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      Edison his Life and Inventions, by Frank Lewis Dyer
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Edison, His Life and Inventions, by 
Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

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Title: Edison, His Life and Inventions

Author: Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

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</pre>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <h1>
      EDISON HIS LIFE AND INVENTIONS
    </h1>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      By Frank Lewis Dyer
    </h2>
    <h4>
      General Counsel For The Edison Laboratory And Allied Interests
    </h4>
    <h3>
      And
    </h3>
    <h2>
      Thomas Commerford Martin
    </h2>
    <h4>
      Ex-President Of The American Institute Of Electrical Engineers
    </h4>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p class="toc">
        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
      </p>
      <p>
        <br />
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>EDISON HIS LIFE AND INVENTIONS</b> </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#linkintro"> <b>INTRODUCTION</b> </a>
      </p>
      <p>
        <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003">
        CHAPTER III </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006">
        CHAPTER VI </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0010">
        CHAPTER X </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014">
        CHAPTER XIV </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0018">
        CHAPTER XVIII </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX </a><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0022">
        CHAPTER XXII </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII </a><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV </a><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0026">
        CHAPTER XXVI </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII </a><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII </a><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX </a> <br /> <br /> <br />
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_APPE"> <b>INTRODUCTION TO THE APPENDIX</b> </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_APPE"> APPENDIX </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> I. THE STOCK PRINTER </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> II. THE QUADRUPLEX AND PHONOPLEX </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> III. AUTOMATIC TELEGRAPHY </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> IV. WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> V. THE ELECTROMOTOGRAPH </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> VI. THE TELEPHONE </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> VII. EDISON'S TASIMETER </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> VIII. THE EDISON PHONOGRAPH </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> X. EDISON'S DYNAMO WORK </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0044"> XI. THE EDISON FEEDER SYSTEM </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0045"> XII. THE THREE-WIRE SYSTEM </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0046"> XIII. EDISON'S ELECTRIC RAILWAY </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0047"> XIV. TRAIN TELEGRAPHY </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0048"> XV. KINETOGRAPH AND PROJECTING KINETOSCOPE
        </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0049"> XVI. EDISON'S ORE-MILLING INVENTIONS </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0050"> XVII. THE LONG CEMENT KILN </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0051"> XVIII. EDISON'S NEW STORAGE BATTERY&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
        </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0052"> XIX. EDISON'S POURED CEMENT HOUSE </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_LIST"> LIST OF UNITED STATES PATENTS </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#linkforeign"> FOREIGN PATENTS </a>
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="linkintro" id="linkintro"></a> <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      INTRODUCTION
    </h2>
    <p>
      PRIOR to this, no complete, authentic, and authorized record of the work
      of Mr. Edison, during an active life, has been given to the world. That
      life, if there is anything in heredity, is very far from finished; and
      while it continues there will be new achievement.
    </p>
    <p>
      An insistently expressed desire on the part of the public for a definitive
      biography of Edison was the reason for the following pages. The present
      authors deem themselves happy in the confidence reposed in them, and in
      the constant assistance they have enjoyed from Mr. Edison while preparing
      these pages, a great many of which are altogether his own. This
      co-operation in no sense relieves the authors of responsibility as to any
      of the views or statements of their own that the book contains. They have
      realized the extreme reluctance of Mr. Edison to be made the subject of
      any biography at all; while he has felt that, if it must be written, it
      were best done by the hands of friends and associates of long standing,
      whose judgment and discretion he could trust, and whose intimate knowledge
      of the facts would save him from misrepresentation.
    </p>
    <p>
      The authors of the book are profoundly conscious of the fact that the
      extraordinary period of electrical development embraced in it has been
      prolific of great men. They have named some of them; but there has been no
      idea of setting forth various achievements or of ascribing distinctive
      merits. This treatment is devoted to one man whom his fellow-citizens have
      chosen to regard as in many ways representative of the American at his
      finest flowering in the field of invention during the nineteenth century.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is designed in these pages to bring the reader face to face with
      Edison; to glance at an interesting childhood and a youthful period marked
      by a capacity for doing things, and by an insatiable thirst for knowledge;
      then to accompany him into the great creative stretch of forty years,
      during which he has done so much. This book shows him plunged deeply into
      work for which he has always had an incredible capacity, reveals the
      exercise of his unsurpassed inventive ability, his keen reasoning powers,
      his tenacious memory, his fertility of resource; follows him through a
      series of innumerable experiments, conducted methodically, reaching out
      like rays of search-light into all the regions of science and nature, and
      finally exhibits him emerging triumphantly from countless difficulties
      bearing with him in new arts the fruits of victorious struggle.
    </p>
    <p>
      These volumes aim to be a biography rather than a history of electricity,
      but they have had to cover so much general ground in defining the
      relations and contributions of Edison to the electrical arts, that they
      serve to present a picture of the whole development effected in the last
      fifty years, the most fruitful that electricity has known. The effort has
      been made to avoid technique and abstruse phrases, but some degree of
      explanation has been absolutely necessary in regard to each group of
      inventions. The task of the authors has consisted largely in summarizing
      fairly the methods and processes employed by Edison; and some idea of the
      difficulties encountered by them in so doing may be realized from the fact
      that one brief chapter, for example,&mdash;that on ore milling&mdash;covers
      nine years of most intense application and activity on the part of the
      inventor. It is something like exhibiting the geological eras of the earth
      in an outline lantern slide, to reduce an elaborate series of strenuous
      experiments and a vast variety of ingenious apparatus to the space of a
      few hundred words.
    </p>
    <p>
      A great deal of this narrative is given in Mr. Edison's own language, from
      oral or written statements made in reply to questions addressed to him
      with the object of securing accuracy. A further large part is based upon
      the personal contributions of many loyal associates; and it is desired
      here to make grateful acknowledgment to such collaborators as Messrs.
      Samuel Insull, E. H. Johnson, F. R. Upton, R. N Dyer, S. B. Eaton, Francis
      Jehl, W. S. Andrews, W. J. Jenks, W. J. Hammer, F. J. Sprague, W. S.
      Mallory, and C. L. Clarke, and others, without whose aid the issuance of
      this book would indeed have been impossible. In particular, it is desired
      to acknowledge indebtedness to Mr. W. H. Meadowcroft not only for
      substantial aid in the literary part of the work, but for indefatigable
      effort to group, classify, and summarize the boundless material embodied
      in Edison's note-books and memorabilia of all kinds now kept at the Orange
      laboratory. Acknowledgment must also be made of the courtesy and
      assistance of Mrs. Edison, and especially of the loan of many interesting
      and rare photographs from her private collection.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      EDISON HIS LIFE AND INVENTIONS
    </h2>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER I
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE AGE OF ELECTRICITY
    </h3>
    <p>
      THE year 1847 marked a period of great territorial acquisition by the
      American people, with incalculable additions to their actual and potential
      wealth. By the rational compromise with England in the dispute over the
      Oregon region, President Polk had secured during 1846, for undisturbed
      settlement, three hundred thousand square miles of forest, fertile land,
      and fisheries, including the whole fair Columbia Valley. Our active
      "policy of the Pacific" dated from that hour. With swift and clinching
      succession came the melodramatic Mexican War, and February, 1848, saw
      another vast territory south of Oregon and west of the Rocky Mountains
      added by treaty to the United States. Thus in about eighteen months there
      had been pieced into the national domain for quick development and
      exploitation a region as large as the entire Union of Thirteen States at
      the close of the War of Independence. Moreover, within its boundaries was
      embraced all the great American gold-field, just on the eve of discovery,
      for Marshall had detected the shining particles in the mill-race at the
      foot of the Sierra Nevada nine days before Mexico signed away her rights
      in California and in all the vague, remote hinterland facing Cathayward.
    </p>
    <p>
      Equally momentous were the times in Europe, where the attempt to secure
      opportunities of expansion as well as larger liberty for the individual
      took quite different form. The old absolutist system of government was
      fast breaking up, and ancient thrones were tottering. The red lava of deep
      revolutionary fires oozed up through many glowing cracks in the political
      crust, and all the social strata were shaken. That the wild outbursts of
      insurrection midway in the fifth decade failed and died away was not
      surprising, for the superincumbent deposits of tradition and convention
      were thick. But the retrospect indicates that many reforms and political
      changes were accomplished, although the process involved the exile of not
      a few ardent spirits to America, to become leading statesmen, inventors,
      journalists, and financiers. In 1847, too, Russia began her tremendous
      march eastward into Central Asia, just as France was solidifying her first
      gains on the littoral of northern Africa. In England the fierce fervor of
      the Chartist movement, with its violent rhetoric as to the rights of man,
      was sobering down and passing pervasively into numerous practical schemes
      for social and political amelioration, constituting in their entirety a
      most profound change throughout every part of the national life.
    </p>
    <p>
      Into such times Thomas Alva Edison was born, and his relations to them and
      to the events of the past sixty years are the subject of this narrative.
      Aside from the personal interest that attaches to the picturesque career,
      so typically American, there is a broader aspect in which the work of the
      "Franklin of the Nineteenth Century" touches the welfare and progress of
      the race. It is difficult at any time to determine the effect of any
      single invention, and the investigation becomes more difficult where
      inventions of the first class have been crowded upon each other in rapid
      and bewildering succession. But it will be admitted that in Edison one
      deals with a central figure of the great age that saw the invention and
      introduction in practical form of the telegraph, the submarine cable, the
      telephone, the electric light, the electric railway, the electric
      trolley-car, the storage battery, the electric motor, the phonograph, the
      wireless telegraph; and that the influence of these on the world's affairs
      has not been excelled at any time by that of any other corresponding
      advances in the arts and sciences. These pages deal with Edison's share in
      the great work of the last half century in abridging distance,
      communicating intelligence, lessening toil, improving illumination,
      recording forever the human voice; and on behalf of inventive genius it
      may be urged that its beneficent results and gifts to mankind compare with
      any to be credited to statesman, warrior, or creative writer of the same
      period.
    </p>
    <p>
      Viewed from the standpoint of inventive progress, the first half of the
      nineteenth century had passed very profitably when Edison appeared&mdash;every
      year marked by some notable achievement in the arts and sciences, with
      promise of its early and abundant fruition in commerce and industry. There
      had been exactly four decades of steam navigation on American waters.
      Railways were growing at the rate of nearly one thousand miles annually.
      Gas had become familiar as a means of illumination in large cities. Looms
      and tools and printing-presses were everywhere being liberated from the
      slow toil of man-power. The first photographs had been taken. Chloroform,
      nitrous oxide gas, and ether had been placed at the service of the
      physician in saving life, and the revolver, guncotton, and nitroglycerine
      added to the agencies for slaughter. New metals, chemicals, and elements
      had become available in large numbers, gases had been liquefied and
      solidified, and the range of useful heat and cold indefinitely extended.
      The safety-lamp had been given to the miner, the caisson to the
      bridge-builder, the anti-friction metal to the mechanic for bearings. It
      was already known how to vulcanize rubber, and how to galvanize iron. The
      application of machinery in the harvest-field had begun with the embryonic
      reaper, while both the bicycle and the automobile were heralded in
      primitive prototypes. The gigantic expansion of the iron and steel
      industry was foreshadowed in the change from wood to coal in the smelting
      furnaces. The sewing-machine had brought with it, like the friction match,
      one of the most profound influences in modifying domestic life, and making
      it different from that of all preceding time.
    </p>
    <p>
      Even in 1847 few of these things had lost their novelty, most of them were
      in the earlier stages of development. But it is when we turn to
      electricity that the rich virgin condition of an illimitable new kingdom
      of discovery is seen. Perhaps the word "utilization" or "application" is
      better than discovery, for then, as now, an endless wealth of phenomena
      noted by experimenters from Gilbert to Franklin and Faraday awaited the
      invention that could alone render them useful to mankind. The eighteenth
      century, keenly curious and ceaselessly active in this fascinating field
      of investigation, had not, after all, left much of a legacy in either
      principles or appliances. The lodestone and the compass; the frictional
      machine; the Leyden jar; the nature of conductors and insulators; the
      identity of electricity and the thunder-storm flash; the use of
      lightning-rods; the physiological effects of an electrical shock&mdash;these
      constituted the bulk of the bequest to which philosophers were the only
      heirs. Pregnant with possibilities were many of the observations that had
      been recorded. But these few appliances made up the meagre kit of tools
      with which the nineteenth century entered upon its task of acquiring the
      arts and conveniences now such an intimate part of "human nature's daily
      food" that the average American to-day pays more for his electrical
      service than he does for bread.
    </p>
    <p>
      With the first year of the new century came Volta's invention of the
      chemical battery as a means of producing electricity. A well-known Italian
      picture represents Volta exhibiting his apparatus before the young
      conqueror Napoleon, then ravishing from the Peninsula its treasure of
      ancient art and founding an ephemeral empire. At such a moment this gift
      of despoiled Italy to the world was a noble revenge, setting in motion
      incalculable beneficent forces and agencies. For the first time man had
      command of a steady supply of electricity without toil or effort. The
      useful results obtainable previously from the current of a frictional
      machine were not much greater than those to be derived from the flight of
      a rocket. While the frictional appliance is still employed in medicine, it
      ranks with the flint axe and the tinder-box in industrial obsolescence. No
      art or trade could be founded on it; no diminution of daily work or
      increase of daily comfort could be secured with it. But the little battery
      with its metal plates in a weak solution proved a perennial reservoir of
      electrical energy, safe and controllable, from which supplies could be
      drawn at will. That which was wild had become domesticated; regular crops
      took the place of haphazard gleanings from brake or prairie; the
      possibility of electrical starvation was forever left behind.
    </p>
    <p>
      Immediately new processes of inestimable value revealed themselves; new
      methods were suggested. Almost all the electrical arts now employed made
      their beginnings in the next twenty-five years, and while the more
      extensive of them depend to-day on the dynamo for electrical energy, some
      of the most important still remain in loyal allegiance to the older
      source. The battery itself soon underwent modifications, and new types
      were evolved&mdash;the storage, the double-fluid, and the dry. Various
      analogies next pointed to the use of heat, and the thermoelectric cell
      emerged, embodying the application of flame to the junction of two
      different metals. Davy, of the safety-lamp, threw a volume of current
      across the gap between two sticks of charcoal, and the voltaic arc,
      forerunner of electric lighting, shed its bright beams upon a dazzled
      world. The decomposition of water by electrolytic action was recognized
      and made the basis of communicating at a distance even before the days of
      the electromagnet. The ties that bind electricity and magnetism in
      twinship of relation and interaction were detected, and Faraday's work in
      induction gave the world at once the dynamo and the motor. "Hitch your
      wagon to a star," said Emerson. To all the coal-fields and all the
      waterfalls Faraday had directly hitched the wheels of industry. Not only
      was it now possible to convert mechanical energy into electricity cheaply
      and in illimitable quantities, but electricity at once showed its
      ubiquitous availability as a motive power. Boats were propelled by it,
      cars were hauled, and even papers printed. Electroplating became an art,
      and telegraphy sprang into active being on both sides of the Atlantic.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the time Edison was born, in 1847, telegraphy, upon which he was to
      leave so indelible an imprint, had barely struggled into acceptance by the
      public. In England, Wheatstone and Cooke had introduced a ponderous
      magnetic needle telegraph. In America, in 1840, Morse had taken out his
      first patent on an electromagnetic telegraph, the principle of which is
      dominating in the art to this day. Four years later the memorable message
      "What hath God wrought!" was sent by young Miss Ellsworth over his
      circuits, and incredulous Washington was advised by wire of the action of
      the Democratic Convention in Baltimore in nominating Polk. By 1847
      circuits had been strung between Washington and New York, under private
      enterprise, the Government having declined to buy the Morse system for
      $100,000. Everything was crude and primitive. The poles were two hundred
      feet apart and could barely hold up a wash-line. The slim, bare, copper
      wire snapped on the least provocation, and the circuit was "down" for
      thirty-six days in the first six months. The little glass-knob insulators
      made seductive targets for ignorant sportsmen. Attempts to insulate the
      line wire were limited to coating it with tar or smearing it with wax for
      the benefit of all the bees in the neighborhood. The farthest western
      reach of the telegraph lines in 1847 was Pittsburg, with three-ply iron
      wire mounted on square glass insulators with a little wooden pentroof for
      protection. In that office, where Andrew Carnegie was a messenger boy, the
      magnets in use to receive the signals sent with the aid of powerful
      nitric-acid batteries weighed as much as seventy-five pounds apiece. But
      the business was fortunately small at the outset, until the new device,
      patronized chiefly by lottery-men, had proved its utility. Then came the
      great outburst of activity. Within a score of years telegraph wires
      covered the whole occupied country with a network, and the first great
      electrical industry was a pronounced success, yielding to its pioneers the
      first great harvest of electrical fortunes. It had been a sharp struggle
      for bare existence, during which such a man as the founder of Cornell
      University had been glad to get breakfast in New York with a
      quarter-dollar picked up on Broadway.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER II
    </h2>
    <h3>
      EDISON'S PEDIGREE
    </h3>
    <p>
      THOMAS ALVA EDISON was born at Milan Ohio, February 11, 1847. The State
      that rivals Virginia as a "Mother of Presidents" has evidently other
      titles to distinction of the same nature. For picturesque detail it would
      not be easy to find any story excelling that of the Edison family before
      it reached the Western Reserve. The story epitomizes American idealism,
      restlessness, freedom of individual opinion, and ready adjustment to the
      surrounding conditions of pioneer life. The ancestral Edisons who came
      over from Holland, as nearly as can be determined, in 1730, were
      descendants of extensive millers on the Zuyder Zee, and took up patents of
      land along the Passaic River, New Jersey, close to the home that Mr.
      Edison established in the Orange Mountains a hundred and sixty years
      later. They landed at Elizabethport, New Jersey, and first settled near
      Caldwell in that State, where some graves of the family may still be
      found. President Cleveland was born in that quiet hamlet. It is a curious
      fact that in the Edison family the pronunciation of the name has always
      been with the long "e" sound, as it would naturally be in the Dutch
      language. The family prospered and must have enjoyed public confidence,
      for we find the name of Thomas Edison, as a bank official on Manhattan
      Island, signed to Continental currency in 1778. According to the family
      records this Edison, great-grandfather of Thomas Alva, reached the extreme
      old age of 104 years. But all was not well, and, as has happened so often
      before, the politics of father and son were violently different. The
      Loyalist movement that took to Nova Scotia so many Americans after the War
      of Independence carried with it John, the son of this stalwart
      Continental. Thus it came about that Samuel Edison, son of John, was born
      at Digby, Nova Scotia, in 1804. Seven years later John Edison who, as a
      Loyalist or United Empire emigrant, had become entitled under the laws of
      Canada to a grant of six hundred acres of land, moved westward to take
      possession of this property. He made his way through the State of New York
      in wagons drawn by oxen to the remote and primitive township of Bayfield,
      in Upper Canada, on Lake Huron. Although the journey occurred in balmy
      June, it was necessarily attended with difficulty and privation; but the
      new home was situated in good farming country, and once again this
      interesting nomadic family settled down.
    </p>
    <p>
      John Edison moved from Bayfield to Vienna, Ontario, on the northern bank
      of Lake Erie. Mr. Edison supplies an interesting reminiscence of the old
      man and his environment in those early Canadian days. "When I was five
      years old I was taken by my father and mother on a visit to Vienna. We
      were driven by carriage from Milan, Ohio, to a railroad, then to a port on
      Lake Erie, thence by a canal-boat in a tow of several to Port Burwell, in
      Canada, across the lake, and from there we drove to Vienna, a short
      distance away. I remember my grandfather perfectly as he appeared, at 102
      years of age, when he died. In the middle of the day he sat under a large
      tree in front of the house facing a well-travelled road. His head was
      covered completely with a large quantity of very white hair, and he chewed
      tobacco incessantly, nodding to friends as they passed by. He used a very
      large cane, and walked from the chair to the house, resenting any
      assistance. I viewed him from a distance, and could never get very close
      to him. I remember some large pipes, and especially a molasses jug, a
      trunk, and several other things that came from Holland."
    </p>
    <p>
      John Edison was long-lived, like his father, and reached the ripe old age
      of 102, leaving his son Samuel charged with the care of the family
      destinies, but with no great burden of wealth. Little is known of the
      early manhood of this father of T. A. Edison until we find him keeping a
      hotel at Vienna, marrying a school-teacher there (Miss Nancy Elliott, in
      1828), and taking a lively share in the troublous politics of the time. He
      was six feet in height, of great bodily vigor, and of such personal
      dominance of character that he became a captain of the insurgent forces
      rallying under the banners of Papineau and Mackenzie. The opening years of
      Queen Victoria's reign witnessed a belated effort in Canada to emphasize
      the principle that there should not be taxation without representation;
      and this descendant of those who had left the United States from
      disapproval of such a doctrine, flung himself headlong into its support.
    </p>
    <p>
      It has been said of Earl Durham, who pacified Canada at this time and
      established the present system of government, that he made a country and
      marred a career. But the immediate measures of repression enforced before
      a liberal policy was adopted were sharp and severe, and Samuel Edison also
      found his own career marred on Canadian soil as one result of the Durham
      administration. Exile to Bermuda with other insurgents was not so
      attractive as the perils of a flight to the United States. A very hurried
      departure was effected in secret from the scene of trouble, and there are
      romantic traditions of his thrilling journey of one hundred and eighty-two
      miles toward safety, made almost entirely without food or sleep, through a
      wild country infested with Indians of unfriendly disposition. Thus was the
      Edison family repatriated by a picturesque political episode, and the
      great inventor given a birthplace on American soil, just as was Benjamin
      Franklin when his father came from England to Boston. Samuel Edison left
      behind him, however, in Canada, several brothers, all of whom lived to the
      age of ninety or more, and from whom there are descendants in the region.
    </p>
    <p>
      After some desultory wanderings for a year or two along the shores of Lake
      Erie, among the prosperous towns then springing up, the family, with its
      Canadian home forfeited, and in quest of another resting-place, came to
      Milan, Ohio, in 1842. That pretty little village offered at the moment
      many attractions as a possible Chicago. The railroad system of Ohio was
      still in the future, but the Western Reserve had already become a vast
      wheat-field, and huge quantities of grain from the central and northern
      counties sought shipment to Eastern ports. The Huron River, emptying into
      Lake Erie, was navigable within a few miles of the village, and provided
      an admirable outlet. Large granaries were established, and proved so
      successful that local capital was tempted into the project of making a
      tow-path canal from Lockwood Landing all the way to Milan itself. The
      quaint old Moravian mission and quondam Indian settlement of one hundred
      inhabitants found itself of a sudden one of the great grain ports of the
      world, and bidding fair to rival Russian Odessa. A number of grain
      warehouses, or primitive elevators, were built along the bank of the
      canal, and the produce of the region poured in immediately, arriving in
      wagons drawn by four or six horses with loads of a hundred bushels. No
      fewer than six hundred wagons came clattering in, and as many as twenty
      sail vessels were loaded with thirty-five thousand bushels of grain,
      during a single day. The canal was capable of being navigated by craft of
      from two hundred to two hundred and fifty tons burden, and the demand for
      such vessels soon led to the development of a brisk ship-building
      industry, for which the abundant forests of the region supplied the
      necessary lumber. An evidence of the activity in this direction is
      furnished by the fact that six revenue cutters were launched at this port
      in these brisk days of its prime.
    </p>
    <p>
      Samuel Edison, versatile, buoyant of temper, and ever optimistic, would
      thus appear to have pitched his tent with shrewd judgment. There was
      plenty of occupation ready to his hand, and more than one enterprise
      received his attention; but he devoted his energies chiefly to the making
      of shingles, for which there was a large demand locally and along the
      lake. Canadian lumber was used principally in this industry. The wood was
      imported in "bolts" or pieces three feet long. A bolt made two shingles;
      it was sawn asunder by hand, then split and shaved. None but first-class
      timber was used, and such shingles outlasted far those made by machinery
      with their cross-grain cut. A house in Milan, on which some of those
      shingles were put in 1844, was still in excellent condition forty-two
      years later. Samuel Edison did well at this occupation, and employed
      several men, but there were other outlets from time to time for his
      business activity and speculative disposition.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's mother was an attractive and highly educated woman, whose
      influence upon his disposition and intellect has been profound and
      lasting. She was born in Chenango County, New York, in 1810, and was the
      daughter of the Rev. John Elliott, a Baptist minister and descendant of an
      old Revolutionary soldier, Capt. Ebenezer Elliott, of Scotch descent. The
      old captain was a fine and picturesque type. He fought all through the
      long War of Independence&mdash;seven years&mdash;and then appears to have
      settled down at Stonington, Connecticut. There, at any rate, he found his
      wife, "grandmother Elliott," who was Mercy Peckham, daughter of a Scotch
      Quaker. Then came the residence in New York State, with final removal to
      Vienna, for the old soldier, while drawing his pension at Buffalo, lived
      in the little Canadian town, and there died, over 100 years old. The
      family was evidently one of considerable culture and deep religious
      feeling, for two of Mrs. Edison's uncles and two brothers were also in the
      same Baptist ministry. As a young woman she became a teacher in the public
      high school at Vienna, and thus met her husband, who was residing there.
      The family never consisted of more than three children, two boys and a
      girl. A trace of the Canadian environment is seen in the fact that
      Edison's elder brother was named William Pitt, after the great English
      statesman. Both his brother and the sister exhibited considerable ability.
      William Pitt Edison as a youth was so clever with his pencil that it was
      proposed to send him to Paris as an art student. In later life he was
      manager of the local street railway lines at Port Huron, Michigan, in
      which he was heavily interested. He also owned a good farm near that town,
      and during the ill-health at the close of his life, when compelled to
      spend much of the time indoors, he devoted himself almost entirely to
      sketching. It has been noted by intimate observers of Thomas A. Edison
      that in discussing any project or new idea his first impulse is to take up
      any piece of paper available and make drawings of it. His voluminous
      note-books are a mass of sketches. Mrs-Tannie Edison Bailey, the sister,
      had, on the other hand, a great deal of literary ability, and spent much
      of her time in writing.
    </p>
    <p>
      The great inventor, whose iron endurance and stern will have enabled him
      to wear down all his associates by work sustained through arduous days and
      sleepless nights, was not at all strong as a child, and was of fragile
      appearance. He had an abnormally large but well-shaped head, and it is
      said that the local doctors feared he might have brain trouble. In fact,
      on account of his assumed delicacy, he was not allowed to go to school for
      some years, and even when he did attend for a short time the results were
      not encouraging&mdash;his mother being hotly indignant upon hearing that
      the teacher had spoken of him to an inspector as "addled." The youth was,
      indeed, fortunate far beyond the ordinary in having a mother at once
      loving, well-informed, and ambitious, capable herself, from her experience
      as a teacher, of undertaking and giving him an education better than could
      be secured in the local schools of the day. Certain it is that under this
      simple regime studious habits were formed and a taste for literature
      developed that have lasted to this day. If ever there was a man who tore
      the heart out of books it is Edison, and what has once been read by him is
      never forgotten if useful or worthy of submission to the test of
      experiment.
    </p>
    <p>
      But even thus early the stronger love of mechanical processes and of
      probing natural forces manifested itself. Edison has said that he never
      saw a statement in any book as to such things that he did not
      involuntarily challenge, and wish to demonstrate as either right or wrong.
      As a mere child the busy scenes of the canal and the grain warehouses were
      of consuming interest, but the work in the ship-building yards had an
      irresistible fascination. His questions were so ceaseless and innumerable
      that the penetrating curiosity of an unusually strong mind was regarded as
      deficiency in powers of comprehension, and the father himself, a man of no
      mean ingenuity and ability, reports that the child, although capable of
      reducing him to exhaustion by endless inquiries, was often spoken of as
      rather wanting in ordinary acumen. This apparent dulness is, however, a
      quite common incident to youthful genius.
