The Draisine, 1816—Michaux’s Bicycle, 1855—United States Patent to Lallement and Carrol, 1866—Transition from “Vertical Fork” and “Star” to Modern “Safety”—Pneumatic Tire—Automobile, the Prototype of the Locomotive—Trevithick’s Steam Road Carriage, 1801—The Locomobile of To-day—Gas Engine Automobiles of Pinkus, 1839; Selden, 1879; Duryea, Winton and Others—Electric Automobiles a Development of Electric Locomotives as Early as 1836—Grounelle’s Electric Automobile of 1852—The Columbia, and Other Electric Carriages—Statistics.
However superior to other animals man may be in point of intellect, it must be admitted that he is vastly inferior in his natural equipment for locomotion. Quadrupeds have twice as many legs, run faster, and stand more firmly. Birds have their two legs supplemented with wings that give a wonderfully increased speed in flight, and fish, with no legs at all, run races with the fastest steamers; but man has awkwardly toddled on two stilted supports since prehistoric time, and for the first year of his life is unable to walk at all. That he has felt his inferiority is clear, for his imagination has given wings to the angels, and has depicted Mercury, the messenger of the gods, with a similar equipment on his heels. We see the ambition for speed exemplified even in the baby, who crows in exhilaration at rapid movement, and in the boy when the ride on the flying horses, the glide on the ice, or the swift descent on the toboggan slide, brings a flash to his eye and a glow to his cheeks.
A characteristic trend of the present age is toward increased speed in everything, and the most conspicuous example of accelerated speed in late years is the bicycle. It has, with its fascination of silent motion and the exhilaration of flight, driven the younger generation wild with enthusiasm, has limbered up the muscles of old age, has revolutionized the attire of men and women, and well-nigh supplanted the old-fashioned use of legs. It is the most unique and ubiquitous piece of organized machinery ever made. The thoroughfares and highways of civilization fairly swarm with thousands of glistening and silently gliding wheels. It is to be found everywhere, even to the steppes of Asia, the plains of Australia, and the ice fields of the Arctic.
The true definition of the bicycle is a two-wheeled vehicle, with one wheel in front and the other in the rear, and both in the same vertical plane. Its life principle is the physical law that a rotating body tends to preserve its plane of rotation, and so it stands up, when it moves, on the same principle that a top does when it spins or a child’s hoop remains erect when it rolls.
A form of carriage adapted to be propelled by the muscular effort of the rider was constructed and exhibited in Paris by Blanchard and Magurier, and was described in the Journal de Paris as early as July 27, 1779, but the true bicycle was the product of the Nineteenth Century. It was invented by Baron von Drais, of Manheim-on-the Rhine. See Fig. 180. It consisted of two wheels, one before the other, in the same plane, and connected together by a bar bearing a saddle, the front wheel being arranged to turn about a vertical axis and provided with a handle for guiding. The rider supported his elbows on an arm rest and propelled the device by striking his toes upon the ground, and in this way thrusted himself along, while guiding his course by the handle bar and swivelling front wheel. This machine was called the “Draisine.” It was patented in France for the Baron by Louis Joseph Dineur, and was exhibited in Paris in 1816. In 1818 Denis Johnson secured an English patent for an improved form of this device, but the principle of propulsion remained the same. This device, variously known as the “Draisine,” “vélocipède,” “célérifère,” “pedestrian curricle,” “dandy horse,” and “hobby-horse,” was introduced in New York in 1819, and was greeted for a time with great enthusiasm in that and other cities.
On June 26, 1819, William K. Clarkson was granted a United States patent for a vélocipède, but the records were destroyed in the fire of 1836. In 1821 Louis Gompertz devised an improved form of “hobby-horse,” in which a vibrating handle, with segmental rack engaging with a pinion on the front wheel axle, enabled the hands to be employed as well as the feet in propelling the machine. Such devices all relied, however, upon the striking of the ground with the toes. Their fame was evanescent, however, and for forty years thereafter little or no attention was paid to this means of locomotion, except in the construction of children’s carriages and velocipedes having three or more wheels.
