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Show Edison's Happy Accident. An nccldont n cut on tho linger caused Edison to Invent tho phonograph, phono-graph, or talking machine. Mr. Kdl8on told tho story of this Invention In-vention to a visitor recently. At tho time, ho snld, ho was singing into a telephone, and In tho telephone's mouthpleco ho had pieced for safekeeping safe-keeping a fine steel point. Suddenly this point cut his finger. Ho found, to his surprise thnt It had been moving mov-ing hero nnd thero nnd roundabout, . guided by tho vibrations of his volco. Ho plnccd a strip of yellow paper undor tho stool point, replaced it In tho mouthpleco, and said tho alphabet. alpha-bet. Tho steel, whllo ho spoko, ran over tho pnper, nnd for each letter of tho alphabot U tnado a different mark, or scratches. This was what Mr. Edison had hoped for, Ho now held tho steel point still, and-drew tho papor scratches Blowly over it. Thoro was given forth, very faintly, tho alphabet nB ho had repeated re-peated it. ThiiH tho principle of tho phonograph phono-graph tho registering nnd tho reproduction repro-duction of tho volco's vibrations was discovered through tho cutting of a flngor. 'it was Edison's linger, though, ""-m - 1. 1 i " ' that was cut. Smith's or Brown's might havo boon quite hacked off. nnd no phonograph would have resulted. |