Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1884 — A New Use of the Phonograph. [ARTICLE]

A New Use of the Phonograph.

While the phonograph has been justly regarded as a marvel, it has so far proved a mere scientific toy; but linguists have just discovered a use for it by employing it in recording sounds and dialeots of barbarous tribes so as to throw light upon the origin and growth of langunges. It will be remembered that the phonograph records with precision the actual utterances of the person who talks into it. The metal coil on which the impression is made can be kept a thousand years, and will then reproduce accurately the original speaker’s words and peculiarities. What interest it would create if we could reproduce with absolute precision the spoken words of Demosthenes, Cicero, the apostles, and all the great men and women of the past. Yet our descendants thousands of years from now will be able to hear an exact reproduction of the speech of the noted men and women of tais generation.—Bernorest’s Monthly.