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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30112 ***
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+ file which includes the original illustrations.
+ See 30112-h.htm or 30112-h.zip:
+ (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30112/30112-h/30112-h.htm)
+ or
+ (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30112/30112-h.zip)
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+ Passages in italics are enclosed between underscores
+ (_italics_).
+
+ Additional spacing after some of the quotations is intentional
+ to indicate both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a
+ new paragraph as presented in the original text.
+
+
+
+
+
+Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology,
+United States National Museum Bulletin 218,
+Paper 5, (pages 69-79)
+
+DEVELOPMENT OF THE PHONOGRAPH AT
+ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL'S VOLTA LABORATORY
+
+LESLIE J. NEWVILLE
+
+
+DEVELOPMENT OF THE PHONOGRAPH
+AT ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL'S
+VOLTA LABORATORY
+
+by
+
+LESLIE J. NEWVILLE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ _The fame of Thomas A. Edison rests most securely on his genius for
+ making practical application of the ideas of others. However, it
+ was Alexander Graham Bell, long a Smithsonian Regent and friend of
+ its third Secretary S. P. Langley, who, with his Volta Laboratory
+ associates made practical the phonograph, which has been called
+ Edison's most original invention._
+
+ THE AUTHOR: _Leslie J. Newville wrote this paper while he was
+ attached to the office of the curator of Science and Technology in
+ the Smithsonian Institution's United States National Museum._
+
+
+The story of Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone has been
+told and retold. How he became involved in the difficult task of making
+practical phonograph records, and succeeded (in association with Charles
+Sumner Tainter and Chichester Bell), is not so well known.
+
+But material collected through the years by the U. S. National Museum of
+the Smithsonian Institution now makes clear how Bell and two associates
+took Edison's tinfoil machine and made it reproduce sound from wax
+instead of tinfoil. They began their work in Washington, D. C., in 1879,
+and continued until granted basic patents in 1886 for recording in wax.
+
+Preserved at the Smithsonian are some 20 pieces of experimental
+apparatus, including a number of complete machines. Their first
+experimental machine was sealed in a box and deposited in the
+Smithsonian archives in 1881. The others were delivered by Alexander
+Graham Bell to the National Museum in two lots in 1915 and 1922. Bell
+was an old man by this time, busy with his aeronautical experiments in
+Nova Scotia.
+
+It was not until 1947, however, that the Museum received the key to the
+experimental "Graphophones," as they were called to differentiate them
+from the Edison machine. In that year Mrs. Laura F. Tainter donated to
+the Museum 10 bound notebooks, along with Tainter's unpublished
+autobiography.[1] This material describes in detail the strange machines
+and even stranger experiments which led in 1886 to a greatly improved
+phonograph.
+
+Thomas A. Edison had invented the phonograph in 1877. But the fame
+bestowed on Edison for this startling invention (sometimes called his
+most original) was not due to its efficiency. Recording with the tinfoil
+phonograph is too difficult to be practical. The tinfoil tears easily,
+and even when the stylus is properly adjusted, the reproduction is
+distorted and squeaky, and good for only a few playbacks. Nevertheless
+young Edison, the "wizard" as he was called, had hit upon a secret of
+which men had dreamed for centuries.[2] Immediately after this
+discovery, however, he did not improve it, allegedly because of an
+agreement to spend the next five years developing the New York City
+electric light and power system.
+
+
+[Illustration: Figure 1.--CHARLES SUMNER TAINTER (1854-1940) from a
+photograph taken in San Diego, California, 1919. (_Smithsonian photo
+42729-A._)]
+
+
+Meanwhile Bell, always a scientist and experimenter at heart, after his
+invention of the telephone in 1876 was looking for new worlds to
+conquer. If we accept Tainter's version of the story, it was through
+Gardiner Green Hubbard that Bell took up the phonograph challenge. Bell
+had married Hubbard's daughter Mabel in 1879. Hubbard was then president
+of the Edison Speaking Phonograph Co., and his organization, which had
+purchased the Edison patent, was having trouble with its finances
+because people did not like to buy a machine which seldom worked well
+and proved difficult for an unskilled person to operate.