In 1855 Ernst Michaux, a French locksmith, applied, for the first time, the foot cranks and pedals to the axle of the drive wheel. A United States patent, No. 59,915, taken Nov. 20, 1866, in the joint names of Lallement and Carrol, represented, however, the revival of development in this field. Lallement was a Frenchman, and built a machine having the pedals on the axle of the drive wheel, and it was at one time believed that it was he who deserved the credit for this feature, but it is claimed for Michaux, and the monument erected by the French in 1894 to Ernest and Pierre Michaux at Bar le Duc gives strength to the claim. The bicycle, as represented at this stage of development, is shown in Fig. 181. In 1868-’69 machines of this type went extensively into use. Bicycle schools and riding academies appeared all through the East, and notwithstanding the excessive muscular effort required to propel the heavy and clumsy wooden wheels, the old “bone-shaker” was received with a furor of enthusiasm.
In 1869 Magee, in Paris, made the entire bicycle of iron and steel, solid rubber tires and brakes followed, and the front wheel began to grow to larger size, until in 1879 the bicycle presented the form shown in Fig. 182. This placed the weight of the rider more directly over the drive wheel, and was known as the “vertical fork.” It gave good results but for the accidents from “headers,” to which it was especially liable. Means to overcome the danger were resorted to, and the “Star” bicycle represented such a construction. In this the high wheel was behind and the small one in front, and straps and ratchet wheels connected the pedals to the axle. In 1877 Rousseau, of Marseilles, removed the pedals from the wheel axle and applied the power to the axle by a chain extending from a sprocket wheel on the pedal shaft to a sprocket wheel on the wheel axle. By gradual steps, initiated in Starley’s “Rover” in 1880, (see Fig. 183), the high front wheel was reduced in size, until the proportions of the modern “Safety” (Fig. 184) have been obtained. Strange to say, these proportions have, through nearly a century of evolution, gone back to those employed in the old “Draisine,” where the two wheels were of the same size. The modern “Safety,” however, is quite a different machine. Its diamond frame of light but strong tubular steel, its ball bearings, its suspension wheels and pneumatic tires impart to the modern bicycle strength with lightness, and beauty with efficiency, to a degree scarcely attained by any other piece of organized machinery designed for such trying work.
The most important of all modern improvements on the bicycle was perhaps the pneumatic tire. This was not originally designed for the bicycle, but was patented in England by R. W. Thompson in 1845 and in the United States May 8, 1847, No. 5,104. Its application to the bicycle was made in 1889 by Dunlop, United States patent No. 435,995, Sept. 9, 1890, and 453,550, June 2, 1891. It furnishes not only an elastic bearing which cushions the jar, but also makes a broader tread that renders cycling on the soft roads of the country at once practical and delightful. The chainless wheel, which connects the axle of the pedal crank with the axle of the rear wheel by a shaft with bevel gears, is the most recent form exploited by the manufacturers, but it is doubtful whether it presents any points of superiority over the chain type. All of the parts of the bicycle have come in for a share of attention at the hands of inventors, differential speed gears and brakes having received especial attention. The Morrow hub brake, which applies friction to the rear wheel hub by back pressure on the pedal, is a popular modern form. The first back-pedal brake is shown in United States Pat. No. 418,142, to Stover & Hance, Dec. 24, 1889.
Among the many modifications of the bicycle as used to-day may be mentioned the drop frame, which has made cycling possible for ladies, the tandem, for two riders, the sextet or octet, carrying six or eight riders and resembling a centipede in movement and an express train in speed: the ice velocipede, in which two runners are combined with a spiked driving wheel, and the hydrocycle, or water velocipede, in which the drive wheel, formed with paddles, is used to propel a buoyant hull through the water.
In point of speed there seems to be no limit to the bicycle. In a test made on the Long Island Railroad in the summer of 1899 between a wheel and an express train, the bicyclist, riding on a plank road between the rails and protected behind the train by a wind break, covered a mile in 574⁄5 seconds, and while going at top speed of more than a mile a minute, overtook the train, was caught by his friends on a rear platform and pulled on board, bicycle and all. This is the first instance on record of overtaking and boarding an express train going at the rate of sixty-four miles an hour, and yet it is said that the rider (Murphy) was not doing his best.
