*I'd heard of this device, but it's startling to realize that it can be replayed now. It was always more of an information visualization tool than a recording instrument, but nowadays it's not just resurrected but given a new capacity.
http://boingboing.net/2011/12/15/the-worlds-first-audio-recor.html
*Google Translator tackles a French website. France was the Japan-Galapagos-Islands of the 19th century.
http://www.anecdote-du-jour.com/le-premier-enregistrement-de-voix-au-monde-date-de-1860/
The first record of votes in the world in 1860
"The song "Au clair de la lune" was recorded in 1860, 17 years before Edison invented the phonograph.
"In the moonlight, my friend Pierrot ..." so begins the first sound recording in the world, made in 1860!
"It is generally accepted that Edison was the first to reproduce recorded sound, with the invention of the phonograph in 1877. The first sound recording has kept him took place in 1860 and we owe it to a French 'scholar, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville.
"Scott invented the phonautograph, a device to translate sound waves on a roll of paper coated with soot. The special feature of the device is that it could record the sounds but not to reproduce. Scott filed a patent in 1857 for the phonautograph.
"Engraving of the phonautograph: (((It's cute)))
"It was not until 2008 that First Sounds, a group of engineers and scientists, manages to play the recording using a virtual playhead.
"The shrill voice gave the impression that it was a woman, perhaps the daughter of Scott, who was singing. Scientists have re-examined by lowering the recording speed and comparing it to other recordings of Scott de Martinville: the scientist himself would be the singer recorded!
"The very first sound recorded by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville that come down to us is that of a tuning fork, dating from 1859..."