+
+In 1879 Hubbard got Bell interested in improving the machine, and it was
+agreed that a laboratory should be set up in Washington. Experiments
+were also to be conducted on the transmission of sound by light, and
+this resulted in the selenium-cell Photophone, patented in 1881. Both
+the Hubbards and the Bells decided to move to the Capital. While Bell
+took his bride to Europe for an extended honeymoon, his associate
+Charles Sumner Tainter, a young instrument maker, was sent on to
+Washington from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to start the laboratory.[3]
+Bell's cousin, Chichester Bell, who had been teaching college chemistry
+in London, agreed to come as the third associate. During his stay in
+Europe Bell received the 50,000-franc ($10,000) Volta prize, and it was
+with this money that the Washington project, the Volta Laboratory
+Association,[4] was financed.
+
+
+[Illustration: Figure 2.--PHOTOGRAPHING SOUND IN 1884. A rare photograph
+taken at Volta Laboratory, Washington, D. C., by J. Harris Rogers, a
+friend of Bell and Tainter (_Smithsonian photo 44312-E_).
+
+A description of the procedure used is found on page 67, of Tainter's
+unpublished autobiography (see footnote 1). There, Tainter quotes
+Chichester Bell as follows:
+
+"A jet of bichromate of potash solution, vibrated by the voice, was
+directed against a glass plate immediately in front of a slit, on which
+light was concentrated by means of a lens. The jet was so arranged that
+the light on its way to the slit had to pass through the nappe and as
+the thickness of this was constantly changing, the illumination of the
+slit was also varied. By means of a lens ... an image of this slit was
+thrown upon a rotating gelatine-bromide plate, on which accordingly a
+record of the voice vibrations was obtained."]
+
+
+Tainter's story, in his autobiography, of the establishment of the
+laboratory, shows its comparative simplicity:
+
+I therefore wound up my business affairs in Cambridge, packed up all of
+my tools and machines, and ... went to Washington, and after much
+search, rented a vacant house on L Street, between 13th and 14th
+Streets, and fitted it up for our purpose.[5]... The Smithsonian
+Institution sent us over a mail sack of scientific books from the
+library of the Institution, to consult, and primed with all we could
+learn ... we went to work.[6]... We were like the explorers in an
+entirely unknown land, where one has to select the path that seems to be
+most likely to get you to your destination, with no knowledge of what is
+ahead.
+
+In conducting our work we had first to design an experimental apparatus,
+then hunt about, often in Philadelphia and New York, for the materials
+with which to construct it, which were usually hard to find, and finally
+build the models we needed, ourselves.[7]
+
+
+[Illustration: Figure 3.--PAGE FROM NOTEBOOK of Charles Sumner Tainter,
+describing an experiment in sound recording. The Tainter notebooks,
+preserved in the U. S. National Museum, describe experiments at the
+Volta Laboratory, in the 1880's. The Graphophone patents of 1886, were
+the result of this research. (_Smithsonian photo 44312_.)]
+
+
+The experimental machines built at the Volta Laboratory include both
+disc and cylinder types, and an interesting "tape" recorder. The records
+used with the machines and now in the collections of the U. S. National
+Museum, are believed to be the oldest reproducible records preserved
+anywhere in the world. While some are scratched and cracked, others are
+still in good condition.
+
+By 1881 the Volta associates had succeeded in improving an Edison
+tinfoil machine to some extent. Wax was put in the grooves of the heavy
+iron cylinder, and no tinfoil was used. Rather than apply for a patent
+at that time, however, they deposited the machine in a sealed box at the
+Smithsonian, and specified that it was not to be opened without the
+consent of two of the three men. In 1937 Tainter (fig. 1) was the only
+one still living, so the box was opened with his permission.
+
+For the occasion, the heirs of Alexander Graham Bell gathered in
+Washington, but Tainter was too old and too ill to come from San Diego.
+
+The sound vibrations had been indented in the wax which had been applied
+to the Edison phonograph. The following is the text of the recording:
+"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of
+in your philosophy. I am a graphophone and my mother was a phonograph."
+Remarked Mrs. Gilbert Grosvenor,[8] Bell's daughter, when the box was
+opened in 1937, "That is just the sort of thing father would have said.
+He was always quoting from the classics."
+
+
+[Figure 4.--PATENT DRAWINGS from U. S. patent 341214, granted May 4,
+1886, to Chichester Bell and C. S. Tainter.]
+
+
+The method of reproduction used on the machine, however, is even more
+interesting than the quotation. Rather than a stylus and diaphragm, a
+jet of air under high pressure was used.
