provided with grooves around the surface. Over this was to be placed
tinfoil, which easily received and recorded the movements of the
diaphragm. A sketch was made, and the piece-work price, $18, was marked
on the sketch. I was in the habit of marking the price I would pay on
each sketch. If the workman lost, I would pay his regular wages; if he
made more than the wages, he kept it. The workman who got the sketch was
John Kruesi. I didn't have much faith that it would work, expecting that
I might possibly hear a word or so that would give hope of a future for
the idea. Kruesi, when he had nearly finished it, asked what it was for.
I told him I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk
back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was
put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb,' etc. I adjusted the
reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. I was never so
taken aback in my life. Everybody was astonished. I was always afraid
of things that worked the first time. Long experience proved that
there were great drawbacks found generally before they could be got
commercial; but here was something there was no doubt of."

No wonder that honest John Kruesi, as he stood and listened to the
marvellous performance of the simple little machine he had himself just
finished, ejaculated in an awe-stricken tone: "Mein Gott im Himmel!" And
yet he had already seen Edison do a few clever things. No wonder they
sat up all night fixing and adjusting it so as to get better and better
results--reciting and singing, trying each other's voices, and then
listening with involuntary awe as the words came back again and again,
just as long as they were willing to revolve the little cylinder with
its dotted spiral indentations in the tinfoil under the vibrating stylus
of the reproducing diaphragm. It took a little time to acquire the knack
of turning the crank steadily while leaning over the recorder to talk
into the machine; and there was some deftness required also in fastening
down the tinfoil on the cylinder where it was held by a pin running in
a longitudinal slot. Paraffined paper appears also to have been
experimented with as an impressible material. It is said that Carman,
the foreman of the machine shop, had gone the length of wagering Edison
a box of cigars that the device would not work. All the world knows that
he lost.

The original Edison phonograph thus built by Kruesi is preserved in the