The phonoscope (Nov 1896-Dec 1899)

Vol. I. No. 4 THE PHONOSCOPE ©ur {Tattler The plethysmograph is the pleasant name of a newly discovered instrument by which thought is measured. Emotions can be registered, dreams arranged to suit, every idea graded so that the investigator can read precisely what is going on in a sleeping man's brain. If this most wonderful achievement in the realm of science is only perfected and simplified to (lie extent of bringing it within the reach of all, what a treasure a pletnysmograph must be in a family where the head of the house is apt to be secretive and forgetful ! But no ! there must lie a limit to experiments. Let us admire the Italian scientist who has invented this delicate "pulse measurer," but don't let us buy one even if they are found on a Monday bargain counter. I understand that a Toronto man has invented a machine which he called the " inugaphone." This is a great find for circus and minstrel show advance agents and patent medicine shouters, that is, if it is what the name implies — sounds from the " mug." The " lobsterscope is the tille of the new feature which was put on at Weber >fc Fields's, New York last month. It is the invention of Joseph Herbert and up to date. It is a burlesque on other screen machines. Mr. George J. Gaskiu informs me that he intends to take a trip to the "old country" this summer. George says that the wax cylinders have revolved very kindly for him this season and he must ' ' spend some of it." "I've a new cure for insomnia," said a busy young surgeon — there are a few — the other day. "I haven't tried it myself, but a friend of mine has and he says it works like a charm. ' ' Like most great inventions, it was discovered quite accidentally. In the first place, I generally keep pretty late hours. One has to, you know, in my profession. At any rate — well, never mind ! the hours are late. As I have just intimated, I take a great inteeest in my profession and I have written a few things along that line. Well, sir, when I get fairly into bed, with the lights out and everything favorable for sleeping, what do you suppose my old brain begins to do ? "It begins to scintillate. Oh, yes, it does. It gets right down to work, and it turns out some of the best ideas along the line of surgery that the medical profession has ever heard. But, you bet I can't be hopping up at 4 A. M. and lighting the gas in order to put these things down on paper. Why, I'd never get any sleep if I did. So I try to fix the idea in my mind and hammer it there with about fifty ways of thinking of it in the morning, and then I turn over and go to sleep, or used to. "Well, of course you anticipate that I didn't remember the idea in the morning. Not a bit of it. Gone, clean gone ! It was dreadful. I tried all sorts of ways but of the difficulty, and finally I landed on the brink of insomnia. I'm not dead sure that I wasn't over the brink. If I lay there in bed and tried to impress the idea so firmly on my mind that I couldn't possibly forget it in the morning, I got myself so wide awake that I could fairly feel my eyes popping. Then I tried another plan. I would get up, light the gas, write out my inspiration, and then put the gas out and woo sleep again. But it wasn't any use. I lay awake for hours. " Finally, a brilliant idea struck me. Said I to myself : " ' If I could just lie there in the dark and think my thought and be done with it I'd be all right ! By George, I'll do it ! I'll get a phonograph and think out loud when I've any thoughts that are worth preserving. ' "I didn't get around to the phonograph, however. It was last spring when I thought of it, and during the summer I ran down in Jerse)' to spend Sunday with a literary chap I know down there. Well, sir, what do you think was the first thing I saw in that fellow's room, jammed up close to his bed as if it were an animal ready to swallow him ? Oh, of course you guess ! It was a phonograph. ' ' ' Hello ! ' I said, ' that's a good idea ! I know what you've got that there for. I'm going to do the same thing myself. I've let fame and fortune get away from me because I haven't had one of those things handy.' " Well, the fellow smiled