+
+"This evening about 7 P. M.," Tainter noted on July 7, 1881, "The
+apparatus being ready the valve upon the top of the air cylinder was
+opened slightly until a pressure of about 100 lbs. was indicated by the
+gage. The phonograph cylinder was then rotated, and the sounds produced
+by the escaping air could be heard, and the words understood a distance
+of at least 8 feet from the phonograph." The point of the jet is glass,
+and could be directed at a single groove.
+
+
+[Illustration: Figure 5.--EXPERIMENTAL GRAPHOPHONE photographed in 1884
+at the Volta Laboratory. This is similar to one preserved at the
+Smithsonian Institution. (_Smithsonian photo 44312-D._)]
+
+
+The other experimental Graphophones indicate an amazing range of
+experimentation. While the method of cutting a record on wax was the one
+later exploited commercially, everything else seems to have been tried
+at least once.
+
+The following was noted on Wednesday, March 20, 1881: "A fountain pen is
+attached to a diaphragm so as to be vibrated in a plane parallel to the
+axis of a cylinder--The ink used in this pen to contain iron in a finely
+divided state, and the pen caused to trace a spiral line around the
+cylinder as it turned. The cylinder to be covered with a sheet of paper
+upon which the record is made.... This ink ... can be rendered magnetic
+by means of a permanent magnet. The sounds were to be reproduced by
+simply substituting a magnet for the fountain pen...."
+
+The result of these ideas for magnetic reproduction resulted in patent
+341287, granted on May 4, 1886; it deals solely with "the reproduction,
+through the action of magnetism, of sounds by means of records in solid
+substances."
+
+
+[Illustration: Figure 6.--ANOTHER EXPERIMENTAL GRAPHOPHONE, photographed
+at the Volta Laboratory in 1884. (_Smithsonian photo 44312-F._)]
+
+
+The air jet used in reproducing has already been described. Other jets,
+of molten metal, wax, and water, were also tried. On Saturday, May 19,
+1883, Tainter wrote (see fig. 3):
+
+ Made the following experiment today:
+
+ The cylinder of the Edison phonograph was covered with the coating
+ of paraffine-wax and then turned off true and smooth.
+
+ A cutting style A., secured to the end of a lever B was then
+ adjusted over the cylinder, as shown. Lever B was pivoted at the
+ points C-D, and the only pressure exerted to force the style into
+ the wax was due to the weight of the parts.
+
+ Upon the top of A was fixed a small brass disk, and immediately
+ over it a sensitive water jet adjusted, so that the stream of water
+ at its sensitive part fell upon the center of the brass disk.
+
+ The Phonograph cylinder E, was rotated while words and sounds were
+ shouted to the support to which the water jet was attached, and a
+ record that was quite visible to the unaided eye was the result.
+
+
+The tape recorder, an unusual instrument which recorded mechanically on
+a 3/16-inch strip of wax-covered paper, is one of the machines described
+and illustrated in U. S. patent 341214, dated May 4, 1886 (see fig. 4).
+The strip was coated by dipping it in a solution of beeswax and
+paraffine (one part white beeswax, two parts paraffine, by weight), then
+scraping one side clean and allowing the other side to harden.
+
+
+[Illustration: Figure 7.--ORIGINAL PLANS FOR A DISC GRAPHOPHONE PATENTED
+BY SUMNER TAINTER IN 1888, U. S. PATENT 385886.]
+
+
+The machine of sturdy wood and metal construction, is hand powered by
+means of a knob fastened to the fly wheel. From the fly-wheel shaft
+power is transferred by a small friction wheel to a vertical shaft. At
+the bottom of this shaft a V-pulley transfers motion by belts to
+corresponding V-pulleys beneath the horizontal reels.
+
+The wax strip passes from one 8-inch reel around the periphery of a
+pulley (with guide flanges) mounted above the V-pulleys on the main
+vertical shaft, where it comes in contact with the recording or
+reproducing stylus. It is then taken up on the other reel.
+
+The sharp recording stylus, actuated by a vibrating mica diaphragm, cuts
+the wax from the strip. In reproducing, a dull, loosely mounted stylus,
+attached to a rubber diaphragm, carried sounds through an ear tube to
+the listener.
+
+Both recording and reproducing heads, mounted alternately on the same
+two posts, could be adjusted vertically so that several records could be
+cut on the same 3/16-inch strip.
+
+While this machine was never developed commercially, it is an
+interesting ancestor of the modern tape recorder, which it resembles
+somewhat in design. How practical it was or just why it was built we do
+not know. The tape is now brittle, the heavy paper reels warped, and the
+reproducing head missing. Otherwise, with some reconditioning, it could
+be put into working condition.
