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Show BLIND READ BY RAYS OF LIGHT NEW YORK. Feb. 2 0 Rays of light converted Into harmonious musical sounds were demonstrated Sunday to be a medium by which totally blind persons may read newspapers, magazines mag-azines and books. Describing the test, which took placo in Jersey City, the New York World declared that Margaret Hogan, a blind girl, read tho front page of a New York newspaper by means of "opto- phone. :' th. Invention of Prof. E. B. Fournier DAlba former instructor of physics at the University of Birmingham, Birming-ham, England. Ten years have elapsed since Prof. j D Albo first sought his optophonotic i idea before the Loudon optical convention- It was announced today that Miss Hogan had proved tho practicability practic-ability of his machine. The opportunity to phone projects light by means of a tiny photographic Irnr, through flvo rows of oblong perforations per-forations In a revolving disc and reflects re-flects It back to bo transformed Into sound by selenium colls. These raye of light, to the unlechnlcal observer, appear as tho five parallel bars of a mu.slcal staff. Producing as they play I over each letter, five notes of tho mujd-cal mujd-cal scale si, sol. do. re. mi. and soil again on a higher key. So dellcato Is tho registration made that even the smallest of type can bo read. Explaining h" impressions of the, optophone. Miss Hogan said that whn shi- first listened to the sounds she thought them beautiful but could not interpret them and became discouraged. discourag-ed. Finally she said, she realized she was distinguishing the sound charac-. terizing thu letter "a" every time she, heard It. Then" she continued, "I began to! distinguish other sounds and soon tried to read a paragraph. I wrote on my Braille typewriter as I listened and learned when some one compared with mo that I had made several mistakes, but had recorded the full sense of the sentence. "Soon I could take fifteen words a minute. "I believe that any one could be taught to use the optophone. It is a God send for the sightless." 1 oo |