The phonoscope (Nov 1896-Dec 1899)

THE PHONOSCOPE 9 fl>bono3tapbfc {Telephones A Dane Invents a Means of Leaving a Message at the End of a Wire Copenhagen. — Ever since the invention of the telephone it has been the dream of electricians to see an instrument perfected, which will leave a message on the other end of the wire. Numerous attempts have been made, but it has been left for a young Dane named Paulsen to invent this connecting link between the telephone and the Phonograph. Paulsen left the world in ignorance of his discovery until he astonished the residents of Copenhagen recently with a detailed story of what he had achieved. He demonstrated before a body of experts that a telephone message can be left at the other end of a wire, and the absentee by simply turning a knob, can hear what has been left for him. Paulsen, until a few years ago, was an employee of the engineering department of the Copenhagen Telephone Company. Naturally he had many facilities for experiment, but his associates did not know what he was about. Instead of the usual Phonographic wax cylinder Paulsen supplied a steel ribbon. Where it is necessary to plane off the wax on the ordinary Phonograph, Paulsen's Phonograph needs only a cloth to rub off the writing, which does the ' talking," as easily as if it was that much chalk on a blackboard. The only reason why experiments in this direction met with failure was because it involved too much trouble to record the message on the wax cylinder. The feasibility seemed apparent enough. But until Paulsen appeared no value could be attached to the experiments. The young man has the reputation of being a thorough chemist and it is not impossible that his knowledge of chemistry and its kindred arts has enabled him to overcome what has baffled others. The apparatus is constructed so that a very small magnetic needle which is connected with the current of the telephone wire, influences a steel ribbon which in turn runs over two cylinders. These cylinders come in touch with the magnetic needle and the work is done. While the instrument is operating and a person talks into the telephone, the magnetism in the steel ribbon is influenced by the electric needle to such a degree that a perfect message is recorded. At the receiving end it is only necessary to let the steel ribbon pass later before the electric needle and the current will then reproduce the words sent over the wire. Just as soon as the message has been heard, by passing a magnet over the steel ribbon, the speech is wiped off immediately and the instrument is ready to receive messages again. The experiments, which have recently been made in Copenhagen have been so successful that a company has been formed to introduce the invention all through the world. Paulsen sold out his patent, and interested in the new concern are men like bankers August Lunn and LemvighFag. Patents have been applied for in all the principal countries of the world. The experiments so far with this telephonePhonograph go to show that song is heard more distinctly by this method than simple words. Why this should be no one seems to know. The question arose whether time would have any effect on the clearness of the message. Apprehension was felt that if the message was held for several days the words would be inaudible. To ^est this the steel ril bon was removed from the machine and laid away for a time. When placed in position it gave the message very plainly. The only drawback to the present receiving instrument is its size. It is somewhat larger than the ordinary table Phonographs. But there is reason to suppose that this will be remedied as soon as the instruments are placed on the market. The new Phonograph is a separate instrument, and if no use for it exists for some time it may be disconnected and placed to one side. It is arranged so that when some one calls up, should no one respond, the talker is at once made aware that at the other end there is only the Phonograph connection. He will, therefore, franie his message accordingly. So far as the central station is concerned, no extra work is placed on the operators there. Quite to the contrary, when a Phonographic connection is present the operators will not be called upon as frequently as before. Young Paulsen is the son of one of the bestknown lawyers in Copenhagen and has written considerable on the subject of physics as well as chemistry. His parents are wealthy. This allowed him to some extent to devote his time to the problem which he has recently solved. ©ur {Tattler Residents of one of the up-river towns are busily engaged in discussing the changes and trades in which the first Phonograph that ever came to town has figured in. The machine was purchased a couple of years ago by a resident, who sent to New York for it at a cost of $60. He bought a lot of records, and for a long time used it to entertain his friends. At last he tired of the instrument and sold it for $35 to another man, and since then it has been on the go constantly and has figured in half a dozen very amusing incidents, as a result of which its voice has become a little out of true, so to speak. The second