they could be got
commercial; but here was something there was no doubt of."
No wonder that honest John Kruesi, as he stood and listened to the
marvellous performance of the simple little machine he had himself just
finished, ejaculated in an awe-stricken tone: "Mein Gott im Himmel!" And
yet he had already seen Edison do a few clever things. No wonder they
sat up all night fixing and adjusting it so as to get better and better
results--reciting and singing, trying each other's voices, and then
listening with involuntary awe as the words came back again and again,
just as long as they were willing to revolve the little cylinder with
its dotted spiral indentations in the tinfoil under the vibrating stylus
of the reproducing diaphragm. It took a little time to acquire the knack
of turning the crank steadily while leaning over the recorder to talk
into the machine; and there was some deftness required also in fastening
down the tinfoil on the cylinder where it was held by a pin running in
a longitudinal slot. Paraffined paper appears also to have been
experimented with as an impressible material. It is said that Carman,
the foreman of the machine shop, had gone the length of wagering Edison
a box of cigars that the device would not work. All the world knows that
he lost.
The original Edison phonograph thus built by Kruesi is preserved in the
South Kensington Museum, London. That repository can certainly have no
greater treasure of its kind. But as to its immediate use, the inventor
says: "That morning I took it over to New York and walked into the
office of the Scientific American, went up to Mr. Beach's desk, and said
I had something to show him. He asked what it was. I told him I had a
machine that would record and reproduce the human voice. I opened the
package, set up the machine and recited, 'Mary had a little lamb,' etc.
Then I reproduced it so that it could be heard all over the room. They
kept me at it until the crowd got so great Mr. Beach was afraid the
floor would collapse; and we were compelled to stop. The papers next
morning contained columns. None of the writers seemed to understand how
it was done. I tried to explain, it was so very simple, but the results
were so surprising they made up their minds probably that they never
would understand it--and they didn't.
"I started immediately making several larger and better machines, which
I exhibited at Menlo Park to crowds. The Pennsylvania Railroad ran
special trains. Washington people telegraphed me to come on. I took
a phonograph to Washington and exhibited it in the room of James G.
Blaine's niece (Gail Hamilton); and members of Congress and notable
people of that city came all day long until late in the evening. I made
one break. I recited 'Mary,' etc., and another ditty:
'There was a little girl, who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
And when she was good she was very, very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid.'
"It will be remembered that Senator Roscoe Conkling, then very prominent,
had a curl of hair on his forehead; and all the caricaturists developed
it abnormally. He was very sensitive about the subject. When he came in
he was introduced; but being rather deaf, I didn't catch his name, but
sat down and started the curl ditty. Everybody tittered, and I was told
that Mr. Conkling was displeased. About 11 o'clock at night word was
received from President Hayes that he would be very much pleased if I
would come up to the White House. I was taken there, and found Mr. Hayes
and several others waiting. Among them I remember Carl Schurz, who was
playing the piano when I entered the room. The exhibition continued till
about 12.30 A.M., when Mrs. Hayes and several other ladies, who had been
induced to get up and dress, appeared. I left at 3.30 A.M.
"For a long time some people thought there was trickery. One morning
at Menlo Park a gentleman came to the laboratory and asked to see the
phonograph. It was Bishop Vincent, who helped Lewis Miller found the
Chautauqua I exhibited it, and then he asked if he could speak a few
words. I put on a fresh foil and told him to go ahead. He commenced to
recite Biblical names with immense rapidity. On reproducing it he said:
'I am satisfied, now. There isn't a man in the United States who could
recite those names with the same rapidity.'"
The phonograph was now fairly launched as a world sensation, and a
reference to the newspapers of 1878 will show the extent to which it and
Edison were themes of universal discussion. Some of the press notices
of the period were most amazing--and amusing. As though the real
achievements of this young man, barely thirty, were not tangible
and solid enough to justify admiration of his genius, the "yellow
journalists" of the period began busily to create an "Edison myth," with
gross absurdities of assertion and attribution from which the modest
subject of it all has not yet ceased to suffer with unthinking people.
