The Phonautograph and Precursors to Edison's Phonograph. An 1859 Koenig phonautograph. (Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.) While Thomas Edison is rightly credited with the invention of the cylinder phonograph and the means of playing back sound, his ideas were clearly influenced by numerous others who preceded him.
The best time to go whale watching in Oahu is November through May, as these months see the arrival of the humpback whales on their migration from Alaska. These creatures can weigh up to 45 tons, and marine specialists estimate that some 10,000 of them spend their winters near the Hawaiian islands.
Whale Watching on Maui. Maui was the center of whaling in Hawaii from 1825 to 1860, specifically the port town of Lahaina. You can still take in some of the ambience of those whaling days at the Pioneer Inn in Lahaina, built near the harbor in 1901. A great place to view humpback whales on Maui is the shallow Auau Channel that runs between West Maui (Lahaina and Ka'anapali), Lanai, and Molokai.