The phonoscope (Nov 1896-Dec 1899)

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The Phonoscope (Copyrighted, 1896) A Monthly Journal Devoted to Scientific and Amusement Inventions Appertaining to Sound and Sight Vol. I NEW YORK, MARCH, 1897 Electricity Members Telegraphing Without Wires The young Italian, Marconi, who is not yet twenty-two years of ;ige, has been studying for some years the Question of telegraphing without wires, and the results he has already reached are so extraordinary that but for the sponsorship of some of the leading telegraphic experts in London their acceptance might have been appreciably delayed. .Marconi says we can telegraph without wi-es, not only through the air, but through solids. This was lately demonstrated to a limited extent in London by Dr. (.'bunder Bose, a learned Hindoo, who has also been working on electric waves. Popularly speaking, an electric wave in the ether, though it moves in all directions, progresses outward like a wave produced by dropping a stor.e in a pond. The water wave can be seen. An electric wave is, of course, invisible. Supposing a cork is floating on the surface of the pond at any distance from the place where the stone was dropped. This cork, when the wave reaches it, will bob up and down. Though electric waves cannot be seen, an arrangement has been devised which will indicate their presence as the cork does. This device, which detects and records the passage of the wave, consists of an electric radiator and a receiver for the waves, Dr, Bose placed bis receiver in a room seventy-five feet distant from the radiator, with three walls of brick and mortar, eighteen inches thick between them. The electric wave projected penetrated the walls and traversed the distance with sufficient energy, when it was concentrated by a lens placed close to the radiator, to fire a pistol and l ing a bell. It would, of course, have transmitted a telegraph message. Last September Marconi made a notable discovery. He was sending electric waves through the air and getting signals at the distance of a mile or thereabouts when he found that the wave which went to his receiver through the air was also affecting another receiver which he had set up on the other side of the hill. In other words, the waves were going either through or over the bill. Later experiments convinced Marconi that the waves actually went through the hill, which was threequarters of a mile iu thickness. This led to the conception and completion of a special apparatus, which is beiug tested iu England under government supervision. The details of the invention are not yet giveu to the public, as the transmitter and receiver are not yet patented. The essential feature is the character of the wave produced. Temporary Telephones In many towns quite a feature of the telephone service is the number of instruments put iu temporarily by the advice of the doctor, for service during the time when it is specially imperative that the patient should be free from excitement. This gives the friends of the family the chance of makinginquiries without putting either party to the trouble of a formal call, and is usually very much to the advantage of the patient. But the latest idea in telephone applications comes from Mobile, where the local telephone company is said to have arranged with patrons who are ordered to take medicine at frequent intervals during the night, to call them up on the telephone when it is time to take the dose. The receiver is carried to the bed and placed (lose to the ear of the sleeper, with a call bell of low tones. Another curious point has just been brought out. So many burglaries have been frustrated by the police appearing on the scene at a most inconvenient time for the burglars — in response to a telephone cull from the inmates of the house — that the first thing a cracksman now does on getting into a house is to cut the telephone wires. This was done in a recent case of housebreaking, but the lady of the house quickly evened up matters by pressing a button at the head of the stairs and instantly lighting every electric lamp in the house. The disgusting publicity which this involved was too much for the feelings of the thieves, who forthwith decamped. Dttascopc SSovn in IRansas J. R. Bonheur riade Plans of One in 1886 The credit of first advancing the idea that resulted in kinetoscope, the vilascope and other scopes of the kind, is said to belong to a Kansas man. In 188G J. R. Bonheur lived in Kansas ; he is said to be dying of consumption in Algona, la., to-day. When he lived in Kansas he was an ardent student of optical synthesis for scenic illusions. MACHINERY OF THE ANIMATED PICTURE MACHINE In 1885 he sent to Edward L. Wilson, a photographer in Philadelphia, the plan of a projecting machine with which he proposed to reproduce "snap shots" of living objects so connected that there would be no extinction or eclipse between the postures; the images appearing life, size timid scenery and accessories upon the stage. Photogenic films wrere not considered in his plans. He proposed to join glass views of continuous action iu the form of a chain or belt and move it through the optical system of a projecting instrument. The views were to be brought into place in rotation by means of a winch or crank, the effect, of each displacement effaced by a quickly revolving shutter. He claimed this mechanism would produce harmonious continuity by combining each posture with its predecessor without apparent break, thus realizing the construction of tin entire scene or play, showing images of human beings instinct with vitality. The plan seemed either too visionary or incomprehensible. At ;my rate it was ignored by the eminent photographer. Without loss of lime the manuscript found its way into the waste basket. A few mouths later Mr. Bonheur and his two brothers were giving scenic exhibitions in McPherson County, Kas. They traveled in a wagon fitted up like a cottage on wheels. One day they got shelter for their horses at the ranch of George Nelson, about one mile from the Garfield schoolhouse, where, that night, they gave an exhibition. It was January 6, 1886, memorable for the awful blizzard that surprised the audience on its way home. For thirty-six hours the storm raged. All next day and far into the following night the three brothers were housed in their wagon. The last bit of corn had been burned in the school house stove during their exhibition, and the want of afire for warming the wagon added to the terrors of the long hours. To venture out in such a Storm would have been certain death. When the storm subsided the snow had transformed the prairies iuto hills of drift, so high over hedges and deep on the level that further travel was impossible. It was while the rest of the company beguiled the winter evenings before Mr. Nelson's blazing fire, playing chess and dominoes, that J. R. Bonheur again set to work on his plaus for an animated picture machine, intending to send them to Edison, which he did, believing that he was the only man who could perfect such a machine. His references to the multi-camera of Muybridge, with which to obtain the pictures, and to the optical effects of the zoelrope and Prof. Dancer's experiments for illustration, received due notice the following year when Thomas A. Edison commenced his experiments and the embodiment of the plans iu a nickeliu-the-slot machine. Not until April, 1896, did Mr. Edison make a public exhibition of the vitascope, which excited the wonder and amazement of till who saw it transform dead pictures into living, moving realities, and for which he claimed the control of the entire^world, and announced Ids readiuess to uegotiate rights in any country which might be named. Since that date ten or more different animated picture machines have been invented, equally successful, and offered for sale without any restriction as to ownership or right to exhibit.— Kansas City Star.