A brilliantly vicious example of this method of treatment is to be found
in the Paris Figaro of that year, which under the appropriate title of
"This Astounding Eddison" lay bare before the French public the most
startling revelations as to the inventor's life and character. "It
should be understood," said this journal, "that Mr. Eddison does not
belong to himself. He is the property of the telegraph company which
lodges him in New York at a superb hotel; keeps him on a luxurious
footing, and pays him a formidable salary so as to be the one to know
of and profit by his discoveries. The company has, in the dwelling of
Eddison, men in its employ who do not quit him for a moment, at the
table, on the street, in the laboratory. So that this wretched man,
watched more closely than ever was any malefactor, cannot even give a
moment's thought to his own private affairs without one of his guards
asking him what he is thinking about." This foolish "blague" was
accompanied by a description of Edison's new "aerophone," a steam
machine which carried the voice a distance of one and a half miles. "You
speak to a jet of vapor. A friend previously advised can answer you
by the same method." Nor were American journals backward in this wild
exaggeration.
The furor had its effect in stimulating a desire everywhere on the
part of everybody to see and hear the phonograph. A small commercial
organization was formed to build and exploit the apparatus, and the
shops at Menlo Park laboratory were assisted by the little Bergmann shop
in New York. Offices were taken for the new enterprise at 203 Broadway,
where the Mail and Express building now stands, and where, in a
general way, under the auspices of a talented dwarf, C. A. Cheever, the
embryonic phonograph and the crude telephone shared rooms and expenses.
Gardiner G. Hubbard, father-in-law of Alex. Graham Bell, was one of the
stockholders in the Phonograph Company, which paid Edison $10,000 cash
and a 20 per cent. royalty. This curious partnership was maintained for
some time, even when the Bell Telephone offices were removed to Reade
Street, New York, whither the phonograph went also; and was perhaps
explained by the fact that just then the ability of the phonograph as
a money-maker was much more easily demonstrated than was that of
the telephone, still in its short range magneto stage and awaiting
development with the aid of the carbon transmitter.
The earning capacity of the phonograph then, as largely now, lay in its
exhibition qualities. The royalties from Boston, ever intellectually
awake and ready for something new, ran as high as $1800 a week. In New
York there was a ceaseless demand for it, and with the aid of Hilbourne
L. Roosevelt, a famous organ builder, and uncle of ex-President
Roosevelt, concerts were given at which the phonograph was "featured."
To manage this novel show business the services of James Redpath were
called into requisition with great success. Redpath, famous as a friend
and biographer of John Brown, as a Civil War correspondent, and as
founder of the celebrated Redpath Lyceum Bureau in Boston, divided
the country into territories, each section being leased for exhibition
purposes on a basis of a percentage of the "gate money." To 203
Broadway from all over the Union flocked a swarm of showmen, cranks, and
particularly of old operators, who, the seedier they were in appearance,
the more insistent they were that "Tom" should give them, for the sake
of "Auld lang syne," this chance to make a fortune for him and for
themselves. At the top of the building was a floor on which these
novices were graduated in the use and care of the machine, and then,
with an equipment of tinfoil and other supplies, they were sent out on
the road. It was a diverting experience while it lasted. The excitement
over the phonograph was maintained for many months, until a large
proportion of the inhabitants of the country had seen it; and then the
show receipts declined and dwindled away. Many of the old operators,
taken on out of good-nature, were poor exhibitors and worse accountants,
and at last they and the machines with which they had been intrusted
faded from sight. But in the mean time Edison had learned many lessons
as to this practical side of development that were not forgotten when
the renascence of the phonograph began a few years later, leading up to
the present enormous and steady demand for both machines and records.
It deserves to be pointed out that the phonograph has changed little in
the intervening years from the first crude instruments of 1877-78. It
has simply been refined and made more perfect in a mechanical sense.