Nearly 5,000 patents have been granted on velocipedes and bicycles. Most of them were for bicycles which, as improved to-day, are not only as fleet as the birds, but almost as countless in numbers. It is estimated that in 1889 the total product of bicycles in this country reached 200,000 machines annually. In 1892, after the general adoption of the pneumatic tire, a great increase followed, which has grown from year to year until in the year 1899 a conservative estimate for the output in the United States is 1,000,000 wheels annually, worth from thirty to fifty million dollars. Each bicycle tire takes about two pounds of pure rubber, or four pounds to the wheel. The annual output in wheels consequently consumes about 4,000,000 pounds, or 2,000 tons of rubber. Ten years ago there were not more than twenty-five legitimate manufacturers of bicycles in the United States. In 1897 there were over 200 concerns in the business. It is estimated that there are to-day between 150 and 155 regular manufacturers, exclusive of the mere assemblers of parts. The Pope Manufacturing Company, which occupies the leading place, employed in 1888 about 500 hands. To-day their shops give employment to 3,800 workmen, which furnishes a significant object lesson as to the importance and growth of the industry.
The Automobile.—Gliding silently along our city streets without the customary accompaniment of the clatter of the horse’s hoofs, the automobile suggests to the average observer a very recent invention. This is, however, not the case. The automobile is older even than the locomotive, and is, in fact, the early model from which the rail locomotive was evolved. As early as 1680 Sir Isaac Newton proposed a steam carriage in which the propelling power was the reactionary discharge of a rearwardly directed jet of steam. Cugnot, in 1769, built a steam carriage, which is still preserved in the museum of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris. Hornblower also in the same year devised a steam carriage. Watt’s patents of 1769 and 1784 contemplated the application of his steam engines to carriages running on land. Symington in 1770, and Murdoch in 1784, built experimental models. In 1787 Oliver Evans obtained a patent in Maryland for the exclusive right to make steam road wagons. Nathan Read in 1790 also patented and built a steam carriage.
Of these, Cugnot represents the pioneer in the heavier forms of self-propelled vehicles, but the steam carriage which best deserves to be regarded as the prototype of the modern passenger automobile is that of Trevithick, in England, who may also be considered as the father of the locomotive. On Christmas eve, 1801, this steam carriage made its experimental trip along the high road carrying seven or eight passengers. The next day the party, with Trevithick in charge of the engine, visited Tehidy House, the home of Lord Dunstanville. They met with an accident, however, and the carriage turned over. It was placed under shelter, and while the party were at the hotel regaling themselves with roast goose and popular drinks, the water in the engine boiled away, the iron became red hot, and nothing combustible was left either of the carriage or the building in which it was sheltered. On March 24, 1802, Trevithick and Vivian obtained a British patent, No. 2,599, on this device, and another carriage was built, and in the spring of 1803 started a run from Camborne to Redruth, but it stuck in the mud. It was popularly known as Capt. Trevithick’s “Puffing Devil.” It was subsequently reconstructed in London and run upon the streets of that city. Fig. 185 presents an illustration of the first steam automobile. The cylinders and pistons were enclosed within the fire box in the rear. Clutches (called striking boxes) on the axle of the front gear wheel allowed either running wheel to move independently of the other in turning. A pair of small front steering wheels was arranged to turn about a vertical axis and was manipulated by a handle bar. A brake was provided for in the specification, as were also variable gears for changing speed, and an automatic blower for the fire. The carriage had an elevated coach body mounted on springs, and the running wheels were of large size, adapted to the higher speed and lighter uses of passenger traffic.
It is not possible to trace the succeeding steps in steam carriage development by James and Anderson, by Gurney, in 1822, by Marcerone and Squire in 1833, by Russel in 1846, and many others; it is sufficient to know that bad roads and the success attending the steam locomotive on rails diverted attention from the steam road carriage, and not until the latter part of the Nineteenth Century was there any marked revival of interest in this field. Then came first the ponderous road engine, known as a traction engine, and used for heavy hauling; and this in the last decade has been followed by the modern steam motor carriage, an example of which is seen in Figs. 186 and 186A, which represent the “Locomobile” and its actuating mechanism. The fuel used is gasoline, stored in a three-gallon tank under the footboard. The boiler, which is arranged under the seat, is a vertical cylinder wrapped with piano wire for greater tensile strength, and contains 298 copper tubes. The engine, which is seen in Fig. 186A, is arranged in upright position under the seat, in front of the boiler, has two cylinders, 21⁄2-inch diameter and 4-inch stroke, a Stephenson link-motion and an ordinary D-valve. Sprocket wheels and a chain connect the engine shaft to the rear axle. The engine runs from 300 to 400 revolutions per minute and develops from four to five horse power. It has a muffle for the steam exhaust and the whole weight is 550 pounds. It is one of the lightest and cheapest of automobiles, runs easily at ten to twelve miles an hour, and is an efficient hill-climber. Although naming the steam automobile first because of its earlier genesis, it is not to be understood as representing at present the most popular type of motor carriage, although it bids fair to become so.
