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JUNE 1900 55 ♦THE STORY OF THE PHONOGRAPH. ( Commenced in May number .) CHAPTER II PROPHECY. Let us now step into the realms of literature, and note what has been written of the Phonograph in the line of prophecy; if indeed such fanciful predictions and visionary foreshadowings as we shall quote can be justly termed pro- phetic. Yet all prophecies are but vague foreseeings. To-day we are speculating on human flight and ultra rapid transit in vacuo. We are guessing and experimenting at many problems which may become realities at any moment. Seeing by telephone is almost accomplished, and wireless telegraphy is a fact. The unknown of to-day may be known to-morrow. Fact springs from Fancy in Present; as it has in the Past, and as it will in the Future. So listen! John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, who died in London in 1671, was an accomplished theologian, scientist, mathe- matician and physicist. In his work on Mathematic Magick ( 1651 ), he says; “ Some have thought it possible to preserve the voice, or any words spoken, in a hollow trunk or pipe, so when this pipe is rightly opened the words will come out of it in the same order wl they were spoken. ** This is perhaps a very rough anticipation of the Phono- graph. To charge a tube with words, as a cannon is loaded with powder and shot, beforehand, to be rattled out like the frozen up tunes in Baron Munchausen's trumpet when a thaw came—it was certainly a most original theory. ♦ Reprinted by liccnu of the National Phonograph Company Copyright I 9°° 1 I