Edison was immensely impressed with its possibilities, and greatly
inclined to work upon it, but the coming of the electric light compelled
him to throw all his energies for a time into the vast new field
awaiting conquest. The original phonograph, as briefly noted above, was
rotated by hand, and the cylinder was fed slowly longitudinally by means
of a nut engaging a screw thread on the cylinder shaft. Wrapped
around the cylinder was a sheet of tinfoil, with which engaged a small
chisel-like recording needle, connected adhesively with the centre of
an iron diaphragm. Obviously, as the cylinder was turned, the needle
followed a spiral path whose pitch depended upon that of the feed screw.
Along this path a thread was cut in the cylinder so as to permit the
needle to indent the foil readily as the diaphragm vibrated. By rotating
the cylinder and by causing the diaphragm to vibrate under the effect
of vocal or musical sounds, the needle-like point would form a series
of indentations in the foil corresponding to and characteristic of the
sound-waves. By now engaging the point with the beginning of the grooved
record so formed, and by again rotating the cylinder, the undulations of
the record would cause the needle and its attached diaphragm to vibrate
so as to effect the reproduction. Such an apparatus was necessarily
undeveloped, and was interesting only from a scientific point of view.
It had many mechanical defects which prevented its use as a practical
apparatus. Since the cylinder was rotated by hand, the speed at which
the record was formed would vary considerably, even with the same
manipulator, so that it would have been impossible to record and
reproduce music satisfactorily; in doing which exact uniformity of
speed is essential. The formation of the record in tinfoil was also
objectionable from a practical standpoint, since such a record was faint
and would be substantially obliterated after two or three reproductions.
Furthermore, the foil could not be easily removed from and replaced
upon the instrument, and consequently the reproduction had to follow the
recording immediately, and the successive tinfoils were thrown away. The
instrument was also heavy and bulky. Notwithstanding these objections
the original phonograph created, as already remarked, an enormous
popular excitement, and the exhibitions were considered by many
sceptical persons as nothing more than clever ventriloquism. The
possibilities of the instrument as a commercial apparatus were
recognized from the very first, and some of the fields in which it was
predicted that the phonograph would be used are now fully occupied.
Some have not yet been realized. Writing in 1878 in the North
American-Review, Mr. Edison thus summed up his own ideas as to the
future applications of the new invention:
"Among the many uses to which the phonograph will be applied are the
following:
1. Letter writing and all kinds of dictation without the aid of a
stenographer.
2. Phonographic books, which will speak to blind people without effort
on their part.
3. The teaching of elocution.
4. Reproduction of music.
5. The 'Family Record'--a registry of sayings, reminiscences, etc., by
members of a family in their own voices, and of the last words of dying
persons.
6. Music-boxes and toys.
7. Clocks that should announce in articulate speech the time for going
home, going to meals, etc.
8. The preservation of languages by exact reproduction of the manner of
pronouncing.
9. Educational purposes; such as preserving the explanations made by a
teacher, so that the pupil can refer to them at any moment, and
spelling or other lessons placed upon the phonograph for convenience in
committing to memory.
10. Connection with the telephone, so as to make that instrument an
auxiliary in the transmission of permanent and invaluable records,
instead of being the recipient of momentary and fleeting communication."
Of the above fields of usefulness in which it was expected that
the phonograph might be applied, only three have been commercially
realized--namely, the reproduction of musical, including vaudeville or
talking selections, for which purpose a very large proportion of
the phonographs now made is used; the employment of the machine as a
mechanical stenographer, which field has been taken up actively only
within the past few years; and the utilization of the device for the
teaching of languages, for which purpose it has been successfully
employed, for example, by the International Correspondence Schools of
Scranton, Pennsylvania, for several years. The other uses, however,
which were early predicted for the phonograph have not as yet been
worked out practically, although the time seems not far distant when its
general utility will be widely enlarged. Both dolls and clocks have been
made, but thus far the world has not taken them seriously.