In France and the continent of Europe the type employing an explosive mixture of gasoline and air is most frequently found, and in England and the United States the electric motor with the storage battery is chiefly used.
In automobiles of the explosive gas type probably the earliest example is found in the British patent to Pinkus, No. 8,207, of 1839. In France Lenoir, in 1860, is credited with being the pioneer. Among modern applications the patent to George B. Selden, No. 549,160, occupies a prominent place. This was only granted Nov. 5, 1895, but the application for the patent was filed in the Patent Office May 8, 1879 so that the invention described has quite an early date, and some broad claims have been allowed to the inventor. In the last decade many applications of the explosive gas engine to road carriages and tricycles have been made, especially in France. Representative motor carriages of this type are to be found in the United States in the Duryea and the Winton. An illustration of the latter is given in Fig. 187. The form shown represents a phaeton weighing 1,400 pounds; the motor is of the single hydrocarbon type, and is simple, powerful and compact. It is also free from noise and vibration, and is under control at all times. The maximum speed is eighteen miles an hour.
Probably the most popular type of the automobile in the United States is the “electric.” The application of the electric motor to the propulsion of vehicles dates back to quite an early period. It is said that as far back as 1835 Stratingh and Becker, of Groeningen, and in 1836 Botto, of Turin, constructed crude electric carriages. Davenport, in 1835, Davidson, in 1838, and Dr. Page, in 1851, built electric locomotives which ran on rails. The prototype of the electric automobile, however, is best represented in the French patent to M. Grounelle, No. 7,728, Feb. 7, 1852 (2 Ser., Vol. 25, p. 220, pl. 46.) This shows a perfectly equipped electric automobile. It did not have a practical electric generator, however, for the storage battery was not then known. A large sulphate of copper battery was employed, which could through the agency of a train of gears give only a very slow speed. This road carriage, however, only needed a storage battery to make it a well organized and efficient electric automobile. It is believed by many that electricity fulfills more of the necessary conditions of a successful motive power for motor carriages than any other power. It is clean, compact, noiseless, free from vibration, heat, dirt and gases, and is under perfect control. Its chief objection is that it is only possible to recharge it where electric power is available, and in this respect it is inferior to the gasoline motor, whose supply may be conveniently obtained at every city, village, and country store. The Columbia two-seated Dos-a-Dos (Fig. 188), Woods’ Victoria Hansom Cab, and the Riker Electric Delivery Wagon are representative types of the modern electric automobile.
All of the motor carriages illustrated are of American make, and for lightness, grace, and efficiency they have no superiors. A peculiar and recent type which attracted much attention and took the gold medal at the Motor Carriage Exposition at Berlin, held in September, 1899, is the Pieper double motor carriage. It has both a benzine motor and an electric motor, which can be worked separately or together, and yet is said to be lighter than most electric carriages. On a long journey, remote from electrical supply, the benzine motor is used not only to propel the carriage, but by running the electric motor as a dynamo or generator, recharges the storage battery. On level, easy roads, where the power required falls below the maximum power exerted by the benzine motor, the electric motor changes automatically to a dynamo and the surplus force of the benzine motor is converted into current and stored. In running down hill or stopping the carriage, the momentum of the vehicle is also received by the electric motor acting as a dynamo and brake, and is stored as electricity in the battery, which is thus in an ordinary journey kept constantly charged.
It is not probable that man will ever be able to get along without the horse, but the release of the noble animal from the bondage of city traffic, which was begun only a few years ago with mechanical street car propulsion, promises now to be extensively advanced by the substitution of the motor carriage and the auto-truck for team-drawn vehicles. The rapidity with which this industry has grown, and its promise for the future may be realized when it is remembered that so far as practical results are concerned it has all grown up in the last decade of the Nineteenth Century, and yet to-day it is said that there are already in the United States about 200 incorporated concerns with an aggregate capitalization of some $500,000,000, organized to build automobiles, to say nothing of the vast number of individuals who are experimenting in this field. The greatest activity, however, is to be found in France, which claims over 600 manufacturers and has in use 6,000 automobiles out of a total of 11,000 in all of Europe.
