the telephone has excited, perhaps, the
most interest. An instrument which not only transmits intelligible
signals great distances, but also the tones of the voice, so that the
voice shall be as certainly recognized when heard hundreds of miles away
as if the owner was speaking in the same room. No great skill is
required of the operator, and if a business man desires to speak with
another person he has but to step to an instrument in his own office,
ring a bell, and thus, through a central office, connect himself with
the instrument of the desired party, when a conversation can take place.

In its mechanism the telephone consists of a steel cylindrical magnet,
perhaps five inches long and one-half of an inch thick, encircled at one
end by a short bobbin of ebonite, on which is wound a quantity of fine
insulated copper wire. The two ends of the coil are soldered to thicker
pieces of copper wire which traverse the wooden envelop from end to end,
and terminate in the screws of its extremity. Immediately in front is a
thin circular plate of iron; this is kept in place by being jammed
between the main portion of the wooden case and the cap, which carries
the mouth or ear trumpet, which are screwed together. Such is the
instrument invented by Bell and Edison.

The means to produce light by electricity next occupied his attention,
and the Edison-Electric Light was the result. The electric current for
this light is generated by means of large magneto-electric machines,
which are driven by some motive power. It is the only light known to
science which can be compared to the rays of the sun. Especially is this
light useful in lighthouses, on board ships and for lighting streets in
cities. It is, however, used in factories, work-shops, large halls,
etc., and in the very near future will doubtless become a light in
private dwellings.

But, possibly, the most wonderful invention which has been the result of
the inventive conception of Mr. Edison is the phonograph, a simple
apparatus consisting in its original mechanism of a simple cylinder of
hollow brass, mounted upon a shaft, at one end of which is a crank for
turning it, and at the other a balance-wheel, the whole being supported
by two iron uprights. There is a mouth-piece, as in the telephone, which
has a vibrating membrane similar to the drum of a person's ear. To the
other side of this membrane there is a light metal point or stylus,
which touches the tin-foil which is pl