The original phonograph, as invented by Edison, remained in its
crude and immature state for almost ten years--still the object of
philosophical interest, and as a convenient text-book illustration of
the effect of sound vibration. It continued to be a theme of curious
interest to the imaginative, and the subject of much fiction, while
its neglected commercial possibilities were still more or less vaguely
referred to. During this period of arrested development, Edison was
continuously working on the invention and commercial exploitation of
the incandescent lamp. In 1887 his time was comparatively free, and the
phonograph was then taken up with renewed energy, and the effort made to
overcome its mechanical defects and to furnish a commercial instrument,
so that its early promise might be realized. The important changes made
from that time up to 1890 converted the phonograph from a scientific toy
into a successful industrial apparatus. The idea of forming the record
on tinfoil had been early abandoned, and in its stead was substituted a
cylinder of wax-like material, in which the record was cut by a minute
chisel-like gouging tool. Such a record or phonogram, as it was then
called, could be removed from the machine or replaced at any time, many
reproductions could be obtained without wearing out the record, and
whenever desired the record could be shaved off by a turning-tool so
as to present a fresh surface on which a new record could be formed,
something like an ancient palimpsest. A wax cylinder having walls less
than one-quarter of an inch in thickness could be used for receiving a
large number of records, since the maximum depth of the record groove is
hardly ever greater than one one-thousandth of an inch. Later on, and
as the crowning achievement in the phonograph field, from a commercial
point of view, came the duplication of records to the extent of many
thousands from a single "master." This work was actively developed
between the years 1890 and 1898, and its difficulties may be appreciated
when the problem is stated; the copying from a single master of many
millions of excessively minute sound-waves having a maximum width of one
hundredth of an inch, and a maximum depth of one thousandth of an
inch, or less than the thickness of a sheet of tissue-paper. Among the
interesting developments of this process was the coating of the original
or master record with a homogeneous film of gold so thin that three
hundred thousand of these piled one on top of the other would present a
thickness of only one inch!
Another important change was in the nature of a reversal of the original
arrangement, the cylinder or mandrel carrying the record being mounted
in fixed bearings, and the recording or reproducing device being fed
lengthwise, like the cutting-tool of a lathe, as the blank or record was
rotated. It was early recognized that a single needle for forming the
record and the reproduction therefrom was an undesirable arrangement,
since the formation of the record required a very sharp cutting-tool,
while satisfactory and repeated reproduction suggested the use of a
stylus which would result in the minimum wear. After many experiments
and the production of a number of types of machines, the present
recorders and reproducers were evolved, the former consisting of a
very small cylindrical gouging tool having a diameter of about forty
thousandths of an inch, and the latter a ball or button-shaped stylus
with a diameter of about thirty-five thousandths of an inch. By using
an incisor of this sort, the record is formed of a series of connected
gouges with rounded sides, varying in depth and width, and with which
the reproducer automatically engages and maintains its engagement.
Another difficulty encountered in the commercial development of the
phonograph was the adjustment of the recording stylus so as to enter the
wax-like surface to a very slight depth, and of the reproducer so as
to engage exactly the record when formed. The earlier types of machines
were provided with separate screws for effecting these adjustments;
but considerable skill was required to obtain good results, and great
difficulty was experienced in meeting the variations in the wax-like
cylinders, due to the warping under atmospheric changes. Consequently,
with the early types of commercial phonographs, it was first necessary
to shave off the blank accurately before a record was formed thereon,
in order that an absolutely true surface might be presented. To overcome
these troubles, the very ingenious suggestion was then made and adopted,
of connecting the recording and reproducing styluses to their respective
diaphragms through the instrumentality of a compensating weight,
which acted practically as a fixed support under the very rapid sound
vibrations, but which yielded readily to distortions or variations
in the wax-like cylinders. By reason of this improvement, it became
possible to do away with all adjustments, the mass of the compensating
weight causing the recorder to engage the blank automatically to the
required depth, and to maintain the reproducing stylus always with the
desired pressure on the record when formed. These automatic adjustments
were maintained even though the blank or record might be so much out of
true as an eighth of an inch, equal to more than two hundred times the
maximum depth of the record groove.
