Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 146, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1911 — FOUND IT BY CHANCE [ARTICLE]

FOUND IT BY CHANCE

HOW EDISON HAPPENED ON THE PHONOGRAPH SECRET. Accidental Occurrence, White He Was Experimenting on Sheepskin for the Telephone, Suggested the . Talking Machine. Accident has had so much to do with all great Inventions that it will not be surprising to hear that the phonograph was a chance discovery. Many years ago. while Edison was experimenting on diaphragms for the telephone, he had constructed a number of small sheepskin drumheads, to Compare with the metal one. To some of these sheepskin diaphragms he had attached a small needle, which was intended to project toward the magnet and assist in conveying the vibrations caused by the human voice. The sheepskin diaphragms did not fulfill Edison’s expectations, and were discarded and thrown aside as rubbish. His assistants soon discovered that by holding the sheepskin diaphragms in front of their mouths ahd emitting a guttural sound between the lips, a peculiar noise, approaching music, could be produced. in playing on a diaphragm one day, Edison playfully attempted to stop the noise by touching the projecting metal pin with his finger, and had no sooner done so than he ctarted. “Do that again," said Edison, and it was repeated, and again his finger touched the pin, to his evident delight He went about for some time, asking one after another of his assistants to hum or sing against the diaphragm, and finally he got them to talk against It, he all the time touching the pfn lightly with his finger. Finally he retired to his den, and commenced.,drawing diagrams for new machinery, which his assistants speedily made, and a few days later the first phonograph was put together. It was a crude affair, the pip making an Impression on the wax, and it talked imperfectly- but It did well enough to show Edison that he was on the right track, and be rapidly improved It. A hundred men might have felt the vibration of that pin attached to the piece of sheejskln, but it took an Edison to instantly realize that the vibration might be made to Indent a soft substance and be susceptible of reproducing the exact sounds of the human voice that caused the different vibrations.