The Phonogram, Vol. 1:3 (1891-03)

59 from the wheels to the rails, cannot be confined in its return to the rails themselves. Released from his labors at the motor, this weird Ariel springs from the wheel to mother-earth with the romp , and playfulness of a boy let loose from school. Once in contact with the soil, the homeward course of electricity will not be confined to a straight and narrow path of any artificial conduc- tor, however good, but, seeking the moist earth and veins of minerals or metallic substances as they are reached in the return, it dances and plays along them, as if delighting in its temporary re- lease from the strict confinement of its master. Thus it is that the current releayd at the car- wheel, and starting back to the generator a mile away, it may be, may zigzag, and wind back and m forth, through subterranean conductors far out of the direct course to its negative pole; and hence it follows that neighboring grounded telephones . are ridden upon and danced upon and rung upon, as truant elfs and goblins dance on Bottom in a Midsummer Night's Dream. The variations of the current in this class of street-railroad circuit, and the noise of the dynamos and motors are greater than that of the electric lights, and the parallelism of wirej with ilMiscof the telephone more certain, so that the advent of this form of electric railway construction was a new torture, both by inductive disturbances and greatly increased earth-leakage, to the grounded telephone systems. ♦♦♦ Obituary. THli PHONOGRAM. A Lawyer's Opinion of the Phonograph.« •i 4x EMILE Revnj^R, the distinguished French elec- trician, clietl’J&Wtiary 2oth last, aged thirtv-ninc years. Me wan bom at Paris, May 17, 1S51, and left school at fourteen to work with a tinsmith. Two years Mater he returned to study, so as to se- cure a diploma «n engineering, and up to 1875 devoted all his spare time to the exact sciences. Shortly afterward he though^of the metallization of arc-lamp carhops. 1 Ic was the first to construct (in 1S7S) an incandescent lamp in the open air. and when accumulators were first thought of he gave up his own original researches, am! devoted \iimself entirely to accumulators with M. Faure. The Vebruarv number of The Phonogram re- produQ?d his latest device in this line. Besides numerous articles in the technical periodicals, he was the author of several chemical publications. He was .stricken down very suddenly by pneu- mona, M’atime when he was devising improve- ments on his late invention. The following letter is one of the many we have received, and is such a strong endorsement of the practical working of the phonograph for business purposes that we give it entire. Chestertown, Mu., March 2, 1891. To the Editor 0/ TlIE PHONOGRAM: Dear Sir: The Phonogram is received; please continue sending it. I am not an “ officer of a company," but perhaps I used the first phonograph outside of New York and the largest cities in regular office work. I began with it three years ago. Since then the machine, being replaced by the latest phonograph, has been my alter ego. I use it six to eight hours a day—and am only a country lawyer. I am not rich, but if it could not be replaced I would not be tempted with an offer of §5,000 to part with it. I seldom dictate less than thirty and frequently fifty and sixty letters per day. Besides this I dictate warrants, deeds, leases, bills in Equity, answers and compli- cated legal papers. All these I did with the old treadle'phonograph, using a raw l>oy of fifteen to do the work. He improved so rapidly and became so expert that he is now getting a fine salary as an assistant of'the Senate Reporter. I get many inquiries about the utility of the instrument and you may imagine 1 am not slow to praise what being without would make life a burden. It saves me three hours daily the work of a slave, that is the drudgery which so wears on me. You appear to l>e pressing its claims to utilitarianism—it is not a toy but a second Eve to all toiling Adams. I am glad to see such a work published, and may you have success. I'd like to hear more definitely of the new machine you hint at. What may we expect ? Very truly, . Hope H. Barroll. 4