Another improvement that followed along the lines adopted by Edison for
the commercial development of the phonograph was making the recording
and reproducing styluses of sapphire, an extremely hard, non-oxidizable
jewel, so that those tiny instruments would always retain their true
form and effectively resist wear. Of course, in this work many other
things were done that may still be found on the perfected phonograph
as it stands to-day, and many other suggestions were made which were
contemporaneously adopted, but which were later abandoned. For the
curious-minded, reference is made to the records in the Patent Office,
which will show that up to 1893 Edison had obtained upward of sixty-five
patents in this art, from which his line of thought can be very closely
traced. The phonograph of to-day, except for the perfection of its
mechanical features, in its beauty of manufacture and design, and in
small details, may be considered identical with the machine of 1889,
with the exception that with the latter the rotation of the record
cylinder was effected by an electric motor.
Its essential use as then contemplated was as a substitute for
stenographers, and the most extravagant fancies were indulged in as to
utility in that field. To exploit the device commercially, the patents
were sold to Philadelphia capitalists, who organized the North American
Phonograph Company, through which leases for limited periods were
granted to local companies doing business in special territories,
generally within the confines of a single State. Under that plan,
resembling the methods of 1878, the machines and blank cylinders were
manufactured by the Edison Phonograph Works, which still retains its
factories at Orange, New Jersey. The marketing enterprise was early
doomed to failure, principally because the instruments were not well
understood, and did not possess the necessary refinements that would fit
them for the special field in which they were to be used. At first the
instruments were leased; but it was found that the leases were seldom
renewed. Efforts were then made to sell them, but the prices were
high--from $100 to $150. In the midst of these difficulties, the chief
promoter of the enterprise, Mr. Lippincott, died; and it was soon found
that the roseate dreams of success entertained by the sanguine promoters
were not to be realized. The North American Phonograph Company failed,
its principal creditor being Mr. Edison, who, having acquired the assets
of the defunct concern, organized the National Phonograph Company, to
which he turned over the patents; and with characteristic energy he
attempted again to build up a business with which his favorite and, to
him, most interesting invention might be successfully identified. The
National Phonograph Company from the very start determined to retire at
least temporarily from the field of stenographic use, and to exploit the
phonograph for musical purposes as a competitor of the music-box. Hence
it was necessary that for such work the relatively heavy and expensive
electric motor should be discarded, and a simple spring motor
constructed with a sufficiently sensitive governor to permit accurate
musical reproduction. Such a motor was designed, and is now used on
all phonographs except on such special instruments as may be made with
electric motors, as well as on the successful apparatus that has more
recently been designed and introduced for stenographic use. Improved
factory facilities were introduced; new tools were made, and various
types of machines were designed so that phonographs can now be bought at
prices ranging from $10 to $200. Even with the changes which were thus
made in the two machines, the work of developing the business was slow,
as a demand had to be created; and the early prejudice of the public
against the phonograph, due to its failure as a stenographic apparatus,
had to be overcome. The story of the phonograph as an industrial
enterprise, from this point of departure, is itself full of interest,
but embraces so many details that it is necessarily given in a separate
later chapter. We must return to the days of 1878, when Edison, with at
least three first-class inventions to his credit--the quadruplex, the
carbon telephone, and the phonograph--had become a man of mark and a
"world character."
The invention of the phonograph was immediately followed, as usual, by
the appearance of several other incidental and auxiliary devices, some
patented, and others remaining simply the application of the
principles of apparatus that had been worked out. One of these was the
telephonograph, a combination of a telephone at a distant station with a
phonograph. The diaphragm of the phonograph mouthpiece is actuated by an
electromagnet in the same way as that of an ordinary telephone receiver,
and in this manner a record of the message spoken from a distance can
be obtained and turned into sound at will. Evidently such a process
is reversible, and the phonograph can send a message to the distant
receiver.
This idea was brilliantly demonstrated in practice in February, 1889, by
Mr. W. J. Hammer, one of Edison's earliest and most capable associates,
who carried on telephonographic communication between New York and an
audience in Philadelphia. The record made in New York on the Edison
phonograph was repeated into an Edison carbon transmitter, sent over one
hundred and three miles of circuit, including six miles of underground
cable; received by an Edison motograph; repeated by that on to a
phonograph; transferred from the phonograph to an Edison carbon
transmitter, and by that delivered to the Edison motograph receiver in
the enthusiastic lecture-hall, where every one could hear each sound
and syllable distinctly. In real practice this spectacular playing with
sound vibrations, as if they were lacrosse balls to toss around between
the goals, could be materially simplified.