+
+Most of the disc machines designed by the Volta associates had the disc
+mounted vertically (see figs. 5 and 6). The explanation is that in the
+early experiments, the turntable, with disc, was mounted on the shop
+lathe, along with the recording and reproducing heads. Later, when the
+complete models were built, most of them featured vertical turntables.
+
+
+[Illustration: Figure 8.--ANOTHER PAGE OF THE PLANS SHOWN IN FIGURE 7.
+The experimental Graphophone built from these plans is in the U. S.
+National Museum (_cat. no. 287665_).]
+
+
+An interesting exception has a horizontal 7-inch turntable (see figs. 7
+and 8). This machine, although made in 1886, is a duplicate of one made
+earlier but taken to Europe by Chichester Bell. Tainter was granted U.
+S. patent 385886 for it on July 10, 1888.
+
+The playing arm is rigid, except for a pivoted vertical motion of 90
+degrees to allow removal of the record or a return to starting position.
+While recording or playing, the record not only rotated, but moved
+laterally under the stylus, which thus described a spiral, recording 150
+grooves to the inch.
+
+The Bell and Tainter records, preserved at the Smithsonian, are both of
+the lateral cut and "hill-and-dale" types. Edison for many years used
+the "hill-and-dale" method with both cylinder and disc records, and
+Emile Berliner is credited with the invention of the lateral cut
+Gramophone record in 1887. The Volta associates, however, had been
+experimenting with both types, as early as 1881, as is shown by the
+following quotation from Tainter:[9]
+
+ The record on the electro-type in the Smithsonian package is of the
+ other form, where the vibrations are impressed _parallel_ to the
+ surface of the recording material, as was done in the old Scott
+ Phonautograph of 1857, thus forming a groove of uniform depth, but
+ of wavy character, in which the _sides_ of the groove act upon the
+ tracing point instead of the bottom, as is the case in the vertical
+ type. This form we named the zig-zag form, and referred to it in
+ that way in our notes. Its important advantage in guiding the
+ reproducing needle I first called attention to in the note on p.
+ 9-Vol 1-Home Notes on March 29-1881, and endeavored to use it in my
+ early work, but encountered so much difficulty in getting a form of
+ reproducer that would work with the soft wax records without
+ tearing the groove, we used the hill and valley type of record more
+ often than the other.
+
+
+In 1885, when the Volta associates were sure that they had a number of
+practical inventions, they filed applications for patents. They also
+began to look around for investors. After giving several demonstrations
+in Washington, they gained the necessary support, and the American
+Graphophone Co. was organized to manufacture and sell the machines. The
+Volta Graphophone Co. was formed to control the patents.
+
+The Howe sewing machine factory at Bridgeport, Connecticut, became the
+American Graphophone plant; Tainter went there to supervise the
+manufacturing, and continued his inventive work for many years. This
+Bridgeport plant is still in use today by a successor firm, the
+Dictaphone Corporation.
+
+The work of the Volta associates laid the foundation for the successful
+use of the dictating machine in business, for their wax recording
+process was practical and their machines sturdy. But it was to take
+several more years and the renewed work of Edison and further
+developments by Berliner and many others, before the talking machine
+industry really got under way and became a major factor in home
+entertainment.[10]
+
+
+PATENTS WHICH RESULTED FROM THE VOLTA LABORATORY ASSOCIATION
+
+ _Patent
+ Number_ _Year_ _Patent_ _Inventors_
+ 229495 1880 Telephone call register C. S. Tainter
+ 235496 1880 Photophone transmitter A. G. Bell,
+ C. S. Tainter
+ 235497 1880 Selenium cells A. G. Bell,
+ C. S. Tainter
+ 235590 1800 Selenium cells C. S. Tainter
+ 241909 1881 Photophonic receiver A. G. Bell,
+ C. S. Tainter
+ 243657 1881 Telephone transmitter C. S. Tainter
+ 289725 1883 Electric conductor C. S. Tainter