The most significant suggestion for the future of the automobile is that the cost of maintenance and all things considered, it is in some applications cheaper than the horse-drawn vehicles of the same efficiency. In a consular report of Oct. 16, 1899, forwarded to the State Department by Mr. Marshal Halsted, consul at Birmingham, Mr. E. H. Bayley, an English authority, is quoted as saying that in operating heavy motor vehicles for hauling, the cost is three half-pence (three cents) per net ton per mile, as compared with 18 to 24 cents per net ton per mile by horse-drawn vehicles. In England much attention is being given to this subject.
As before stated, the modern automobile cannot be considered as a new invention so far as fundamental principles are concerned. Its success, in late years, is to be credited to the perfection of the arts in general, and as essential factors contributing to this may be named the refinement of steel, giving increased strength with lightness, the increased efficiency of motive power, the vulcanization of rubber, the mathematical nicety of mechanical adjustment, the reduction of friction by ball bearings, the wonderful developments in electricity and improvement in roads.
Invention of Phonograph by Edison—Scott’s Phonautograph—Improvements of Bell and Tainter—The Graphophone—Library of Wax Cylinders—The Gramophone.
Following closely upon the discovery of the telephone the phonograph came, literally speaking for itself, and adding another surprise to the wonderful inventions of that prolific period. It was in the latter part of 1877 that Thomas A. Edison showed to a few privileged friends a modest looking little machine. He turned the crank, and to the astonishment of those present it said. “Good morning! How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?” Its voice was a little metallic, it is true, but here was presented an insignificant looking piece of mechanism which was undeniably a talking machine and one with an unlimited vocabulary. So-called talking machines had been made before, of which the Faber machine was a type. These, by an arrangement of bellows to furnish air, and flexible pipes in imitation of the larynx and vocal organs, made laborious and wheezy efforts to imitate the mechanical functions of the throat and tongue in articulate speech, but the method was fundamentally faulty and no success was attained. Edison followed no such leading. His phonograph made no attempt at imitating in construction the complex organization of the human throat, but was as wonderful in its divergence therefrom and in its simplicity as it was in the success of its results. The machine was patented by him Feb. 19, 1878, No. 200,521, and its life principle is simply and clearly defined in the first claim of the patent, as follows:
“The method herein specified of reproducing the human voice, or other sounds, by causing the sound vibrations to be recorded substantially as specified, and obtaining motion from that record as set forth for the reproduction of sound vibrations.”
The invention was a striking and interesting novelty and at once attracted the attention of scientific men as well as the general public. Its first public exhibition was about the latter part of January, 1878, before the Polytechnic Association of the American Institute, at New York. It spoke English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish and Hebrew with equal facility. It imitated the barking of a dog and crowing of a cock, and then catching cold, coughed and sneezed and wheezed until it is said a physician in the audience proposed sending a prescription for it. It was also suggested by an irreverent man that it might take the place of preachers in the rendition of sermons, while another thought that as it reproduced music with equal facility it might take the place of preacher and choir both. In the spring of 1878 it was exhibited at Washington by Edison and his assistant, Mr. Batchelor. Mr. Edison was the guest of Mr. U. H. Painter, and in his parlors it was shown to a party of gentlemen.
From Mr. Painter’s house the machine was taken to the office of the Assistant Secretary of the Interior, thence to the Academy of Sciences, in session at the Smithsonian Institution, and at night it was taken to the White House and exhibited to President and Mrs. Hayes.
The form of the first phonograph is shown in Fig. 189. It consisted of three principal parts—the mouthpiece A, into which speech was uttered, the spirally grooved cylinder B, carrying on its periphery a sheet of tin foil, and a second mouthpiece D. The cylinder B and its axial shaft were both provided with spiral grooves or screw threads of exactly the same pitch, and when the shaft was turned by its crank its screw threaded bearings caused the cylinder to slowly advance as it rotated. The mouthpiece A had adjacent to the cylinder a flexible diaphragm carrying a little point or stylus which bore against the tin foil on the cylinder. When the mouthpiece A was spoken into and the cylinder B was turned, the little stylus, vibrating from the voice impulses, traced by indentations a little jagged path in the tin foil that formed the record. To reproduce the record in speech again, the mouthpiece A was adjusted away from the cylinder, the cylinder run back to the starting point, and mouthpiece D was then brought up to the cylinder. This mouthpiece had a diaphragm and stylus similar to the other one, only more delicately constructed. This stylus was adjusted to bear lightly in the little spiral path in the tin foil traced by the other stylus, and as the tin foil revolved with the cylinder its jagged irregularities set up the same vibrations in the diaphragm of mouthpiece D as those caused by the voice on the other diaphragm, and thus translated the record into sounds of articulate speech, exactly corresponding to the words first spoken into the instrument. In Fig. 190 is shown a further development of the phonograph, in which a single mouthpiece with diaphragm and stylus serves the purpose both of recorder for making the record and a speaker for reproducing it, a trumpet or horn being used, as indicated in dotted lines, to concentrate the vibrations in recording and to augment the sound in reproducing.