    </p>
    <p>
      The constructive tendencies of this child of whom his father said once
      that he had never had any boyhood days in the ordinary sense, were early
      noted in his fondness for building little plank roads out of the debris of
      the yards and mills. His extraordinarily retentive memory was shown in his
      easy acquisition of all the songs of the lumber gangs and canal men before
      he was five years old. One incident tells how he was found one day in the
      village square copying laboriously the signs of the stores. A highly
      characteristic event at the age of six is described by his sister. He had
      noted a goose sitting on her eggs and the result. One day soon after, he
      was missing. By-and-by, after an anxious search, his father found him
      sitting in a nest he had made in the barn, filled with goose-eggs and
      hens' eggs he had collected, trying to hatch them out.
    </p>
    <p>
      One of Mr. Edison's most vivid recollections goes back to 1850, when as a
      child three of four years old he saw camped in front of his home six
      covered wagons, "prairie schooners," and witnessed their departure for
      California. The great excitement over the gold discoveries was thus felt
      in Milan, and these wagons, laden with all the worldly possessions of
      their owners, were watched out of sight on their long journey by this
      fascinated urchin, whose own discoveries in later years were to tempt many
      other argonauts into the auriferous realms of electricity.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another vivid memory of this period concerns his first realization of the
      grim mystery of death. He went off one day with the son of the wealthiest
      man in the town to bathe in the creek. Soon after they entered the water
      the other boy disappeared. Young Edison waited around the spot for half an
      hour or more, and then, as it was growing dark, went home puzzled and
      lonely, but silent as to the occurrence. About two hours afterward, when
      the missing boy was being searched for, a man came to the Edison home to
      make anxious inquiry of the companion with whom he had last been seen.
      Edison told all the circumstances with a painful sense of being in some
      way implicated. The creek was at once dragged, and then the body was
      recovered.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison had himself more than one narrow escape. Of course he fell in the
      canal and was nearly drowned; few boys in Milan worth their salt omitted
      that performance. On another occasion he encountered a more novel peril by
      falling into the pile of wheat in a grain elevator and being almost
      smothered. Holding the end of a skate-strap for another lad to shorten
      with an axe, he lost the top of a finger. Fire also had its perils. He
      built a fire in a barn, but the flames spread so rapidly that, although he
      escaped himself, the barn was wholly destroyed, and he was publicly
      whipped in the village square as a warning to other youths. Equally well
      remembered is a dangerous encounter with a ram that attacked him while he
      was busily engaged digging out a bumblebee's nest near an orchard fence.
      The animal knocked him against the fence, and was about to butt him again
      when he managed to drop over on the safe side and escape. He was badly
      hurt and bruised, and no small quantity of arnica was needed for his
      wounds.
    </p>
    <p>
      Meantime little Milan had reached the zenith of its prosperity, and all of
      a sudden had been deprived of its flourishing grain trade by the new
      Columbus, Sandusky &amp; Hocking Railroad; in fact, the short canal was
      one of the last efforts of its kind in this country to compete with the
      new means of transportation. The bell of the locomotive was everywhere
      ringing the death-knell of effective water haulage, with such dire results
      that, in 1880, of the 4468 miles of American freight canal, that had cost
      $214,000,000, no fewer than 1893 miles had been abandoned, and of the
      remaining 2575 miles quite a large proportion was not paying expenses. The
      short Milan canal suffered with the rest, and to-day lies well-nigh
      obliterated, hidden in part by vegetable gardens, a mere grass-grown
      depression at the foot of the winding, shallow valley. Other railroads
      also prevented any further competition by the canal, for a branch of the
      Wheeling &amp; Lake Erie now passes through the village, while the Lake
      Shore &amp; Michigan Southern runs a few miles to the south.
    </p>
    <p>
      The owners of the canal soon had occasion to regret that they had
      disdained the overtures of enterprising railroad promoters desirous of
      reaching the village, and the consequences of commercial isolation rapidly
      made themselves felt. It soon became evident to Samuel Edison and his wife
      that the cozy brick home on the bluff must be given up and the struggle
      with fortune resumed elsewhere. They were well-to-do, however, and
      removing, in 1854, to Port Huron, Michigan, occupied a large colonial
      house standing in the middle of an old Government fort reservation of ten
      acres overlooking the wide expanse of the St. Clair River just after it
      leaves Lake Huron. It was in many ways an ideal homestead, toward which
      the family has always felt the strongest attachment, but the association
      with Milan has never wholly ceased. The old house in which Edison was born
      is still occupied (in 1910) by Mr. S. O. Edison, a half-brother of
      Edison's father, and a man of marked inventive ability. He was once
      prominent in the iron-furnace industry of Ohio, and was for a time
      associated in the iron trade with the father of the late President
      McKinley. Among his inventions may be mentioned a machine for making fuel
      from wheat straw, and a smoke-consuming device.
    </p>
    <p>
      This birthplace of Edison remains the plain, substantial little brick
      house it was originally: one-storied, with rooms finished on the attic
      floor. Being built on the hillside, its basement opens into the rear yard.
      It was at first heated by means of open coal grates, which may not have
      been altogether adequate in severe winters, owing to the altitude and the
      north-eastern exposure, but a large furnace is one of the more modern
      changes. Milan itself is not materially unlike the smaller Ohio towns of
      its own time or those of later creation, but the venerable appearance of
      the big elm-trees that fringe the trim lawns tells of its age. It is,
      indeed, an extremely neat, snug little place, with well-kept homes, mostly
      of frame construction, and flagged streets crossing each other at right
      angles. There are no poor&mdash;at least, everybody is apparently
      well-to-do. While a leisurely atmosphere pervades the town, few idlers are
      seen. Some of the residents are engaged in local business; some are
      occupied in farming and grape culture; others are employed in the
      iron-works near-by, at Norwalk. The stores and places of public resort are
      gathered about the square, where there is plenty of room for hitching when
      the Saturday trading is done at that point, at which periods the fitful
      bustle recalls the old wheat days when young Edison ran with curiosity
      among the six and eight horse teams that had brought in grain. This square
      is still covered with fine primeval forest trees, and has at its centre a
      handsome soldiers' monument of the Civil War, to which four paved walks
      converge. It is an altogether pleasant and unpretentious town, which
      cherishes with no small amount of pride its association with the name of
      Thomas Alva Edison.
    </p>
    <p>
      In view of Edison's Dutch descent, it is rather singular to find him with
      the name of Alva, for the Spanish Duke of Alva was notoriously the worst
      tyrant ever known to the Low Countries, and his evil deeds occupy many
      stirring pages in Motley's famous history. As a matter of fact, Edison was
      named after Capt. Alva Bradley, an old friend of his father, and a
      celebrated ship-owner on the Lakes. Captain Bradley died a few years ago
      in wealth, while his old associate, with equal ability for making money,
      was never able long to keep it (differing again from the Revolutionary New
      York banker from whom his son's other name, "Thomas," was taken).
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER III
    </h2>
    <h3>
      BOYHOOD AT PORT HURON, MICHIGAN
    </h3>
    <p>
      THE new home found by the Edison family at Port Huron, where Alva spent
      his brief boyhood before he became a telegraph operator and roamed the
      whole middle West of that period, was unfortunately destroyed by fire just
      after the close of the Civil War. A smaller but perhaps more comfortable
      home was then built by Edison's father on some property he had bought at
      the near-by village of Gratiot, and there his mother spent the remainder
      of her life in confirmed invalidism, dying in 1871. Hence the pictures and
      postal cards sold largely to souvenir-hunters as the Port Huron home do
      not actually show that in or around which the events now referred to took
      place.
    </p>
    <p>
      It has been a romance of popular biographers, based upon the fact that
      Edison began his career as a newsboy, to assume that these earlier years
      were spent in poverty and privation, as indeed they usually are by the
      "newsies" who swarm and shout their papers in our large cities. While it
      seems a pity to destroy this erroneous idea, suggestive of a heroic climb
      from the depths to the heights, nothing could be further from the truth.
      Socially the Edison family stood high in Port Huron at a time when there
      was relatively more wealth and general activity than to-day. The town in
      its pristine prime was a great lumber centre, and hummed with the industry
      of numerous sawmills. An incredible quantity of lumber was made there
      yearly until the forests near-by vanished and the industry with them. The
      wealth of the community, invested largely in this business and in allied
      transportation companies, was accumulated rapidly and as freely spent
      during those days of prosperity in St. Clair County, bringing with it a
      high standard of domestic comfort. In all this the Edisons shared on equal
      terms.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus, contrary to the stories that have been so widely published, the
      Edisons, while not rich by any means, were in comfortable circumstances,
      with a well-stocked farm and large orchard to draw upon also for
      sustenance. Samuel Edison, on moving to Port Huron, became a dealer in
      grain and feed, and gave attention to that business for many years. But he
      was also active in the lumber industry in the Saginaw district and several
      other things. It was difficult for a man of such mercurial, restless
      temperament to stay constant to any one occupation; in fact, had he been
      less visionary he would have been more prosperous, but might not have had
      a son so gifted with insight and imagination. One instance of the
      optimistic vagaries which led him incessantly to spend time and money on
      projects that would not have appealed to a man less sanguine was the
      construction on his property of a wooden observation tower over a hundred
      feet high, the top of which was reached toilsomely by winding stairs,
      after the payment of twenty-five cents. It is true that the tower
      commanded a pretty view by land and water, but Colonel Sellers himself
      might have projected this enterprise as a possible source of steady
      income. At first few visitors panted up the long flights of steps to the
      breezy platform. During the first two months Edison's father took in three
      dollars, and felt extremely blue over the prospect, and to young Edison
      and his relatives were left the lonely pleasures of the lookout and the
      enjoyment of the telescope with which it was equipped. But one fine day
      there came an excursion from an inland town to see the lake. They
      picnicked in the grove, and six hundred of them went up the tower. After
      that the railroad company began to advertise these excursions, and the
      receipts each year paid for the observatory.
    </p>
    <p>
      It might be thought that, immersed in business and preoccupied with
      schemes of this character, Mr. Edison was to blame for the neglect of his
      son's education. But that was not the case. The conditions were peculiar.
      It was at the Port Huron public school that Edison received all the
      regular scholastic instruction he ever enjoyed&mdash;just three months. He
      might have spent the full term there, but, as already noted, his teacher
      had found him "addled." He was always, according to his own recollection,
      at the foot of the class, and had come almost to regard himself as a
      dunce, while his father entertained vague anxieties as to his stupidity.
      The truth of the matter seems to be that Mrs. Edison, a teacher of
      uncommon ability and force, held no very high opinion of the average
      public-school methods and results, and was both eager to undertake the
      instruction of her son and ambitious for the future of a boy whom she knew
      from pedagogic experience to be receptive and thoughtful to a very unusual
      degree. With her he found study easy and pleasant. The quality of culture
      in that simple but refined home, as well as the intellectual character of
      this youth without schooling, may be inferred from the fact that before he
      had reached the age of twelve he had read, with his mother's help,
      Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Hume's History of England,
      Sears' History of the World, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and the
      Dictionary of Sciences; and had even attempted to struggle through
      Newton's Principia, whose mathematics were decidedly beyond both teacher
      and student. Besides, Edison, like Faraday, was never a mathematician, and
      has had little personal use for arithmetic beyond that which is called
      "mental." He said once to a friend: "I can always hire some
      mathematicians, but they can't hire me." His father, by-the-way, always
      encouraged these literary tastes, and paid him a small sum for each new
      book mastered. It will be noted that fiction makes no showing in the list;
      but it was not altogether excluded from the home library, and Edison has
      all his life enjoyed it, particularly the works of such writers as Victor
      Hugo, after whom, because of his enthusiastic admiration&mdash;possibly
      also because of his imagination&mdash;he was nicknamed by his
      fellow-operators, "Victor Hugo Edison."
    </p>
    <p>
      Electricity at that moment could have no allure for a youthful mind. Crude
      telegraphy represented what was known of it practically, and about that
      the books read by young Edison were not redundantly informational. Even
      had that not been so, the inclinations of the boy barely ten years old
      were toward chemistry, and fifty years later there is seen no change of
      predilection. It sounds like heresy to say that Edison became an
      electrician by chance, but it is the sober fact that to this pre-eminent
      and brilliant leader in electrical achievement escape into the chemical
      domain still has the aspect of a delightful truant holiday. One of the
      earliest stories about his boyhood relates to the incident when he induced
      a lad employed in the family to swallow a large quantity of Seidlitz
      powders in the belief that the gases generated would enable him to fly.
      The agonies of the victim attracted attention, and Edison's mother marked
      her displeasure by an application of the switch kept behind the old Seth
      Thomas "grandfather clock." The disastrous result of this experiment did
      not discourage Edison at all, as he attributed failure to the lad rather
      than to the motive power. In the cellar of the Edison homestead young Alva
      soon accumulated a chemical outfit, constituting the first in a long
      series of laboratories. The word "laboratory" had always been associated
      with alchemists in the past, but as with "filament" this untutored
      stripling applied an iconoclastic practicability to it long before he
      realized the significance of the new departure. Goethe, in his legend of
      Faust, shows the traditional or conventional philosopher in his
      laboratory, an aged, tottering, gray-bearded investigator, who only
      becomes youthful upon diabolical intervention, and would stay senile
      without it. In the Edison laboratory no such weird transformation has been
      necessary, for the philosopher had youth, fiery energy, and a grimly
      practical determination that would submit to no denial of the goal of
      something of real benefit to mankind. Edison and Faust are indeed the
      extremes of philosophic thought and accomplishment.
    </p>
    <p>
      The home at Port Huron thus saw the first Edison laboratory. The boy began
      experimenting when he was about ten or eleven years of age. He got a copy
      of Parker's School Philosophy, an elementary book on physics, and about
      every experiment in it he tried. Young Alva, or "Al," as he was called,
      thus early displayed his great passion for chemistry, and in the cellar of
      the house he collected no fewer than two hundred bottles, gleaned in
      baskets from all parts of the town. These were arranged carefully on
      shelves and all labelled "Poison," so that no one else would handle or
      disturb them. They contained the chemicals with which he was constantly
      experimenting. To others this diversion was both mysterious and
      meaningless, but he had soon become familiar with all the chemicals
      obtainable at the local drug stores, and had tested to his satisfaction
      many of the statements encountered in his scientific reading. Edison has
      said that sometimes he has wondered how it was he did not become an
      analytical chemist instead of concentrating on electricity, for which he
      had at first no great inclination.
    </p>
    <p>
      Deprived of the use of a large part of her cellar, tiring of the "mess"
      always to be found there, and somewhat fearful of results, his mother once
      told the boy to clear everything out and restore order. The thought of
      losing all his possessions was the cause of so much ardent distress that
      his mother relented, but insisted that he must get a lock and key, and
      keep the embryonic laboratory closed up all the time except when he was
      there. This was done. From such work came an early familiarity with the
      nature of electrical batteries and the production of current from them.
      Apparently the greater part of his spare time was spent in the cellar, for
      he did not share to any extent in the sports of the boys of the
      neighborhood, his chum and chief companion, Michael Oates, being a lad of
      Dutch origin, many years older, who did chores around the house, and who
      could be recruited as a general utility Friday for the experiments of this
      young explorer&mdash;such as that with the Seidlitz powders.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such pursuits as these consumed the scant pocket-money of the boy very
      rapidly. He was not in regular attendance at school, and had read all the
      books within reach. It was thus he turned newsboy, overcoming the
      reluctance of his parents, particularly that of his mother, by pointing
      out that he could by this means earn all he wanted for his experiments and
      get fresh reading in the shape of papers and magazines free of charge.
      Besides, his leisure hours in Detroit he would be able to spend at the
      public library. He applied (in 1859) for the privilege of selling
      newspapers on the trains of the Grand Trunk Railroad, between Port Huron
      and Detroit, and obtained the concession after a short delay, during which
      he made an essay in his task of selling newspapers.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison had, as a fact, already had some commercial experience from the age
      of eleven. The ten acres of the reservation offered an excellent
      opportunity for truck-farming, and the versatile head of the family could
      not avoid trying his luck in this branch of work. A large "market garden"
      was laid out, in which Edison worked pretty steadily with the help of the
      Dutch boy, Michael Oates&mdash;he of the flying experiment. These boys had
      a horse and small wagon intrusted to them, and every morning in the season
      they would load up with onions, lettuce, peas, etc., and go through the
      town.
    </p>
    <p>
      As much as $600 was turned over to Mrs. Edison in one year from this
      source. The boy was indefatigable but not altogether charmed with
      agriculture. "After a while I tired of this work, as hoeing corn in a hot
      sun is unattractive, and I did not wonder that it had built up cities.
      Soon the Grand Trunk Railroad was extended from Toronto to Port Huron, at
      the foot of Lake Huron, and thence to Detroit, at about the same time the
      War of the Rebellion broke out. By a great amount of persistence I got
      permission from my mother to go on the local train as a newsboy. The local
      train from Port Huron to Detroit, a distance of sixty-three miles, left at
      7 A.M. and arrived again at 9.30 P.M. After being on the train for several
      months, I started two stores in Port Huron&mdash;one for periodicals, and
      the other for vegetables, butter, and berries in the season. These were
      attended by two boys who shared in the profits. The periodical store I
      soon closed, as the boy in charge could not be trusted. The vegetable
      store I kept up for nearly a year. After the railroad had been opened a
      short time, they put on an express which left Detroit in the morning and
      returned in the evening. I received permission to put a newsboy on this
      train. Connected with this train was a car, one part for baggage and the
      other part for U. S. mail, but for a long time it was not used. Every
      morning I had two large baskets of vegetables from the Detroit market
      loaded in the mail-car and sent to Port Huron, where the boy would take
      them to the store. They were much better than those grown locally, and
      sold readily. I never was asked to pay freight, and to this day cannot
      explain why, except that I was so small and industrious, and the nerve to
      appropriate a U. S. mail-car to do a free freight business was so
      monumental. However, I kept this up for a long time, and in addition
      bought butter from the farmers along the line, and an immense amount of
      blackberries in the season. I bought wholesale and at a low price, and
      permitted the wives of the engineers and trainmen to have the benefit of
      the discount. After a while there was a daily immigrant train put on. This
      train generally had from seven to ten coaches filled always with
      Norwegians, all bound for Iowa and Minnesota. On these trains I employed a
      boy who sold bread, tobacco, and stick candy. As the war progressed the
      daily newspaper sales became very profitable, and I gave up the vegetable
      store."
    </p>
    <p>
      The hours of this occupation were long, but the work was not particularly
      heavy, and Edison soon found opportunity for his favorite avocation&mdash;chemical
      experimentation. His train left Port Huron at 7 A.M., and made its
      southward trip to Detroit in about three hours. This gave a stay in that
      city from 10 A.M. until the late afternoon, when the train left, arriving
      at Port Huron about 9.30 P.M. The train was made up of three coaches&mdash;baggage,
      smoking, and ordinary passenger or "ladies." The baggage-car was divided
      into three compartments&mdash;one for trunks and packages, one for the
      mail, and one for smoking. In those days no use was made of the
      smoking-compartment, as there was no ventilation, and it was turned over
      to young Edison, who not only kept papers there and his stock of goods as
      a "candy butcher," but soon had it equipped with an extraordinary variety
      of apparatus. There was plenty of leisure on the two daily runs, even for
      an industrious boy, and thus he found time to transfer his laboratory from
      the cellar and re-establish it on the train.
    </p>
    <p>
      His earnings were also excellent&mdash;so good, in fact, that eight or ten
      dollars a day were often taken in, and one dollar went every day to his
      mother. Thus supporting himself, he felt entitled to spend any other
      profit left over on chemicals and apparatus. And spent it was, for with
      access to Detroit and its large stores, where he bought his supplies, and
      to the public library, where he could quench his thirst for technical
      information, Edison gave up all his spare time and money to chemistry.
      Surely the country could have presented at that moment no more striking
      example of the passionate pursuit of knowledge under difficulties than
      this newsboy, barely fourteen years of age, with his jars and test-tubes
      installed on a railway baggage-car.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nor did this amazing equipment stop at batteries and bottles. The same
      little space a few feet square was soon converted by this precocious youth
      into a newspaper office. The outbreak of the Civil War gave a great
      stimulus to the demand for all newspapers, noticing which he became
      ambitious to publish a local journal of his own, devoted to the news of
      that section of the Grand Trunk road. A small printing-press that had been
      used for hotel bills of fare was picked up in Detroit, and type was also
      bought, some of it being placed on the train so that composition could go
      on in spells of leisure. To one so mechanical in his tastes as Edison, it
      was quite easy to learn the rudiments of the printing art, and thus the
      Weekly Herald came into existence, of which he was compositor, pressman,
      editor, publisher, and newsdealer. Only one or two copies of this journal
      are now discoverable, but its appearance can be judged from the reduced
      facsimile here shown. The thing was indeed well done as the work of a
      youth shown by the date to be less than fifteen years old. The literary
      style is good, there are only a few trivial slips in spelling, and the
      appreciation is keen of what would be interesting news and gossip. The
      price was three cents a copy, or eight cents a month for regular
      subscribers, and the circulation ran up to over four hundred copies an
      issue. This was by no means the result of mere public curiosity, but
      attested the value of the sheet as a genuine newspaper, to which many
      persons in the railroad service along the line were willing contributors.
      Indeed, with the aid of the railway telegraph, Edison was often able to
      print late news of importance, of local origin, that the distant regular
      papers like those of Detroit, which he handled as a newsboy, could not
      get. It is no wonder that this clever little sheet received the approval
      and patronage of the English engineer Stephenson when inspecting the Grand
      Trunk system, and was noted by no less distinguished a contemporary than
      the London Times as the first newspaper in the world to be printed on a
      train in motion. The youthful proprietor sometimes cleared as much as
      twenty to thirty dollars a month from this unique journalistic enterprise.
    </p>
    <p>
      But all this extra work required attention, and Edison solved the
      difficulty of attending also to the newsboy business by the employment of
      a young friend, whom he trained and treated liberally as an understudy.
      There was often plenty of work for both in the early days of the war, when
      the news of battle caused intense excitement and large sales of papers.
      Edison, with native shrewdness already so strikingly displayed, would
      telegraph the station agents and get them to bulletin the event of the day
      at the front, so that when each station was reached there were eager
      purchasers waiting. He recalls in particular the sensation caused by the
      great battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, in April, 1862, in which
      both Grant and Sherman were engaged, in which Johnston died, and in which
      there was a ghastly total of 25,000 killed and wounded.
    </p>
    <p>
      In describing his enterprising action that day, Edison says that when he
      reached Detroit the bulletin-boards of the newspaper offices were
      surrounded with dense crowds, which read awestricken the news that there
      were 60,000 killed and wounded, and that the result was uncertain. "I knew
      that if the same excitement was attained at the various small towns along
      the road, and especially at Port Huron, the sale of papers would be great.
      I then conceived the idea of telegraphing the news ahead, went to the
      operator in the depot, and by giving him Harper's Weekly and some other
      papers for three months, he agreed to telegraph to all the stations the
      matter on the bulletin-board. I hurriedly copied it, and he sent it,
      requesting the agents to display it on the blackboards used for stating
      the arrival and departure of trains. I decided that instead of the usual
      one hundred papers I could sell one thousand; but not having sufficient
      money to purchase that number, I determined in my desperation to see the
      editor himself and get credit. The great paper at that time was the
      Detroit Free Press. I walked into the office marked 'Editorial' and told a
      young man that I wanted to see the editor on important business&mdash;important
      to me, anyway, I was taken into an office where there were two men, and I
      stated what I had done about telegraphing, and that I wanted a thousand
      papers, but only had money for three hundred, and I wanted credit. One of
      the men refused it, but the other told the first spokesman to let me have
      them. This man, I afterward learned, was Wilbur F. Storey, who
      subsequently founded the Chicago Times, and became celebrated in the
      newspaper world. By the aid of another boy I lugged the papers to the
      train and started folding them. The first station, called Utica, was a
      small one where I generally sold two papers. I saw a crowd ahead on the
      platform, and thought it some excursion, but the moment I landed there was
      a rush for me; then I realized that the telegraph was a great invention. I
      sold thirty-five papers there. The next station was Mount Clemens, now a
      watering-place, but then a town of about one thousand. I usually sold six
      to eight papers there. I decided that if I found a corresponding crowd
      there, the only thing to do to correct my lack of judgment in not getting
      more papers was to raise the price from five cents to ten. The crowd was
      there, and I raised the price. At the various towns there were
      corresponding crowds. It had been my practice at Port Huron to jump from
      the train at a point about one-fourth of a mile from the station, where
      the train generally slackened speed. I had drawn several loads of sand to
      this point to jump on, and had become quite expert. The little Dutch boy
      with the horse met me at this point. When the wagon approached the
      outskirts of the town I was met by a large crowd. I then yelled:
      'Twenty-five cents apiece, gentlemen! I haven't enough to go around!' I
      sold all out, and made what to me then was an immense sum of money."
    </p>
    <p>
      Such episodes as this added materially to his income, but did not
      necessarily increase his savings, for he was then, as now, an utter
      spendthrift so long as some new apparatus or supplies for experiment could
      be had. In fact, the laboratory on wheels soon became crowded with such
      equipment, most costly chemicals were bought on the instalment plan, and
      Fresenius' Qualitative Analysis served as a basis for ceaseless testing
      and study. George Pullman, who then had a small shop at Detroit and was
      working on his sleeping-car, made Edison a lot of wooden apparatus for his
      chemicals, to the boy's delight. Unfortunately a sudden change came,
      fraught with disaster. The train, running one day at thirty miles an hour
      over a piece of poorly laid track, was thrown suddenly out of the
      perpendicular with a violent lurch, and, before Edison could catch it, a
      stick of phosphorus was jarred from its shelf, fell to the floor, and
      burst into flame. The car took fire, and the boy, in dismay, was still
      trying to quench the blaze when the conductor, a quick-tempered Scotchman,
      who acted also as baggage-master, hastened to the scene with water and
      saved his car. On the arrival at Mount Clemens station, its next stop,
      Edison and his entire outfit, laboratory, printing-plant, and all, were
      promptly ejected by the enraged conductor, and the train then moved off,
      leaving him on the platform, tearful and indignant in the midst of his
      beloved but ruined possessions. It was lynch law of a kind; but in view of
      the responsibility, this action of the conductor lay well within his
      rights and duties.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was through this incident that Edison acquired the deafness that has
      persisted all through his life, a severe box on the ears from the scorched
      and angry conductor being the direct cause of the infirmity. Although this
      deafness would be regarded as a great affliction by most people, and has
      brought in its train other serious baubles, Mr. Edison has always regarded
      it philosophically, and said about it recently: "This deafness has been of
      great advantage to me in various ways. When in a telegraph office, I could
      only hear the instrument directly on the table at which I sat, and unlike
      the other operators, I was not bothered by the other instruments. Again,
      in experimenting on the telephone, I had to improve the transmitter so I
      could hear it. This made the telephone commercial, as the magneto
      telephone receiver of Bell was too weak to be used as a transmitter
      commercially. It was the same with the phonograph. The great defect of
      that instrument was the rendering of the overtones in music, and the
      hissing consonants in speech. I worked over one year, twenty hours a day,
      Sundays and all, to get the word 'specie' perfectly recorded and
      reproduced on the phonograph. When this was done I knew that everything
      else could be done which was a fact. Again, my nerves have been preserved
      intact. Broadway is as quiet to me as a country village is to a person
      with normal hearing."
    </p>
    <p>
      Saddened but not wholly discouraged, Edison soon reconstituted his
      laboratory and printing-office at home, although on the part of the family
      there was some fear and objection after this episode, on the score of
      fire. But Edison promised not to bring in anything of a dangerous nature.
