A RIVAL TO THE PHONOGRAPH.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XX, Issue 1429, 15 February 1888, Page 4

A RIVAL TO THE PHONOGRAPH.

The announcement is made, says the New York correspondent of the " Daily News," that Mr Bell, the inventor of the telephone, has patented an instrument called the *' Graphophone," very similar to Mr Edison's phonograph. The chief difference between the phonograph and the graphophone is that while in the former the electric motor moves a cylinder at a prescribed speed, in the latter the motion is imparted by a series of wheels geared to a treadle worked by the foot as in the sewing machine. An ingenious governor regulates the speed. The Graphophone Company expect also to provide a motor moved by clock weights. Any mechanical power of this kind has been preferred to electric batteries. The wax cylinders used for impression are all about the same size as Mr Edison uses. The cost of the graphophone will be, according to the persons interested in it, far less than the phonograph, owing to the elimination of the electric motor and battery. The instrument itself can be made for less than ten dollars, and probably will be sold, table and all, for about twenty-five dollars. During the last six months several workmen have been employed upon the machines in the laboratory of the Bell Company at Washington, and it is thought they will be ready for the market sometime within the next six weeks.