The phonograph is in reality a development of the phonautograph, which was an instrument invented by Leon Scott in 1857 to automatically record sounds by diagrams. There is a model of Scott’s phonautograph in the National Museum at Washington, D. C, and it consists of a chamber to catch the sound waves and an elastic diaphragm with stylus working on a revolving cylinder bearing a sheet of paper coated with lampblack. The phonograph’s record-making mouthpiece, with its diaphragm and stylus, is substantially a phonautograph, but instead of simply causing the stylus to trace a record on carbon-coated paper and stopping with this result, Edison traced a record in a substance—tinfoil—which was capable of mechanically translating that record into sound again by a mere reversal of the function of the stylus and diaphragm. This was the very essence of simplicity and logical reasoning. All records had been heretofore traced for visual inspection only. Edison’s record was not for visual inspection, but was endowed with the mechanical function of reproducing sound.
From the first Edison believed that his phonograph was to fill an important place in the business activities of the world, since here seemed a silent but faithful stenographer which reproduced the words of the speaker with absolute fidelity, even to the quality of emphasis and inflection, and which made no mistakes, was always even with the speaker in its work, and asked no questions. For a number of years, however, the invention lay dormant and served no other purpose than that of a scientific curiosity or an amusing toy. The difficulty of its practical application largely existed in the perishable form of the record, which, being in tinfoil, was liable to be mutilated and distorted, and was not well adapted for storage or transportation.
A few years after the announcement of Mr. Edison’s invention. Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the distinguished inventor of the telephone, with his associates, Messrs. Chichester A. Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter, directed their attention to the improvement of the phonograph. Dr. Bell had received from the French government, upon the recommendation of the French Academy of Sciences, the Volta prize of 50,000 francs as a recognition of his successful work in acoustics and the invention of the telephone, and with this sum he built the Volta Institute in Washington and carried on the work of developing the phonograph.
On May 4, 1886, Chichester A. Bell and Sumner Tainter obtained patents Nos. 341,214 and 341,288, which covered a great improvement in the record of the phonograph. This invention substituted for the tinfoil sheet a surface of wax, which was finally fashioned into a cylinder, and instead of merely indenting the record on tinfoil the stylus cut a distinct groove or kerf in the wax cylinder as it revolved, dislodging therefrom a minute filament or shaving and forming a record which was not only far more positive in its translating effect and more easily transported and stored, but was also less perishable, and besides it could be easily effaced without loss of the cylinder by simply smoothing off the surface of the cylinder again when it was desired to make a new record. This invention quickly grew into practical use, and is known as the “Graphophone.”
In Fig. 191 is shown on the left a cross section of the diaphragm, recording stylus, and wax cylinder, of the graphophone, the stylus plowing a tiny groove in the wax cylinder in the act of recording the speech, and on the right is shown the reproducing stylus traversing the record groove in the wax cylinder, and the diaphragm chamber with which the ear tubes are connected. The grooves in the wax, although giving forth mechanical movement that is translated into sound, are very minute, being only 6⁄10,000 of an inch deep.
When the possibilities of the graphophone became known, capital was quickly supplied for its commercial exploitation, and the Columbia Phonograph Company was organized. At the present time, owing to the great increase in the business, the control of the graphophone business is vested in two branches, the Columbia Phonograph Company, which has charge of the selling, and which has offices throughout all the principal cities of this country and some of the larger ones of Europe, and the American Graphophone Company, which attends to the manufacturing branch, and whose factory is located at Bridgeport, Conn., where, it is said, that in 1898 the production of the factory reached the point of one graphophone for every minute of the day, making a total daily output of 600 machines. Although the Bell and Tainter patents of 1886 represent the basic principles of the graphophone, its development and perfection have been contributed to in many subsequent improvements by Messrs. Bell, Tainter, McDonald, and others. The more important of these are covered by patents No. 375,579, Dec. 27, 1887; No. 380,535, April 3, 1888; No. 527,755, Oct. 16, 1894, and No. 579,595, March 30, 1897.
