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MOTION PICTURE SOUND RECORDING BY RCA PHOTOPHONE SYSTEM
R. H. Townsend*
I have in my library a large volume that is yellow with age. The pages in this book are still firmly held together by a stiff sheep skin binding. On the pages are vertical lines of Chinese symbols. In spite of the fact that the symbols were made on these pages long before Guttenberg invented his printing press and used type, I have been told that the pages in this book are really printed. The book was given to me by a Chinese prince, a former schoolmate who knew that I was interested in sound. There is one passage which tells of a Chinese sovereign who spoke into a teakwood box and then dispatched this box by courier to a brother prince in a neighboring province. The recipient is described as placing his ear near to a hole in the box and turning a handle. This permitted him to hear the voice of his friend.
This episode was supposed to have happened about 4000 B. C. and constitutes, I believe, the first reference to sound recording. It is unfortunate that the Potentate of the Press or the Pen, or whatever was used in those earlier days, was not more prolific in the notes he kept so that we of the Twentieth Century, who think we are so very original, could have learned in detail how such a thing was possible. Because of his shortcomings, it became necessary for Thomas Edison almost 6000 years later to discover all over again that indentations on a piece of lead foil could be used to actuate a diaphragm and produce sound.
Most of us are inclined to think of sound recording as a comparatively recent development, but, as in the case of many other things, a careful survey of its antecedents shows that the ancients, too, knew quite a bit about some of our so-called modern inventions.
Even the application of sound recording to pictures is not so *8uvervising Engineer RCA Photophone West Coast Studios
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