He set to work, and his first typewriter was patented in 1868. It was indeed something like a piano. It had long ivory and ebony keys, but it also had a third set of peg-shaped keys like those we now use. It carried its type on levers arranged in a circle. It had a spacer, and a way to move the paper along as it was typed, as well as inked ribbon, which he borrowed from an earlier inventor.
Sholes' was the first successful practical typewriter made. Now nearly twenty million dollars' worth are produced in this country each year.
204. The Dictaphone in Business Offices. An interesting outgrowth of Edison's phonograph is the dictaphone, used in dictating business letters. It consists of two machines much alike. On the first are put smooth cylinders of wax. The person dictating speaks through a tube. Then the dictaphone operator puts the cylinders on her machine, places light tubes in her ears, and takes down the dictation on her typewriter as she hears it.
THE DICTAPHONE IN USE
Both machines are run by electric motors, and that of the operator can be stopped with the foot. The wax cylinders may be pared and used again and again.
The dictaphone means a great saving of time and labor, for dictating can be done anywhere at any moment.
AUTOMOBILE MAKING IN THE UNITED STATES
205. The Earliest Automobiles. The first kind of automobile men tried to build was a "steam carriage." A Frenchman in 1755 invented a steam road wagon meant to draw a field gun. But his invention could not be steered, and was soon wrecked by running into a wall.