Show prisoners are made to sing and talk berlin one olle of the most interesting products byproducts by of the world war has been the founding in berlin of an an library as a part of I 1 tile the Pr prussian state library it Is an aggregation of human sounds perpetuated upon phonograph plates and was founded by prof wilhelm doegen struck by the idea that the presence of the prisoners of war from every quarter of the globe in german internment camps afforded a unique opportunity for assembling a collection of sounds and songs and pronunciations of words he under undertook tooh the task professor doegen spent months month s in visiting the prison camps ns head of a commission of scientists and asked the prisoners to sing ing folk songs and pronounce words and utter otter various characteristic music on native instruments st of various countries the collection of sounds now numbers some and includes those from most nations of the earth as professor dodgens Do egens researches were greatly extended after the war of each reproduction three original plates are made with an estimated life of or years these are carefully stored in the vaults of the library while ordinary hard rub ber plates are used tor for the demonstrations more lately the collection has been extended to include noises in nature such as tile the rustling of leaves the whistling of tile the wind the roar of tile the ocean and the roll of thunder |