beginning of the experiments the actor had to talk directly into the
horn, which made the right kind of pictures impossible to get. Bit by
bit, however, a machine was perfected which could "hear" so well that
the actor could move at his pleasure within a radius of twenty feet.
That is the machine that is being used now. This new combination of
the moving picture machine and the phonograph Edison has named the
_kinetophone_. By it he has made possible the bringing of grand
opera into the hamlets of the West, and through it also our leading
statesmen may address audiences on the mining camps and the wilds of
the prairies where their feet have never trodden.




CHAPTER V

SKY-SCRAPERS AND HOW THEY ARE BUILT

Evolution of the Sky-scraper--Construction--New York's Giant
Buildings--Dimensions.


The sky-scraper is an architectural triumph, but at the same time it
is very much of a commercial enterprise, and it is indigenous,
native-born to American soil. It had its inception here, particularly
in New York and Chicago. The tallest buildings in the world are in New
York. The most notable of these, the Metropolitan Life Insurance
Building with fifty stories towering up to a height of seven hundred
feet and three inches, has been the crowning achievement of
architectural art, the highest building yet erected by man.