      He did not cease the publication of the Weekly Herald. On the contrary, he
      prospered in both his enterprises until persuaded by the "printer's devil"
      in the office of the Port Huron Commercial to change the character of his
      journal, enlarge it, and issue it under the name of Paul Pry, a happy
      designation for this or kindred ventures in the domain of society
      journalism. No copies of Paul Pry can now be found, but it is known that
      its style was distinctly personal, that gossip was its specialty, and that
      no small offence was given to the people whose peculiarities or
      peccadilloes were discussed in a frank and breezy style by the two boys.
      In one instance the resentment of the victim of such unsought publicity
      was so intense he laid hands on Edison and pitched the startled young
      editor into the St. Clair River. The name of this violator of the freedom
      of the press was thereafter excluded studiously from the columns of Paul
      Pry, and the incident may have been one of those which soon caused the
      abandonment of the paper. Edison had great zest in this work, and but for
      the strong influences in other directions would probably have continued in
      the newspaper field, in which he was, beyond question, the youngest
      publisher and editor of the day.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before leaving this period of his career, it is to be noted that it gave
      Edison many favorable opportunities. In Detroit he could spend frequent
      hours in the public library, and it is matter of record that he began his
      liberal acquaintance with its contents by grappling bravely with a certain
      section and trying to read it through consecutively, shelf by shelf,
      regardless of subject. In a way this is curiously suggestive of the
      earnest, energetic method of "frontal attack" with which the inventor has
      since addressed himself to so many problems in the arts and sciences.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Grand Trunk Railroad machine-shops at Port Huron were a great
      attraction to the boy, who appears to have spent a good deal of his time
      there. He who was to have much to do with the evolution of the modern
      electric locomotive was fascinated by the mechanism of the steam
      locomotive; and whenever he could get the chance Edison rode in the cab
      with the engineer of his train. He became thoroughly familiar with the
      intricacies of fire-box, boiler, valves, levers, and gears, and liked
      nothing better than to handle the locomotive himself during the run. On
      one trip, when the engineer lay asleep while his eager substitute piloted
      the train, the boiler "primed," and a deluge overwhelmed the young driver,
      who stuck to his post till the run and the ordeal were ended. Possibly
      this helped to spoil a locomotive engineer, but went to make a great
      master of the new motive power. "Steam is half an Englishman," said
      Emerson. The temptation is strong to say that workaday electricity is half
      an American. Edison's own account of the incident is very laughable: "The
      engine was one of a number leased to the Grand Trunk by the Chicago,
      Burlington &amp; Quincy. It had bright brass bands all over, the woodwork
      beautifully painted, and everything highly polished, which was the custom
      up to the time old Commodore Vanderbilt stopped it on his roads. After
      running about fifteen miles the fireman couldn't keep his eyes open (this
      event followed an all-night dance of the trainmen's fraternal
      organization), and he agreed to permit me to run the engine. I took
      charge, reducing the speed to about twelve miles an hour, and brought the
      train of seven cars to her destination at the Grand Trunk junction safely.
      But something occurred which was very much out of the ordinary. I was very
      much worried about the water, and I knew that if it got low the boiler was
      likely to explode. I hadn't gone twenty miles before black damp mud blew
      out of the stack and covered every part of the engine, including myself. I
      was about to awaken the fireman to find out the cause of this when it
      stopped. Then I approached a station where the fireman always went out to
      the cowcatcher, opened the oil-cup on the steam-chest, and poured oil in.
      I started to carry out the procedure when, upon opening the oil-cup, the
      steam rushed out with a tremendous noise, nearly knocking me off the
      engine. I succeeded in closing the oil-cup and got back in the cab, and
      made up my mind that she would pull through without oil. I learned
      afterward that the engineer always shut off steam when the fireman went
      out to oil. This point I failed to notice. My powers of observation were
      very much improved after this occurrence. Just before I reached the
      junction another outpour of black mud occurred, and the whole engine was a
      sight&mdash;so much so that when I pulled into the yard everybody turned
      to see it, laughing immoderately. I found the reason of the mud was that I
      carried so much water it passed over into the stack, and this washed out
      all the accumulated soot."
    </p>
    <p>
      One afternoon about a week before Christmas Edison's train jumped the
      track near Utica, a station on the line. Four old Michigan Central cars
      with rotten sills collapsed in the ditch and went all to pieces,
      distributing figs, raisins, dates, and candies all over the track and the
      vicinity. Hating to see so much waste, Edison tried to save all he could
      by eating it on the spot, but as a result "our family doctor had the time
      of his life with me in this connection."
    </p>
    <p>
      An absurd incident described by Edison throws a vivid light on the
      free-and-easy condition of early railroad travel and on the Southern
      extravagance of the time. "In 1860, just before the war broke out there
      came to the train one afternoon, in Detroit, two fine-looking young men
      accompanied by a colored servant. They bought tickets for Port Huron, the
      terminal point for the train. After leaving the junction just outside of
      Detroit, I brought in the evening papers. When I came opposite the two
      young men, one of them said: 'Boy, what have you got?' I said: 'Papers.'
      'All right.' He took them and threw them out of the window, and, turning
      to the colored man, said: 'Nicodemus, pay this boy.' I told Nicodemus the
      amount, and he opened a satchel and paid me. The passengers didn't know
      what to make of the transaction. I returned with the illustrated papers
      and magazines. These were seized and thrown out of the window, and I was
      told to get my money of Nicodemus. I then returned with all the old
      magazines and novels I had not been able to sell, thinking perhaps this
      would be too much for them. I was small and thin, and the layer reached
      above my head, and was all I could possibly carry. I had prepared a list,
      and knew the amount in case they bit again. When I opened the door, all
      the passengers roared with laughter. I walked right up to the young men.
      One asked me what I had. I said 'Magazines and novels.' He promptly threw
      them out of the window, and Nicodemus settled. Then I came in with cracked
      hickory nuts, then pop-corn balls, and, finally, molasses candy. All went
      out of the window. I felt like Alexander the Great!&mdash;I had no more
      chance! I had sold all I had. Finally I put a rope to my trunk, which was
      about the size of a carpenter's chest, and started to pull this from the
      baggage-car to the passenger-car. It was almost too much for my strength,
      but at last I got it in front of those men. I pulled off my coat, shoes,
      and hat, and laid them on the chest. Then he asked: 'What have you got,
      boy?' I said: 'Everything, sir, that I can spare that is for sale.' The
      passengers fairly jumped with laughter. Nicodemus paid me $27 for this
      last sale, and threw the whole out of the door in the rear of the car.
      These men were from the South, and I have always retained a soft spot in
      my heart for a Southern gentleman."
    </p>
    <p>
      While Edison was a newsboy on the train a request came to him one day to
      go to the office of E. B. Ward &amp; Company, at that time the largest
      owners of steamboats on the Great Lakes. The captain of their largest boat
      had died suddenly, and they wanted a message taken to another captain who
      lived about fourteen miles from Ridgeway station on the railroad. This
      captain had retired, taken up some lumber land, and had cleared part of
      it. Edison was offered $15 by Mr. Ward to go and fetch him, but as it was
      a wild country and would be dark, Edison stood out for $25, so that he
      could get the companionship of another lad. The terms were agreed to.
      Edison arrived at Ridgeway at 8.30 P.M., when it was raining and as dark
      as ink. Getting another boy with difficulty to volunteer, he launched out
      on his errand in the pitch-black night. The two boys carried lanterns, but
      the road was a rough path through dense forest. The country was wild, and
      it was a usual occurrence to see deer, bear, and coon skins nailed up on
      the sides of houses to dry. Edison had read about bears, but couldn't
      remember whether they were day or night prowlers. The farther they went
      the more apprehensive they became, and every stump in the ravished forest
      looked like a bear. The other lad proposed seeking safety up a tree, but
      Edison demurred on the plea that bears could climb, and that the message
      must be delivered that night to enable the captain to catch the morning
      train. First one lantern went out, then the other. "We leaned up against a
      tree and cried. I thought if I ever got out of that scrape alive I would
      know more about the habits of animals and everything else, and be prepared
      for all kinds of mischance when I undertook an enterprise. However, the
      intense darkness dilated the pupils of our eyes so as to make them very
      sensitive, and we could just see at times the outlines of the road.
      Finally, just as a faint gleam of daylight arrived, we entered the
      captain's yard and delivered the message. In my whole life I never spent
      such a night of horror as this, but I got a good lesson."
    </p>
    <p>
      An amusing incident of this period is told by Edison. "When I was a boy,"
      he says, "the Prince of Wales, the late King Edward, came to Canada
      (1860). Great preparations were made at Sarnia, the Canadian town opposite
      Port Huron. About every boy, including myself, went over to see the
      affair. The town was draped in flags most profusely, and carpets were laid
      on the cross-walks for the prince to walk on. There were arches, etc. A
      stand was built raised above the general level, where the prince was to be
      received by the mayor. Seeing all these preparations, my idea of a prince
      was very high; but when he did arrive I mistook the Duke of Newcastle for
      him, the duke being a fine-looking man. I soon saw that I was mistaken:
      that the prince was a young stripling, and did not meet expectations.
      Several of us expressed our belief that a prince wasn't much, after all,
      and said that we were thoroughly disappointed. For this one boy was
      whipped. Soon the Canuck boys attacked the Yankee boys, and we were all
      badly licked. I, myself, got a black eye. That has always prejudiced me
      against that kind of ceremonial and folly." It is certainly interesting to
      note that in later years the prince for whom Edison endured the ignominy
      of a black eye made generous compensation in a graceful letter
      accompanying the gold Albert Medal awarded by the Royal Society of Arts.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another incident of the period is as follows: "After selling papers in
      Port Huron, which was often not reached until about 9.30 at night, I
      seldom got home before 11.00 or 11.30. About half-way home from the
      station and the town, and within twenty-five feet of the road in a dense
      wood, was a soldiers' graveyard where three hundred soldiers were buried,
      due to a cholera epidemic which took place at Fort Gratiot, near by, many
      years previously. At first we used to shut our eyes and run the horse past
      this graveyard, and if the horse stepped on a twig my heart would give a
      violent movement, and it is a wonder that I haven't some valvular disease
      of that organ. But soon this running of the horse became monotonous, and
      after a while all fears of graveyards absolutely disappeared from my
      system. I was in the condition of Sam Houston, the pioneer and founder of
      Texas, who, it was said, knew no fear. Houston lived some distance from
      the town and generally went home late at night, having to pass through a
      dark cypress swamp over a corduroy road. One night, to test his alleged
      fearlessness, a man stationed himself behind a tree and enveloped himself
      in a sheet. He confronted Houston suddenly, and Sam stopped and said: 'If
      you are a man, you can't hurt me. If you are a ghost, you don't want to
      hurt me. And if you are the devil, come home with me; I married your
      sister!'"
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not to be inferred, however, from some of the preceding statements
      that the boy was of an exclusively studious bent of mind. He had then, as
      now, the keen enjoyment of a joke, and no particular aversion to the
      practical form. An incident of the time is in point. "After the breaking
      out of the war there was a regiment of volunteer soldiers quartered at
      Fort Gratiot, the reservation extending to the boundary line of our house.
      Nearly every night we would hear a call, such as 'Corporal of the Guard,
      No. 1.' This would be repeated from sentry to sentry until it reached the
      barracks, when Corporal of the Guard, No. 1, would come and see what was
      wanted. I and the little Dutch boy, after returning from the town after
      selling our papers, thought we would take a hand at military affairs. So
      one night, when it was very dark, I shouted for Corporal of the Guard, No.
      1. The second sentry, thinking it was the terminal sentry who shouted,
      repeated it to the third, and so on. This brought the corporal along the
      half mile, only to find that he was fooled. We tried him three nights; but
      the third night they were watching, and caught the little Dutch boy, took
      him to the lock-up at the fort, and shut him up. They chased me to the
      house. I rushed for the cellar. In one small apartment there were two
      barrels of potatoes and a third one nearly empty. I poured these remnants
      into the other barrels, sat down, and pulled the barrel over my head,
      bottom up. The soldiers had awakened my father, and they were searching
      for me with candles and lanterns. The corporal was absolutely certain I
      came into the cellar, and couldn't see how I could have gotten out, and
      wanted to know from my father if there was no secret hiding-place. On
      assurance of my father, who said that there was not, he said it was most
      extraordinary. I was glad when they left, as I was cramped, and the
      potatoes were rotten that had been in the barrel and violently offensive.
      The next morning I was found in bed, and received a good switching on the
      legs from my father, the first and only one I ever received from him,
      although my mother kept a switch behind the old Seth Thomas clock that had
      the bark worn off. My mother's ideas and mine differed at times,
      especially when I got experimenting and mussed up things. The Dutch boy
      was released next morning."
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER IV
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE YOUNG TELEGRAPH OPERATOR
    </h3>
    <p>
      "WHILE a newsboy on the railroad," says Edison, "I got very much
      interested in electricity, probably from visiting telegraph offices with a
      chum who had tastes similar to mine." It will also have been noted that he
      used the telegraph to get items for his little journal, and to bulletin
      his special news of the Civil War along the line. The next step was
      natural, and having with his knowledge of chemistry no trouble about
      "setting up" his batteries, the difficulties of securing apparatus were
      chiefly those connected with the circuits and the instruments. American
      youths to-day are given, if of a mechanical turn of mind, to amateur
      telegraphy or telephony, but seldom, if ever, have to make any part of the
      system constructed. In Edison's boyish days it was quite different, and
      telegraphic supplies were hard to obtain. But he and his "chum" had a line
      between their homes, built of common stove-pipe wire. The insulators were
      bottles set on nails driven into trees and short poles. The magnet wire
      was wound with rags for insulation, and pieces of spring brass were used
      for keys. With an idea of securing current cheaply, Edison applied the
      little that he knew about static electricity, and actually experimented
      with cats, which he treated vigorously as frictional machines until the
      animals fled in dismay, and Edison had learned his first great lesson in
      the relative value of sources of electrical energy. The line was made to
      work, however, and additional to the messages that the boys interchanged,
      Edison secured practice in an ingenious manner. His father insisted on
      11.30 as proper bedtime, which left but a short interval after the long
      day on the train. But each evening, when the boy went home with a bundle
      of papers that had not been sold in the town, his father would sit up
      reading the "returnables." Edison, therefore, on some excuse, left the
      papers with his friend, but suggested that he could get the news from him
      by telegraph, bit by bit. The scheme interested his father, and was put
      into effect, the messages being written down and handed over for perusal.
      This yielded good practice nightly, lasting until 12 and 1 o'clock, and
      was maintained for some time until Mr. Edison became willing that his son
      should stay up for a reasonable time. The papers were then brought home
      again, and the boys amused themselves to their hearts' content until the
      line was pulled down by a stray cow wandering through the orchard.
      Meantime better instruments had been secured, and the rudiments of
      telegraphy had been fairly mastered.
    </p>
    <p>
      The mixed train on which Edison was employed as newsboy did the
      way-freight work and shunting at the Mount Clemens station, about half an
      hour being usually spent in the work. One August morning, in 1862, while
      the shunting was in progress, and a laden box-car had been pushed out of a
      siding, Edison, who was loitering about the platform, saw the little son
      of the station agent, Mr. J. U. Mackenzie, playing with the gravel on the
      main track along which the car without a brakeman was rapidly approaching.
      Edison dropped his papers and his glazed cap, and made a dash for the
      child, whom he picked up and lifted to safety without a second to spare,
      as the wheel of the car struck his heel; and both were cut about the face
      and hands by the gravel ballast on which they fell. The two boys were
      picked up by the train-hands and carried to the platform, and the grateful
      father at once offered to teach the rescuer, whom he knew and liked, the
      art of train telegraphy and to make an operator of him. It is needless to
      say that the proposal was eagerly accepted.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison found time for his new studies by letting one of his friends look
      after the newsboy work on the train for part of the trip, reserving to
      himself the run between Port Huron and Mount Clemens. That he was already
      well qualified as a beginner is evident from the fact that he had mastered
      the Morse code of the telegraphic alphabet, and was able to take to the
      station a neat little set of instruments he had just finished with his own
      hands at a gun-shop in Detroit. This was probably a unique achievement in
      itself among railway operators of that day or of later times. The drill of
      the student involved chiefly the acquisition of the special signals
      employed in railway work, including the numerals and abbreviations applied
      to save time. Some of these have passed into the slang of the day, "73"
      being well known as a telegrapher's expression of compliments or good
      wishes, while "23" is an accident or death message, and has been given
      broader popular significance as a general synonym for "hoodoo." All of
      this came easily to Edison, who had, moreover, as his Herald showed, an
      unusual familiarity with train movement along that portion of the Grand
      Trunk road.
    </p>
    <p>
      Three or four months were spent pleasantly and profitably by the youth in
      this course of study, and Edison took to it enthusiastically, giving it no
      less than eighteen hours a day. He then put up a little telegraph line
      from the station to the village, a distance of about a mile, and opened an
      office in a drug store; but the business was naturally very small. The
      telegraph operator at Port Huron knowing of his proficiency, and wanting
      to get into the United States Military Telegraph Corps, where the pay in
      those days of the Civil War was high, succeeded in convincing his
      brother-in-law, Mr. M. Walker, that young Edison could fill the position.
      Edison was, of course, well acquainted with the operators along the road
      and at the southern terminal, and took up his new duties very easily. The
      office was located in a jewelry store, where newspapers and periodicals
      were also sold. Edison was to be found at the office both day and night,
      sleeping there. "I became quite valuable to Mr. Walker. After working all
      day I worked at the office nights as well, for the reason that 'press
      report' came over one of the wires until 3 A.M., and I would cut in and
      copy it as well as I could, to become more rapidly proficient. The goal of
      the rural telegraph operator was to be able to take press. Mr. Walker
      tried to get my father to apprentice me at $20 per month, but they could
      not agree. I then applied for a job on the Grand Trunk Railroad as a
      railway operator, and was given a place, nights, at Stratford Junction,
      Canada." Apparently his friend Mackenzie helped him in the matter. The
      position carried a salary of $25 per month. No serious objections were
      raised by his family, for the distance from Port Huron was not great, and
      Stratford was near Bayfield, the old home from which the Edisons had come,
      so that there were doubtless friends or even relatives in the vicinity.
      This was in 1863.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Walker was an observant man, who has since that time installed a
      number of waterworks systems and obtained several patents of his own. He
      describes the boy of sixteen as engrossed intensely in his experiments and
      scientific reading, and somewhat indifferent, for this reason, to his
      duties as operator. This office was not particularly busy, taking from $50
      to $75 a month, but even the messages taken in would remain unsent on the
      hook while Edison was in the cellar below trying to solve some chemical
      problem. The manager would see him studying sometimes an article in such a
      paper as the Scientific American, and then disappearing to buy a few
      sundries for experiments. Returning from the drug store with his
      chemicals, he would not be seen again until required by his duties, or
      until he had found out for himself, if possible, in this offhand manner,
      whether what he had read was correct or not. When he had completed his
      experiment all interest in it was lost, and the jars and wires would be
      left to any fate that might befall them. In like manner Edison would make
      free use of the watchmaker's tools that lay on the little table in the
      front window, and would take the wire pliers there without much thought as
      to their value as distinguished from a lineman's tools. The one idea was
      to do quickly what he wanted to do; and the same swift, almost headlong
      trial of anything that comes to hand, while the fervor of a new experiment
      is felt, has been noted at all stages of the inventor's career. One is
      reminded of Palissy's recklessness, when in his efforts to make the enamel
      melt on his pottery he used the very furniture of his home for firewood.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Edison remarks the fact that there was very little difference between
      the telegraph of that time and of to-day, except the general use of the
      old Morse register with the dots and dashes recorded by indenting paper
      strips that could be read and checked later at leisure if necessary. He
      says: "The telegraph men couldn't explain how it worked, and I was always
      trying to get them to do so. I think they couldn't. I remember the best
      explanation I got was from an old Scotch line repairer employed by the
      Montreal Telegraph Company, which operated the railroad wires. He said
      that if you had a dog like a dachshund, long enough to reach from
      Edinburgh to London, if you pulled his tail in Edinburgh he would bark in
      London. I could understand that, but I never could get it through me what
      went through the dog or over the wire." To-day Mr. Edison is just as
      unable to solve the inner mystery of electrical transmission. Nor is he
      alone. At the banquet given to celebrate his jubilee in 1896 as professor
      at Glasgow University, Lord Kelvin, the greatest physicist of our time,
      admitted with tears in his eyes and the note of tragedy in his voice, that
      when it came to explaining the nature of electricity, he knew just as
      little as when he had begun as a student, and felt almost as though his
      life had been wasted while he tried to grapple with the great mystery of
      physics.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another episode of this period is curious in its revelation of the
      tenacity with which Edison has always held to some of his oldest
      possessions with a sense of personal attachment. "While working at
      Stratford Junction," he says, "I was told by one of the freight conductors
      that in the freight-house at Goodrich there were several boxes of old
      broken-up batteries. I went there and found over eighty cells of the
      well-known Grove nitric-acid battery. The operator there, who was also
      agent, when asked by me if I could have the electrodes of each cell, made
      of sheet platinum, gave his permission readily, thinking they were of tin.
      I removed them all, amounting to several ounces. Platinum even in those
      days was very expensive, costing several dollars an ounce, and I owned
      only three small strips. I was overjoyed at this acquisition, and those
      very strips and the reworked scrap are used to this day in my laboratory
      over forty years later."
    </p>
    <p>
      It was at Stratford that Edison's inventiveness was first displayed. The
      hours of work of a night operator are usually from 7 P.M. to 7 A.M., and
      to insure attention while on duty it is often provided that the operator
      every hour, from 9 P.M. until relieved by the day operator, shall send in
      the signal "6" to the train dispatcher's office. Edison revelled in the
      opportunity for study and experiment given him by his long hours of
      freedom in the daytime, but needed sleep, just as any healthy youth does.
      Confronted by the necessity of sending in this watchman's signal as
      evidence that he was awake and on duty, he constructed a small wheel with
      notches on the rim, and attached it to the clock in such a manner that the
      night-watchman could start it when the line was quiet, and at each hour
      the wheel revolved and sent in accurately the dots required for "sixing."
      The invention was a success, the device being, indeed, similar to that of
      the modern district messenger box; but it was soon noticed that, in spite
      of the regularity of the report, "Sf" could not be raised even if a train
      message were sent immediately after. Detection and a reprimand came in due
      course, but were not taken very seriously.
    </p>
    <p>
      A serious occurrence that might have resulted in accident drove him soon
      after from Canada, although the youth could hardly be held to blame for
      it. Edison says: "This night job just suited me, as I could have the whole
      day to myself. I had the faculty of sleeping in a chair any time for a few
      minutes at a time. I taught the night-yardman my call, so I could get half
      an hour's sleep now and then between trains, and in case the station was
      called the watchman would awaken me. One night I got an order to hold a
      freight train, and I replied that I would. I rushed out to find the
      signalman, but before I could find him and get the signal set, the train
      ran past. I ran to the telegraph office, and reported that I could not
      hold her. The reply was: 'Hell!' The train dispatcher, on the strength of
      my message that I would hold the train, had permitted another to leave the
      last station in the opposite direction. There was a lower station near the
      junction where the day operator slept. I started for it on foot. The night
      was dark, and I fell into a culvert and was knocked senseless." Owing to
      the vigilance of the two engineers on the locomotives, who saw each other
      approaching on the straight single track, nothing more dreadful happened
      than a summons to the thoughtless operator to appear before the general
      manager at Toronto. On reaching the manager's office, his trial for
      neglect of duty was fortunately interrupted by the call of two Englishmen;
      and while their conversation proceeded, Edison slipped quietly out of the
      room, hurried to the Grand Trunk freight depot, found a conductor he knew
      taking out a freight train for Sarnia, and was not happy until the
      ferry-boat from Sarnia had landed him once more on the Michigan shore. The
      Grand Trunk still owes Mr. Edison the wages due him at the time he thus
      withdrew from its service, but the claim has never been pressed.
    </p>
    <p>
      The same winter of 1863-64, while at Port Huron, Edison had a further
      opportunity of displaying his ingenuity. An ice-jam had broken the light
      telegraph cable laid in the bed of the river across to Sarnia, and thus
      communication was interrupted. The river is three-quarters of a mile wide,
      and could not be crossed on foot; nor could the cable be repaired. Edison
      at once suggested using the steam whistle of the locomotive, and by
      manipulating the valve conversed the short and long outbursts of shrill
      sound into the Morse code. An operator on the Sarnia shore was quick
      enough to catch the significance of the strange whistling, and messages
      were thus sent in wireless fashion across the ice-floes in the river. It
      is said that such signals were also interchanged by military telegraphers
      during the war, and possibly Edison may have heard of the practice; but be
      that as it may, he certainly showed ingenuity and resource in applying
      such a method to meet the necessity. It is interesting to note that at
      this point the Grand Trunk now has its St. Clair tunnel, through which the
      trains are hauled under the river-bed by electric locomotives.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison had now begun unconsciously the roaming and drifting that took him
      during the next five years all over the Middle States, and that might well
      have wrecked the career of any one less persistent and industrious. It was
      a period of his life corresponding to the Wanderjahre of the German
      artisan, and was an easy way of gratifying a taste for travel without the
      risk of privation. To-day there is little temptation to the telegrapher to
      go to distant parts of the country on the chance that he may secure a
      livelihood at the key. The ranks are well filled everywhere, and of late
      years the telegraph as an art or industry has shown relatively slight
      expansion, owing chiefly to the development of telephony. Hence, if
      vacancies occur, there are plenty of operators available, and salaries
      have remained so low as to lead to one or two formidable and costly
      strikes that unfortunately took no account of the economic conditions of
      demand and supply. But in the days of the Civil War there was a great
      dearth of skilful manipulators of the key. About fifteen hundred of the
      best operators in the country were at the front on the Federal side alone,
      and several hundred more had enlisted. This created a serious scarcity,
      and a nomadic operator going to any telegraphic centre would be sure to
      find a place open waiting for him. At the close of the war a majority of
      those who had been with the two opposed armies remained at the key under
      more peaceful surroundings, but the rapid development of the commercial
      and railroad systems fostered a new demand, and then for a time it seemed
      almost impossible to train new operators fast enough. In a few years,
      however, the telephone sprang into vigorous existence, dating from 1876,
      drawing off some of the most adventurous spirits from the telegraph field;
      and the deterrent influence of the telephone on the telegraph had made
      itself felt by 1890. The expiration of the leading Bell telephone patents,
      five years later, accentuated even more sharply the check that had been
      put on telegraphy, as hundreds and thousands of "independent" telephone
      companies were then organized, throwing a vast network of toll lines over
      Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and other States, and affording cheap,
      instantaneous means of communication without any necessity for the
      intervention of an operator.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will be seen that the times have changed radically since Edison became
      a telegrapher, and that in this respect a chapter of electrical history
      has been definitely closed. There was a day when the art offered a
      distinct career to all of its practitioners, and young men of ambition and
      good family were eager to begin even as messenger boys, and were ready to
      undergo a severe ordeal of apprenticeship with the belief that they could
      ultimately attain positions of responsibility and profit. At the same time
      operators have always been shrewd enough to regard the telegraph as a
      stepping-stone to other careers in life. A bright fellow entering the
      telegraph service to-day finds the experience he may gain therein
      valuable, but he soon realizes that there are not enough good-paying
      official positions to "go around," so as to give each worthy man a chance
      after he has mastered the essentials of the art. He feels, therefore, that
      to remain at the key involves either stagnation or deterioration, and that
      after, say, twenty-five years of practice he will have lost ground as
      compared with friends who started out in other occupations. The craft of
      an operator, learned without much difficulty, is very attractive to a
      youth, but a position at the key is no place for a man of mature years.
      His services, with rare exceptions, grow less valuable as he advances in
      age and nervous strain breaks him down. On the contrary, men engaged in
      other professions find, as a rule, that they improve and advance with
      experience, and that age brings larger rewards and opportunities.
