The PHONOGRAPH

The Phonograph was conceived by Edison upon a fluke experience at his labratory in Menlo Park, early December, 1877. He and his associates were working on a device that would record morse code-like transmissions onto paraffin paper discs, later to be played back on a similar device at the operator's will. Edison discovered that playing the various dots and dashes back at a higher speed than recorded simulated the sounds of the human voice. THAT was the tipoff! From there his unrestricted thoughts developed a device that would follow a uniform track upon a cylindrical surface, and incorperate a sound motivated diaphram connected to a centralized point that would inscribe the sound waves imposed to the diaphram onto an acceptable medium. Of those being available at the time of 1877, was tin foil (a grade heavier than of we know today!). He assigned the project to one of his colleagues, John Krusi, to build as a wood/metal model, without mentioning what his intentions were. Once built, Thomas Edison layed the device upon a table and applied a sheet of tin foil round the drum of the device. He then bent over the device and, while cranking the threaded shaft from it's right side, shouted into one of it's brass diaphram retaining orfices:

"Mary had a little lamb, It's fleece was white as snow,

And everywhere that Mary went, The lamb was sure to go."

By now, the associates of Edison were starting to catch on to what he was trying to do... so we assume. He then returned the cylindrical drum device to its' original position, and then hand held a paper cone over the opposing orfice from where he had just shouted a nursery rhyme into. Placing the reproducing point over the cylidrical drum, Edison then began to crank the drum once more, only not to inscribe a message, but.. TO PLAY IT BACK! In his first attempt, IT WORKED!! The staff was astonished! Never before had such an acheivement in the history of man been acomplished! To record ones' voice and have it played back! It was almost ghost-like! For what flourished upon that day for Thomas Edison and his relentless Co-Workers, it is easy to see how of all that Edison had accomplished, both fore and aft this device, The Phonograph, would live to be his most favorite invention.