The modern megaphone, now used universally in making announcements
to large crowds, particularly at sporting events, is also due to this
period as a perfection by Edison of many antecedent devices going back,
perhaps, much further than the legendary funnels through which Alexander
the Great is said to have sent commands to his outlying forces. The
improved Edison megaphone for long-distance work comprised two horns of
wood or metal about six feet long, tapering from a diameter of two feet
six inches at the mouth to a small aperture provided with ear-tubes.
These converging horns or funnels, with a large speaking-trumpet in
between them, are mounted on a tripod, and the megaphone is complete.
Conversation can be carried on with this megaphone at a distance of
over two miles, as with a ship or the balloon. The modern megaphone
now employs the receiver form thus introduced as its very effective
transmitter, with which the old-fashioned speaking-trumpet cannot
possibly compete; and the word "megaphone" is universally applied to the
single, side-flaring horn.
A further step in this line brought Edison to the "aerophone," around
which the Figaro weaved its fanciful description. In the construction
of the aerophone the same kind of tympanum is used as in the phonograph,
but the imitation of the human voice, or the transmission of sound,
is effected by the quick opening and closing of valves placed within
a steam-whistle or an organ-pipe. The vibrations of the diaphragm
communicated to the valves cause them to operate in synchronism, so that
the vibrations are thrown upon the escaping air or steam; and the result
is an instrument with a capacity of magnifying the sounds two hundred
times, and of hurling them to great distances intelligibly, like a huge
fog-siren, but with immense clearness and penetration. All this study
of sound transmission over long distances without wires led up to
the consideration and invention of pioneer apparatus for wireless
telegraphy--but that also is another chapter.
Yet one more ingenious device of this period must be noted--Edison's
vocal engine, the patent application for which was executed in August,
1878, the patent being granted the following December. Reference to
this by Edison himself has already been quoted. The "voice-engine," or
"phonomotor," converts the vibrations of the voice or of music, acting
on the diaphragm, into motion which is utilized to drive some secondary
appliance, whether as a toy or for some useful purpose. Thus a man can
actually talk a hole through a board.
Somewhat weary of all this work and excitement, and not having enjoyed
any cessation from toil, or period of rest, for ten years, Edison jumped
eagerly at the opportunity afforded him in the summer of 1878 of making
a westward trip. Just thirty years later, on a similar trip over the
same ground, he jotted down for this volume some of his reminiscences.
The lure of 1878 was the opportunity to try the ability of his delicate
tasimeter during the total eclipse of the sun, July 29. His admiring
friend, Prof. George F. Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania, with
whom he had now been on terms of intimacy for some years, suggested the
holiday, and was himself a member of the excursion party that made
its rendezvous at Rawlins, Wyoming Territory. Edison had tested his
tasimeter, and was satisfied that it would measure down to the millionth
part of a degree Fahrenheit. It was just ten years since he had left the
West in poverty and obscurity, a penniless operator in search of a job;
but now he was a great inventor and famous, a welcome addition to the
band of astronomers and physicists assembled to observe the eclipse and
the corona.
"There were astronomers from nearly every nation," says Mr. Edison. "We
had a special car. The country at that time was rather new; game was
in great abundance, and could be seen all day long from the car window,
especially antelope. We arrived at Rawlins about 4 P.M. It had a small
machine shop, and was the point where locomotives were changed for the
next section. The hotel was a very small one, and by doubling up we were
barely accommodated. My room-mate was Fox, the correspondent of the New
York Herald. After we retired and were asleep a thundering knock on
the door awakened us. Upon opening the door a tall, handsome man with
flowing hair dressed in western style entered the room. His eyes were
bloodshot, and he was somewhat inebriated. He introduced himself as
'Texas Jack'--Joe Chromondo--and said he wanted to see Edison, as he had
read about me in the newspapers. Both Fox and I were rather scared, and
didn't know what was to be the result of the interview. The landlord
requested him not to make so much noise, and was thrown out into the
hall. Jack explained that he had just come in with a party which had
been hunting, and that he felt fine. He explained, also, that he was the
boss pistol-shot of the West; that it was he who taught the celebrated
Doctor Carver how to shoot. Then suddenly pointing to a weather-vane on
the freight depot, he pulled out a Colt revolver and fired through the
window, hitting the vane. The shot awakened all the people, and they
rushed in to see who was killed. It was only after I told him I was
tired and would see him in the morning that he left. Both Fox and I were
so nervous we didn't sleep any that night.