and blew the dust off the cylinder. " ' Yes,' he said, ' I know. That was my idea, too, when I bought this thing. I'd been doing that old trick a long time myself. I've lost a library full of masterpieces by not remembering the things I thought of during the night. But, I'll just tell you that the rhonograph won't make you famous that way. Not by the whole ladder ! But it's a good thing, just the same. Because a cow isn't a canary bird is no sign that it isn't an excellent cow. This phonograph hasn't favored me with any echoes of my night thoughts but — hold on ! do you want to hear a snore that is a snore ? A regular titanic, sixty-fathoms-deep breath from the ocean of oblivion ? "If you'll believe me, the fellow got out a cylinder, put it in, and turned on the machine. Talk about ciicumstantial evidence! If that man had produced watchers who had sworn that he never closed his eyes in sleep, that phonograph would have convicted them all of perjury. Oh," and the young surgeon closed his eyes with a sigh of envious rapture, ' 1 to sleep the way that man did when that phonograph was taking its observations ! And he says he does it every night. He hasn't had a single dead-of-the-night idea to confide to that phonograph, and he vows it is a sure cure for that form of insomnia." 5eem$ Sounb SEEING HIS OWN FINISH IttNETGSCGPE VIEWS OF THE GREAT FIGHT. BETWEEN SCALD V JIM MIXER mawtin 5<t Scaldy Jim — I tell yer wot, it's purty tuff fer a feller ter drop his good dough inter one 0' dem boxes ter de sole pleasure of witnessin' himself gettin' licked. There was a biograph at Keith's and a bioscope at Proctor's in New York City. Were they twins or only first cousins 1 It was the intention of the vitascope people last Summer to put out a cheaper machine, the vitagraph. Possibly this is a similar idea ; but the conflicting machines are pretty close together. Sound is produced by the vibrations of the air, which communicate themselves to the tympanum of the ear and thus to the brain center of life. In a vacuum, sound is not possible. Air, however pure and rarefied, is still matter, and naturally friction is produced when its component parts are suddenly disturbed or compressed, and it follows just as naturally that these compressed parts will be of a more opaque shade than the surrounding mes, and thus become distinguishable to sight. The passage made through the air is as distinguishable as the passage of a ship through water. It piles up the air, cuts through it and leaves a trail of smoke like air waves behind. Many times and by various means it has been demonstrated that the air vibrations differ in intensity, shape and volume. Sand scattered on sounding plates will gather in well defined lines and figures, according to the note sounded and the instrument used. As all sensations are produced by vibrations reacting on the nervous system, there can be no doubt but that sooner or later, by a close analytical study, we shall come to possess an instrument to record all the manifestations of our various senses. Where Ubey Weve Etbibiteb East flDontb The Projecting Kinetoscope Opera House, Hartford, Conn. ; Criterion Theatre, Brooklyn, N. Y. The Projectograph Opera House, Budapest ; Barbadoes, West Indies; Chicago, 111.; London, England; Uniontown, Pa. ;■ Boston, Mass. , Philadelphia, Pa. The Vitascope Academy, Richmond, Va. ; Y. M. C. A., Norfolk, Va.; Columbia Theatre, Washington, D. C; Vitascope Hall, Washington, D. C. The Projectoscope First Presbyterian Church, Bloomfield ; Franklin Street Church, Newark, N. J.; Opera House, Wilmington, N. C; City Opera House, Frederick, Md. ; Masonic Temple, Richmond, Va. ; Academy, Portsmouth, Va. The Cinematographe Proctor's 23d Street Theatre, N. Y.; Pleasure Palace, N. Y. ; Academy of Music, Brooklyn, N. Y. ; Grand Opera House, Boston, Mass. The Biograph Keith's, N. Y.; Hopkins, Chicago, 111.; Keith's, Boston, Mass.; Willard Hall. Washington, D. C. The Bioscope Tony Pastor's Theatre, N. Y. The Kineopticon Opera House, Chicago, 111. The Cinematoscope Ferguson & Frederick's Store, Wilkesbarre, Pa. The (Cinematograph Huber's Museum, N. Y. ; Gaiety Museum, N. Y The Centographe Unity Hall, Hartford, Conn.