Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1889 — WONDERFUL EDISON. [ARTICLE]

WONDERFUL EDISON.

He Tells of Yet More Wonderful Things That He is to Bring Forth. Courier des Etats Unis. The reporter asked Mr. Edison if it was true that he had invented a machine by the aid of which of which a man in New York Would be able to see everything that his wife was doing in Paris. ‘•I don’t know,” said Mr. Edison, laughing, 1 ‘that would be a real benefit. to humanity. The women certainly would protest. But, speaking seriously, lam at work on an invention which will allow a man in Wall street not only to telephone to a friend in the Central Park, but to see that friend while* he is chatting telephonically with him. This invention would be useful and practical; and I see no reason why it should not soon become a reality, and one of the first things that I shall do when I get back to America will be to set up this contrivance between iny laboratory and my telephone workshops. Moreover, I have already obtained satisfactory results in reproducing images at that distance, which is only about one thousand feet. It would be ridiculous to dream of seeing

any one between New York and Paris. The round form of the earth, if there were no other difficulty in the way, would make the thing impossible.” Speaking of the phonograph, the reporter asked if it had reached its highest degree of perfection. “Almost, I thiqk,” said Mr. Edison, ‘ ‘in the last instruments turned out of my workshops. You must know that the ordinary phonograph employed in commerce does not begin to compare with the latesfrmaehines-that I usa in my private experiments. With the latter I can obtain a sound powerful enough to reproduce phrases of a speech that can be heard perfectly by

a large audience. My last ameliorations were with the aspirate sounds, which are the weak point of the graphophone. For seven months I worked from eighteen to twenty hours a day upon the single sound “specia.” I would say to the instrument “specia,” audit would always say “pecia,” and I couldn’t make it say anything else. It was enough to make me crazy, but I stuck to it until I succeeded, and now you can read a thousand words of a newspaper at the rate of 150 words a minute, and the instrument will repeat them to you without an omission. You can imagine the difficulty of the task that I accomplished when I tell you that the impressions made upon the cylinder are not more than one millionth part of an inch in depth, and are completely invisible even with the aid of a microscope.” Reporter—And what new’ discoveries will be made in electricity? Mr. Edison—Ah, that would be difficult to say. We may some day come upon one of the great secrets of nature. I am always on the lookout for something which will help me solve the problem of navigating the air. I have worked hard upon this subject, but I am very much discouraged. We may find something new before that come.": but that wilt come. Mr. Edison further said that the great developments of electricity will; come when we find a more economical method of producing it. (During his I trip across the ocean he remained for hours on deck looking at the waves, and he says that it made him wild when he saw so much force going to waste. “But one of these fiAyr,” he continued, we will chain all that—-

the falls of Niagara as well as the winds—and that will be the millenium of electricity,” ’