In October, 1905, I paid Mr. Edison a visit at his laboratory, when he showed me the phonograph as now perfected. Chief among his improvements is a composition for records which is much harder than the wax formerly employed, and may therefore revolve more swiftly with no fear of blurring. His reproducer is to-day a built-up diaphragm of mica, highly sensitive. In the reproducer arm is placed the highly polished, button-shaped sapphire which tracks with fidelity the grooves which sound has recorded on the cylinder. These features, combined in a mechanism of the utmost accuracy in make and adjustment, have opened for the phonograph a vast field in the business world. Some of the great firms and companies of New York and other cities now use phonographs instead of stenographers; a letter or a contract is dictated to a revolving cylinder with all the swiftness of ordinary speech. Afterward a secretary listens to the reproducer and writes the letter or contract at any speed desired. On occasion a cylinder bearing a message may be sent to a correspondent who listens to its words as sent forth from his own phonograph, no intermediate writing being required. Such instruments are extensively used in teaching foreign languages, learners being free to have a difficult pronunciation repeated until it is mastered. Mr. Edison has much improved the musical records familiar throughout the world; these are now produced in molds of gold with a delicacy that refines away the scratchiness of tone so unpleasant in earlier cylinders. Telephone Messages Recorded for Repetition at Will: The Telegraphone.