man was an enterprising sort of a chap and the entertainments that he furnished with the Phonograph were for cash, strictly. After a time he received an offer to trade the machine for a horse. He thought he needed the horse, and as the animal was a fairly good one and he could get a couple of dollars to boot he decided to trade. The man who exchanged the horse kept the Phonograph for a time and then sold it for a watch, giving $1.25 in cash to make the trade go. The third owner of the Phonograph was of a fun-making disposition and he used the Phonograph and the accompanying records to assist him in snaps of a new and different character from anything that the villagers had ever seen. He and some of his chums took it to a church on a Sunday evening and broke up the prayer meeting by starting it playing a ragtime tune at the time a leading dtacon was at the height of a fervent prayer. Of course the trouble was laid to the owner of the Phonograph, but with the help of his friends he succeeded in proving an alibi and thus escaped punishment. For a time after this the Phonograph jokes were of a more mild and innocent kind, but at last there came a day when the female inhabitants of the town arose and vowed, with indignation great, that "that Phonograph must go!" And go it did. It came about in this way. There was a session of the local sewing circle, held at the home of one of the members, and some one succeeded in introducing the horn of the machine through a window and started it going. That would have been all right had the record, which was on the instrument been of the proper kind, but it wasn't. It was a declamation, in which profanity was a prominent feature. ••'•'•*•-'-.• ' ' That settled the history of the Phonograph so, far as the town was concerned, and as above stated, it went. The owner sold it for one dollar, and threw in the records. The young fellows who bought it took it into the woods where they were cutting cord wood, to enliven the winter evenings. As they went to camp they had barrels of fun with it, by setting it up beside the road, where neither they nor the instrument could be seen and starting it going as people passed. One old fellow, who had evidently never heard of : the Phonograph or anything of that kind, stood one" of the selections by Gilmore's band, but when the machine began to talk he couldn't stand it, and the way he drove his old horse into town was equal to the speed of the "Flying Yankee." Several others were frightened by the machine before it finally reached camp, where it is now furnishing all sorts of amusement for the woodchoppers. litems of Ifnterest Superior to the Megaphone The War Department has been informed of an interesting device invented by an Englishman and now being tested in the British coast forts, which promises to serve as a substitute in a limited measure for wireless telegraphy. It is claimed to be superior to the megaphone now universally used on shipboard. It is a simple parabolic reflector with a flexible speaking tube pointed at the focus of the reflector. Speaking into the tube, the sound waves are reflected in practically a direct line and caught by a similar reflector with an ear piece located at some distant point. The report does not say what extreme range has been attained, but indicates that the experiments have been quite satisfactory. Electricity Electricity is in itself one of the greatest discoveries of all time, and a large number of its applications stand foremost among the achievements of the century. Guessed at by the ancients, it had its scientific beginnings with the American, Franklin. But it was the Italian, Alexander Volta, who, working out a hint given by his compatriot, Galvani, produced the device known as Volta's pile, and changed electricity from a scientific plaything to a recognized power, whose limit of usefulness can only be guessed at. Then came Joseph Henry, an American, with his voltaic battery — the germ of the modern electric motor — in 1831. When the dynamo, a result of the congress of many brains, came to supplement the electric motor, the new era of electricity had fully set in. Thomas A. Edison is the great protagonist of the new era. Following in his footsteps came his pupil, Nikola Tesla. The latter's polyphase alternating current system for the transmission and distribution of power electrically from Niagara Falls is a gigantic conception, which in its present infancy gives promise of becoming an epoch making fact. The numerous discoveries and inventions of Edison — the telephone, the Phonograph, the kinetoscope, all calling in the aid of electricity — are treated under other heads. So are the telegraph and the electric motor power, to which Edison has likewise made important contributions. In developing the uses of electricity for illuminating purposes, as great an advance over gas as that was over the oil lamp Edison also stands supreme with his incandescent lamp, invented in 1880. This consists of a' carbon filament fixed to two platinum wires, a glass bulb, in which a vacuum has been formed, and a threaded base inserted in the neck of the bulb, which holds the lamp in its socket.