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281
Heroes of the Telegraph
·
John Munro
219
The
experiment
shows
that
it
was
partly
by
accident,
and
not
by
reasoning
on
theoretical
knowledge,
that
the
phonograph
was
discovered.
The
sound
resembling
'human
talk
heard
indistinctly'
seems
to
have
suggested
it
to
his
mind.
This
was
the
germ
which
fell
upon
the
soil
prepared
for
it.
Edison's
thoughts
had
been
dwelling
on
the
telephone;
he
knew
that
a
metal
tympanum
was
capable
of
vibrating
with
all
the
delicacies
of
speech,
and
it
occurred
to
him
that
if
these
vibrations
could
be
impressed
on
a
yielding
material,
as
the
Morse
signals
were
embossed
upon
the
paper,
the
indentations
would
reproduce
the
speech,
just
as
the
furrows
of
the
paper
reproduced
the
Morse
signals.
The
tympanum
vibrating
in
the
curves
of
speech
was
instantly
united
in
his
imagination
with
the
embossing
stylus
and
the
long
and
short
indentations
on
the
Morse
paper;
the
idea
of
the
phonograph
flashed
upon
him.
Many
a
one
versed
in
acoustics
would
probably
have
been
restrained
by
the
practical
difficulty
of
impressing
the
vibrations
on
a
yielding
material,
and
making
them
react
upon
the
reproducing
tympanum.
But
Edison,
with
that
daring
mastery
over
matter
which
is
a
characteristic
of
his
mechanical
genius,
put
it
confidently
to
the
test.
Soon
after
this
experiment,
a
phonograph
was
constructed,
in
which
a
sheet
of
tinfoil
was
wrapped
round
a
revolving
barrel
having
a
spiral
groove
cut
in
its
surface
to
allow
the
point
of
the
indenting
stylus
to
sink
into
the
yielding
foil
as
it
was
thrust
up
and
down
by
the
vibrating
tympanum.
This
apparatus--the
first
phonograph--was
published
to
the
world
in
1878,
and
created
a
universal
sensation.
[SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN,
March
30,
1878]
It
is
now
in
the
South
Kensington
Museum,
to
which
it
was
presented
by
the
inventor.
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