"We were told in the morning that Jack was a pretty good fellow, and was
not one of the 'bad men,' of whom they had a good supply. They had one
in the jail, and Fox and I went over to see him. A few days before he
had held up a Union Pacific train and robbed all the passengers. In
the jail also was a half-breed horse-thief. We interviewed the bad man
through bars as big as railroad rails. He looked like a 'bad man.' The
rim of his ear all around came to a sharp edge and was serrated. His
eyes were nearly white, and appeared as if made of glass and set
in wrong, like the life-size figures of Indians in the Smithsonian
Institution. His face was also extremely irregular. He wouldn't answer a
single question. I learned afterward that he got seven years in prison,
while the horse-thief was hanged. As horses ran wild, and there was no
protection, it meant death to steal one."
This was one interlude among others. "The first thing the astronomers
did was to determine with precision their exact locality upon the earth.
A number of observations were made, and Watson, of Michigan University,
with two others, worked all night computing, until they agreed. They
said they were not in error more than one hundred feet, and that the
station was twelve miles out of the position given on the maps. It
seemed to take an immense amount of mathematics. I preserved one of
the sheets, which looked like the time-table of a Chinese railroad. The
instruments of the various parties were then set up in different parts
of the little town, and got ready for the eclipse which was to occur in
three or four days. Two days before the event we all got together, and
obtaining an engine and car, went twelve miles farther west to visit the
United States Government astronomers at a place called Separation, the
apex of the Great Divide, where the waters run east to the Mississippi
and west to the Pacific. Fox and I took our Winchester rifles with an
idea of doing a little shooting. After calling on the Government people
we started to interview the telegraph operator at this most lonely and
desolate spot. After talking over old acquaintances I asked him if
there was any game around. He said, 'Plenty of jack-rabbits.' These
jack-rabbits are a very peculiar species. They have ears about six
inches long and very slender legs, about three times as long as those
of an ordinary rabbit, and travel at a great speed by a series of jumps,
each about thirty feet long, as near as I could judge. The local
people called them 'narrow-gauge mules.' Asking the operator the best
direction, he pointed west, and noticing a rabbit in a clear space in
the sage bushes, I said, 'There is one now.' I advanced cautiously to
within one hundred feet and shot. The rabbit paid no attention. I
then advanced to within ten feet and shot again--the rabbit was still
immovable. On looking around, the whole crowd at the station were
watching--and then I knew the rabbit was stuffed! However, we did shoot
a number of live ones until Fox ran out of cartridges. On returning to
the station I passed away the time shooting at cans set on a pile of
tins. Finally the operator said to Fox: 'I have a fine Springfield
musket, suppose you try it!' So Fox took the musket and fired. It
knocked him nearly over. It seems that the musket had been run over by
a handcar, which slightly bent the long barrel, but not sufficiently for
an amateur like Fox to notice. After Fox had his shoulder treated with
arnica at the Government hospital tent, we returned to Rawlins."
The eclipse was, however, the prime consideration, and Edison followed
the example of his colleagues in making ready. The place which he
secured for setting up his tasimeter was an enclosure hardly suitable
for the purpose, and he describes the results as follows:
"I had my apparatus in a small yard enclosed by a board fence six feet
high, at one end there was a house for hens. I noticed that they all
went to roost just before totality. At the same time a slight wind
arose, and at the moment of totality the atmosphere was filled with
thistle-down and other light articles. I noticed one feather,
whose weight was at least one hundred and fifty milligrams, rise
perpendicularly to the top of the fence, where it floated away on the
wind. My apparatus was entirely too sensitive, and I got no results."
