Edison

Wo went over to Meulo Park, N. J., ,wo oí lis, to see Edison and his wonderui inventions and make some discoverics and sketches for the Graphic. tfeulo Park in not a park. It is not a city. It is not a town. It is not in nny wny related to Mungo Park, tlio great ijcotch-Afrionn. Altliough it is on the Pennsylvauia railrond (jnst beyond Liahway), it is not even a stopping place, except when the station-agent flogs the ;rain to take on waiting passengerd. It is composed wholly of Edison's laboratory and half-a dozen Iiousor where his employés live. It is, iu short, Edisonia, and notliing else. Jnst north of tho track is a long, plain, white wooden buildiug, fnll of wiudowa and two storios high ; this is the laboratory of the Jersey Columbus whose name has sndcJenly become famous. Many telegraph wires are festooned trom it. The iirst floor is occiipied by scribes and bookkeepers in one end, and at the other some ten or twelve skillful workers in iron, who, at anvil and forge, latho and drill, aro noisily engagedin making patterns and models for the genius ol tho establishment. His iron ideas, in tangled shnpes, are scattered and piled everywbere ; turning-lathes are thickly set on Iho floor, and the room is filled with the sereeeh of tho tortured metal. Up-stairs wo climb--to a room the üize of the building, with tweuty wiudows on Bidés and ends. It is walled with shelves of bottles, like an apothecary shoii - thonsands of bottles of al! sizes and colors. In the corner is a cabinet organ. On benehes and tables are batteries of all descriptions, microscopes, magnifyiug glasses, crucibles, retorts, an ash-covered forpe, anJ all the appiiratus of a cbemist. At a tablo sit two earuest men, each holding alternately to mouth and ear the mouthpiece of a telephone. " Well, what aro you np to to-day ?" asks an acquaictance wno has sauntered in. "We have got the Chicago telephone repcater in tlie circuit at last, and we are now talkiag through 800 miles of wire, via St. Louis, Cincinnati, Iiouisville, Washington, and Pliiladelphin - tlio parábola of the West. It doesn't work well yet, This ia tl ie largest circuit ever attempted, and it would not be possible ■without Bdison's repeating mRcbine." In the middlo of tlie room is a man about live feet ten inches high, with a "thin face, high check bones, and a long, lean neck. He would not be picked out iu a crowd as a man of more tbau ordinary intelligence, nnd he is the person whom a bnuosteerer would be likely to take into his confidence. Time he evidently oonsiders too valuable to waste on personal decorntion, for his boots have not been blackened this week, and, although he is ostensibly whiskclcBB, his beard has had about a flve days' growth. Ilis hair is of a chestnut brown, and I judge he cut it himsolf, for it stands tro iu an anxious way all over his hcad, with a striking tendency forward, and at the crown it stiifiy radiates like the iliorny top of a pineapple. There ia a quid of tobáceo in his c-l.eek. Híb mouth is sensitivo, the blue veins show on his hands, and tho fingers nutter as if each had an intelligent pnrpose ; but tlie only feature that would immediately attract the attei)tion of a stranger as worth a second look is his keen, deep, eager gray oye, ■vhich reveáis tho intensity of the man. This is Thomas Alva Edison. " You havo turned out a good miny inventions, Mr. Edison." "Yes ;" he answors, with a perceptible Western twaag in his speech, ' ' I've made some machines: but tms is niy baby, patfins the thn phonograph and takinga oliair beiore it, "nnd I oxpeot it to grow up to be a big feller aud support me in my oíd age." .., Edisou showed us his dismantled aerophone, " Sorne of it starled forEurope last ■week," said lic, " and I can't show you liow it sounds. But here, you sce, is the name tyrnpanuni that we use in the telephone and phouograph ; we speak against 'this, and its vibrations. instead of prieking a sheet "f tinfoil, open and close a valve ia the stoampipe, and thus give to the whistlo the articulations of the hunian voice. It is mucli sinipler thaii the pbonograph, and ita audible speech ean be lienrd four milea, or even more. I will guarautee that it shall re ad the Declaratioa of Indepeudence so that evcry woïd will be disiinctly heard by every citizeu of Munhattan island. It wiH cail out all tho stations on a rfiilroad) and the locomotive will go through the country talking whatever thej engimer thinks it necessary to say. Steamers con converso at sea. Lighthouses can warn ships in a storm. Fire districts can be shouted ; also, ■whether a. fire is spreadiug or is being mastered." " I will have on eihibition at Paris," said Edison, " r-ight telephones, beside niy plionograph and aerophone." "To what uses do you oxpect thephonograph ivill be put ?" he was asked. "Several," he replied. "1. For dictating it will tako the place of short-h;nd reporters, as thus : A man who has mnny lette ra to write will talk them to the phonograph, and send the sheets directly to his correspondente, who will lay them on the phonograph and hear what they have to say. Such letters as go to people who have no phonographs will be copied f rom the machine by the oflioo-loy. "2. For reading. A first-class elocutionist will read one of Dickens' novéis into the phonograph. It ein all be piïnt-ed on a sheet ten inches square, and these eau be multiplied by the million copies by a chenp prooma of electrotypinpr. These sheets will be eold for, say, 25 cente. A man is tired, and his wife's eyes are failing, and so they sit around and hear the telephone read f rom this sheet the whole novol with all the expression of a first-class reader. See ? A company for printing these is already organized in New York. "3. It will sing in the very voice of Patti and Kellogg, so that every family caa have au opera any evening. " i. It may be used as s musical composer. When sin ging eomo favorite airs backwarcl it hits some lovely airs, and I believe a uiusioian oonld get one popular melody every day by exporimentíng in that way. " 6. It may be asad to read to iumates of blind asyluma, or to the ignorant who have never leHftlfed to read. "(. It may bo used to teach lnnguoges, and I huvo already sold the right to use it to teach ofiildren tho alphal X t. Supposc Stanley had had one and thus obtained for the world all tho dialects of Central África ! "7. It wiil be used to make toys talk. A company has already orgauizcd to mako speakiug dolls. Tliey will fippak in a little girl's voice, and will never loeo th! gift any more than u little girl. "8. It will bo used by actors to icprn the right readiug of passage. In fact, its ntility will be cndless." " Whiit will t!ie phonograph sell for?" " We sball charge $100 for a machine. This will limit itp sale for the present."