Professor Fleeming Jenkin and Mr J. A. Ewing exhibited a phonograph which they had constructed, and also some curves drawn on paper representing the indentions produced in the tinfoil of the instrument by vowel sounds.

The phonograph exhibited had been constructed from a description of the instrument invented by Mr Edison, and consisted of a barrel about four inches diameter and four inches long, mounted on a spindle on which a square-threaded screw had been cut. One bearing of the spindle was cylindrical, and the other was a nut in which the screw worked. A fly-wheel handle turned the spindle and barrel, which advanced during each turn by a distance equal to the pitch of the screw. A helical groove, about in. in breadth, was cut on the surface of the barrel, having the same axial pitch as the screw on the spindle.