    </p>
    <p>
      The list of well-known Americans who have been graduates of the key is
      indeed an extraordinary one, and there is no department of our national
      life in which they have not distinguished themselves. The contrast, in
      this respect, between them and their European colleagues is highly
      significant. In Europe the telegraph systems are all under government
      management, the operators have strictly limited spheres of promotion, and
      at the best the transition from one kind of employment to another is not
      made so easily as in the New World. But in the United States we have seen
      Rufus Bullock become Governor of Georgia, and Ezra Cornell Governor of New
      York. Marshall Jewell was Postmaster-General of President Grant's Cabinet,
      and Daniel Lamont was Secretary of State in President Cleveland's. Gen. T.
      T. Eckert, past-President of the Western Union Telegraph Company, was
      Assistant Secretary of War under President Lincoln; and Robert J. Wynne,
      afterward a consul-general, served as Assistant Postmaster General. A very
      large proportion of the presidents and leading officials of the great
      railroad systems are old telegraphers, including Messrs. W. C. Brown,
      President of the New York Central Railroad, and Marvin Hughitt, President
      of the Chicago &amp; North western Railroad. In industrial and financial
      life there have been Theodore N. Vail, President of the Bell telephone
      system; L. C. Weir, late President of the Adams Express; A. B. Chandler,
      President of the Postal Telegraph and Cable Company; Sir W. Van Home,
      identified with Canadian development; Robert C. Clowry, President of the
      Western Union Telegraph Company; D. H. Bates, Manager of the Baltimore
      &amp; Ohio telegraph for Robert Garrett; and Andrew Carnegie, the greatest
      ironmaster the world has ever known, as well as its greatest
      philanthropist. In journalism there have been leaders like Edward
      Rosewater, founder of the Omaha Bee; W. J. Elverson, of the Philadelphia
      Press; and Frank A. Munsey, publisher of half a dozen big magazines.
      George Kennan has achieved fame in literature, and Guy Carleton and Harry
      de Souchet have been successful as dramatists. These are but typical of
      hundreds of men who could be named who have risen from work at the key to
      become recognized leaders in differing spheres of activity.
    </p>
    <p>
      But roving has never been favorable to the formation of steady habits. The
      young men who thus floated about the country from one telegraph office to
      another were often brilliant operators, noted for speed in sending and
      receiving, but they were undisciplined, were without the restraining
      influences of home life, and were so highly paid for their work that they
      could indulge freely in dissipation if inclined that way. Subjected to
      nervous tension for hours together at the key, many of them unfortunately
      took to drink, and having ended one engagement in a city by a debauch that
      closed the doors of the office to them, would drift away to the nearest
      town, and there securing work, would repeat the performance. At one time,
      indeed, these men were so numerous and so much in evidence as to
      constitute a type that the public was disposed to accept as representative
      of the telegraphic fraternity; but as the conditions creating him ceased
      to exist, the "tramp operator" also passed into history. It was, however,
      among such characters that Edison was very largely thrown in these early
      days of aimless drifting, to learn something perhaps of their nonchalant
      philosophy of life, sharing bed and board with them under all kinds of
      adverse conditions, but always maintaining a stoic abstemiousness, and
      never feeling other than a keen regret at the waste of so much genuine
      ability and kindliness on the part of those knights errant of the key
      whose inevitable fate might so easily have been his own.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such a class or group of men can always be presented by an individual
      type, and this is assuredly best embodied in Milton F. Adams, one of
      Edison's earliest and closest friends, to whom reference will be made in
      later chapters, and whose life has been so full of adventurous episodes
      that he might well be regarded as the modern Gil Blas. That career is
      certainly well worth the telling as "another story," to use the Kipling
      phrase. Of him Edison says: "Adams was one of a class of operators never
      satisfied to work at any place for any great length of time. He had the
      'wanderlust.' After enjoying hospitality in Boston in 1868-69, on the
      floor of my hall-bedroom, which was a paradise for the entomologist, while
      the boarding-house itself was run on the banting system of flesh
      reduction, he came to me one day and said: 'Good-bye, Edison; I have got
      sixty cents, and I am going to San Francisco.' And he did go. How, I never
      knew personally. I learned afterward that he got a job there, and then
      within a week they had a telegraphers' strike. He got a big torch and sold
      patent medicine on the streets at night to support the strikers. Then he
      went to Peru as partner of a man who had a grizzly bear which they
      proposed entering against a bull in the bull-ring in that city. The
      grizzly was killed in five minutes, and so the scheme died. Then Adams
      crossed the Andes, and started a market-report bureau in Buenos Ayres.
      This didn't pay, so he started a restaurant in Pernambuco, Brazil. There
      he did very well, but something went wrong (as it always does to a nomad),
      so he went to the Transvaal, and ran a panorama called 'Paradise Lost' in
      the Kaffir kraals. This didn't pay, and he became the editor of a
      newspaper; then went to England to raise money for a railroad in Cape
      Colony. Next I heard of him in New York, having just arrived from Bogota,
      United States of Colombia, with a power of attorney and $2000 from a
      native of that republic, who had applied for a patent for tightening a
      belt to prevent it from slipping on a pulley&mdash;a device which he
      thought a new and great invention, but which was in use ever since
      machinery was invented. I gave Adams, then, a position as salesman for
      electrical apparatus. This he soon got tired of, and I lost sight of him."
      Adams, in speaking of this episode, says that when he asked for
      transportation expenses to St. Louis, Edison pulled out of his pocket a
      ferry ticket to Hoboken, and said to his associates: "I'll give him that,
      and he'll get there all right." This was in the early days of electric
      lighting; but down to the present moment the peregrinations of this
      versatile genius of the key have never ceased in one hemisphere or the
      other, so that as Mr. Adams himself remarked to the authors in April,
      1908: "The life has been somewhat variegated, but never dull."
    </p>
    <p>
      The fact remains also that throughout this period Edison, while himself a
      very Ishmael, never ceased to study, explore, experiment. Referring to
      this beginning of his career, he mentions a curious fact that throws light
      on his ceaseless application. "After I became a telegraph operator," he
      says, "I practiced for a long time to become a rapid reader of print, and
      got so expert I could sense the meaning of a whole line at once. This
      faculty, I believe, should be taught in schools, as it appears to be
      easily acquired. Then one can read two or three books in a day, whereas if
      each word at a time only is sensed, reading is laborious."
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER V
    </h2>
    <h3>
      ARDUOUS YEARS IN THE CENTRAL WEST
    </h3>
    <p>
      IN 1903, when accepting the position of honorary electrician to the
      International Exposition held in St. Louis in 1904, to commemorate the
      centenary of the Louisiana Purchase, Mr. Edison spoke in his letter of the
      Central West as a "region where as a young telegraph operator I spent many
      arduous years before moving East." The term of probation thus referred to
      did not end until 1868, and while it lasted Edison's wanderings carried
      him from Detroit to New Orleans, and took him, among other cities, to
      Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Memphis, some of which he
      visited twice in his peregrinations to secure work. From Canada, after the
      episodes noted in the last chapter, he went to Adrian, Michigan, and of
      what happened there Edison tells a story typical of his wanderings for
      several years to come. "After leaving my first job at Stratford Junction,
      I got a position as operator on the Lake Shore &amp; Michigan Southern at
      Adrian, Michigan, in the division superintendent's office. As usual, I
      took the 'night trick,' which most operators disliked, but which I
      preferred, as it gave me more leisure to experiment. I had obtained from
      the station agent a small room, and had established a little shop of my
      own. One day the day operator wanted to get off, and I was on duty. About
      9 o'clock the superintendent handed me a despatch which he said was very
      important, and which I must get off at once. The wire at the time was very
      busy, and I asked if I should break in. I got orders to do so, and acting
      under those orders of the superintendent, I broke in and tried to send the
      despatch; but the other operator would not permit it, and the struggle
      continued for ten minutes. Finally I got possession of the wire and sent
      the message. The superintendent of telegraph, who then lived in Adrian and
      went to his office in Toledo every day, happened that day to be in the
      Western Union office up-town&mdash;and it was the superintendent I was
      really struggling with! In about twenty minutes he arrived livid with
      rage, and I was discharged on the spot. I informed him that the general
      superintendent had told me to break in and send the despatch, but the
      general superintendent then and there repudiated the whole thing. Their
      families were socially close, so I was sacrificed. My faith in human
      nature got a slight jar."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison then went to Toledo and secured a position at Fort Wayne, on the
      Pittsburg, Fort Wayne &amp; Chicago Railroad, now leased to the
      Pennsylvania system. This was a "day job," and he did not like it. He
      drifted two months later to Indianapolis, arriving there in the fall of
      1864, when he was at first assigned to duty at the Union Station at a
      salary of $75 a month for the Western Union Telegraph Company, whose
      service he now entered, and with which he has been destined to maintain
      highly important and close relationships throughout a large part of his
      life. Superintendent Wallick appears to have treated him generously and to
      have loaned him instruments, a kindness that was greatly appreciated, for
      twenty years later the inventor called on his old employer, and together
      they visited the scene where the borrowed apparatus had been mounted on a
      rough board in the depot. Edison did not stay long in Indianapolis,
      however, resigning in February, 1865, and proceeding to Cincinnati. The
      transfer was possibly due to trouble caused by one of his early inventions
      embodying what has been characterized by an expert as "probably the most
      simple and ingenious arrangement of connections for a repeater." His
      ambition was to take "press report," but finding, even after considerable
      practice, that he "broke" frequently, he adjusted two embossing Morse
      registers&mdash;one to receive the press matter, and the other to repeat
      the dots and dashes at a lower speed, so that the message could be copied
      leisurely. Hence he could not be rushed or "broken" in receiving, while he
      could turn out "copy" that was a marvel of neatness and clearness. All was
      well so long as ordinary conditions prevailed, but when an unusual
      pressure occurred the little system fell behind, and the newspapers
      complained of the slowness with which reports were delivered to them. It
      is easy to understand that with matter received at a rate of forty words
      per minute and worked off at twenty-five words per minute a serious
      congestion or delay would result, and the newspapers were more anxious for
      the news than they were for fine penmanship.
    </p>
    <p>
      Of this device Mr. Edison remarks: "Together we took press for several
      nights, my companion keeping the apparatus in adjustment and I copying.
      The regular press operator would go to the theatre or take a nap, only
      finishing the report after 1 A.M. One of the newspapers complained of bad
      copy toward the end of the report&mdash;that, is from 1 to 3 A.M., and
      requested that the operator taking the report up to 1 A.M.&mdash;which was
      ourselves&mdash;take it all, as the copy then was perfectly
      unobjectionable. This led to an investigation by the manager, and the
      scheme was forbidden.
    </p>
    <p>
      "This instrument, many years afterward, was applied by me for transferring
      messages from one wire to any other wire simultaneously, or after any
      interval of time. It consisted of a disk of paper, the indentations being
      formed in a volute spiral, exactly as in the disk phonograph to-day. It
      was this instrument which gave me the idea of the phonograph while working
      on the telephone."
    </p>
    <p>
      Arrived in Cincinnati, where he got employment in the Western Union
      commercial telegraph department at a wage of $60 per month, Edison made
      the acquaintance of Milton F. Adams, already referred to as facile
      princeps the typical telegrapher in all his more sociable and brilliant
      aspects. Speaking of that time, Mr. Adams says: "I can well recall when
      Edison drifted in to take a job. He was a youth of about eighteen years,
      decidedly unprepossessing in dress and rather uncouth in manner. I was
      twenty-one, and very dudish. He was quite thin in those days, and his nose
      was very prominent, giving a Napoleonic look to his face, although the
      curious resemblance did not strike me at the time. The boys did not take
      to him cheerfully, and he was lonesome. I sympathized with him, and we
      became close companions. As an operator he had no superiors and very few
      equals. Most of the time he was monkeying with the batteries and circuits,
      and devising things to make the work of telegraphy less irksome. He also
      relieved the monotony of office-work by fitting up the battery circuits to
      play jokes on his fellow-operators, and to deal with the vermin that
      infested the premises. He arranged in the cellar what he called his 'rat
      paralyzer,' a very simple contrivance consisting of two plates insulated
      from each other and connected with the main battery. They were so placed
      that when a rat passed over them the fore feet on the one plate and the
      hind feet on the other completed the circuit and the rat departed this
      life, electrocuted."
    </p>
    <p>
      Shortly after Edison's arrival at Cincinnati came the close of the Civil
      War and the assassination of President Lincoln. It was natural that
      telegraphers should take an intense interest in the general struggle, for
      not only did they handle all the news relating to it, but many of them
      were at one time or another personal participants. For example, one of the
      operators in the Cincinnati office was George Ellsworth, who was
      telegrapher for Morgan, the famous Southern Guerrilla, and was with him
      when he made his raid into Ohio and was captured near the Pennsylvania
      line. Ellsworth himself made a narrow escape by swimming the Ohio River
      with the aid of an army mule. Yet we can well appreciate the
      unimpressionable way in which some of the men did their work, from an
      anecdote that Mr. Edison tells of that awful night of Friday, April 14,
      1865: "I noticed," he says, "an immense crowd gathering in the street
      outside a newspaper office. I called the attention of the other operators
      to the crowd, and we sent a messenger boy to find the cause of the
      excitement. He returned in a few minutes and shouted 'Lincoln's shot.'
      Instinctively the operators looked from one face to another to see which
      man had received the news. All the faces were blank, and every man said he
      had not taken a word about the shooting. 'Look over your files,' said the
      boss to the man handling the press stuff. For a few moments we waited in
      suspense, and then the man held up a sheet of paper containing a short
      account of the shooting of the President. The operator had worked so
      mechanically that he had handled the news without the slightest knowledge
      of its significance." Mr. Adams says that at the time the city was en fete
      on account of the close of the war, the name of the assassin was received
      by telegraph, and it was noted with a thrill of horror that it was that of
      a brother of Edwin Booth and of Junius Brutus Booth&mdash;the latter of
      whom was then playing at the old National Theatre. Booth was hurried away
      into seclusion, and the next morning the city that had been so gay over
      night with bunting was draped with mourning.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's diversions in Cincinnati were chiefly those already observed. He
      read a great deal, but spent most of his leisure in experiment. Mr. Adams
      remarks: "Edison and I were very fond of tragedy. Forrest and John
      McCullough were playing at the National Theatre, and when our capital was
      sufficient we would go to see those eminent tragedians alternate in
      Othello and Iago. Edison always enjoyed Othello greatly. Aside from an
      occasional visit to the Loewen Garden 'over the Rhine,' with a glass of
      beer and a few pretzels, consumed while listening to the excellent music
      of a German band, the theatre was the sum and substance of our innocent
      dissipation."
    </p>
    <p>
      The Cincinnati office, as a central point, appears to have been attractive
      to many of the clever young operators who graduated from it to positions
      of larger responsibility. Some of them were conspicuous for their skill
      and versatility. Mr. Adams tells this interesting story as an
      illustration: "L. C. Weir, or Charlie, as he was known, at that time agent
      for the Adams Express Company, had the remarkable ability of taking
      messages and copying them twenty-five words behind the sender. One day he
      came into the operating-room, and passing a table he heard Louisville
      calling Cincinnati. He reached over to the key and answered the call. My
      attention was arrested by the fact that he walked off after responding,
      and the sender happened to be a good one. Weir coolly asked for a pen, and
      when he sat down the sender was just one message ahead of him with date,
      address, and signature. Charlie started in, and in a beautiful, large,
      round hand copied that message. The sender went right along, and when he
      finished with six messages closed his key. When Weir had done with the
      last one the sender began to think that after all there had been no
      receiver, as Weir did not 'break,' but simply gave his O. K. He afterward
      became president of the Adams Express, and was certainly a wonderful
      operator." The operating-room referred to was on the fifth floor of the
      building with no elevators.
    </p>
    <p>
      Those were the early days of trade unionism in telegraphy, and the
      movement will probably never quite die out in the craft which has always
      shown so much solidarity. While Edison was in Cincinnati a delegation of
      five union operators went over from Cleveland to form a local branch, and
      the occasion was one of great conviviality. Night came, but the unionists
      were conspicuous by their absence, although more circuits than one were
      intolerant of delay and clamorous for attention&mdash;-eight local
      unionists being away. The Cleveland report wire was in special need, and
      Edison, almost alone in the office, devoted himself to it all through the
      night and until 3 o'clock the next morning, when he was relieved.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had previously been getting $80 a month, and had eked this out by
      copying plays for the theatre. His rating was that of a "plug" or inferior
      operator; but he was determined to lift himself into the class of
      first-class operators, and had kept up the practice of going to the office
      at night to "copy press," acting willingly as a substitute for any
      operator who wanted to get off for a few hours&mdash;which often meant all
      night. Speaking of this special ordeal, for which he had thus been
      unconsciously preparing, Edison says: "My copy looked fine if viewed as a
      whole, as I could write a perfectly straight line across the wide sheet,
      which was not ruled. There were no flourishes, but the individual letters
      would not bear close inspection. When I missed understanding a word, there
      was no time to think what it was, so I made an illegible one to fill in,
      trusting to the printers to sense it. I knew they could read anything,
      although Mr. Bloss, an editor of the Inquirer, made such bad copy that one
      of his editorials was pasted up on the notice-board in the telegraph
      office with an offer of one dollar to any man who could 'read twenty
      consecutive words.' Nobody ever did it. When I got through I was too
      nervous to go home, so waited the rest of the night for the day manager,
      Mr. Stevens, to see what was to be the outcome of this Union formation and
      of my efforts. He was an austere man, and I was afraid of him. I got the
      morning papers, which came out at 4 A. M., and the press report read
      perfectly, which surprised me greatly. I went to work on my regular day
      wire to Portsmouth, Ohio, and there was considerable excitement, but
      nothing was said to me, neither did Mr. Stevens examine the copy on the
      office hook, which I was watching with great interest. However, about 3 P.
      M. he went to the hook, grabbed the bunch and looked at it as a whole
      without examining it in detail, for which I was thankful. Then he jabbed
      it back on the hook, and I knew I was all right. He walked over to me, and
      said: 'Young man, I want you to work the Louisville wire nights; your
      salary will be $125.' Thus I got from the plug classification to that of a
      'first-class man.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      But no sooner was this promotion secured than he started again on his
      wanderings southward, while his friend Adams went North, neither having
      any difficulty in making the trip. "The boys in those days had
      extraordinary facilities for travel. As a usual thing it was only
      necessary for them to board a train and tell the conductor they were
      operators. Then they would go as far as they liked. The number of
      operators was small, and they were in demand everywhere." It was in this
      way Edison made his way south as far as Memphis, Tennessee, where the
      telegraph service at that time was under military law, although the
      operators received $125 a month. Here again Edison began to invent and
      improve on existing apparatus, with the result of having once more to
      "move on." The story may be told in his own terse language: "I was not the
      inventor of the auto repeater, but while in Memphis I worked on one.
      Learning that the chief operator, who was a protege of the superintendent,
      was trying in some way to put New York and New Orleans together for the
      first time since the close of the war, I redoubled my efforts, and at 2
      o'clock one morning I had them speaking to each other. The office of the
      Memphis Avalanche was in the same building. The paper got wind of it and
      sent messages. A column came out in the morning about it; but when I went
      to the office in the afternoon to report for duty I was discharged with
      out explanation. The superintendent would not even give me a pass to
      Nashville, so I had to pay my fare. I had so little money left that I
      nearly starved at Decatur, Alabama, and had to stay three days before
      going on north to Nashville. Arrived in that city, I went to the telegraph
      office, got money enough to buy a little solid food, and secured a pass to
      Louisville. I had a companion with me who was also out of a job. I arrived
      at Louisville on a bitterly cold day, with ice in the gutters. I was
      wearing a linen duster and was not much to look at, but got a position at
      once, working on a press wire. My travelling companion was less successful
      on account of his 'record.' They had a limit even in those days when the
      telegraph service was so demoralized."
    </p>
    <p>
      Some reminiscences of Mr. Edison are of interest as bearing not only upon
      the "demoralized" telegraph service, but the conditions from which the New
      South had to emerge while working out its salvation. "The telegraph was
      still under military control, not having been turned over to the original
      owners, the Southern Telegraph Company. In addition to the regular force,
      there was an extra force of two or three operators, and some stranded
      ones, who were a burden to us, for board was high. One of these derelicts
      was a great source of worry to me, personally. He would come in at all
      hours and either throw ink around or make a lot of noise. One night he
      built a fire in the grate and started to throw pistol cartridges into the
      flames. These would explode, and I was twice hit by the bullets, which
      left a black-and-blue mark. Another night he came in and got from some
      part of the building a lot of stationery with 'Confederate States' printed
      at the head. He was a fine operator, and wrote a beautiful hand. He would
      take a sheet of this paper, write capital 'A', and then take another sheet
      and make the 'A' differently; and so on through the alphabet; each time
      crumpling the paper up in his hand and throwing it on the floor. He would
      keep this up until the room was filled nearly flush with the table. Then
      he would quit.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Everything at that time was 'wide open.' Disorganization reigned supreme.
      There was no head to anything. At night myself and a companion would go
      over to a gorgeously furnished faro-bank and get our midnight lunch.
      Everything was free. There were over twenty keno-rooms running. One of
      them that I visited was in a Baptist church, the man with the wheel being
      in the pulpit, and the gamblers in the pews.
    </p>
    <p>
      "While there the manager of the telegraph office was arrested for
      something I never understood, and incarcerated in a military prison about
      half a mile from the office. The building was in plain sight from the
      office, and four stories high. He was kept strictly incommunicado. One
      day, thinking he might be confined in a room facing the office, I put my
      arm out of the window and kept signalling dots and dashes by the movement
      of the arm. I tried this several times for two days. Finally he noticed
      it, and putting his arm through the bars of the window he established
      communication with me. He thus sent several messages to his friends, and
      was afterward set free."
    </p>
    <p>
      Another curious story told by Edison concerns a fellow-operator on night
      duty at Chattanooga Junction, at the time he was at Memphis: "When it was
      reported that Hood was marching on Nashville, one night a Jew came into
      the office about 11 o'clock in great excitement, having heard the Hood
      rumor. He, being a large sutler, wanted to send a message to save his
      goods. The operator said it was impossible&mdash;that orders had been
      given to send no private messages. Then the Jew wanted to bribe my friend,
      who steadfastly refused for the reason, as he told the Jew, that he might
      be court-martialled and shot. Finally the Jew got up to $800. The operator
      swore him to secrecy and sent the message. Now there was no such order
      about private messages, and the Jew, finding it out, complained to Captain
      Van Duzer, chief of telegraphs, who investigated the matter, and while he
      would not discharge the operator, laid him off indefinitely. Van Duzer was
      so lenient that if an operator were discharged, all the operator had to do
      was to wait three days and then go and sit on the stoop of Van Duzer's
      office all day, and he would be taken back. But Van Duzer swore he would
      never give in in this case. He said that if the operator had taken $800
      and sent the message at the regular rate, which was twenty-five cents, it
      would have been all right, as the Jew would be punished for trying to
      bribe a military operator; but when the operator took the $800 and then
      sent the message deadhead, he couldn't stand it, and he would never
      relent."
    </p>
    <p>
      A third typical story of this period deals with a cipher message for
      Thomas. Mr. Edison narrates it as follows: "When I was an operator in
      Cincinnati working the Louisville wire nights for a time, one night a man
      over on the Pittsburg wire yelled out: 'D. I. cipher,' which meant that
      there was a cipher message from the War Department at Washington and that
      it was coming&mdash;and he yelled out 'Louisville.' I started immediately
      to call up that place. It was just at the change of shift in the office. I
      could not get Louisville, and the cipher message began to come. It was
      taken by the operator on the other table direct from the War Department.
      It was for General Thomas, at Nashville. I called for about twenty minutes
      and notified them that I could not get Louisville. I kept at it for about
      fifteen minutes longer, and notified them that there was still no answer
      from Louisville. They then notified the War Department that they could not
      get Louisville. Then we tried to get it by all kinds of roundabout ways,
      but in no case could anybody get them at that office. Soon a message came
      from the War Department to send immediately for the manager of the
      Cincinnati office. He was brought to the office and several messages were
      exchanged, the contents of which, of course, I did not know, but the
      matter appeared to be very serious, as they were afraid of General Hood,
      of the Confederate Army, who was then attempting to march on Nashville;
      and it was very important that this cipher of about twelve hundred words
      or so should be got through immediately to General Thomas. I kept on
      calling up to 12 or 1 o'clock, but no Louisville. About 1 o'clock the
      operator at the Indianapolis office got hold of an operator on a wire
      which ran from Indianapolis to Louisville along the railroad, who happened
      to come into his office. He arranged with this operator to get a relay of
      horses, and the message was sent through Indianapolis to this operator who
      had engaged horses to carry the despatches to Louisville and find out the
      trouble, and get the despatches through without delay to General Thomas.
      In those days the telegraph fraternity was rather demoralized, and the
      discipline was very lax. It was found out a couple of days afterward that
      there were three night operators at Louisville. One of them had gone over
      to Jeffersonville and had fallen off a horse and broken his leg, and was
      in a hospital. By a remarkable coincidence another of the men had been
      stabbed in a keno-room, and was also in hospital while the third operator
      had gone to Cynthiana to see a man hanged and had got left by the train."
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     I think the most important line of
     investigation is the production of
     Electricity direct from carbon.
     Edison
</pre>
    <p>
      Young Edison remained in Louisville for about two years, quite a long stay
      for one with such nomadic instincts. It was there that he perfected the
      peculiar vertical style of writing which, beginning with him in
      telegraphy, later became so much of a fad with teachers of penmanship and
      in the schools. He says of this form of writing, a current example of
      which is given above: "I developed this style in Louisville while taking
      press reports. My wire was connected to the 'blind' side of a repeater at
      Cincinnati, so that if I missed a word or sentence, or if the wire worked
      badly, I could not break in and get the last words, because the Cincinnati
      man had no instrument by which he could hear me. I had to take what came.
      When I got the job, the cable across the Ohio River at Covington,
      connecting with the line to Louisville, had a variable leak in it, which
      caused the strength of the signalling current to make violent
      fluctuations. I obviated this by using several relays, each with a
      different adjustment, working several sounders all connected with one
      sounding-plate. The clatter was bad, but I could read it with fair ease.
      When, in addition to this infernal leak, the wires north to Cleveland
      worked badly, it required a large amount of imagination to get the sense
      of what was being sent. An imagination requires an appreciable time for
      its exercise, and as the stuff was coming at the rate of thirty-five to
      forty words a minute, it was very difficult to write down what was coming
      and imagine what wasn't coming. Hence it was necessary to become a very
      rapid writer, so I started to find the fastest style. I found that the
      vertical style, with each letter separate and without any flourishes, was
      the most rapid, and that the smaller the letter the greater the rapidity.
      As I took on an average from eight to fifteen columns of news report every
      day, it did not take long to perfect this method." Mr. Edison has adhered
      to this characteristic style of penmanship down to the present time.
    </p>
    <p>
      As a matter of fact, the conditions at Louisville at that time were not
      much better than they had been at Memphis. The telegraph operating-room
      was in a deplorable condition. It was on the second story of a dilapidated
      building on the principal street of the city, with the battery-room in the
      rear; behind which was the office of the agent of the Associated Press.
