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Show CHICAGO. A S;ilt Laker Turns Up in Chicago. And Discourses to the "Herald" Readers on Lighting, Phonographs, Phono-graphs, Light and Fan. Chicago, Dec. 7tb, 187S. Editors Herald: Eleven months' absence from Utah makes one anxious to get the news out in the mountains, and desirous of meeting and erecting old friends.: But. for tho nrooonr ll, . 1 content with what satisfaction ban be galhered through letters and newspapers. news-papers. Perhaps a hv words from "Yours Truly" may interest your readers. And of topics various, our weather ia just now peculiar enough to warrant its use aa an introduction, I might perhaps more appropriately say our weather continues to be, etc. All tnrougu November the temperature has been mild, even almost aa bland as a fair day in June. I(3 average mean baa been between forty-three - aud forty-four degrees. Think of it' And all the way irom Chicago to the Atlantic sea-board the report is the same. Coal dealers and ice men are glum and grum, and furriers aro advertising ad-vertising "great auction sale of Jura." But tho immense pubiic, the plebs Bing : Thank God fbr pleasant wcathar ! lor thoRoldun sunshine, And tlio silver rain. Chant it, morry rills ! Acd clasp your hands together Ye exulting hiils ! Tne poor may wear," yet, their summer sum-mer suits, aud the fuel pile "holds out to burn;" but nobby turn-outs and Btyiiah seal-skin suits remain still "laid upon the sho!l," while their owners cry, lameutingly ; "Whore's :i 1 no weattjer gone to 7 ' Chicago appears to be wide awake to the value ul Kocky mountain eiivcr loterctts; but alas for Utah the tide turns ever Cjloradowards, and one heard scarcely anything but tales of the woDdeii ot iho wondeWul San Juan district. And it if. DOt much use . trymg to get Cbic.igoans to move on, j uejucu, ilio z,iou. Everyone cit woo talks of mineB seems inclined to skip Utah, be.-ausa they can't just make up their minds that it iB safe to venture among thode terrible people "The Mormons." Aud for this you may thank the howling heathen fanatics, fana-tics, and the greedy grabbers alter gain, who, with the eensation-mong. ers, have taken it upon themselves to tell the world "all about Utah." The Q a, and the S 3, et hoc genus omne, bven lo ihe "red-headed border ruffians" of the , have co doubt fully satisfied iiemsclces of the immense im-mense benefit they havo conferred upon the mining interests of Utah; but to the intelligent observer, who can view the situation in your terri-, tory calmly and dispassionately, it is much m re evident that to those roaring, howling, "Ueutilcj" is due the fact that eastern men omit Utah when ttiey make mining investments. How are your readers posted upon the exciting electric topics of the ihiy? ! Are they abreast tho limes? Have they lull supply of telephones and phenngraphs and electric pens ? lias "the irrepressible" Dwycr brought on for the holidays a full suddIv nt talk ing dolls, and quizzing phonographic fantastics ? Ho used to be well up with tho latest new things for the holidays. Uf course yon kuow ot tin-gas tin-gas light troubles that "the Wizard ol Mi-nlo Park" has caused by good use of his brains ! The great problem heretofore, in the question ol electric light, has been how to make it available avail-able in email jets for ordinary home and business use. Kdison is' in lair way to work out tnia puzzle. (Ji course the imaginary items of the New York newspapers need to be swallowed with many erair.B of salt, KJison furnishes too many fertile-brained fertile-brained editors v.ith columns of copy, much of whlcb is so visionary ns to be ready ueit doer to fiction. Yct it id a fact that the electric li.ht prcblem has been very nearly cinucro 1 down to practical operation. Aud the sim- , plicity of the plau when racde public will prove as astonishing as tnat ol ; the phonograph, which by Iho way is 1 still undergoing improvement. The borne management of the supply ol electric light is lo bo regulated by a Bwitch, or sbunt, arranged just as is the present valve upon the gas light, and may be increa-cd by u simple "twist ol the writ-t," as is your eupply of gas at present. No batteries or intricate electrical machinery will puzzle tho housekeeper; and nowe;uy "mariner," "naif seas over," or even drunk, c.iu blow out bis electric gas. A ccutral o Ili co generates or manufactures manu-factures the electricity, just aa now the g is companies supply the gas. iiy the way, did you ever hear ol Edison's firht attempt to produce electricity? Up in Michigan he, when u bay, put up a rude telegraph 1 line of short extent, and to make' lightning be and his companion held a cat and rubbed her fur tho wrong way. The cat very shortly ran like lightning, but the telegraph line would nut quadruples, neither would it evco Morse-. Tne latest proposed use of the phonograph that I have heard was suggested not long since by a gentle-mao gentle-mao who goes as a mieeiouary to the "Heathen Cninee." He wished to use the instrument to learn tae Chinese Chi-nese language. The magnitude ot the undertaking to talk to Yeng Ah Lee in his native tongue, and taing tso your ideas about the Christian's gods aud idols while you refute the doct rines of Confucius, is to some extent appreciated by every thinking man or woman. We havo oil heard that there aro some 2o,000 characters, more or less, iu the Mongolian language; lang-uage; and wo have all read enough lire-cracker and washie-house literature litera-ture to leel perfectly confident that wo have no business forgetting our mother tongue- in oider to coulor our palaU-s over tho lingual characters ol tho Uuwery kingdom. But this missionary gentleman porposes to get a corner ou Chinese, with the aid of tho phonograph. Aud although he spoke the words of soberness and truth or said he did when be talked ol learning that language, I Btrongly incline lo ?u?pect that he means lo make piumograph le.un the language lan-guage ( 11 tin (t'il whilo ho himsell merely tn n? the crank like any other , , r ;;0t r. There i ' an idea Ik re, ihcugh, adiic iro;u uii j 'king, aud the pbouugraph can rc.tiiy he umdo ul immense value lo persona tt inlying language. It you havtu'L seen or used one, allow me to assure you that tho articulation artic-ulation ia smooth aud perfect. Quo of tbe;e instruments has already been taken lo southern Africa to record the vai iuus dialects of that country. Ieu't it a pity that there weren't a few phonographs in use in the primitive ages of the world ? Darwin Dar-win might, iu that case, be able to hunt up his "missing link." But it begins to enow, and I want to mail this while tbo weather portion is truo. Therefore, adieu. O. P. Q. |