It was found that the heat from the corona of the sun was ten times
the index capacity of the instrument; but this result did not leave the
value of the device in doubt. The Scientific American remarked;
"Seeing that the tasimeter is affected by a wider range of etheric
undulations than the eye can take cognizance of, and is withal far more
acutely sensitive, the probabilities are that it will open up hitherto
inaccessible regions of space, and possibly extend the range of aerial
knowledge as far beyond the limit obtained by the telescope as that is
beyond the narrow reach of unaided vision."
The eclipse over, Edison, with Professor Barker, Major Thornberg,
several soldiers, and a number of railroad officials, went hunting about
one hundred miles south of the railroad in the Ute country. A few months
later the Major and thirty soldiers were ambushed near the spot at
which the hunting-party had camped, and all were killed. Through an
introduction from Mr. Jay Gould, who then controlled the Union Pacific,
Edison was allowed to ride on the cow-catchers of the locomotives. "The
different engineers gave me a small cushion, and every day I rode in
this manner, from Omaha to the Sacramento Valley, except through the
snow-shed on the summit of the Sierras, without dust or anything else to
obstruct the view. Only once was I in danger when the locomotive struck
an animal about the size of a small cub bear--which I think was a
badger. This animal struck the front of the locomotive just under the
headlight with great violence, and was then thrown off by the rebound. I
was sitting to one side grasping the angle brace, so no harm was done."
This welcome vacation lasted nearly two months; but Edison was back in
his laboratory and hard at work before the end of August, gathering
up many loose ends, and trying out many thoughts and ideas that had
accumulated on the trip. One hot afternoon--August 30th, as shown by
the document in the case--Mr. Edison was found by one of the authors
of this biography employed most busily in making a mysterious series of
tests on paper, using for ink acids that corrugated and blistered the
paper where written upon. When interrogated as to his object, he stated
that the plan was to afford blind people the means of writing directly
to each other, especially if they were also deaf and could not hear a
message on the phonograph. The characters which he was thus forming on
the paper were high enough in relief to be legible to the delicate touch
of a blind man's fingers, and with simple apparatus letters could be
thus written, sent, and read. There was certainly no question as to the
result obtained at the moment, which was all that was asked; but the
Edison autograph thus and then written now shows the paper eaten out by
the acid used, although covered with glass for many years. Mr. Edison
does not remember that he ever recurred to this very interesting test.
He was, however, ready for anything new or novel, and no record can ever
be made or presented that would do justice to a tithe of the thoughts
and fancies daily and hourly put upon the rack. The famous note-books,
to which reference will be made later, were not begun as a regular
series, as it was only the profusion of these ideas that suggested
the vital value of such systematic registration. Then as now, the
propositions brought to Edison ranged over every conceivable subject,
but the years have taught him caution in grappling with them. He tells
an amusing story of one dilemma into which his good-nature led him at
this period: "At Menlo Park one day, a farmer came in and asked if I
knew any way to kill potato-bugs. He had twenty acres of potatoes, and
the vines were being destroyed. I sent men out and culled two quarts
of bugs, and tried every chemical I had to destroy them. Bisulphide of
carbon was found to do it instantly. I got a drum and went over to the
potato farm and sprinkled it on the vines with a pot. Every bug dropped
dead. The next morning the farmer came in very excited and reported
that the stuff had killed the vines as well. I had to pay $300 for not
experimenting properly."
During this year, 1878, the phonograph made its way also to Europe,
and various sums of money were paid there to secure the rights to its
manufacture and exploitation. In England, for example, the Microscopic
Company paid $7500 down and agreed to a royalty, while arrangements were
effected also in France, Russia, and other countries. In every instance,
as in this country, the commercial development had to wait several
years, for in the mean time another great art had been brought into
existence, demanding exclusive attention and exhaustive toil. And when
the work was done the reward was a new heaven and a new earth--in the
art of illumination.