# Voice recording from 1860 found **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 28, 2008, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046 "2008-03-28T14:28:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/21 "2008-03-28T20:49:41Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] The phonautograph isn’t all that obscure. James Burke talks about it (and Edison’s familiarity with it) in his books and series. [/QUOTE] The question of who was influenced by what is more of a historians’ bedtime game than a solvable problem. There certainly was an international community of scientists and inventors who closely followed one another’s experiments and successes. These were reported in publications like Scientific American, first published in 1845 and originally a clearinghouse for news on advances in technology, in scientific journals, and in major newspapers. France was perhaps the leading country for advances in invention and technology at the time, probably ahead of even Britain, with the U.S. catching up fast at the end of the century. Their newspapers were even more likely to report on progress than ours, and French inventors were even more likely to write books on their notions. But the whole process was also a bit haphazard. If you didn’t speak French you could miss out on many reports that didn’t get translated. Local inventors sometimes got noticed by local newspapers but without a national press syndicate (the Associated Press started in 1846, but with only four newspapers) many reports never circulated widely. Or were read even if so. The Wright Brothers flight did make The New York Times almost immediately, but was treated more as yet another report of flight, one of many that people were always making with who knew what evidence to back them up. In October of that year, for example, Samuel Langley, head of the Smithsonian, had a widely publicized failure of his attempt to be the first to fly. A report of a couple of bike sellers in North Carolina wouldn’t attract much credibility. It’s more important to understand what was in the air, pun intended, at the time. Everybody was trying to build a powered heavier-than-air craft in 1903, and balloonists, glider enthusiasts, and dirigible builders had shown the way, while theoreticians provided much better technical understanding than ever before. For this thread, the idea of sending, recording, or playing back sound was also an ancient one, and people were attempting it seriously about as soon as the telegraph was publicly introduced. The word phonograph dates back to 1863, from a paper tape system. People approached it by adapting various existing technologies. Edison himself was experimenting with the acoustic telegraph in 1875, trying to send audio waves over the wires. Edison could have had any number of predecessors or approaches in mind when he began work in 1877, including people who he might have seen as competitors at the time but are forgotten today because they never got anywhere. I’m somewhat jaundiced about who did what first, in the same way I went into the does sf make predictions thread to say that people can and do make their definitions so loose that anything can be the predecessor of anything else that resembles it in any way. None of this diminishes in any way what Scott de Martinville accomplished. I’m just saying that the approaches were so different that trying to draw a direct line between them doesn’t lead anywhere. Somebody always fails first, just as somebody always succeeds first, just as somebody always makes it truly successful first, with lots of room for argument every step of the way. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/22 "2008-03-28T20:52:04Z")
I’m familiar with the song itself, having sung it in HS choir. Wow… definitely disconcerting yet cool! ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/23 "2008-03-28T21:26:36Z")
[QUOTE=Ceejaytee] You can hear Mary Had a Little Lamb [here](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10137/10137-m/10137-m-001.mp3) [/QUOTE] This is a recreation recorded in 1927 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the original recording, which no longer exists. This 1860 recording is rather interesting, since, as pointed out, it doesn’t sound like a human voice. Other than “la lune,” it’s difficult to make out any of the words. But it’s amazing that this snippet, which was never meant or intended to be heard, has survived all these years. The quality of the snippet- and of most old sound recordings- is a testament to how far sound recording has come. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/24 "2008-03-28T21:45:42Z")
The 1860 recording sounds like a girl is singing “Au clair de la lune”. Once you know the lyrics, “Au clair de la lune, Pierrot repondit” (“By the light of the moon, Pierrot replied”), it’s easier to hear the individual words. Unfortunately, it seems that all of Thomas Edison’s early sound recordings are now lost, having been made on [tin foil](http://www.tinfoil.com/tinfoil.htm) and quickly wore out or tore after only a few playings. The earliest playable sound recording before this 1860 recording had been recorded by [Frank Lambert in 1878](http://www.tinfoil.com/cm-0101.htm), using a cylinder made of lead, for a talking clock. After that, there is a ten-year gap, until [the first commercially made sound recordings](http://www.tinfoil.com/cylinder.htm) were issued in the late 1880s — which is also when the earliest motion pictures were made. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/25 "2008-03-28T21:59:21Z")