      The plastering was about one-third gone from the ceiling. A small stove,
      used occasionally in the winter, was connected to the chimney by a
      tortuous pipe. The office was never cleaned. The switchboard for
      manipulating the wires was about thirty-four inches square. The brass
      connections on it were black with age and with the arcing effects of
      lightning, which, to young Edison, seemed particularly partial to
      Louisville. "It would strike on the wires," he says, "with an explosion
      like a cannon-shot, making that office no place for an operator with
      heart-disease." Around the dingy walls were a dozen tables, the ends next
      to the wall. They were about the size of those seen in old-fashioned
      country hotels for holding the wash-bowl and pitcher. The copper wires
      connecting the instruments to the switchboard were small, crystallized,
      and rotten. The battery-room was filled with old record-books and message
      bundles, and one hundred cells of nitric-acid battery, arranged on a stand
      in the centre of the room. This stand, as well as the floor, was almost
      eaten through by the destructive action of the powerful acid. Grim and
      uncompromising as the description reads, it was typical of the equipment
      in those remote days of the telegraph at the close of the war.
    </p>
    <p>
      Illustrative of the length to which telegraphers could go at a time when
      they were so much in demand, Edison tells the following story: "When I
      took the position there was a great shortage of operators. One night at 2
      A.M. another operator and I were on duty. I was taking press report, and
      the other man was working the New York wire. We heard a heavy tramp,
      tramp, tramp on the rickety stairs. Suddenly the door was thrown open with
      great violence, dislodging it from one of the hinges. There appeared in
      the doorway one of the best operators we had, who worked daytime, and who
      was of a very quiet disposition except when intoxicated. He was a great
      friend of the manager of the office. His eyes were bloodshot and wild, and
      one sleeve had been torn away from his coat. Without noticing either of us
      he went up to the stove and kicked it over. The stove-pipe fell,
      dislocated at every joint. It was half full of exceedingly fine soot,
      which floated out and filled the room completely. This produced a
      momentary respite to his labors. When the atmosphere had cleared
      sufficiently to see, he went around and pulled every table away from the
      wall, piling them on top of the stove in the middle of the room. Then he
      proceeded to pull the switchboard away from the wall. It was held tightly
      by screws. He succeeded, finally, and when it gave way he fell with the
      board, and striking on a table cut himself so that he soon became covered
      with blood. He then went to the battery-room and knocked all the batteries
      off on the floor. The nitric acid soon began to combine with the plaster
      in the room below, which was the public receiving-room for messengers and
      bookkeepers. The excess acid poured through and ate up the account-books.
      After having finished everything to his satisfaction, he left. I told the
      other operator to do nothing. We would leave things just as they were, and
      wait until the manager came. In the mean time, as I knew all the wires
      coming through to the switchboard, I rigged up a temporary set of
      instruments so that the New York business could be cleared up, and we also
      got the remainder of the press matter. At 7 o'clock the day men began to
      appear. They were told to go down-stairs and wait the coming of the
      manager. At 8 o'clock he appeared, walked around, went into the
      battery-room, and then came to me, saying: 'Edison, who did this?' I told
      him that Billy L. had come in full of soda-water and invented the ruin
      before him. He walked backward and forward, about a minute, then coming up
      to my table put his fist down, and said: 'If Billy L. ever does that
      again, I will discharge him.' It was needless to say that there were other
      operators who took advantage of that kind of discipline, and I had many
      calls at night after that, but none with such destructive effects."
    </p>
    <p>
      This was one aspect of life as it presented itself to the sensitive and
      observant young operator in Louisville. But there was another, more
      intellectual side, in the contact afforded with journalism and its
      leaders, and the information taken in almost unconsciously as to the
      political and social movements of the time. Mr. Edison looks back on this
      with great satisfaction. "I remember," he says, "the discussions between
      the celebrated poet and journalist George D. Prentice, then editor of the
      Courier-Journal, and Mr. Tyler, of the Associated Press. I believe
      Prentice was the father of the humorous paragraph of the American
      newspaper. He was poetic, highly educated, and a brilliant talker. He was
      very thin and small. I do not think he weighed over one hundred and twenty
      five pounds. Tyler was a graduate of Harvard, and had a very clear
      enunciation, and, in sharp contrast to Prentice, he was a large man. After
      the paper had gone to press, Prentice would generally come over to Tyler's
      office and start talking. Having while in Tyler's office heard them
      arguing on the immortality of the soul, etc., I asked permission of Mr.
      Tyler if, after finishing the press matter, I might come in and listen to
      the conversation, which I did many times after. One thing I never could
      comprehend was that Tyler had a sideboard with liquors and generally
      crackers. Prentice would pour out half a glass of what they call corn
      whiskey, and would dip the crackers in it and eat them. Tyler took it sans
      food. One teaspoonful of that stuff would put me to sleep."
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Edison throws also a curious side-light on the origin of the comic
      column in the modern American newspaper, the telegraph giving to a new
      joke or a good story the ubiquity and instantaneity of an important
      historical event. "It was the practice of the press operators all over the
      country at that time, when a lull occurred, to start in and send jokes or
      stories the day men had collected; and these were copied and pasted up on
      the bulletin-board. Cleveland was the originating office for 'press,'
      which it received from New York, and sent it out simultaneously to
      Milwaukee, Chicago, Toledo, Detroit, Pittsburg, Columbus, Dayton,
      Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Vincennes, Terre Haute, St. Louis, and
      Louisville. Cleveland would call first on Milwaukee, if he had anything.
      If so, he would send it, and Cleveland would repeat it to all of us. Thus
      any joke or story originating anywhere in that area was known the next day
      all over. The press men would come in and copy anything which could be
      published, which was about three per cent. I collected, too, quite a large
      scrap-book of it, but unfortunately have lost it."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison tells an amusing story of his own pursuits at this time. Always an
      omnivorous reader, he had some difficulty in getting a sufficient quantity
      of literature for home consumption, and was in the habit of buying books
      at auctions and second-hand stores. One day at an auction-room he secured
      a stack of twenty unbound volumes of the North American Review for two
      dollars. These he had bound and delivered at the telegraph office. One
      morning, when he was free as usual at 3 o'clock, he started off at a rapid
      pace with ten volumes on his shoulder. He found himself very soon the
      subject of a fusillade. When he stopped, a breathless policeman grabbed
      him by the throat and ordered him to drop his parcel and explain matters,
      as a suspicious character. He opened the package showing the books,
      somewhat to the disgust of the officer, who imagined he had caught a
      burglar sneaking away in the dark alley with his booty. Edison explained
      that being deaf he had heard no challenge, and therefore had kept moving;
      and the policeman remarked apologetically that it was fortunate for Edison
      he was not a better shot.
    </p>
    <p>
      The incident is curiously revelatory of the character of the man, for it
      must be admitted that while literary telegraphers are by no means scarce,
      there are very few who would spend scant savings on back numbers of a
      ponderous review at an age when tragedy, beer, and pretzels are far more
      enticing. Through all his travels Edison has preserved those books, and
      has them now in his library at Llewellyn Park, on Orange Mountain, New
      Jersey.
    </p>
    <p>
      Drifting after a time from Louisville, Edison made his way as far north as
      Detroit, but, like the famous Duke of York, soon made his way back again.
      Possibly the severer discipline after the happy-go-lucky regime in the
      Southern city had something to do with this restlessness, which again
      manifested itself, however, on his return thither. The end of the war had
      left the South a scene of destruction and desolation, and many men who had
      fought bravely and well found it hard to reconcile themselves to the grim
      task of reconstruction. To them it seemed better to "let ill alone" and
      seek some other clime where conditions would be less onerous. At this
      moment a great deal of exaggerated talk was current as to the sunny life
      and easy wealth of Latin America, and under its influences many
      "unreconstructed" Southerners made their way to Mexico, Brazil, Peru, or
      the Argentine. Telegraph operators were naturally in touch with this
      movement, and Edison's fertile imagination was readily inflamed by the
      glowing idea of all these vague possibilities. Again he threw up his
      steady work and, with a couple of sanguine young friends, made his way to
      New Orleans. They had the notion of taking positions in the Brazilian
      Government telegraphs, as an advertisement had been inserted in some paper
      stating that operators were wanted. They had timed their departure from
      Louisville so as to catch a specially chartered steamer, which was to
      leave New Orleans for Brazil on a certain day, to convey a large number of
      Confederates and their families, who were disgusted with the United States
      and were going to settle in Brazil, where slavery still prevailed. Edison
      and his friends arrived in New Orleans just at the time of the great riot,
      when several hundred negroes were killed, and the city was in the hands of
      a mob. The Government had seized the steamer chartered for Brazil, in
      order to bring troops from the Yazoo River to New Orleans to stop the
      rioting. The young operators therefore visited another shipping-office to
      make inquiries as to vessels for Brazil, and encountered an old Spaniard
      who sat in a chair near the steamer agent's desk, and to whom they
      explained their intentions. He had lived and worked in South America, and
      was very emphatic in his assertion, as he shook his yellow, bony finger at
      them, that the worst mistake they could possibly make would be to leave
      the United States. He would not leave on any account, and they as young
      Americans would always regret it if they forsook their native land, whose
      freedom, climate, and opportunities could not be equalled anywhere on the
      face of the globe. Such sincere advice as this could not be disdained, and
      Edison made his way North again. One cannot resist speculation as to what
      might have happened to Edison himself and to the development of
      electricity had he made this proposed plunge into the enervating tropics.
      It will be remembered that at a somewhat similar crisis in life young
      Robert Burns entertained seriously the idea of forsaking Scotland for the
      West Indies. That he did not go was certainly better for Scottish verse,
      to which he contributed later so many immortal lines; and it was probably
      better for himself, even if he died a gauger. It is simply impossible to
      imagine Edison working out the phonograph, telephone, and incandescent
      lamp under the tropical climes he sought. Some years later he was informed
      that both his companions had gone to Vera Cruz, Mexico, and had died there
      of yellow fever.
    </p>
    <p>
      Work was soon resumed at Louisville, where the dilapidated old office
      occupied at the close of the war had been exchanged for one much more
      comfortable and luxurious in its equipment. As before, Edison was allotted
      to press report, and remembers very distinctly taking the Presidential
      message and veto of the District of Columbia bill by President Johnson. As
      the matter was received over the wire he paragraphed it so that each
      printer had exactly three lines, thus enabling the matter to be set up
      very expeditiously in the newspaper offices. This earned him the gratitude
      of the editors, a dinner, and all the newspaper "exchanges" he wanted.
      Edison's accounts of the sprees and debauches of other night operators in
      the loosely managed offices enable one to understand how even a little
      steady application to the work in hand would be appreciated. On one
      occasion Edison acted as treasurer for his bibulous companions, holding
      the stakes, so to speak, in order that the supply of liquor might last
      longer. One of the mildest mannered of the party took umbrage at the
      parsimony of the treasurer and knocked him down, whereupon the others in
      the party set upon the assailant and mauled him so badly that he had to
      spend three weeks in hospital. At another time two of his companions
      sharing the temporary hospitality of his room smashed most of the
      furniture, and went to bed with their boots on. Then his kindly
      good-nature rebelled. "I felt that this was running hospitality into the
      ground, so I pulled them out and left them on the floor to cool off from
      their alcoholic trance."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison seems on the whole to have been fairly comfortable and happy in
      Louisville, surrounding himself with books and experimental apparatus, and
      even inditing a treatise on electricity. But his very thirst for knowledge
      and new facts again proved his undoing. The instruments in the handsome
      new offices were fastened in their proper places, and operators were
      strictly forbidden to remove them, or to use the batteries except on
      regular work. This prohibition meant little to Edison, who had access to
      no other instruments except those of the company. "I went one night," he
      says, "into the battery-room to obtain some sulphuric acid for
      experimenting. The carboy tipped over, the acid ran out, went through to
      the manager's room below, and ate up his desk and all the carpet. The next
      morning I was summoned before him, and told that what the company wanted
      was operators, not experimenters. I was at liberty to take my pay and get
      out."
    </p>
    <p>
      The fact that Edison is a very studious man, an insatiate lover and reader
      of books, is well known to his associates; but surprise is often expressed
      at his fund of miscellaneous information. This, it will be seen, is partly
      explained by his work for years as a "press" reporter. He says of this:
      "The second time I was in Louisville, they had moved into a new office,
      and the discipline was now good. I took the press job. In fact, I was a
      very poor sender, and therefore made the taking of press report a
      specialty. The newspaper men allowed me to come over after going to press
      at 3 A.M. and get all the exchanges I wanted. These I would take home and
      lay at the foot of my bed. I never slept more than four or five hours' so
      that I would awake at nine or ten and read these papers until dinner-time.
      I thus kept posted, and knew from their activity every member of Congress,
      and what committees they were on; and all about the topical doings, as
      well as the prices of breadstuffs in all the primary markets. I was in a
      much better position than most operators to call on my imagination to
      supply missing words or sentences, which were frequent in those days of
      old, rotten wires, badly insulated, especially on stormy nights. Upon such
      occasions I had to supply in some cases one-fifth of the whole matter&mdash;pure
      guessing&mdash;but I got caught only once. There had been some kind of
      convention in Virginia, in which John Minor Botts was the leading figure.
      There was great excitement about it, and two votes had been taken in the
      convention on the two days. There was no doubt that the vote the next day
      would go a certain way. A very bad storm came up about 10 o'clock, and my
      wire worked very badly. Then there was a cessation of all signals; then I
      made out the words 'Minor Botts.' The next was a New York item. I filled
      in a paragraph about the convention and how the vote had gone, as I was
      sure it would. But next day I learned that instead of there being a vote
      the convention had adjourned without action until the day after." In like
      manner, it was at Louisville that Mr. Edison got an insight into the
      manner in which great political speeches are more frequently reported than
      the public suspects. "The Associated Press had a shorthand man travelling
      with President Johnson when he made his celebrated swing around the circle
      in a private train delivering hot speeches in defence of his conduct. The
      man engaged me to write out the notes from his reading. He came in loaded
      and on the verge of incoherence. We started in, but about every two
      minutes I would have to scratch out whole paragraphs and insert the same
      things said in another and better way. He would frequently change words,
      always to the betterment of the speech. I couldn't understand this, and
      when he got through, and I had copied about three columns, I asked him why
      those changes, if he read from notes. 'Sonny,' he said, 'if these
      politicians had their speeches published as they deliver them, a great
      many shorthand writers would be out of a job. The best shorthanders and
      the holders of good positions are those who can take a lot of rambling,
      incoherent stuff and make a rattling good speech out of it.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      Going back to Cincinnati and beginning his second term there as an
      operator, Edison found the office in new quarters and with greatly
      improved management. He was again put on night duty, much to his
      satisfaction. He rented a room in the top floor of an office building,
      bought a cot and an oil-stove, a foot lathe, and some tools. He cultivated
      the acquaintance of Mr. Sommers, superintendent of telegraph of the
      Cincinnati &amp; Indianapolis Railroad, who gave him permission to take
      such scrap apparatus as he might desire, that was of no use to the
      company. With Sommers on one occasion he had an opportunity to indulge his
      always strong sense of humor. "Sommers was a very witty man," he says,
      "and fond of experimenting. We worked on a self-adjusting telegraph relay,
      which would have been very valuable if we could have got it. I soon became
      the possessor of a second-hand Ruhmkorff induction coil, which, although
      it would only give a small spark, would twist the arms and clutch the
      hands of a man so that he could not let go of the apparatus. One day we
      went down to the round-house of the Cincinnati &amp; Indianapolis Railroad
      and connected up the long wash-tank in the room with the coil, one
      electrode being connected to earth. Above this wash-room was a flat roof.
      We bored a hole through the roof, and could see the men as they came in.
      The first man as he entered dipped his hands in the water. The floor being
      wet he formed a circuit, and up went his hands. He tried it the second
      time, with the same result. He then stood against the wall with a puzzled
      expression. We surmised that he was waiting for somebody else to come in,
      which occurred shortly after&mdash;with the same result. Then they went
      out, and the place was soon crowded, and there was considerable
      excitement. Various theories were broached to explain the curious
      phenomenon. We enjoyed the sport immensely." It must be remembered that
      this was over forty years ago, when there was no popular instruction in
      electricity, and when its possibilities for practical joking were known to
      very few. To-day such a crowd of working-men would be sure to include at
      least one student of a night school or correspondence course who would
      explain the mystery offhand.
    </p>
    <p>
      Note has been made of the presence of Ellsworth in the Cincinnati office,
      and his service with the Confederate guerrilla Morgan, for whom he tapped
      Federal wires, read military messages, sent false ones, and did serious
      mischief generally. It is well known that one operator can recognize
      another by the way in which he makes his signals&mdash;it is his style of
      handwriting. Ellsworth possessed in a remarkable degree the skill of
      imitating these peculiarities, and thus he deceived the Union operators
      easily. Edison says that while apparently a quiet man in bearing,
      Ellsworth, after the excitement of fighting, found the tameness of a
      telegraph office obnoxious, and that he became a bad "gun man" in the
      Panhandle of Texas, where he was killed. "We soon became acquainted," says
      Edison of this period in Cincinnati, "and he wanted me to invent a secret
      method of sending despatches so that an intermediate operator could not
      tap the wire and understand it. He said that if it could be accomplished,
      he could sell it to the Government for a large sum of money. This suited
      me, and I started in and succeeded in making such an instrument, which had
      in it the germ of my quadruplex now used throughout the world, permitting
      the despatch of four messages over one wire simultaneously. By the time I
      had succeeded in getting the apparatus to work, Ellsworth suddenly
      disappeared. Many years afterward I used this little device again for the
      same purpose. At Menlo Park, New Jersey, I had my laboratory. There were
      several Western Union wires cut into the laboratory, and used by me in
      experimenting at night. One day I sat near an instrument which I had left
      connected during the night. I soon found it was a private wire between New
      York and Philadelphia, and I heard among a lot of stuff a message that
      surprised me. A week after that I had occasion to go to New York, and,
      visiting the office of the lessee of the wire, I asked him if he hadn't
      sent such and such a message. The expression that came over his face was a
      sight. He asked me how I knew of any message. I told him the
      circumstances, and suggested that he had better cipher such
      communications, or put on a secret sounder. The result of the interview
      was that I installed for him my old Cincinnati apparatus, which was used
      thereafter for many years."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison did not make a very long stay in Cincinnati this time, but went
      home after a while to Port Huron. Soon tiring of idleness and isolation he
      sent "a cry from Macedonia" to his old friend "Milt" Adams, who was in
      Boston, and whom he wished to rejoin if he could get work promptly in the
      East.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison himself gives the details of this eventful move, when he went East
      to grow up with the new art of electricity. "I had left Louisville the
      second time, and went home to see my parents. After stopping at home for
      some time, I got restless, and thought I would like to work in the East.
      Knowing that a former operator named Adams, who had worked with me in the
      Cincinnati office, was in Boston, I wrote him that I wanted a job there.
      He wrote back that if I came on immediately he could get me in the Western
      Union office. I had helped out the Grand Trunk Railroad telegraph people
      by a new device when they lost one of the two submarine cables they had
      across the river, making the remaining cable act just as well for their
      purpose, as if they had two. I thought I was entitled to a pass, which
      they conceded; and I started for Boston. After leaving Toronto a terrific
      blizzard came up and the train got snowed under in a cut. After staying
      there twenty-four hours, the trainmen made snowshoes of fence-rail splints
      and started out to find food, which they did about a half mile away. They
      found a roadside inn, and by means of snowshoes all the passengers were
      taken to the inn. The train reached Montreal four days late. A number of
      the passengers and myself went to the military headquarters to testify in
      favor of a soldier who was on furlough, and was two days late, which was a
      serious matter with military people, I learned. We willingly did this, for
      this soldier was a great story-teller, and made the time pass quickly. I
      met here a telegraph operator named Stanton, who took me to his
      boarding-house, the most cheerless I have ever been in. Nobody got enough
      to eat; the bedclothes were too short and too thin; it was 28 degrees
      below zero, and the wash-water was frozen solid. The board was cheap,
      being only $1.50 per week.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Stanton said that the usual live-stock accompaniment of operators'
      boarding-houses was absent; he thought the intense cold had caused them to
      hibernate. Stanton, when I was working in Cincinnati, left his position
      and went out on the Union Pacific to work at Julesburg, which was a cattle
      town at that time and very tough. I remember seeing him off on the train,
      never expecting to see him again. Six months afterward, while working
      press wire in Cincinnati, about 2 A.M., there was flung into the middle of
      the operating-room a large tin box. It made a report like a pistol, and we
      all jumped up startled. In walked Stanton. 'Gentlemen,' he said 'I have
      just returned from a pleasure trip to the land beyond the Mississippi. All
      my wealth is contained in my metallic travelling case and you are welcome
      to it.' The case contained one paper collar. He sat down, and I noticed
      that he had a woollen comforter around his neck with his coat buttoned
      closely. The night was intensely warm. He then opened his coat and
      revealed the fact that he had nothing but the bare skin. 'Gentlemen,' said
      he, 'you see before you an operator who has reached the limit of
      impecuniosity.'" Not far from the limit of impecuniosity was Edison
      himself, as he landed in Boston in 1868 after this wintry ordeal.
    </p>
    <p>
      This chapter has run to undue length, but it must not close without one
      citation from high authority as to the service of the military telegraph
      corps so often referred to in it. General Grant in his Memoirs, describing
      the movements of the Army of the Potomac, lays stress on the service of
      his telegraph operators, and says: "Nothing could be more complete than
      the organization and discipline of this body of brave and intelligent men.
      Insulated wires were wound upon reels, two men and a mule detailed to each
      reel. The pack-saddle was provided with a rack like a sawbuck, placed
      crosswise, so that the wheel would revolve freely; there was a wagon
      provided with a telegraph operator, battery, and instruments for each
      division corps and army, and for my headquarters. Wagons were also loaded
      with light poles supplied with an iron spike at each end to hold the wires
      up. The moment troops were in position to go into camp, the men would put
      up their wires. Thus in a few minutes' longer time than it took a mule to
      walk the length of its coil, telegraphic communication would be effected
      between all the headquarters of the army. No orders ever had to be given
      to establish the telegraph."
    </p>
    <p>
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VI
    </h2>
    <h3>
      WORK AND INVENTION IN BOSTON
    </h3>
    <p>
      MILTON ADAMS was working in the office of the Franklin Telegraph Company
      in Boston when he received Edison's appeal from Port Huron, and with
      characteristic impetuosity at once made it his business to secure a
      position for his friend. There was no opening in the Franklin office, so
      Adams went over to the Western Union office, and asked the manager, Mr.
      George F. Milliken, if he did not want an operator who, like young
      Lochinvar, came out of the West. "What kind of copy does he make?" was the
      cautious response. "I passed Edison's letter through the window for his
      inspection. Milliken read it, and a look of surprise came over his
      countenance as he asked me if he could take it off the line like that. I
      said he certainly could, and that there was nobody who could stick him.
      Milliken said that if he was that kind of an operator I could send for
      him, and I wrote to Edison to come on, as I had a job for him in the main
      office of the Western Union." Meantime Edison had secured his pass over
      the Grand Trunk Railroad, and spent four days and nights on the journey,
      suffering extremes of cold and hunger. Franklin's arrival in Philadelphia
      finds its parallel in the very modest debut of Adams's friend in Boston.
    </p>
    <p>
      It took only five minutes for Edison to get the "job," for Superintendent
      Milliken, a fine type of telegraph official, saw quickly through the
      superficialities, and realized that it was no ordinary young operator he
      was engaging. Edison himself tells the story of what happened. "The
      manager asked me when I was ready to go to work. 'Now,' I replied I was
      then told to return at 5.30 P.M., and punctually at that hour I entered
      the main operating-room and was introduced to the night manager. The
      weather being cold, and being clothed poorly, my peculiar appearance
      caused much mirth, and, as I afterward learned, the night operators had
      consulted together how they might 'put up a job on the jay from the woolly
      West.' I was given a pen and assigned to the New York No. 1 wire. After
      waiting an hour, I was told to come over to a special table and take a
      special report for the Boston Herald, the conspirators having arranged to
      have one of the fastest senders in New York send the despatch and 'salt'
      the new man. I sat down unsuspiciously at the table, and the New York man
      started slowly. Soon he increased his speed, to which I easily adapted my
      pace. This put my rival on his mettle, and he put on his best powers,
      which, however, were soon reached. At this point I happened to look up,
      and saw the operators all looking over my shoulder, with their faces
      shining with fun and excitement. I knew then that they were trying to put
      up a job on me, but kept my own counsel. The New York man then commenced
      to slur over his words, running them together and sticking the signals;
      but I had been used to this style of telegraphy in taking report, and was
      not in the least discomfited. Finally, when I thought the fun had gone far
      enough, and having about completed the special, I quietly opened the key
      and remarked, telegraphically, to my New York friend: 'Say, young man,
      change off and send with your other foot.' This broke the New York man all
      up, and he turned the job over to another man to finish."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison had a distaste for taking press report, due to the fact that it was
      steady, continuous work, and interfered with the studies and
      investigations that could be carried on in the intervals of ordinary
      commercial telegraphy. He was not lazy in any sense. While he had no very
      lively interest in the mere routine work of a telegraph office, he had the
      profoundest curiosity as to the underlying principles of electricity that
      made telegraphy possible, and he had an unflagging desire and belief in
      his own ability to improve the apparatus he handled daily. The whole
      intellectual atmosphere of Boston was favorable to the development of the
      brooding genius in this shy, awkward, studious youth, utterly indifferent
      to clothes and personal appearance, but ready to spend his last dollar on
      books and scientific paraphernalia. It is matter of record that he did
      once buy a new suit for thirty dollars in Boston, but the following
      Sunday, while experimenting with acids in his little workshop, the suit
      was spoiled. "That is what I get for putting so much money in a new suit,"
      was the laconic remark of the youth, who was more than delighted to pick
      up a complete set of Faraday's works about the same time. Adams says that
      when Edison brought home these books at 4 A.M. he read steadily until
      breakfast-time, and then he remarked, enthusiastically: "Adams, I have got
      so much to do and life is so short, I am going to hustle." And thereupon
      he started on a run for breakfast. Edison himself says: "It was in Boston
      I bought Faraday's works. I think I must have tried about everything in
      those books. His explanations were simple. He used no mathematics. He was
      the Master Experimenter. I don't think there were many copies of Faraday's
      works sold in those days. The only people who did anything in electricity
      were the telegraphers and the opticians making simple school apparatus to
      demonstrate the principles." One of these firms was Palmer &amp; Hall,
      whose catalogue of 1850 showed a miniature electric locomotive made by Mr.
      Thomas Hall, and exhibited in operation the following year at the
      Charitable Mechanics' Fair in Boston. In 1852 Mr. Hall made for a Dr. A.
      L. Henderson, of Buffalo, New York, a model line of railroad with
      electric-motor engine, telegraph line, and electric railroad signals,
      together with a figure operating the signals at each end of the line
      automatically. This was in reality the first example of railroad trains
      moved by telegraph signals, a practice now so common and universal as to
      attract no comment. To show how little some fundamental methods can change
      in fifty years, it may be noted that Hall conveyed the current to his tiny
      car through forty feet of rail, using the rail as conductor, just as
      Edison did more than thirty years later in his historic experiments for
      Villard at Menlo Park; and just as a large proportion of American trolley
      systems do at this present moment.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was among such practical, investigating folk as these that Edison was
      very much at home. Another notable man of this stamp, with whom Edison was
      thrown in contact, was the late Mr. Charles Williams, who, beginning his
      career in the electrical field in the forties, was at the height of
      activity as a maker of apparatus when Edison arrived in the city; and who
      afterward, as an associate of Alexander Graham Bell, enjoyed the
      distinction of being the first manufacturer in the world of telephones. At
      his Court Street workshop Edison was a frequent visitor. Telegraph repairs
      and experiments were going on constantly, especially on the early
      fire-alarm telegraphs [1] of Farmer and Gamewell, and with the aid of one
      of the men there&mdash;probably George Anders&mdash;Edison worked out into
      an operative model his first invention, a vote-recorder, the first Edison
      patent, for which papers were executed on October 11, 1868, and which was
      taken out June 1, 1869, No. 90,646. The purpose of this particular device
      was to permit a vote in the National House of Representatives to be taken
      in a minute or so, complete lists being furnished of all members voting on
      the two sides of any question Mr. Edison, in recalling the circumstances,
      says: "Roberts was the telegraph operator who was the financial backer to
      the extent of $100. The invention when completed was taken to Washington.
