The Ghost in the Machine: Snohomish Meets the Phonograph

Edison's phonograph, which arrests and retains fugitive sounds so that they may be reproduced and repeated at any time or in any distant place, is a wonder not less than the photograph, which catches and perpetuates fleeting visions. The phonograph is even more simple than the speaking telephone, and both are entirely American. We were recently introduced to Mr. H. Johnson, Edison's associate, who demonstrated the device. A strip of tinfoil was fastened around a wooden cylinder with a crank. A mouthpiece allowed the user to speak into the instrument, indenting the tinfoil. When Mr. Johnson spoke, sang 'Uncle Ned,' and coughed into the machine, it rattled the words back to us with uncanny accuracy—crying in a high key or drawling in a low one when the crank was turned fast or slow. Edison stated that his best instrument will talk so as to be heard at a distance of 172 feet. Clearly, the sheet of tinfoil receiving the impressions of sound will be stereotyped or electrotyped so as to be multiplied and made durable. Friends at a distance will send to each other 'phonotype' letters, which will talk in the friend's voice. How startling also it will be to reproduce and hear with pleasure the voice of the dead! Within a dozen years, some of the great singers will be induced to sing into the ear of the phonograph, and we shall hear the actual voices of Christine Nilsson or Jenny Lind ground out at every corner.