+ 336081 1886 Transmitter for electric C. A. Bell
+ telephone lines
+ 336082 1886 Jet microphone for C. A. Bell
+ transmitting sounds
+ by means of jets
+ 336083 1886 Telephone transmitter C. A. Bell
+ 336173 1886 Telephone transmitter C. S. Tainter
+ 341212 1886 Reproducing sounds A. G. Bell,
+ from phonograph C. A. Bell,
+ records C. S. Tainter
+ 341213 1886 Reproducing and A. G. Bell,
+ recording sounds by C. A. Bell,
+ radiant energy C. S. Tainter
+ 341214 1886 Recording and reproducing C. A. Bell,
+ speech and other sounds C. S. Tainter
+ 341287 1886 Recording and reproducing C. S. Tainter
+ sounds
+ 341288 1886 Apparatus for recording C. S. Tainter
+ and reproducing sounds
+ 374133 1887 Paper cylinder for C. S. Tainter
+ graphophonic records
+ 375579 1887 Apparatus for recording C. S. Tainter
+ and reproducing speech
+ and other sounds
+ 380535 1888 Graphophone C. S. Tainter
+ 385886 1888 Graphophone C. S. Tainter
+ 385887 1888 Graphophonic tablet C. S. Tainter
+ 388462 1888 Machine for making C. S. Tainter
+ paper tubes
+ 392763 1888 Mounting for diaphragms C. S. Tainter
+ for acoustical
+ instruments
+ 393190 1888 Tablet for use in C. S. Tainter
+ graphophones
+ 393191 1888 Support for graphophonic C. S. Tainter
+ tablets
+ 416969 1889 Speed regulator C. S. Tainter
+ 421450 1890 Graphophone tablet C. S. Tainter
+ 428646 1890 Machine for the manufacture C. S. Tainter
+ of wax coated tablets for
+ graphophones
+ 506348 1893 Coin controlled graphophone C. S. Tainter
+ 510656 1893 Reproducer for graphophones C. S. Tainter
+ 670442 1901 Graphophone record C. S. Tainter
+ duplicating machine
+ 730986 1903 Graphophone C. S. Tainter
+
+CONTENTS OF SMALL CHEST RECEIVED BY THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION FROM
+MRS. LAURA F. TAINTER, 1947
+
+Books (10) containing the home notes, volumes 1 to 8 and 11 and 12,
+ inclusive, March 1881-November 1883. (Vols, 9, 10, and 13 were burned
+ in a laboratory fire, September 1897.)
+
+Binder containing drawings and notes for multiple record duplicator,
+ October 8, 1897-1908, and miscellaneous inquiries, log, telegraph
+ recorder, diet, home plans.
+
+Binder containing printed specifications of patents, S. Tainter, A. G.
+ Bell, and C. A. Bell, June 29, 1880 to June 16, 1903.
+
+Medal, Exposition Internationale d'Electricite, Paris, 1881, marked
+ "Tainter."
+
+Medal, Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915, Medal of Award.
+
+Seven purple lapel rosettes (?), one with ribbon and palms, in boxes
+ marked "1890." Notes in newspaper clipping.
+
+Records of testimony of C. S. Tainter in various suits involving the
+ phonograph: Volta Graphophone Co. _vs._ Columbia Phonograph Co.,
+ no. 14533, Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, dated January 13,
+ 1894; American Graphophone Co. _vs._ U. S. Phonograph Co., U. S.
+ Circuit Court, New Jersey, dated May 14, 1895; American Graphophone Co.
+ _vs._ Edw. H. Amet, U. S. Circuit Court, Northern District, Illinois,
+ in equity, dated February 14, 1896; American Graphophone Co. _vs._
+ U. S. Phonograph Co., _et al._, U. S. Circuit Court, New Jersey, in
+ equity, no date; American Graphophone Co. _vs._ Leeds _et al._, U. S.
+ Circuit Court, Two District, New York, N. Y., no date; testimony marked
+ "Questions asked in Edison Co. suits" (duplicate copies) no date, no
+ citation.
+
+CONTENTS OF SMALL CHEST RECEIVED BY THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION FROM
+MRS. LAURA F. TAINTER, 1950
+
+Typed manuscript--"Memoirs of Charles Sumner Tainter" (plus many
+ photostats of notes and articles) 4-1/2 inches thick, pp. 1-71 to
+ about 1878, pp. 1 to 104 to factory at Bridgeport, some pages missing.
+
+Box--containing handwritten notes for "memoirs" includes copies of text
+ of above (less photostats); copies of short biography; agreement
+ creating American Graphophone Co.; letter of election to life
+ membership in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
+
+Binder--exhibits of Tainter drawings in American Graphophone Co. _vs._
+ Edison Phonograph Works., vol. 1, U. S. Circuit Court, New Jersey.