      I think it was exhibited before a committee that had something to do with
      the Capitol. The chairman of the committee, after seeing how quickly and
      perfectly it worked, said: 'Young man, if there is any invention on earth
      that we don't want down here, it is this. One of the greatest weapons in
      the hands of a minority to prevent bad legislation is filibustering on
      votes, and this instrument would prevent it.' I saw the truth of this,
      because as press operator I had taken miles of Congressional proceedings,
      and to this day an enormous amount of time is wasted during each session
      of the House in foolishly calling the members' names and recording and
      then adding their votes, when the whole operation could be done in almost
      a moment by merely pressing a particular button at each desk. For
      filibustering purposes, however, the present methods are most admirable."
      Edison determined from that time forth to devote his inventive faculties
      only to things for which there was a real, genuine demand, something that
      subserved the actual necessities of humanity. This first patent was taken
      out for him by the late Hon. Carroll D. Wright, afterward U. S.
      Commissioner of Labor, and a well-known publicist, then practicing patent
      law in Boston. He describes Edison as uncouth in manner, a chewer rather
      than a smoker of tobacco, but full of intelligence and ideas.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 1: The general scheme of a fire-alarm telegraph
     system embodies a central office to which notice can be sent
     from any number of signal boxes of the outbreak of a fire in
     the district covered by the box, the central office in turn
     calling out the nearest fire engines, and warning the fire
     department in general of the occurrence. Such fire alarms
     can be exchanged automatically, or by operators, and are
     sometimes associated with a large fire-alarm bell or
     whistle. Some boxes can be operated by the passing public;
     others need special keys. The box mechanism is usually of
     the ratchet, step-by-step movement, familiar in district
     messenger call-boxes.]
</pre>
    <p>
      Edison's curiously practical, though imaginative, mind demanded realities
      to work upon, things that belong to "human nature's daily food," and he
      soon harked back to telegraphy, a domain in which he was destined to
      succeed, and over which he was to reign supreme as an inventor. He did
      not, however, neglect chemistry, but indulged his tastes in that direction
      freely, although we have no record that this work was anything more, at
      that time, than the carrying out of experiments outlined in the books. The
      foundations were being laid for the remarkable chemical knowledge that
      later on grappled successfully with so many knotty problems in the realm
      of chemistry; notably with the incandescent lamp and the storage battery.
      Of one incident in his chemical experiments he tells the following story:
      "I had read in a scientific paper the method of making nitroglycerine, and
      was so fired by the wonderful properties it was said to possess, that I
      determined to make some of the compound. We tested what we considered a
      very small quantity, but this produced such terrible and unexpected
      results that we became alarmed, the fact dawning upon us that we had a
      very large white elephant in our possession. At 6 A.M. I put the explosive
      into a sarsaparilla bottle, tied a string to it, wrapped it in a paper,
      and gently let it down into the sewer, corner of State and Washington
      Streets." The associate in this was a man whom he had found endeavoring to
      make electrical apparatus for sleight-of-hand performances.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the Boston telegraph office at that time, as perhaps at others, there
      were operators studying to enter college; possibly some were already in
      attendance at Harvard University. This condition was not unusual at one
      time; the first electrical engineer graduated from Columbia University,
      New York, followed up his studies while a night operator, and came out
      brilliantly at the head of his class. Edison says of these scholars that
      they paraded their knowledge rather freely, and that it was his delight to
      go to the second-hand book stores on Cornhill and study up questions which
      he could spring upon them when he got an occasion. With those engaged on
      night duty he got midnight lunch from an old Irishman called "the Cake
      Man," who appeared regularly with his wares at 12 midnight. "The office
      was on the ground floor, and had been a restaurant previous to its
      occupation by the Western Union Telegraph Company. It was literally loaded
      with cockroaches, which lived between the wall and the board running
      around the room at the floor, and which came after the lunch. These were
      such a bother on my table that I pasted two strips of tinfoil on the wall
      at my desk, connecting one piece to the positive pole of the big battery
      supplying current to the wires and the negative pole to the other strip.
      The cockroaches moving up on the wall would pass over the strips. The
      moment they got their legs across both strips there was a flash of light
      and the cockroaches went into gas. This automatic electrocuting device
      attracted so much attention, and got half a column in an evening paper,
      that the manager made me stop it." The reader will remember that a similar
      plan of campaign against rats was carried out by Edison while in the West.
    </p>
    <p>
      About this time Edison had a narrow escape from injury that might easily
      have shortened his career, and he seems to have provoked the trouble more
      or less innocently by using a little elementary chemistry. "After being in
      Boston several months," he says, "working New York wire No. 1, I was
      requested to work the press wire, called the 'milk route,' as there were
      so many towns on it taking press simultaneously. New York office had
      reported great delays on the wire, due to operators constantly
      interrupting, or 'breaking,' as it was called, to have words repeated
      which they had failed to get; and New York claimed that Boston was one of
      the worst offenders. It was a rather hard position for me, for if I took
      the report without breaking, it would prove the previous Boston operator
      incompetent. The results made the operator have some hard feelings against
      me. He was put back on the wire, and did much better after that. It seems
      that the office boy was down on this man. One night he asked me if I could
      tell him how to fix a key so that it would not 'break,' even if the
      circuit-breaker was open, and also so that it could not be easily
      detected. I told him to jab a penful of ink on the platinum points, as
      there was sugar enough to make it sufficiently thick to hold up when the
      operator tried to break&mdash;the current still going through the ink so
      that he could not break.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The next night about 1 A.M. this operator, on the press wire, while I was
      standing near a House printer studying it, pulled out a glass insulator,
      then used upside down as a substitute for an ink-bottle, and threw it with
      great violence at me, just missing my head. It would certainly have killed
      me if it had not missed. The cause of the trouble was that this operator
      was doing the best he could not to break, but being compelled to, opened
      his key and found he couldn't. The press matter came right along, and he
      could not stop it. The office boy had put the ink in a few minutes before,
      when the operator had turned his head during a lull. He blamed me
      instinctively as the cause of the trouble. Later on we became good
      friends. He took his meals at the same emaciator that I did. His main
      object in life seemed to be acquiring the art of throwing up wash-pitchers
      and catching them without breaking them. About one-third of his salary was
      used up in paying for pitchers."
    </p>
    <p>
      One day a request reached the Western Union Telegraph office in Boston,
      from the principal of a select school for young ladies, to the effect that
      she would like some one to be sent up to the school to exhibit and
      describe the Morse telegraph to her "children." There has always been a
      warm interest in Boston in the life and work of Morse, who was born there,
      at Charlestown, barely a mile from the birthplace of Franklin, and this
      request for a little lecture on Morse's telegraph was quite natural.
      Edison, who was always ready to earn some extra money for his experiments,
      and was already known as the best-informed operator in the office,
      accepted the invitation. What happened is described by Adams as follows:
      "We gathered up a couple of sounders, a battery, and sonic wire, and at
      the appointed time called on her to do the stunt. Her school-room was
      about twenty by twenty feet, not including a small platform. We rigged up
      the line between the two ends of the room, Edison taking the stage while I
      was at the other end of the room. All being in readiness, the principal
      was told to bring in her children. The door opened and in came about
      twenty young ladies elegantly gowned, not one of whom was under seventeen.
      When Edison saw them I thought he would faint. He called me on the line
      and asked me to come to the stage and explain the mysteries of the Morse
      system. I replied that I thought he was in the right place, and told him
      to get busy with his talk on dots and dashes. Always modest, Edison was so
      overcome he could hardly speak, but he managed to say, finally, that as
      his friend Mr. Adams was better equipped with cheek than he was, we would
      change places, and he would do the demonstrating while I explained the
      whole thing. This caused the bevy to turn to see where the lecturer was. I
      went on the stage, said something, and we did some telegraphing over the
      line. I guess it was satisfactory; we got the money, which was the main
      point to us." Edison tells the story in a similar manner, but insists that
      it was he who saved the situation. "I managed to say that I would work the
      apparatus, and Mr. Adams would make the explanations. Adams was so
      embarrassed that he fell over an ottoman. The girls tittered, and this
      increased his embarrassment until he couldn't say a word. The situation
      was so desperate that for a reason I never could explain I started in
      myself and talked and explained better than I ever did before or since. I
      can talk to two or three persons; but when there are more they radiate
      some unknown form of influence which paralyzes my vocal cords. However, I
      got out of this scrape, and many times afterward when I chanced with other
      operators to meet some of the young ladies on their way home from school,
      they would smile and nod, much to the mystification of the operators, who
      were ignorant of this episode."
    </p>
    <p>
      Another amusing story of this period of impecuniosity and financial strain
      is told thus by Edison: "My friend Adams was working in the Franklin
      Telegraph Company, which competed with the Western Union. Adams was laid
      off, and as his financial resources had reached absolute zero centigrade,
      I undertook to let him sleep in my hall bedroom. I generally had hall
      bedrooms, because they were cheap and I needed money to buy apparatus. I
      also had the pleasure of his genial company at the boarding-house about a
      mile distant, but at the sacrifice of some apparatus. One morning, as we
      were hastening to breakfast, we came into Tremont Row, and saw a large
      crowd in front of two small 'gents' furnishing goods stores. We stopped to
      ascertain the cause of the excitement. One store put up a paper sign in
      the display window which said: 'Three-hundred pairs of stockings received
      this day, five cents a pair&mdash;no connection with the store next door.'
      Presently the other store put up a sign stating they had received three
      hundred pairs, price three cents per pair, and stated that they had no
      connection with the store next door. Nobody went in. The crowd kept
      increasing. Finally, when the price had reached three pairs for one cent,
      Adams said to me: 'I can't stand this any longer; give me a cent.' I gave
      him a nickel, and he elbowed his way in; and throwing the money on the
      counter, the store being filled with women clerks, he said: 'Give me three
      pairs.' The crowd was breathless, and the girl took down a box and drew
      out three pairs of baby socks. 'Oh!' said Adams, 'I want men's size.'
      'Well, sir, we do not permit one to pick sizes for that amount of money.'
      And the crowd roared; and this broke up the sales."
    </p>
    <p>
      It has generally been supposed that Edison did not take up work on the
      stock ticker until after his arrival a little later in New York; but he
      says: "After the vote-recorder I invented a stock ticker, and started a
      ticker service in Boston; had thirty or forty subscribers, and operated
      from a room over the Gold Exchange. This was about a year after Callahan
      started in New York." To say the least, this evidenced great ability and
      enterprise on the part of the youth. The dealings in gold during the Civil
      War and after its close had brought gold indicators into use, and these
      had soon been followed by "stock tickers," the first of which was
      introduced in New York in 1867. The success of this new but still
      primitively crude class of apparatus was immediate. Four manufacturers
      were soon busy trying to keep pace with the demands for it from brokers;
      and the Gold &amp; Stock Telegraph Company formed to exploit the system
      soon increased its capital from $200,000 to $300,000, paying 12 per cent.
      dividends on the latter amount. Within its first year the capital was
      again increased to $1,000,000, and dividends of 10 per cent. were paid
      easily on that sum also. It is needless to say that such facts became
      quickly known among the operators, from whose ranks, of course, the new
      employees were enlisted; and it was a common ambition among the more
      ingenious to produce a new ticker. From the beginning, each phase of
      electrical development&mdash;indeed, each step in mechanics&mdash;has been
      accompanied by the well-known phenomenon of invention; namely, the attempt
      of the many to perfect and refine and even re-invent where one or two
      daring spirits have led the way. The figures of capitalization and profit
      just mentioned were relatively much larger in the sixties than they are
      to-day; and to impressionable young operators they spelled illimitable
      wealth. Edison was, how ever, about the only one in Boston of whom history
      makes record as achieving any tangible result in this new art; and he soon
      longed for the larger telegraphic opportunity of New York. His friend,
      Milt Adams, went West with quenchless zest for that kind of roving life
      and aimless adventure of which the serious minded Edison had already had
      more than enough. Realizing that to New York he must look for further
      support in his efforts, Edison, deep in debt for his embryonic inventions,
      but with high hope and courage, now made the next momentous step in his
      career. He was far riper in experience and practice of his art than any
      other telegrapher of his age, and had acquired, moreover, no little
      knowledge of the practical business of life. Note has been made above of
      his invention of a stock ticker in Boston, and of his establishing a
      stock-quotation circuit. This was by no means all, and as a fitting close
      to this chapter he may be quoted as to some other work and its perils in
      experimentation: "I also engaged in putting up private lines, upon which I
      used an alphabetical dial instrument for telegraphing between business
      establishments, a forerunner of modern telephony. This instrument was very
      simple and practical, and any one could work it after a few minutes'
      explanation. I had these instruments made at Mr. Hamblet's, who had a
      little shop where he was engaged in experimenting with electric clocks.
      Mr. Hamblet was the father and introducer in after years of the Western
      Union Telegraph system of time distribution. My laboratory was the
      headquarters for the men, and also of tools and supplies for those private
      lines. They were put up cheaply, as I used the roofs of houses, just as
      the Western Union did. It never occurred to me to ask permission from the
      owners; all we did was to go to the store, etc., say we were telegraph
      men, and wanted to go up to the wires on the roof; and permission was
      always granted.
    </p>
    <p>
      "In this laboratory I had a large induction coil which I had borrowed to
      make some experiments with. One day I got hold of both electrodes of the
      coil, and it clinched my hand on them so that I couldn't let go. The
      battery was on a shelf. The only way I could get free was to back off and
      pull the coil, so that the battery wires would pull the cells off the
      shelf and thus break the circuit. I shut my eyes and pulled, but the
      nitric acid splashed all over my face and ran down my back. I rushed to a
      sink, which was only half big enough, and got in as well as I could and
      wiggled around for several minutes to permit the water to dilute the acid
      and stop the pain. My face and back were streaked with yellow; the skin
      was thoroughly oxidized. I did not go on the street by daylight for two
      weeks, as the appearance of my face was dreadful. The skin, however,
      peeled off, and new skin replaced it without any damage."
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE STOCK TICKER
    </h3>
    <p>
      "THE letters and figures used in the language of the tape," said a
      well-known Boston stock speculator, "are very few, but they spell ruin in
      ninety-nine million ways." It is not to be inferred, however, that the
      modern stock ticker has anything to do with the making or losing of
      fortunes. There were regular daily stock-market reports in London
      newspapers in 1825, and New York soon followed the example. As far back as
      1692, Houghton issued in London a weekly review of financial and
      commercial transactions, upon which Macaulay based the lively narrative of
      stock speculation in the seventeenth century, given in his famous history.
      That which the ubiquitous stock ticker has done is to give instantaneity
      to the news of what the stock market is doing, so that at every minute,
      thousands of miles apart, brokers, investors, and gamblers may learn the
      exact conditions. The existence of such facilities is to be admired rather
      than deplored. News is vital to Wall Street, and there is no living man on
      whom the doings in Wall Street are without effect. The financial history
      of the United States and of the world, as shown by the prices of
      government bonds and general securities, has been told daily for forty
      years on these narrow strips of paper tape, of which thousands of miles
      are run yearly through the "tickers" of New York alone. It is true that
      the record of the chattering little machine, made in cabalistic
      abbreviations on the tape, can drive a man suddenly to the very verge of
      insanity with joy or despair; but if there be blame for that, it attaches
      to the American spirit of speculation and not to the ingenious mechanism
      which reads and registers the beating of the financial pulse.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison came first to New York in 1868, with his early stock printer, which
      he tried unsuccessfully to sell. He went back to Boston, and quite
      undismayed got up a duplex telegraph. "Toward the end of my stay in
      Boston," he says, "I obtained a loan of money, amounting to $800, to build
      a peculiar kind of duplex telegraph for sending two messages over a single
      wire simultaneously. The apparatus was built, and I left the Western Union
      employ and went to Rochester, New York, to test the apparatus on the lines
      of the Atlantic &amp; Pacific Telegraph between that city and New York.
      But the assistant at the other end could not be made to understand
      anything, notwithstanding I had written out a very minute description of
      just what to do. After trying for a week I gave it up and returned to New
      York with but a few cents in my pocket." Thus he who has never speculated
      in a stock in his life was destined to make the beginnings of his own
      fortune by providing for others the apparatus that should bring to the
      eye, all over a great city, the momentary fluctuations of stocks and
      bonds. No one could have been in direr poverty than he when the steamboat
      landed him in New York in 1869. He was in debt, and his few belongings in
      books and instruments had to be left behind. He was not far from starving.
      Mr. W. S. Mallory, an associate of many years, quotes directly from him on
      this point: "Some years ago we had a business negotiation in New York
      which made it necessary for Mr. Edison and me to visit the city five or
      six times within a comparatively short period. It was our custom to leave
      Orange about 11 A.M., and on arrival in New York to get our lunch before
      keeping the appointments, which were usually made for two o'clock. Several
      of these lunches were had at Delmonico's, Sherry's, and other places of
      similar character, but one day, while en route, Mr. Edison said: 'I have
      been to lunch with you several times; now to-day I am going to take you to
      lunch with me, and give you the finest lunch you ever had.' When we
      arrived in Hoboken, we took the downtown ferry across the Hudson, and when
      we arrived on the Manhattan side Mr. Edison led the way to Smith &amp;
      McNell's, opposite Washington Market, and well known to old New Yorkers.
      We went inside and as soon as the waiter appeared Mr. Edison ordered apple
      dumplings and a cup of coffee for himself. He consumed his share of the
      lunch with the greatest possible pleasure. Then, as soon as he had
      finished, he went to the cigar counter and purchased cigars. As we walked
      to keep the appointment he gave me the following reminiscence: When he
      left Boston and decided to come to New York he had only money enough for
      the trip. After leaving the boat his first thought was of breakfast; but
      he was without money to obtain it. However, in passing a wholesale
      tea-house he saw a man tasting tea, so he went in and asked the 'taster'
      if he might have some of the tea. This the man gave him, and thus he
      obtained his first breakfast in New York. He knew a telegraph operator
      here, and on him he depended for a loan to tide him over until such time
      as he should secure a position. During the day he succeeded in locating
      this operator, but found that he also was out of a job, and that the best
      he could do was to loan him one dollar, which he did. This small sum of
      money represented both food and lodging until such time as work could be
      obtained. Edison said that as the result of the time consumed and the
      exercise in walking while he found his friend, he was extremely hungry,
      and that he gave most serious consideration as to what he should buy in
      the way of food, and what particular kind of food would be most satisfying
      and filling. The result was that at Smith &amp; McNell's he decided on
      apple dumplings and a cup of coffee, than which he never ate anything more
      appetizing. It was not long before he was at work and was able to live in
      a normal manner."
    </p>
    <p>
      During the Civil War, with its enormous increase in the national debt and
      the volume of paper money, gold had gone to a high premium; and, as ever,
      by its fluctuations in price the value of all other commodities was
      determined. This led to the creation of a "Gold Room" in Wall Street,
      where the precious metal could be dealt in; while for dealings in stocks
      there also existed the "Regular Board," the "Open Board," and the "Long
      Room." Devoted to one, but the leading object of speculation, the "Gold
      Room" was the very focus of all the financial and gambling activity of the
      time, and its quotations governed trade and commerce. At first notations
      in chalk on a blackboard sufficed, but seeing their inadequacy, Dr. S. S.
      Laws, vice-president and actual presiding officer of the Gold Exchange,
      devised and introduced what was popularly known as the "gold indicator."
      This exhibited merely the prevailing price of gold; but as its quotations
      changed from instant to instant, it was in a most literal sense "the
      cynosure of neighboring eyes." One indicator looked upon the Gold Room;
      the other opened toward the street. Within the exchange the face could
      easily be seen high up on the west wall of the room, and the machine was
      operated by Mr. Mersereau, the official registrar of the Gold Board.
    </p>
    <p>
      Doctor Laws, who afterward became President of the State University of
      Missouri, was an inventor of unusual ability and attainments. In his early
      youth he had earned his livelihood in a tool factory; and, apparently with
      his savings, he went to Princeton, where he studied electricity under no
      less a teacher than the famous Joseph Henry. At the outbreak of the war in
      1861 he was president of one of the Presbyterian synodical colleges in the
      South, whose buildings passed into the hands of the Government. Going to
      Europe, he returned to New York in 1863, and, becoming interested with a
      relative in financial matters, his connection with the Gold Exchange soon
      followed, when it was organized. The indicating mechanism he now devised
      was electrical, controlled at central by two circuit-closing keys, and was
      a prototype of all the later and modern step-by-step printing telegraphs,
      upon which the distribution of financial news depends. The "fraction" drum
      of the indicator could be driven in either direction, known as the advance
      and retrograde movements, and was divided and marked in eighths. It geared
      into a "unit" drum, just as do speed-indicators and cyclometers. Four
      electrical pulsations were required to move the drum the distance between
      the fractions. The general operation was simple, and in normally active
      times the mechanism and the registrar were equal to all emergencies. But
      it is obvious that the record had to be carried away to the brokers'
      offices and other places by messengers; and the delay, confusion, and
      mistakes soon suggested to Doctor Laws the desirability of having a number
      of indicators at such scattered points, operated by a master transmitter,
      and dispensing with the regiments of noisy boys. He secured this privilege
      of distribution, and, resigning from the exchange, devoted his exclusive
      attention to the "Gold Reporting Telegraph," which he patented, and for
      which, at the end of 1866, he had secured fifty subscribers. His
      indicators were small oblong boxes, in the front of which was a long slot,
      allowing the dials as they travelled past, inside, to show the numerals
      constituting the quotation; the dials or wheels being arranged in a row
      horizontally, overlapping each other, as in modern fare registers which
      are now seen on most trolley cars. It was not long before there were three
      hundred subscribers; but the very success of this device brought
      competition and improvement. Mr. E. A. Callahan, an ingenious
      printing-telegraph operator, saw that there were unexhausted possibilities
      in the idea, and his foresight and inventiveness made him the father of
      the "ticker," in connection with which he was thus, like Laws, one of the
      first to grasp and exploit the underlying principle of the "central
      station" as a universal source of supply. The genesis of his invention Mr.
      Callahan has told in an interesting way: "In 1867, on the site of the
      present Mills Building on Broad Street, opposite the Stock Exchange of
      today, was an old building which had been cut up to subserve the
      necessities of its occupants, all engaged in dealing in gold and stocks.
      It had one main entrance from the street to a hallway, from which entrance
      to the offices of two prominent broker firms was obtained. Each firm had
      its own army of boys, numbering from twelve to fifteen, whose duties were
      to ascertain the latest quotations from the different exchanges. Each boy
      devoted his attention to some particularly active stock. Pushing each
      other to get into these narrow quarters, yelling out the prices at the
      door, and pushing back for later ones, the hustle made this doorway to me
      a most undesirable refuge from an April shower. I was simply whirled into
      the street. I naturally thought that much of this noise and confusion
      might be dispensed with, and that the prices might be furnished through
      some system of telegraphy which would not require the employment of
      skilled operators. The conception of the stock ticker dates from this
      incident."
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Callahan's first idea was to distribute gold quotations, and to this
      end he devised an "indicator." It consisted of two dials mounted
      separately, each revolved by an electromagnet, so that the desired figures
      were brought to an aperture in the case enclosing the apparatus, as in the
      Laws system. Each shaft with its dial was provided with two ratchet
      wheels, one the reverse of the other. One was used in connection with the
      propelling lever, which was provided with a pawl to fit into the teeth of
      the reversed ratchet wheel on its forward movement. It was thus made
      impossible for either dial to go by momentum beyond its limit. Learning
      that Doctor Laws, with the skilful aid of F. L. Pope, was already active
      in the same direction, Mr. Callahan, with ready wit, transformed his
      indicator into a "ticker" that would make a printed record. The name of
      the "ticker" came through the casual remark of an observer to whom the
      noise was the most striking feature of the mechanism. Mr. Callahan removed
      the two dials, and, substituting type wheels, turned the movements face to
      face, so that each type wheel could imprint its characters upon a paper
      tape in two lines. Three wires stranded together ran from the central
      office to each instrument. Of these one furnished the current for the
      alphabet wheel, one for the figure wheel, and one for the mechanism that
      took care of the inking and printing on the tape. Callahan made the
      further innovation of insulating his circuit wires, although the cost was
      then forty times as great as that of bare wire. It will be understood that
      electromagnets were the ticker's actuating agency. The ticker apparatus
      was placed under a neat glass shade and mounted on a shelf. Twenty-five
      instruments were energized from one circuit, and the quotations were
      supplied from a "central" at 18 New Street. The Gold &amp; Stock Telegraph
      Company was promptly organized to supply to brokers the system, which was
      very rapidly adopted throughout the financial district of New York, at the
      southern tip of Manhattan Island. Quotations were transmitted by the Morse
      telegraph from the floor of the Stock Exchange to the "central," and
      thence distributed to the subscribers. Success with the "stock" news
      system was instantaneous.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was at this juncture that Edison reached New York, and according to his
      own statement found shelter at night in the battery-room of the Gold
      Indicator Company, having meantime applied for a position as operator with
      the Western Union. He had to wait a few days, and during this time he
      seized the opportunity to study the indicators and the complicated general
      transmitter in the office, controlled from the keyboard of the operator on
      the floor of the Gold Exchange. What happened next has been the basis of
      many inaccurate stories, but is dramatic enough as told in Mr. Edison's
      own version: "On the third day of my arrival and while sitting in the
      office, the complicated general instrument for sending on all the lines,
      and which made a very great noise, suddenly came to a stop with a crash.
      Within two minutes over three hundred boys&mdash;a boy from every broker
      in the street&mdash;rushed up-stairs and crowded the long aisle and
      office, that hardly had room for one hundred, all yelling that such and
      such a broker's wire was out of order and to fix it at once. It was
      pandemonium, and the man in charge became so excited that he lost control
      of all the knowledge he ever had. I went to the indicator, and, having
      studied it thoroughly, knew where the trouble ought to be, and found it.
      One of the innumerable contact springs had broken off and had fallen down
      between the two gear wheels and stopped the instrument; but it was not
      very noticeable. As I went out to tell the man in charge what the matter
      was, Doctor Laws appeared on the scene, the most excited person I had
      seen. He demanded of the man the cause of the trouble, but the man was
      speechless. I ventured to say that I knew what the trouble was, and he
      said, 'Fix it! Fix it! Be quick!' I removed the spring and set the contact
      wheels at zero; and the line, battery, and inspecting men all scattered
      through the financial district to set the instruments. In about two hours
      things were working again. Doctor Laws came in to ask my name and what I
      was doing. I told him, and he asked me to come to his private office the
      following day. His office was filled with stacks of books all relating to
      metaphysics and kindred matters. He asked me a great many questions about
      the instruments and his system, and I showed him how he could simplify
      things generally. He then requested that I should call next day. On
      arrival, he stated at once that he had decided to put me in charge of the
      whole plant, and that my salary would be $300 per month! This was such a
      violent jump from anything I had ever seen before, that it rather
      paralyzed me for a while, I thought it was too much to be lasting, but I
      determined to try and live up to that salary if twenty hours a day of hard
      work would do it. I kept this position, made many improvements, devised
      several stock tickers, until the Gold &amp; Stock Telegraph Company
      consolidated with the Gold Indicator Company." Certainly few changes in
      fortune have been more sudden and dramatic in any notable career than this
      which thus placed an ill-clad, unkempt, half-starved, eager lad in a
      position of such responsibility in days when the fluctuations in the price
      of gold at every instant meant fortune or ruin to thousands.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison, barely twenty-one years old, was a keen observer of the stirring
      events around him. "Wall Street" is at any time an interesting study, but
      it was never at a more agitated and sensational period of its history than
      at this time. Edison's arrival in New York coincided with an active
      speculation in gold which may, indeed, be said to have provided him with
      occupation; and was soon followed by the attempt of Mr. Jay Gould and his
      associates to corner the gold market, precipitating the panic of Black
      Friday, September 24, 1869. Securing its import duties in the precious
      metal and thus assisting to create an artificial stringency in the gold
      market, the Government had made it a practice to relieve the situation by
      selling a million of gold each month. The metal was thus restored to
      circulation. In some manner, President Grant was persuaded that general
      conditions and the movement of the crops would be helped if the sale of
      gold were suspended for a time; and, this put into effect, he went to
      visit an old friend in Pennsylvania remote from railroads and telegraphs.