For comparison, [France Gall sings “Au clair de la lune”](http://youtube.com/watch?v=QSasU773tzo). ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/26 "2008-03-28T22:04:38Z")
I think that this type of thing had occurred to many people in that time period, and while it’s very cool and interesting, it’s also appropriate that France would have the first sound recording and not really get around to digging it up/figure it out for over a hundred years. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/27 "2008-03-28T22:29:30Z")
[QUOTE=cochrane] This is amazing. To think, when this was recorded, among other things, Lincoln was not yet President, and the southern states had not seceded from the Union. [/QUOTE] Ironically, reaserchers have long thought that one of Scott’s recordings of Lincoln’s voice may still exist in the White House archives. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/28 "2008-03-29T00:49:19Z")
At least a couple of posts have made reference to scientists at the time following each other’s work. I recall reading that Alexander Graham Bell was slapped with a number of lawsuits from scientists in North America and Europe saying he stole their work. None of them panned out, though. ---
**Author:** ![Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/43a26b/32.png) [@Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pine_Fresh_Scent)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/29 "2008-03-29T02:45:20Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Needs more cowbell. [/QUOTE] Well played, sir. That was the biggest laugh of my day. I was watching some technology show about early computers that used magnetic reels to store data. Since most of these machines that could read these tapes no longer exist, a lot of this data is inaccessible despite it’s advanced format. Anyone else heard this claim? ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/30 "2008-03-29T03:04:17Z")
It’s a major problem. NASA has a center lab filled with lovingly maintained 7 & 9-track tape machines. But budget cuts doomed the lab to close and all the equipment to be scrapped. I first heard about this when I read [a news story that much higher quality video](http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070201/news_1n1moonwalk.html) exists of the first steps man took onto the surface of the Moon - but that nobody knows where the tapes are. This lab will be needed to recover the data from these tapes, assuming the tapes are still playable. Even master tapes from popular albums on the 70s are frequently unplayable without being [baked in an oven for 12 hours](http://www.tangible-technology.com/tape/baking1.html). ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/31 "2008-03-29T03:10:07Z")
[QUOTE=Pine Fresh Scent] I was watching some technology show about early computers that used magnetic reels to store data. Since most of these machines that could read these tapes no longer exist, a lot of this data is inaccessible despite it’s advanced format. Anyone else heard this claim? [/QUOTE] I’ve heard of things being stored on obsolete media, but the machinery is bound to exist _somewhere_. I remember using 9-inch floppy discs. There’s got to be an old drive in someone’s museum to read one. ISTM that if someone really wanted to read an old tape, that a device could be built to read it. I worked for a company where the boss insisted we use punch-cards. In the late-'80s. Finally IBM said they would no longer support the machines and he was forced to allow people to _gasp_ _type code into a terminal!_ Of course anyone who wanted to could sit down and use the Mk.I eyeball to transcribe the code. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/32 "2008-03-29T03:16:14Z")
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.] I’ve heard of things being stored on obsolete media, but the machinery is bound to exist _somewhere_. I remember using 9-inch floppy discs. There’s got to be an old drive in someone’s museum to read one. ISTM that if someone really wanted to read an old tape, that a device could be built to read it. [/QUOTE] I worked at a company in the 80s where the engineering staff didn’t appear to trust each other. So several of the engineers had written their own floppy disk formats for 5 1/4". Maybe it was job security. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/33 "2008-03-29T07:43:55Z")
[QUOTE=Pine Fresh Scent] \ I was watching some technology show about early computers that used magnetic reels to store data. Since most of these machines that could read these tapes no longer exist, a lot of this data is inaccessible despite it’s advanced format. Anyone else heard this claim? [/QUOTE] And of course, [Cecil speaks out](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020816.html) about this very issue. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/34 "2008-03-29T15:49:03Z")
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.] I’ve heard of things being stored on obsolete media, but the machinery is bound to exist _somewhere_. [/QUOTE] Mapcase’s Fourth Law: As soon as somebody says, “it’s gotta be,” it ain’t. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/35 "2008-03-29T15:51:04Z")