At the beginning of this industry it was thought that the principal use of the instrument would be found in business applications, to take the place of the stenographer, but it proved difficult to revolutionize office methods, especially as the earlier machines were somewhat intricate, and the business man had no time to divide in engineering a machine. These difficulties, however, have been so far overcome by modern improvements and simplification of the machine that its use in business houses as an amanuensis has become quite common. The greatest use of the graphophone is, however, for amusement purposes. Its songs, orchestral and solo renditions, and its humorous monologue reproductions constitute to-day a great library of wax cylinders, regularly catalogued and sold by the thousands. It will readily be understood that the formation of the cylinders must constitute a great business of itself when it is remembered that many record cylinders accompany each graphophone, and that the latter are turned out at the rate of one a minute by a single company. Many thousands of these cylinders are made daily. Some are sent out simply as plain wax cylinders, onto which the records are made by the voice of the purchaser, while others have records made for them of popular music, monologues in dialect, humorous speeches, etc. The waxy composition, which is in reality a species of soap, is melted in huge pots, and then passes from one floor to another, undergoing a refining process in its progress, and finally reaches the molds. These molds are arranged in rows around a horizontal wheel about eight feet in diameter. The wheel is kept revolving, and a man on one side is kept constantly busy in filling the molds with the molten material as they reach him. A half revolution of the wheel brings the filled molds to the other side of the room, and by that time the material has hardened sufficiently to enable another attendant, stationed there, to remove the cylinders from the molds. Thus the wheel is kept going, receiving at one side a charge of the melted wax and discharging at the other molded cylinders, which are afterwards turned true on the surface. The record-making department is both unique and interesting. Here the records of music are produced, and they are made by bands and performers engaged for the purpose, many of which, operating at the same time, produce such a medley as to be scarcely distinguishable to the visitor. The records are tested by about half a hundred women, each of whom has a little compartment or booth framed in by glass partitions. The duty of the tester is to decide upon the merits of the record by actually listening to it on the graphophone.
A very important feature in record-making, from a commercial standpoint, is in means for cheaply duplicating records. If every record cylinder had to be made by the separate act of a performer such records would be very expensive. An original record is first made by some celebrated musician or speaker, and this record is afterwards multiplied and reproduced in large numbers. For this purpose an original record by suitable mechanism is made to take the place of the speaker or singer, and so multiplies and reproduces the original record. The duplicating of records was contemplated by Edison from the first, as seen in his British patent, 1,644 of 1878, and later appliances for accomplishing such results are covered under Tainter’s patent, No. 341,287, Bettini’s, No. 488,381, and McDonald’s, No. 559,806. The diaphragms used in the recorders and reproducers are made of French rolled plate glass, thinner than a sheet of ordinary writing paper. The recording stylus is shaped like a little gouge to cut the little grooves in the wax, while the corresponding stylus of the reproducer has a ball-shaped end to travel in the groove. Both the recording stylus and reproducing ball are made of sapphire, chosen on account of its hardness, to resist the great frictional wear to which they are subjected. When a record is to be effaced from a cylinder, it is turned off smooth on a sort of lathe, and the cutting tool or knife for this purpose is also made of sapphire.
The latest, loudest, and most impressive form of the talking machine is the “Graphophone Grand.” This has a horn attachment exceeding the big horn of a brass band in size, and the wax cylinder is about four inches in diameter. Its reproductions in music and speech are so full and strong as to be clearly heard at the most remote part of a large hall, and its versatile voice lends effective rendition to all sorts and kinds of sounds, from the inspiring chords of “A Choir Invisible” to the grandiloquent and facetious rattle of a noisy and hustling auctioneer.
It is not to be understood, however, that the graphophone is the only speaking machine on the market, for about 250 patents have been granted on phonographs and graphophones. The National Phonograph Company, under many later patents granted to Mr. Edison, manufactures and sells the phonograph shown in Fig. 192, which is a very ingenious and effective instrument. This modern form of phonograph is actuated either by electricity or spring power, is regulated by a speed governor, and bifurcated ear tubes connect with the diaphragm case, which tubes are placed in the ears when the instrument is operated.