      The Gould pool had acquired control of $10,000,000 in gold, and drove the
      price upward rapidly from 144 toward their goal of 200. On Black Friday
      they purchased another $28,000,000 at 160, and still the price went up.
      The financial and commercial interests of the country were in panic; but
      the pool persevered in its effort to corner gold, with a profit of many
      millions contingent on success. Yielding to frantic requests, President
      Grant, who returned to Washington, caused Secretary Boutwell, of the
      Treasury, to throw $4,000,000 of gold into the market. Relief was
      instantaneous, the corner was broken, but the harm had been done. Edison's
      remarks shed a vivid side-light on this extraordinary episode: "On Black
      Friday," he says, "we had a very exciting time with the indicators. The
      Gould and Fisk crowd had cornered gold, and had run the quotations up
      faster than the indicator could follow. The indicator was composed of
      several wheels; on the circumference of each wheel were the numerals; and
      one wheel had fractions. It worked in the same way as an ordinary counter;
      one wheel made ten revolutions, and at the tenth it advanced the adjacent
      wheel; and this in its turn having gone ten revolutions, advanced the next
      wheel, and so on. On the morning of Black Friday the indicator was quoting
      150 premium, whereas the bids by Gould's agents in the Gold Room were 165
      for five millions or any part. We had a paper-weight at the transmitter
      (to speed it up), and by one o'clock reached the right quotation. The
      excitement was prodigious. New Street, as well as Broad Street, was jammed
      with excited people. I sat on the top of the Western Union telegraph booth
      to watch the surging, crazy crowd. One man came to the booth, grabbed a
      pencil, and attempted to write a message to Boston. The first stroke went
      clear off the blank; he was so excited that he had the operator write the
      message for him. Amid great excitement Speyer, the banker, went crazy and
      it took five men to hold him; and everybody lost their head. The Western
      Union operator came to me and said: 'Shake, Edison, we are O. K. We
      haven't got a cent.' I felt very happy because we were poor. These
      occasions are very enjoyable to a poor man; but they occur rarely."
    </p>
    <p>
      There is a calm sense of detachment about this description that has been
      possessed by the narrator even in the most anxious moments of his career.
      He was determined to see all that could be seen, and, quitting his perch
      on the telegraph booth, sought the more secluded headquarters of the pool
      forces. "A friend of mine was an operator who worked in the office of
      Belden &amp; Company, 60 Broadway, which were headquarters for Fisk. Mr.
      Gould was up-town in the Erie offices in the Grand Opera House. The firm
      on Broad Street, Smith, Gould &amp; Martin, was the other branch. All were
      connected with wires. Gould seemed to be in charge, Fisk being the
      executive down-town. Fisk wore a velvet corduroy coat and a very peculiar
      vest. He was very chipper, and seemed to be light-hearted and happy.
      Sitting around the room were about a dozen fine-looking men. All had the
      complexion of cadavers. There was a basket of champagne. Hundreds of boys
      were rushing in paying checks, all checks being payable to Belden &amp;
      Company. When James Brown, of Brown Brothers &amp; Company, broke the
      corner by selling five million gold, all payments were repudiated by
      Smith, Gould &amp; Martin; but they continued to receive checks at Belden
      &amp; Company's for some time, until the Street got wind of the game.
      There was some kind of conspiracy with the Government people which I could
      not make out, but I heard messages that opened my eyes as to the
      ramifications of Wall Street. Gold fell to 132, and it took us all night
      to get the indicator back to that quotation. All night long the streets
      were full of people. Every broker's office was brilliantly lighted all
      night, and all hands were at work. The clearing-house for gold had been
      swamped, and all was mixed up. No one knew if he was bankrupt or not."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison in those days rather liked the modest coffee-shops, and mentions
      visiting one. "When on the New York No. 1 wire, that I worked in Boston,
      there was an operator named Jerry Borst at the other end. He was a
      first-class receiver and rapid sender. We made up a scheme to hold this
      wire, so he changed one letter of the alphabet and I soon got used to it;
      and finally we changed three letters. If any operator tried to receive
      from Borst, he couldn't do it, so Borst and I always worked together.
      Borst did less talking than any operator I ever knew. Never having seen
      him, I went while in New York to call upon him. I did all the talking. He
      would listen, stroke his beard, and say nothing. In the evening I went
      over to an all-night lunch-house in Printing House Square in a basement&mdash;Oliver's.
      Night editors, including Horace Greeley, and Henry Raymond, of the New
      York Times, took their midnight lunch there. When I went with Borst and
      another operator, they pointed out two or three men who were then
      celebrated in the newspaper world. The night was intensely hot and close.
      After getting our lunch and upon reaching the sidewalk, Borst opened his
      mouth, and said: 'That's a great place; a plate of cakes, a cup of coffee,
      and a Russian bath, for ten cents.' This was about fifty per cent. of his
      conversation for two days."
    </p>
    <p>
      The work of Edison on the gold-indicator had thrown him into close
      relationship with Mr. Franklin L. Pope, the young telegraph engineer then
      associated with Doctor Laws, and afterward a distinguished expert and
      technical writer, who became President of the American Institute of
      Electrical Engineers in 1886. Each recognized the special ability of the
      other, and barely a week after the famous events of Black Friday the
      announcement of their partnership appeared in the Telegrapher of October
      1, 1869. This was the first "professional card," if it may be so
      described, ever issued in America by a firm of electrical engineers, and
      is here reproduced. It is probable that the advertisement, one of the
      largest in the Telegrapher, and appearing frequently, was not paid for at
      full rates, as the publisher, Mr. J. N. Ashley, became a partner in the
      firm, and not altogether a "sleeping one" when it came to a division of
      profits, which at times were considerable. In order to be nearer his new
      friend Edison boarded with Pope at Elizabeth, New Jersey, for some time,
      living "the strenuous life" in the performance of his duties. Associated
      with Pope and Ashley, he followed up his work on telegraph printers with
      marked success. "While with them I devised a printer to print gold
      quotations instead of indicating them. The lines were started, and the
      whole was sold out to the Gold &amp; Stock Telegraph Company. My
      experimenting was all done in the small shop of a Doctor Bradley, located
      near the station of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Jersey City. Every night
      I left for Elizabeth on the 1 A.M. train, then walked half a mile to Mr.
      Pope's house and up at 6 A.M. for breakfast to catch the 7 A.M. train.
      This continued all winter, and many were the occasions when I was nearly
      frozen in the Elizabeth walk." This Doctor Bradley appears to have been
      the first in this country to make electrical measurements of precision
      with the galvanometer, but was an old-school experimenter who would work
      for years on an instrument without commercial value. He was also extremely
      irascible, and when on one occasion the connecting wire would not come out
      of one of the binding posts of a new and costly galvanometer, he jerked
      the instrument to the floor and then jumped on it. He must have been,
      however, a man of originality, as evidenced by his attempt to age whiskey
      by electricity, an attempt that has often since been made. "The hobby he
      had at the time I was there," says Edison, "was the aging of raw whiskey
      by passing strong electric currents through it. He had arranged twenty
      jars with platinum electrodes held in place by hard rubber. When all was
      ready, he filled the cells with whiskey, connected the battery, locked the
      door of the small room in which they were placed, and gave positive orders
      that no one should enter. He then disappeared for three days. On the
      second day we noticed a terrible smell in the shop, as if from some dead
      animal. The next day the doctor arrived and, noticing the smell, asked
      what was dead. We all thought something had got into his whiskey-room and
      died. He opened it and was nearly overcome. The hard rubber he used was,
      of course, full of sulphur, and this being attacked by the nascent
      hydrogen, had produced sulphuretted hydrogen gas in torrents, displacing
      all of the air in the room. Sulphuretted hydrogen is, as is well known,
      the gas given off by rotten eggs."
    </p>
    <p>
      Another glimpse of this period of development is afforded by an
      interesting article on the stock-reporting telegraph in the Electrical
      World of March 4, 1899, by Mr. Ralph W. Pope, the well-known Secretary of
      the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, who had as a youth an
      active and intimate connection with that branch of electrical industry. In
      the course of his article he mentions the curious fact that Doctor Laws at
      first, in receiving quotations from the Exchanges, was so distrustful of
      the Morse system that he installed long lines of speaking-tube as a more
      satisfactory and safe device than a telegraph wire. As to the relations of
      that time Mr. Pope remarks: "The rivalry between the two concerns resulted
      in consolidation, Doctor Laws's enterprise being absorbed by the Gold
      &amp; Stock Telegraph Company, while the Laws stock printer was relegated
      to the scrap-heap and the museum. Competition in the field did not,
      however, cease. Messrs. Pope and Edison invented a one-wire printer, and
      started a system of 'gold printers' devoted to the recording of gold
      quotations and sterling exchange only. It was intended more especially for
      importers and exchange brokers, and was furnished at a lower price than
      the indicator service.... The building and equipment of private telegraph
      lines was also entered upon. This business was also subsequently absorbed
      by the Gold &amp; Stock Telegraph Company, which was probably at this time
      at the height of its prosperity. The financial organization of the company
      was peculiar and worthy of attention. Each subscriber for a machine paid
      in $100 for the privilege of securing an instrument. For the service he
      paid $25 weekly. In case he retired or failed, he could transfer his
      'right,' and employees were constantly on the alert for purchasable
      rights, which could be disposed of at a profit. It was occasionally worth
      the profit to convince a man that he did not actually own the machine
      which had been placed in his office.... The Western Union Telegraph
      Company secured a majority of its stock, and Gen. Marshall Lefferts was
      elected president. A private-line department was established, and the
      business taken over from Pope, Edison, and Ashley was rapidly enlarged."
    </p>
    <p>
      At this juncture General Lefferts, as President of the Gold &amp; Stock
      Telegraph Company, requested Edison to go to work on improving the stock
      ticker, furnishing the money; and the well-known "Universal" ticker, in
      wide-spread use in its day, was one result. Mr. Edison gives a graphic
      picture of the startling effect on his fortunes: "I made a great many
      inventions; one was the special ticker used for many years outside of New
      York in the large cities. This was made exceedingly simple, as they did
      not have the experts we had in New York to handle anything complicated.
      The same ticker was used on the London Stock Exchange. After I had made a
      great number of inventions and obtained patents, the General seemed
      anxious that the matter should be closed up. One day I exhibited and
      worked a successful device whereby if a ticker should get out of unison in
      a broker's office and commence to print wild figures, it could be brought
      to unison from the central station, which saved the labor of many men and
      much trouble to the broker. He called me into his office, and said: 'Now,
      young man, I want to close up the matter of your inventions. How much do
      you think you should receive?' I had made up my mind that, taking into
      consideration the time and killing pace I was working at, I should be
      entitled to $5000, but could get along with $3000. When the psychological
      moment arrived, I hadn't the nerve to name such a large sum, so I said:
      'Well, General, suppose you make me an offer.' Then he said: 'How would
      $40,000 strike you?' This caused me to come as near fainting as I ever
      got. I was afraid he would hear my heart beat. I managed to say that I
      thought it was fair. 'All right, I will have a contract drawn; come around
      in three days and sign it, and I will give you the money.' I arrived on
      time, but had been doing some considerable thinking on the subject. The
      sum seemed to be very large for the amount of work, for at that time I
      determined the value by the time and trouble, and not by what the
      invention was worth to others. I thought there was something unreal about
      it. However, the contract was handed to me. I signed without reading it."
      Edison was then handed the first check he had ever received, one for
      $40,000 drawn on the Bank of New York, at the corner of William and Wall
      Streets. On going to the bank and passing in the check at the wicket of
      the paying teller, some brief remarks were made to him, which in his
      deafness he did not understand. The check was handed back to him, and
      Edison, fancying for a moment that in some way he had been cheated, went
      outside "to the large steps to let the cold sweat evaporate." He then went
      back to the General, who, with his secretary, had a good laugh over the
      matter, told him the check must be endorsed, and sent with him a young man
      to identify him. The ceremony of identification performed with the paying
      teller, who was quite merry over the incident, Edison was given the amount
      in bundles of small bills "until there certainly seemed to be one cubic
      foot." Unaware that he was the victim of a practical joke, Edison
      proceeded gravely to stow away the money in his overcoat pockets and all
      his other pockets. He then went to Newark and sat up all night with the
      money for fear it might be stolen. Once more he sought help next morning,
      when the General laughed heartily, and, telling the clerk that the joke
      must not be carried any further, enabled him to deposit the currency in
      the bank and open an account.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus in an inconceivably brief time had Edison passed from poverty to
      independence; made a deep impression as to his originality and ability on
      important people, and brought out valuable inventions; lifting himself at
      one bound out of the ruck of mediocrity, and away from the deadening
      drudgery of the key. Best of all he was enterprising, one of the leaders
      and pioneers for whom the world is always looking; and, to use his own
      criticism of himself, he had "too sanguine a temperament to keep money in
      solitary confinement." With quiet self-possession he seized his
      opportunity, began to buy machinery, rented a shop and got work for it.
      Moving quickly into a larger shop, Nos. 10 and 12 Ward Street, Newark, New
      Jersey, he secured large orders from General Lefferts to build stock
      tickers, and employed fifty men. As business increased he put on a night
      force, and was his own foreman on both shifts. Half an hour of sleep three
      or four times in the twenty-four hours was all he needed in those days,
      when one invention succeeded another with dazzling rapidity, and when he
      worked with the fierce, eruptive energy of a great volcano, throwing out
      new ideas incessantly with spectacular effect on the arts to which they
      related. It has always been a theory with Edison that we sleep altogether
      too much; but on the other hand he never, until long past fifty, knew or
      practiced the slightest moderation in work or in the use of strong coffee
      and black cigars. He has, moreover, while of tender and kindly
      disposition, never hesitated to use men up as freely as a Napoleon or
      Grant; seeing only the goal of a complete invention or perfected device,
      to attain which all else must become subsidiary. He gives a graphic
      picture of his first methods as a manufacturer: "Nearly all my men were on
      piece work, and I allowed them to make good wages, and never cut until the
      pay became absurdly high as they got more expert. I kept no books. I had
      two hooks. All the bills and accounts I owed I jabbed on one hook; and
      memoranda of all owed to myself I put on the other. When some of the bills
      fell due, and I couldn't deliver tickers to get a supply of money, I gave
      a note. When the notes were due, a messenger came around from the bank
      with the note and a protest pinned to it for $1.25. Then I would go to New
      York and get an advance, or pay the note if I had the money. This method
      of giving notes for my accounts and having all notes protested I kept up
      over two years, yet my credit was fine. Every store I traded with was
      always glad to furnish goods, perhaps in amazed admiration of my system of
      doing business, which was certainly new." After a while Edison got a
      bookkeeper, whose vagaries made him look back with regret on the earlier,
      primitive method. "The first three months I had him go over the books to
      find out how much we had made. He reported $3000. I gave a supper to some
      of my men to celebrate this, only to be told two days afterward that he
      had made a mistake, and that we had lost $500; and then a few days after
      that he came to me again and said he was all mixed up, and now found that
      we had made over $7000." Edison changed bookkeepers, but never thereafter
      counted anything real profit until he had paid all his debts and had the
      profits in the bank.
    </p>
    <p>
      The factory work at this time related chiefly to stock tickers,
      principally the "Universal," of which at one time twelve hundred were in
      use. Edison's connection with this particular device was very close while
      it lasted. In a review of the ticker art, Mr. Callahan stated, with rather
      grudging praise, that "a ticker at the present time (1901) would be
      considered as impracticable and unsalable if it were not provided with a
      unison device," and he goes on to remark: "The first unison on stock
      tickers was one used on the Laws printer. [2] It was a crude and
      unsatisfactory piece of mechanism and necessitated doubling of the battery
      in order to bring it into action. It was short-lived. The Edison unison
      comprised a lever with a free end travelling in a spiral or worm on the
      type-wheel shaft until it met a pin at the end of the worm, thus
      obstructing the shaft and leaving the type-wheels at the zero-point until
      released by the printing lever. This device is too well known to require a
      further description. It is not applicable to any instrument using two
      independently moving type-wheels; but on nearly if not all other
      instruments will be found in use." The stock ticker has enjoyed the
      devotion of many brilliant inventors&mdash;G. M. Phelps, H. Van
      Hoevenbergh, A. A. Knudson, G. B. Scott, S. D. Field, John Burry&mdash;and
      remains in extensive use as an appliance for which no substitute or
      competitor has been found. In New York the two great stock exchanges have
      deemed it necessary to own and operate a stock-ticker service for the sole
      benefit of their members; and down to the present moment the process of
      improvement has gone on, impelled by the increasing volume of business to
      be reported. It is significant of Edison's work, now dimmed and overlaid
      by later advances, that at the very outset he recognized the vital
      importance of interchangeability in the construction of this delicate and
      sensitive apparatus. But the difficulties of these early days were almost
      insurmountable. Mr. R. W. Pope says of the "Universal" machines that they
      were simple and substantial and generally satisfactory, but adds: "These
      instruments were supposed to have been made with interchangeable parts;
      but as a matter of fact the instances in which these parts would fit were
      very few. The instruction-book prepared for the use of inspectors stated
      that 'The parts should not be tinkered nor bent, as they are accurately
      made and interchangeable.' The difficulties encountered in fitting them
      properly doubtless gave rise to a story that Mr. Edison had stated that
      there were three degrees of interchangeability. This was interpreted to
      mean: First, the parts will fit; second, they will almost fit; third, they
      do not fit, and can't be made to fit."
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 2: This I invented as well.&mdash;T. A. E.]
</pre>
    <p>
      This early shop affords an illustration of the manner in which Edison has
      made a deep impression on the personnel of the electrical arts. At a
      single bench there worked three men since rich or prominent. One was
      Sigmund Bergmann, for a time partner with Edison in his lighting
      developments in the United States, and now head and principal owner of
      electrical works in Berlin employing ten thousand men. The next man
      adjacent was John Kruesi, afterward engineer of the great General Electric
      Works at Schenectady. A third was Schuckert, who left the bench to settle
      up his father's little estate at Nuremberg, stayed there and founded
      electrical factories, which became the third largest in Germany, their
      proprietor dying very wealthy. "I gave them a good training as to working
      hours and hustling," says their quondam master; and this is equally true
      as applied to many scores of others working in companies bearing the
      Edison name or organized under Edison patents. It is curiously significant
      in this connection that of the twenty-one presidents of the national
      society, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, founded in 1884,
      eight have been intimately associated with Edison&mdash;namely, Norvin
      Green and F. L. Pope, as business colleagues of the days of which we now
      write; while Messrs. Frank J. Sprague, T. C. Martin, A. E. Kennelly, S. S.
      Wheeler, John W. Lieb, Jr., and Louis A. Ferguson have all been at one
      time or another in the Edison employ. The remark was once made that if a
      famous American teacher sat at one end of a log and a student at the other
      end, the elements of a successful university were present. It is equally
      true that in Edison and the many men who have graduated from his stern
      school of endeavor, America has had its foremost seat of electrical
      engineering.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VIII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      AUTOMATIC, DUPLEX, AND QUADRUPLEX TELEGRAPHY
    </h3>
    <p>
      WORK of various kinds poured in upon the young manufacturer, busy also
      with his own schemes and inventions, which soon began to follow so many
      distinct lines of inquiry that it ceases to be easy or necessary for the
      historian to treat them all in chronological sequence. Some notion of his
      ceaseless activity may be formed from the fact that he started no fewer
      than three shops in Newark during 1870-71, and while directing these was
      also engaged by the men who controlled the Automatic Telegraph Company of
      New York, which had a circuit to Washington, to help it out of its
      difficulties. "Soon after starting the large shop (10 and 12 Ward Street,
      Newark), I rented shop-room to the inventor of a new rifle. I think it was
      the Berdan. In any event, it was a rifle which was subsequently adopted by
      the British Army. The inventor employed a tool-maker who was the finest
      and best tool-maker I had ever seen. I noticed that he worked pretty near
      the whole of the twenty-four hours. This kind of application I was looking
      for. He was getting $21.50 per week, and was also paid for overtime. I
      asked him if he could run the shop. 'I don't know; try me!' he said. 'All
      right, I will give you $60 per week to run both shifts.' He went at it.
      His executive ability was greater than that of any other man I have yet
      seen. His memory was prodigious, conversation laconic, and movements
      rapid. He doubled the production inside three months, without materially
      increasing the pay-roll, by increasing the cutting speeds of tools, and by
      the use of various devices. When in need of rest he would lie down on a
      work-bench, sleep twenty or thirty minutes, and wake up fresh. As this was
      just what I could do, I naturally conceived a great pride in having such a
      man in charge of my work. But almost everything has trouble connected with
      it. He disappeared one day, and although I sent men everywhere that it was
      likely he could be found, he was not discovered. After two weeks he came
      into the factory in a terrible condition as to clothes and face. He sat
      down and, turning to me, said: 'Edison, it's no use, this is the third
      time; I can't stand prosperity. Put my salary back and give me a job.' I
      was very sorry to learn that it was whiskey that spoiled such a career. I
      gave him an inferior job and kept him for a long time."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison had now entered definitely upon that career as an inventor which
      has left so deep an imprint on the records of the United States Patent
      Office, where from his first patent in 1869 up to the summer of 1910 no
      fewer than 1328 separate patents have been applied for in his name,
      averaging thirty-two every year, and one about every eleven days; with a
      substantially corresponding number issued. The height of this inventive
      activity was attained about 1882, in which year no fewer than 141 patents
      were applied for, and seventy-five granted to him, or nearly nine times as
      many as in 1876, when invention as a profession may be said to have been
      adopted by this prolific genius. It will be understood, of course, that
      even these figures do not represent the full measure of actual invention,
      as in every process and at every step there were many discoveries that
      were not brought to patent registration, but remained "trade secrets." And
      furthermore, that in practically every case the actual patented invention
      followed from one to a dozen or more gradually developing forms of the
      same idea.
    </p>
    <p>
      An Englishman named George Little had brought over a system of automatic
      telegraphy which worked well on a short line, but was a failure when put
      upon the longer circuits for which automatic methods are best adapted. The
      general principle involved in automatic or rapid telegraphs, except the
      photographic ones, is that of preparing the message in advance, for
      dispatch, by perforating narrow strips of paper with holes&mdash;work
      which can be done either by hand-punches or by typewriter apparatus. A
      certain group of perforations corresponds to a Morse group of dots and
      dashes for a letter of the alphabet. When the tape thus made ready is run
      rapidly through a transmitting machine, electrical contact occurs wherever
      there is a perforation, permitting the current from the battery to flow
      into the line and thus transmit signals correspondingly. At the distant
      end these signals are received sometimes on an ink-writing recorder as
      dots and dashes, or even as typewriting letters; but in many of the
      earlier systems, like that of Bain, the record at the higher rates of
      speed was effected by chemical means, a tell-tale stain being made on the
      travelling strip of paper by every spurt of incoming current. Solutions of
      potassium iodide were frequently used for this purpose, giving a sharp,
      blue record, but fading away too rapidly.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Little system had perforating apparatus operated by electromagnets;
      its transmitting machine was driven by a small electromagnetic motor; and
      the record was made by electrochemical decomposition, the writing member
      being a minute platinum roller instead of the more familiar iron stylus.
      Moreover, a special type of wire had been put up for the single circuit of
      two hundred and eighty miles between New York and Washington. This is
      believed to have been the first "compound" wire made for telegraphic or
      other signalling purposes, the object being to secure greater lightness
      with textile strength and high conductivity. It had a steel core, with a
      copper ribbon wound spirally around it, and tinned to the core wire. But
      the results obtained were poor, and in their necessity the parties in
      interest turned to Edison.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. E. H. Johnson tells of the conditions: "Gen. W. J. Palmer and some New
      York associates had taken up the Little automatic system and had expended
      quite a sum in its development, when, thinking they had reduced it to
      practice, they got Tom Scott, of the Pennsylvania Railroad to send his
      superintendent of telegraph over to look into and report upon it. Of
      course he turned it down. The syndicate was appalled at this report, and
      in this extremity General Palmer thought of the man who had impressed him
      as knowing it all by the telling of telegraphic tales as a means of
      whiling away lonesome hours on the plains of Colorado, where they were
      associated in railroad-building. So this man&mdash;it was I&mdash;was sent
      for to come to New York and assuage their grief if possible. My report was
      that the system was sound fundamentally, that it contained the germ of a
      good thing, but needed working out. Associated with General Palmer was one
      Col. Josiah C. Reiff, then Eastern bond agent for the Kansas Pacific
      Railroad. The Colonel was always resourceful, and didn't fail in this
      case. He knew of a young fellow who was doing some good work for Marshall
      Lefferts, and who it was said was a genius at invention, and a very fiend
      for work. His name was Edison, and he had a shop out at Newark, New
      Jersey. He came and was put in my care for the purpose of a mutual
      exchange of ideas and for a report by me as to his competency in the
      matter. This was my introduction to Edison. He confirmed my views of the
      automatic system. He saw its possibilities, as well as the chief obstacles
      to be overcome&mdash;viz., the sluggishness of the wire, together with the
      need of mechanical betterment of the apparatus; and he agreed to take the
      job on one condition&mdash;namely, that Johnson would stay and help, as
      'he was a man with ideas.' Mr. Johnson was accordingly given three months'
      leave from Colorado railroad-building, and has never seen Colorado since."
    </p>
    <p>
      Applying himself to the difficulties with wonted energy, Edison devised
      new apparatus, and solved the problem to such an extent that he and his
      assistants succeeded in transmitting and recording one thousand words per
      minute between New York and Washington, and thirty-five hundred words per
      minute to Philadelphia. Ordinary manual transmission by key is not in
      excess of forty to fifty words a minute. Stated very briefly, Edison's
      principal contribution to the commercial development of the automatic was
      based on the observation that in a line of considerable length electrical
      impulses become enormously extended, or sluggish, due to a phenomenon
      known as self-induction, which with ordinary Morse work is in a measure
      corrected by condensers. But in the automatic the aim was to deal with
      impulses following each other from twenty-five to one hundred times as
      rapidly as in Morse lines, and to attempt to receive and record
      intelligibly such a lightning-like succession of signals would have seemed
      impossible. But Edison discovered that by utilizing a shunt around the
      receiving instrument, with a soft iron core, the self-induction would
      produce a momentary and instantaneous reversal of the current at the end
      of each impulse, and thereby give an absolutely sharp definition to each
      signal. This discovery did away entirely with sluggishness, and made it
      possible to secure high speeds over lines of comparatively great lengths.
      But Edison's work on the automatic did not stop with this basic
      suggestion, for he took up and perfected the mechanical construction of
      the instruments, as well as the perforators, and also suggested numerous
      electrosensitive chemicals for the receivers, so that the automatic
      telegraph, almost entirely by reason of his individual work, was placed on
      a plane of commercial practicability. The long line of patents secured by
      him in this art is an interesting exhibit of the development of a germ to
      a completed system, not, as is usually the case, by numerous inventors
      working over considerable periods of time, but by one man evolving the
      successive steps at a white heat of activity.
