ducing 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 po