Cecil implies that only microfilm saved the day when the Census Bureau’s magnetic tapes of 1960 census data became “unreadable”. That’s not quite the story. The magnetic tapes contained only aggregate data, not the individual records, and only a very small portion of the tapes was unreadable. From the [National Archives](http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/exlibris/1996/04/msg00087.html): > [@](#): > > All of the aprocryphal stories about loss of 1960 Census data have to do with the 1960 derivative data that the Bureau stored on tapes readable only by UNIVAC II-A tape drives, II-A (or, 2A) tapes. During 1975 and 1976, a member of the National Archives’ Machine Readable Archives Division reviewed the microaggregation or derivative files that the Bureau of the Census had preserved from the 1960 Census on these II-A tapes. This review identified seven series of low-level microaggregations as having long-term value to compensate for the lack of basic microdata records from the 100 percent Census. The seven series resided on 642 of the II-A tapes which the Census Bureau agreed to migrate to [industry] compatible tapes. But by this time, the Univac II-A tape drives were obsolete, and thus the preservation of these tapes presented a major engineering challenge. Despite the challenge, the Census staff prevailed. By 1979, the Census Bureau had successfully completed the copying of 640 of the 642 II-A tapes onto 178 [industry] compatible tapes. The two II-A tapes not copied could not be found. The missing tapes had 7,488 records, or about .5 percent of the total of approximately 1.5 million records on all II-A tapes that had been identified as having long-term value. Of the 640 tapes which were located, only 1,575 records (or less than .2 percent of the total number of valuable records on II-A tapes) could not be copied because of deterioration. Hence a small volume of records from the 1960 Census was lost, and this occurred because of inadequate inventory control and because of the physical deterioration of a minuscule number of records. In any case, all of the population schedules containing the raw data from the 1960 U.S. Census had already been microfilmed. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/36 "2008-03-29T16:01:23Z")
I played the MP3 backwards. It told me to “shoot Lincoln.” Hmm… ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/37 "2008-03-29T16:15:27Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] Mapcase’s Fourth Law: As soon as somebody says, “it’s gotta be,” it ain’t. [/QUOTE] Cecil said the machines to read the media have disappeared for _practical_ purposes. He didn’t say they didn’t exist at all. What I got from the article was that the larger problem is that the _media_ tend to deteriorate. I’ll cop to being wrong about the floppies I used though. They were eight-inch, not nine. ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/38 "2008-03-29T17:09:27Z")
[QUOTE=ZipperJJ] I played the MP3 backwards. It told me to “shoot Lincoln.” Hmm… [/QUOTE] Funny, it sounded like “shoot _Edison_” to me. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/39 "2008-03-29T18:29:07Z")
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.] I remember using 9-inch floppy discs. [/quote] Nitpick: I believe those were 8 inches square, not 9. > [@gaffa](#): > > I worked at a company in the 80s where the engineering staff didn’t appear to trust each other. So several of the engineers had written their own floppy disk formats for 5 1/4". Maybe it was job security. There could be other reasons. I invented 3 different disc storage systems for different employers for different reasons. First, standards were not as strong or as widespread, so compatibility wasn’t as much of an issue. One assignment was to invent a way of writing on the floppy faster than existing hardware/software performed at the time. Speed was paramount for that application. Another was to make the simpliest operating system and again, speed. Operating systems can really slow down time-critical operations unless optimized for things like interleave. A third was for a military application, where compatibility be damned, since the military can do what it wants and has the money to see it thru, no matter how inefficient the design may be. With regard to [Cecil’s report:](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020816.html) > [@](#): > > Consider a storage medium considered cutting edge 50 years ago–magnetic tape. It’s now recognized that tape degrades after 20 years, maybe sooner, unless you’re extremely careful. I disagree with Cecil’s blanket statement. :eek: I have audio tapes from each of the last 6 decades, and they were stored in a room-temp environment, but with nothing special for humidity control. Some tapes from the 1950’s and 1960’s are 100% playable with no noticeable degradation (both acetate and polyester bases), while some from the 1970’s are too gummed up to play. Others, stored identically, also from the 1970’s, are just fine. The difference is the formula and the manufacturing batch, not the storage. And some of the worst ones now were originally the highest-quality material. I haven’t tried baking any. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046/40 "2008-03-29T18:31:35Z")
[QUOTE=Musicat] Nitpick: I believe those were 8 inches square, not 9. [/QUOTE] I know. > [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > I’ll cop to being wrong about the floppies I used though. They were eight-inch, not nine. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voice-recording-from-1860-found/443046.md?page=3)