+
+Folder--clippings and photostats relating to the machines deposited in
+ Smithsonian.
+
+Certificate of appointment "Officer de l'Instruction publique," France,
+ October 31, 1889, for exhibition of Graphophone, Exposition
+ Universelle, 1889.
+
+Framed photo of Berliner & Tainter, 1919.
+
+Photo of Tainter, 1919.
+
+Separate package containing gold medal, certificate, Panama-Pacific
+ Exposition, San Francisco, 1915; gold medal, certificate, Exposition
+ Internationale Electricite, Paris, 1881.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[1] Charles Sumner Tainter (1854-1940), "The talking machine and some
+little known facts in connection with its early development,"
+unpublished manuscript in the collections of the U. S. National Museum.
+
+[2] One of the most interesting prophecies was written in 1656 by Cyrano
+de Bergerac, in his _Comic history of the states and empires of the
+Moon_:
+
+"'I began to study closely my books and their covers which impressed me
+for their richness. One was decorated with a single diamond, more
+brilliant by far than ours. The second seemed but a single pearl cleft
+in twain.
+
+"'When I opened the covers, I found inside something made of metal, not
+unlike our clocks, full of mysterious little springs and almost
+invisible mechanisms. 'Tis a book, 'tis true, but a miraculous book,
+which has no pages or letters. Indeed, 'tis a book which to enjoy the
+eyes are useless; only ears suffice. When a man desires to read, then,
+he surrounds this contrivance with many small tendons of every kind,
+then he places the needle on the chapter to be heard and, at the same
+time, there come, as from the mouth of a man or from an instrument of
+music, all those clear and separate sounds which make up the Lunarians'
+tongue.'" (See A. Coeuroy and G. Clarence, _Le phonographe_, Paris,
+1929, p. 9, 10.)
+
+[3] Tainter retained a lifelong admiration for Alexander Graham Bell.
+This is Tainter's description of their first meeting in Cambridge: "...
+one day I received a visit from a very distinguished looking gentleman
+with jet black hair and beard, who announced himself as Mr. A. Graham
+Bell. His charm of manner and conversation attracted me greatly...."
+Tainter, _op. cit._ (footnote 1), p. 2.
+
+[4] A. G. Bell apparently spent little time in the Volta Laboratory. The
+Dr. Bell referred to in Tainter's notebooks is Chichester A. Bell. The
+basic graphophone patent (U. S. patent 341214) was issued to C. A. Bell
+and Tainter. The Tainter material reveals A. G. Bell as the man who
+suggested the basic lines of research (and furnished the money), and
+then allowed his associates to get the credit for many of the inventions
+that resulted.
+
+[5] Tainter, _op. cit._ (footnote 1), p. 3.
+
+[6] _Ibid._, p. 5.
+
+[7] _Ibid._, p. 30.
+
+[8] As quoted by _The Washington Herald_, October 28, 1937.
+
+[9] Tainter, _op. cit._ (footnote 1), pp. 28, 29.
+
+[10] The basic distinction between the first Edison patent, and the Bell
+and Tainter patent of 1886 was the method of recording. Edison's method
+was to _indent_ the sound waves on a piece of tin-foil (wax was included
+as a recording material in his English patent); the Bell and Tainter
+improvement called for _cutting_ or "_engraving_" the sound waves into a
+wax record, with a sharp recording stylus.
+
+The strength of Bell and Tainter patent is indicated by the following
+excerpt from a letter written by a Washington patent attorney, S. T.
+Cameron, who was a member of the law firm which carried on litigation
+for the American Graphophone Co. The letter is dated December 8, 1914,
+and is addressed to George C. Maynard, Curator of Mechanical Technology,
+U. S. National Museum: "Subsequent to the issuance of the Bell and
+Tainter patent No. 341214, Edison announced that he would shortly
+produce his 'new phonograph' which, when it appeared, was in fact
+nothing but the Bell and Tainter record set forth in their patent
+341214, being a record cut or engraved in wax or wax-like material,
+although Edison always insisted on calling this record an 'indented'
+record, doubtless because his original tin-foil record was an 'indented'
+record. Edison was compelled to acknowledge that his 'new phonograph'
+was an infringement of the Bell and Tainter patent 341214, and took out
+a license under the Bell and Tainter patent and made his records under
+that patent as the result of that license."
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30112 ***