THE FIRST PHONOGRAPH.

Colonist, Volume LIII, Issue 13052, 11 March 1911, Page 3

THE FIRST PHONOGRAPH.

HOW EDISON INVENTED IT.

Accident has'had so much to do with all great inventions that it will not be surprising to hear that tho phonograph was a chance discovery. Many years ago, while Edison was experimenting on diaphragms for the telephone (says the St. Louis "Globe-Democrat") ho had constructed a number of small sheepskin drumheads, to compare with tho metal one. To soin« of these sheepskin diaphragms he had attached a small needle, which was intended to project towards the magnet and assist in conveying the vibrations caused by the human voice/.

The sheepskin diaphragms did not fulfil Edison's expectations, and were discarded and thrown aside for 'rubbish. His assistants soon discovered that by holding the sheepskin diaphragms in front of their mouths and emitting a guttural sound botween the lips a peculiar noise, approaching music, could be produced. In passing one of the men engaged in playing on a diaphragm one day, Edison playfully attempted to stop thp noise by touching the projecting pin with his finger, and had .no sooner done so than he started. „ "Do that again," said Edison, and it was repeated,.and again his linger touched the pin, to his evident delight. He went about' for some time* asking one after another of his assistants to hum or sing against the diaphragm, and finally lie got them to talk against it, he all the time touching the pin lightly with his finger. Finally he retired to his dm, and commenced drawing diagrams for new machinery, and a few days later the first phonograph was,put together. It was a crude affair, the pin making an impression on the wax, and it talked imperfectly; but it did well enough to show Edison that he, was on the right track, and he rapidly improved h. A hundred men might have felt tho vibration of that pin attached to tho piece of sheepskin, but it took .an Edison to instantly realise that the vibration might be mada to indent a soft substance and be susceptible of reproducing the exact.-sounds of. the human voice that caused the different vibrations.