The gramophone is also another speaking machine. This is the invention of Mr. E. Berliner and covered by him in patent No. 372,786, Nov. 8, 1887. An illustration of the gramophone recorder is given in Fig. 193. Instead of a wax cylinder this machine employs a flat disc on which the record is formed as a volute spiral groove, gradually drawing toward the center. It is produced as follows: A zinc disc is covered by a thin film of acid resisting material, such as wax or grease, and is placed in a horizontal pan, mounted to revolve as a turn table about a vertical axis. A stylus and diaphragm, with speaking tube attached, are arranged above the disc, and when spoken into the vibrations of the diaphragm cause, through the stylus, a record to be traced through the wax, down to the zinc. As the waxed disc and pan are revolved, the stylus and diaphragm are gradually moved by gears toward the center of the disc. While the record is being traced the waxed disc is kept flooded with alcohol from a glass jar, seen in the cut, to soften the film and prevent the clogging of the stylus. The disc, when completed, is then rinsed off and etched with acid, chromic acid being used, to prevent liberation of hydrogen bubbles. The etched disc is then electrotyped to form a matrix, and from this electrotype hard rubber duplicates of the original record are molded, which are capable of giving 1,000 reproductions. These rubber discs are placed on the reproducing instrument, which is arranged to cause the stylus to freely trail along in the spiral groove, and when the disc is rotated under the said stylus its record is converted into articulate speech. Such flat disc records give quite loud reproductions, are not easily destroyed, and may be compactly stored and transported. In the gramophone the diaphragm stands at right angles to the record disc and the stylus does not vibrate endwise to make a path of varying depth, as in the phonograph and graphophone, but the stylus vibrates laterally and traces a little zigzag line.
The cost of a talking machine is from $5 to $150. The wax cylinders cost from 25 cents to $3.00, and the cylinders will hold a record of from 800 to 1,200 words, equivalent to about three or four pages of print in an octavo volume. An important part of such machines is the motor, which must maintain a uniform rate of speed, and much ingenuity has been displayed on this part of the machine. Probably the largest use of the phonograph or graphophone is for home amusement and exhibition purpose. The coin operated, or “nickel-in-the-slot” machine, finds a popular demand, while its utilitarian use as an amanuensis, or stenographer, is as yet a subordinate one.
Although twenty-one years of age, and of full growth, the phonograph is ever a wonderfully new and impressive device. When listening to it for the first time the conflict of emotions which it excites is difficult to analyze. A voice full of human quality, of clear and familiar enunciation, and speaking in the most matter of fact way about the most matter of fact things, proceeds from an insignificant and insensible bit of metal, presenting the apparently anomalous condition of speech without a speaker. When convinced that there is no trick, astonishment struggles with admiration and a desire for a personal introduction. We speak into it, and have the unique experience of listening to our own voice emanating from a different part of the room, instead of our own mouths. It is really difficult to believe one’s own senses, and no wonder that it inspires the superstitious with a feeling of awe. If Mr. Edison had lived a few centuries earlier, and had produced such an instrument, his life might have paid the penalty of his ingenuity, for without doubt he would have been classed as a wizard, and of close kin to the evil one.
The phonograph is the truth-telling and incontrovertible witness whose memory is never at fault, and whose nerves are never discomposed by any cross-examination. As evidence in court its word cannot be doubted, and the witness confronted by his own utterances from the phonograph must yield to its infallible dictum. The dying father, unable to write, may dictate to it his last will and testament, and leave a message for his loved ones, and long after the sod is green on his grave, that message would still be audible, and fresh and true to all the tender inflections of the heart’s emotions. By its aid the Holy Father, at Rome, may give his personal and audible blessing to his children throughout the world, though separated by thousands of miles. Who can tell what stories of interesting and instructive knowledge would be in our possession if the phonograph had appeared in the ages of the past, and its records had been preserved? The voices of our dead ancestors, whose portraits hang on the wall, and the eloquent words of Demosthenes and Cicero would be preserved to us. In fact, we should be brought into vocal contact with the world’s heroes, martyrs, saints, and sages, and all the great actors and teachers whose personalities have made history, and whose teachings have given us our best ideals. But perhaps the most practical and best characterization of the phonograph is given in Mr. Edison’s own terse words. He says: “In one sense it knows more than we know ourselves, for it retains the memory of many things which we forget, even though we have said them. It teaches us to be careful of what we say, and I am sure makes men more brief, more businesslike, and more straightforward.”