    </p>
    <p>
      This system was put in commercial operation, but the company, now
      encouraged, was quite willing to allow Edison to work out his idea of an
      automatic that would print the message in bold Roman letters instead of in
      dots and dashes; with consequent gain in speed in delivery of the message
      after its receipt in the operating-room, it being obviously necessary in
      the case of any message received in Morse characters to copy it in script
      before delivery to the recipient. A large shop was rented in Newark,
      equipped with $25,000 worth of machinery, and Edison was given full
      charge. Here he built their original type of apparatus, as improved, and
      also pushed his experiments on the letter system so far that at a test,
      between New York and Philadelphia, three thousand words were sent in one
      minute and recorded in Roman type. Mr. D. N. Craig, one of the early
      organizers of the Associated Press, became interested in this company,
      whose president was Mr. George Harrington, formerly Assistant Secretary of
      the United States Treasury.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Craig brought with him at this time&mdash;the early seventies&mdash;from
      Milwaukee a Mr. Sholes, who had a wooden model of a machine to which had
      been given the then new and unfamiliar name of "typewriter." Craig was
      interested in the machine, and put the model in Edison's hands to perfect.
      "This typewriter proved a difficult thing," says Edison, "to make
      commercial. The alignment of the letters was awful. One letter would be
      one-sixteenth of an inch above the others; and all the letters wanted to
      wander out of line. I worked on it till the machine gave fair results. [3]
      Some were made and used in the office of the Automatic company. Craig was
      very sanguine that some day all business letters would be written on a
      typewriter. He died before that took place; but it gradually made its way.
      The typewriter I got into commercial shape is now known as the Remington.
      About this time I got an idea I could devise an apparatus by which four
      messages could simultaneously be sent over a single wire without
      interfering with each other. I now had five shops, and with experimenting
      on this new scheme I was pretty busy; at least I did not have ennui."
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 3: See illustration on opposite page, showing
     reproduction of the work done with this machine.]
</pre>
    <p>
      A very interesting picture of Mr. Edison at this time is furnished by Mr.
      Patrick B. Delany, a well-known inventor in the field of automatic and
      multiplex telegraphy, who at that time was a chief operator of the
      Franklin Telegraph Company at Philadelphia. His remark about Edison that
      "his ingenuity inspired confidence, and wavering financiers stiffened up
      when it became known that he was to develop the automatic" is a noteworthy
      evidence of the manner in which the young inventor had already gained a
      firm footing. He continues: "Edward H. Johnson was brought on from the
      Denver &amp; Rio Grande Railway to assist in the practical introduction of
      automatic telegraphy on a commercial basis, and about this time, in 1872,
      I joined the enterprise. Fairly good results were obtained between New
      York and Washington, and Edison, indifferent to theoretical difficulties,
      set out to prove high speeds between New York and Charleston, South
      Carolina, the compound wire being hitched up to one of the Southern &amp;
      Atlantic wires from Washington to Charleston for the purpose of
      experimentation. Johnson and I went to the Charleston end to carry out
      Edison's plans, which were rapidly unfolded by telegraph every night from
      a loft on lower Broadway, New York. We could only get the wire after all
      business was cleared, usually about midnight, and for months, in the quiet
      hours, that wire was subjected to more electrical acrobatics than any
      other wire ever experienced. When the experiments ended, Edison's system
      was put into regular commercial operation between New York and Washington;
      and did fine work. If the single wire had not broken about every other
      day, the venture would have been a financial success; but moisture got in
      between the copper ribbon and the steel core, setting up galvanic action
      which made short work of the steel. The demonstration was, however,
      sufficiently successful to impel Jay Gould to contract to pay about
      $4,000,000 in stock for the patents. The contract was never completed so
      far as the $4,000,000 were concerned, but Gould made good use of it in
      getting control of the Western Union."
    </p>
    <p>
      One of the most important persons connected with the automatic enterprise
      was Mr. George Harrington, to whom we have above referred, and with whom
      Mr. Edison entered into close confidential relations, so that the
      inventions made were held jointly, under a partnership deed covering "any
      inventions or improvements that may be useful or desired in automatic
      telegraphy." Mr. Harrington was assured at the outset by Edison that while
      the Little perforator would give on the average only seven or eight words
      per minute, which was not enough for commercial purposes, he could devise
      one giving fifty or sixty words, and that while the Little solution for
      the receiving tape cost $15 to $17 per gallon, he could furnish a ferric
      solution costing only five or six cents per gallon. In every respect
      Edison "made good," and in a short time the system was a success, "Mr.
      Little having withdrawn his obsolete perforator, his ineffective
      resistance, his costly chemical solution, to give place to Edison's
      perforator, Edison's resistance and devices, and Edison's solution costing
      a few cents per gallon. But," continues Mr. Harrington, in a memorable
      affidavit, "the inventive efforts of Mr. Edison were not confined to
      automatic telegraphy, nor did they cease with the opening of that line to
      Washington." They all led up to the quadruplex.
    </p>
    <p>
      Flattered by their success, Messrs. Harrington and Reiff, who owned with
      Edison the foreign patents for the new automatic system, entered into an
      arrangement with the British postal telegraph authorities for a trial of
      the system in England, involving its probable adoption if successful.
      Edison was sent to England to make the demonstration, in 1873, reporting
      there to Col. George E. Gouraud, who had been an associate in the United
      States Treasury with Mr. Harrington, and was now connected with the new
      enterprise. With one small satchel of clothes, three large boxes of
      instruments, and a bright fellow-telegrapher named Jack Wright, he took
      voyage on the Jumping Java, as she was humorously known, of the Cunard
      line. The voyage was rough and the little Java justified her reputation by
      jumping all over the ocean. "At the table," says Edison, "there were never
      more than ten or twelve people. I wondered at the time how it could pay to
      run an ocean steamer with so few people; but when we got into calm water
      and could see the green fields, I was astounded to see the number of
      people who appeared. There were certainly two or three hundred. I learned
      afterward that they were mostly going to the Vienna Exposition. Only two
      days could I get on deck, and on one of these a gentleman had a bad scalp
      wound from being thrown against the iron wall of a small smoking-room
      erected over a freight hatch."
    </p>
    <p>
      Arrived in London, Edison set up his apparatus at the Telegraph Street
      headquarters, and sent his companion to Liverpool with the instruments for
      that end. The condition of the test was that he was to send from Liverpool
      and receive in London, and to record at the rate of one thousand words per
      minute, five hundred words to be sent every half hour for six hours.
      Edison was given a wire and batteries to operate with, but a preliminary
      test soon showed that he was going to fail. Both wire and batteries were
      poor, and one of the men detailed by the authorities to watch the test
      remarked quietly, in a friendly way: "You are not going to have much show.
      They are going to give you an old Bridgewater Canal wire that is so poor
      we don't work it, and a lot of 'sand batteries' at Liverpool." [4] The
      situation was rather depressing to the young American thus encountering,
      for the first time, the stolid conservatism and opposition to change that
      characterizes so much of official life and methods in Europe. "I thanked
      him," says Edison, "and hoped to reciprocate somehow. I knew I was in a
      hole. I had been staying at a little hotel in Covent Garden called the
      Hummums! and got nothing but roast beef and flounders, and my imagination
      was getting into a coma. What I needed was pastry. That night I found a
      French pastry shop in High Holborn Street and filled up. My imagination
      got all right. Early in the morning I saw Gouraud, stated my case, and
      asked if he would stand for the purchase of a powerful battery to send to
      Liverpool. He said 'Yes.' I went immediately to Apps on the Strand and
      asked if he had a powerful battery. He said he hadn't; that all that he
      had was Tyndall's Royal Institution battery, which he supposed would not
      serve. I saw it&mdash;one hundred cells&mdash;and getting the price&mdash;one
      hundred guineas&mdash;hurried to Gouraud. He said 'Go ahead.' I
      telegraphed to the man in Liverpool. He came on, got the battery to
      Liverpool, set up and ready, just two hours before the test commenced. One
      of the principal things that made the system a success was that the line
      was put to earth at the sending end through a magnet, and the extra
      current from this, passed to the line, served to sharpen the recording
      waves. This new battery was strong enough to pass a powerful current
      through the magnet without materially diminishing the strength of the line
      current."
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 4: The sand battery is now obsolete. In this type,
     the cell containing the elements was filled with sand, which
     was kept moist with an electrolyte.]
</pre>
    <p>
      The test under these more favorable circumstances was a success. "The
      record was as perfect as copper plate, and not a single remark was made in
      the 'time lost' column." Edison was now asked if he thought he could get a
      greater speed through submarine cables with this system than with the
      regular methods, and replied that he would like a chance to try it. For
      this purpose, twenty-two hundred miles of Brazilian cable then stored
      under water in tanks at the Greenwich works of the Telegraph Construction
      &amp; Maintenance Company, near London, was placed at his disposal from 8
      P.M. until 6 A.M. "This just suited me, as I preferred night-work. I got
      my apparatus down and set up, and then to get a preliminary idea of what
      the distortion of the signal would be, I sent a single dot, which should
      have been recorded upon my automatic paper by a mark about
      one-thirty-second of an inch long. Instead of that it was twenty-seven
      feet long! If I ever had any conceit, it vanished from my boots up. I
      worked on this cable more than two weeks, and the best I could do was two
      words per minute, which was only one-seventh of what the guaranteed speed
      of the cable should be when laid. What I did not know at the time was that
      a coiled cable, owing to induction, was infinitely worse than when laid
      out straight, and that my speed was as good as, if not better than, with
      the regular system; but no one told me this." While he was engaged on
      these tests Colonel Gouraud came down one night to visit him at the lonely
      works, spent a vigil with him, and toward morning wanted coffee. There was
      only one little inn near by, frequented by longshoremen and employees from
      the soap-works and cement-factories&mdash;a rough lot&mdash;and there at
      daybreak they went as soon as the other customers had left for work. "The
      place had a bar and six bare tables, and was simply infested with roaches.
      The only things that I ever could get were coffee made from burnt bread,
      with brown molasses-cake. I ordered these for Gouraud. The taste of the
      coffee, the insects, etc., were too much. He fainted. I gave him a big
      dose of gin, and this revived him. He went back to the works and waited
      until six when the day men came, and telegraphed for a carriage. He lost
      all interest in the experiments after that, and I was ordered back to
      America." Edison states, however, that the automatic was finally adopted
      in England and used for many years; indeed, is still in use there. But
      they took whatever was needed from his system, and he "has never had a
      cent from them."
    </p>
    <p>
      Arduous work was at once resumed at home on duplex and quadruplex
      telegraphy, just as though there had been no intermission or
      discouragement over dots twenty-seven feet long. A clue to his activity is
      furnished in the fact that in 1872 he had applied for thirty-eight patents
      in the class of telegraphy, and twenty-five in 1873; several of these
      being for duplex methods, on which he had experimented. The earlier
      apparatus had been built several years prior to this, as shown by a
      curious little item of news that appeared in the Telegrapher of January
      30, 1869: "T. A. Edison has resigned his situation in the Western Union
      office, Boston, and will devote his time to bringing out his inventions."
      Oh, the supreme, splendid confidence of youth! Six months later, as we
      have seen, he had already made his mark, and the same journal, in October,
      1869, could say: "Mr. Edison is a young man of the highest order of
      mechanical talent, combined with good scientific electrical knowledge and
      experience. He has already invented and patented a number of valuable and
      useful inventions, among which may be mentioned the best instrument for
      double transmission yet brought out." Not bad for a novice of twenty-two.
      It is natural, therefore, after his intervening work on indicators, stock
      tickers, automatic telegraphs, and typewriters, to find him harking back
      to duplex telegraphy, if, indeed, he can be said to have dropped it in the
      interval. It has always been one of the characteristic features of
      Edison's method of inventing that work in several lines has gone forward
      at the same time. No one line of investigation has ever been enough to
      occupy his thoughts fully; or to express it otherwise, he has found rest
      in turning from one field of work to another, having absolutely no
      recreations or hobbies, and not needing them. It may also be said that,
      once entering it, Mr. Edison has never abandoned any field of work. He may
      change the line of attack; he may drop the subject for a time; but sooner
      or later the note-books or the Patent Office will bear testimony to the
      reminiscent outcropping of latent thought on the matter. His attention has
      shifted chronologically, and by process of evolution, from one problem to
      another, and some results are found to be final; but the interest of the
      man in the thing never dies out. No one sees more vividly than he the fact
      that in the interplay of the arts one industry shapes and helps another,
      and that no invention lives to itself alone.
    </p>
    <p>
      The path to the quadruplex lay through work on the duplex, which,
      suggested first by Moses G. Farmer in 1852, had been elaborated by many
      ingenious inventors, notably in this country by Stearns, before Edison
      once again applied his mind to it. The different methods of such multiple
      transmission&mdash;namely, the simultaneous dispatch of the two
      communications in opposite directions over the same wire, or the dispatch
      of both at once in the same direction&mdash;gave plenty of play to
      ingenuity. Prescott's Elements of the Electric Telegraph, a standard work
      in its day, described "a method of simultaneous transmission invented by
      T. A. Edison, of New Jersey, in 1873," and says of it: "Its peculiarity
      consists in the fact that the signals are transmitted in one direction by
      reversing the polarity of a constant current, and in the opposite
      direction by increasing or decreasing the strength of the same current."
      Herein lay the germ of the Edison quadruplex. It is also noted that "In
      1874 Edison invented a method of simultaneous transmission by induced
      currents, which has given very satisfactory results in experimental
      trials." Interest in the duplex as a field of invention dwindled, however,
      as the quadruplex loomed up, for while the one doubled the capacity of a
      circuit, the latter created three "phantom wires," and thus quadruplexed
      the working capacity of any line to which it was applied. As will have
      been gathered from the above, the principle embodied in the quadruplex is
      that of working over the line with two currents from each end that differ
      from each other in strength or nature, so that they will affect only
      instruments adapted to respond to just such currents and no others; and by
      so arranging the receiving apparatus as not to be affected by the currents
      transmitted from its own end of the line. Thus by combining instruments
      that respond only to variation in the strength of current from the distant
      station, with instruments that respond only to the change in the direction
      of current from the distant station, and by grouping a pair of these at
      each end of the line, the quadruplex is the result. Four sending and four
      receiving operators are kept busy at each end, or eight in all. Aside from
      other material advantages, it is estimated that at least from $15,000,000
      to $20,000,000 has been saved by the Edison quadruplex merely in the cost
      of line construction in America.
    </p>
    <p>
      The quadruplex has not as a rule the same working efficiency that four
      separate wires have. This is due to the fact that when one of the
      receiving operators is compelled to "break" the sending operator for any
      reason, the "break" causes the interruption of the work of eight
      operators, instead of two, as would be the case on a single wire. The
      working efficiency of the quadruplex, therefore, with the apparatus in
      good working condition, depends entirely upon the skill of the operators
      employed to operate it. But this does not reflect upon or diminish the
      ingenuity required for its invention. Speaking of the problem involved,
      Edison said some years later to Mr. Upton, his mathematical assistant,
      that "he always considered he was only working from one room to another.
      Thus he was not confused by the amount of wire and the thought of
      distance."
    </p>
    <p>
      The immense difficulties of reducing such a system to practice may be
      readily conceived, especially when it is remembered that the "line"
      itself, running across hundreds of miles of country, is subject to all
      manner of atmospheric conditions, and varies from moment to moment in its
      ability to carry current, and also when it is borne in mind that the
      quadruplex requires at each end of the line a so-called "artificial line,"
      which must have the exact resistance of the working line and must be
      varied with the variations in resistance of the working line. At this
      juncture other schemes were fermenting in his brain; but the quadruplex
      engrossed him. "This problem was of most difficult and complicated kind,
      and I bent all my energies toward its solution. It required a peculiar
      effort of the mind, such as the imagining of eight different things moving
      simultaneously on a mental plane, without anything to demonstrate their
      efficiency." It is perhaps hardly to be wondered at that when notified he
      would have to pay 12 1/2 per cent. extra if his taxes in Newark were not
      at once paid, he actually forgot his own name when asked for it suddenly
      at the City Hall, lost his place in the line, and, the fatal hour
      striking, had to pay the surcharge after all!
    </p>
    <p>
      So important an invention as the quadruplex could not long go begging, but
      there were many difficulties connected with its introduction, some of
      which are best described in Mr. Edison's own words: "Around 1873 the
      owners of the Automatic Telegraph Company commenced negotiations with Jay
      Gould for the purchase of the wires between New York and Washington, and
      the patents for the system, then in successful operation. Jay Gould at
      that time controlled the Atlantic &amp; Pacific Telegraph Company, and was
      competing with the Western Union and endeavoring to depress Western Union
      stock on the Exchange. About this time I invented the quadruplex. I wanted
      to interest the Western Union Telegraph Company in it, with a view of
      selling it, but was unsuccessful until I made an arrangement with the
      chief electrician of the company, so that he could be known as a joint
      inventor and receive a portion of the money. At that time I was very short
      of money, and needed it more than glory. This electrician appeared to want
      glory more than money, so it was an easy trade. I brought my apparatus
      over and was given a separate room with a marble-tiled floor, which,
      by-the-way, was a very hard kind of floor to sleep on, and started in
      putting on the finishing touches.
    </p>
    <p>
      "After two months of very hard work, I got a detail at regular times of
      eight operators, and we got it working nicely from one room to another
      over a wire which ran to Albany and back. Under certain conditions of
      weather, one side of the quadruplex would work very shakily, and I had not
      succeeded in ascertaining the cause of the trouble. On a certain day, when
      there was a board meeting of the company, I was to make an exhibition
      test. The day arrived. I had picked the best operators in New York, and
      they were familiar with the apparatus. I arranged that if a storm
      occurred, and the bad side got shaky, they should do the best they could
      and draw freely on their imaginations. They were sending old messages.
      About 1, o'clock everything went wrong, as there was a storm somewhere
      near Albany, and the bad side got shaky. Mr. Orton, the president, and Wm.
      H. Vanderbilt and the other directors came in. I had my heart trying to
      climb up around my oesophagus. I was paying a sheriff five dollars a day
      to withhold judgment which had been entered against me in a case which I
      had paid no attention to; and if the quadruplex had not worked before the
      president, I knew I was to have trouble and might lose my machinery. The
      New York Times came out next day with a full account. I was given $5000 as
      part payment for the invention, which made me easy, and I expected the
      whole thing would be closed up. But Mr. Orton went on an extended tour
      just about that time. I had paid for all the experiments on the quadruplex
      and exhausted the money, and I was again in straits. In the mean time I
      had introduced the apparatus on the lines of the company, where it was
      very successful.
    </p>
    <p>
      "At that time the general superintendent of the Western Union was Gen. T.
      T. Eckert (who had been Assistant Secretary of War with Stanton). Eckert
      was secretly negotiating with Gould to leave the Western Union and take
      charge of the Atlantic &amp; Pacific&mdash;Gould's company. One day Eckert
      called me into his office and made inquiries about money matters. I told
      him Mr. Orton had gone off and left me without means, and I was in
      straits. He told me I would never get another cent, but that he knew a man
      who would buy it. I told him of my arrangement with the electrician, and
      said I could not sell it as a whole to anybody; but if I got enough for
      it, I would sell all my interest in any SHARE I might have. He seemed to
      think his party would agree to this. I had a set of quadruplex over in my
      shop, 10 and 12 Ward Street, Newark, and he arranged to bring him over
      next evening to see the apparatus. So the next morning Eckert came over
      with Jay Gould and introduced him to me. This was the first time I had
      ever seen him. I exhibited and explained the apparatus, and they departed.
      The next day Eckert sent for me, and I was taken up to Gould's house,
      which was near the Windsor Hotel, Fifth Avenue. In the basement he had an
      office. It was in the evening, and we went in by the servants' entrance,
      as Eckert probably feared that he was watched. Gould started in at once
      and asked me how much I wanted. I said: 'Make me an offer.' Then he said:
      'I will give you $30,000.' I said: 'I will sell any interest I may have
      for that money,' which was something more than I thought I could get. The
      next morning I went with Gould to the office of his lawyers, Sherman &amp;
      Sterling, and received a check for $30,000, with a remark by Gould that I
      had got the steamboat Plymouth Rock, as he had sold her for $30,000 and
      had just received the check. There was a big fight on between Gould's
      company and the Western Union, and this caused more litigation. The
      electrician, on account of the testimony involved, lost his glory. The
      judge never decided the case, but went crazy a few months afterward." It
      was obviously a characteristically shrewd move on the part of Mr. Gould to
      secure an interest in the quadruplex, as a factor in his campaign against
      the Western Union, and as a decisive step toward his control of that
      system, by the subsequent merger that included not only the Atlantic &amp;
      Pacific Telegraph Company, but the American Union Telegraph Company.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nor was Mr. Gould less appreciative of the value of Edison's automatic
      system. Referring to matters that will be taken up later in the narrative,
      Edison says: "After this Gould wanted me to help install the automatic
      system in the Atlantic &amp; Pacific company, of which General Eckert had
      been elected president, the company having bought the Automatic Telegraph
      Company. I did a lot of work for this company making automatic apparatus
      in my shop at Newark. About this time I invented a district messenger
      call-box system, and organized a company called the Domestic Telegraph
      Company, and started in to install the system in New York. I had great
      difficulty in getting subscribers, having tried several canvassers, who,
      one after the other, failed to get subscribers. When I was about to give
      it up, a test operator named Brown, who was on the Automatic Telegraph
      wire between New York and Washington, which passed through my Newark shop,
      asked permission to let him try and see if he couldn't get subscribers. I
      had very little faith in his ability to get any, but I thought I would
      give him a chance, as he felt certain of his ability to succeed. He
      started in, and the results were surprising. Within a month he had
      procured two hundred subscribers, and the company was a success. I have
      never quite understood why six men should fail absolutely, while the
      seventh man should succeed. Perhaps hypnotism would account for it. This
      company was sold out to the Atlantic &amp; Pacific company." As far back
      as 1872, Edison had applied for a patent on district messenger signal
      boxes, but it was not issued until January, 1874, another patent being
      granted in September of the same year. In this field of telegraph
      application, as in others, Edison was a very early comer, his only
      predecessor being the fertile and ingenious Callahan, of stock-ticker
      fame. The first president of the Gold &amp; Stock Telegraph Company,
      Elisha W. Andrews, had resigned in 1870 in order to go to England to
      introduce the stock ticker in London. He lived in Englewood, New Jersey,
      and the very night he had packed his trunk the house was burglarized.
      Calling on his nearest friend the next morning for even a pair of
      suspenders, Mr. Andrews was met with regrets of inability, because the
      burglars had also been there. A third and fourth friend in the vicinity
      was appealed to with the same disheartening reply of a story of wholesale
      spoliation. Mr. Callahan began immediately to devise a system of
      protection for Englewood; but at that juncture a servant-girl who had been
      for many years with a family on the Heights in Brooklyn went mad suddenly
      and held an aged widow and her daughter as helpless prisoners for
      twenty-four hours without food or water. This incident led to an extension
      of the protective idea, and very soon a system was installed in Brooklyn
      with one hundred subscribers. Out of this grew in turn the district
      messenger system, for it was just as easy to call a messenger as to sound
      a fire-alarm or summon the police. To-day no large city in America is
      without a service of this character, but its function was sharply limited
      by the introduction of the telephone.
    </p>
    <p>
      Returning to the automatic telegraph it is interesting to note that so
      long as Edison was associated with it as a supervising providence it did
      splendid work, which renders the later neglect of automatic or "rapid
      telegraphy" the more remarkable. Reid's standard Telegraph in America
      bears astonishing testimony on this point in 1880, as follows: "The
      Atlantic &amp; Pacific Telegraph Company had twenty-two automatic
      stations. These included the chief cities on the seaboard, Buffalo,
      Chicago, and Omaha. The through business during nearly two years was
      largely transmitted in this way. Between New York and Boston two thousand
      words a minute have been sent. The perforated paper was prepared at the
      rate of twenty words per minute. Whatever its demerits this system enabled
      the Atlantic &amp; Pacific company to handle a much larger business during
      1875 and 1876 than it could otherwise have done with its limited number of
      wires in their then condition." Mr. Reid also notes as a very thorough
      test of the perfect practicability of the system, that it handled the
      President's message, December 3, 1876, of 12,600 words with complete
      success. This long message was filed at Washington at 1.05 and delivered
      in New York at 2.07. The first 9000 words were transmitted in forty-five
      minutes. The perforated strips were prepared in thirty minutes by ten
      persons, and duplicated by nine copyists. But to-day, nearly thirty-five
      years later, telegraphy in America is still practically on a basis of hand
      transmission!
    </p>
    <p>
      Of this period and his association with Jay Gould, some very interesting
      glimpses are given by Edison. "While engaged in putting in the automatic
      system, I saw a great deal of Gould, and frequently went uptown to his
      office to give information. Gould had no sense of humor. I tried several
      times to get off what seemed to me a funny story, but he failed to see any
      humor in them. I was very fond of stories, and had a choice lot, always
      kept fresh, with which I could usually throw a man into convulsions. One
      afternoon Gould started in to explain the great future of the Union
      Pacific Railroad, which he then controlled. He got a map, and had an
      immense amount of statistics. He kept at it for over four hours, and got
      very enthusiastic. Why he should explain to me, a mere inventor, with no
      capital or standing, I couldn't make out. He had a peculiar eye, and I
      made up my mind that there was a strain of insanity somewhere. This idea
      was strengthened shortly afterward when the Western Union raised the
      monthly rental of the stock tickers. Gould had one in his house office,
      which he watched constantly. This he had removed, to his great
      inconvenience, because the price had been advanced a few dollars! He
      railed over it. This struck me as abnormal. I think Gould's success was
      due to abnormal development. He certainly had one trait that all men must
      have who want to succeed. He collected every kind of information and
      statistics about his schemes, and had all the data. His connection with
      men prominent in official life, of which I was aware, was surprising to
      me. His conscience seemed to be atrophied, but that may be due to the fact
      that he was contending with men who never had any to be atrophied. He
      worked incessantly until 12 or 1 o'clock at night. He took no pride in
      building up an enterprise. He was after money, and money only. Whether the
      company was a success or a failure mattered not to him. After he had
      hammered the Western Union through his opposition company and had tired
      out Mr. Vanderbilt, the latter retired from control, and Gould went in and
      consolidated his company and controlled the Western Union. He then
      repudiated the contract with the Automatic Telegraph people, and they
      never received a cent for their wires or patents, and I lost three years
      of very hard labor. But I never had any grudge against him, because he was
      so able in his line, and as long as my part was successful the money with
      me was a secondary consideration. When Gould got the Western Union I knew
      no further progress in telegraphy was possible, and I went into other
      lines." The truth is that General Eckert was a conservative&mdash;even a
      reactionary&mdash;and being prejudiced like many other American telegraph
      managers against "machine telegraphy," threw out all such improvements.
    </p>
    <p>
      The course of electrical history has been variegated by some very
      remarkable litigation; but none was ever more extraordinary than that
      referred to here as arising from the transfer of the Automatic Telegraph
      Company to Mr. Jay Gould and the Atlantic &amp; Pacific Telegraph Company.
      The terms accepted by Colonel Reiff from Mr. Gould, on December 30, 1874,
      provided that the purchasing telegraph company should increase its capital
      to $15,000,000, of which the Automatic interests were to receive
      $4,000,000 for their patents, contracts, etc. The stock was then selling
      at about 25, and in the later consolidation with the Western Union "went
      in" at about 60; so that the real purchase price was not less than
      $1,000,000 in cash. There was a private arrangement in writing with Mr.
      Gould that he was to receive one-tenth of the "result" to the Automatic
      group, and a tenth of the further results secured at home and abroad. Mr.
      Gould personally bought up and gave money and bonds for one or two
      individual interests on the above basis, including that of Harrington, who
      in his representative capacity executed assignments to Mr. Gould. But
      payments were then stopped, and the other owners were left without any
      compensation, although all that belonged to them in the shape of property
      and patents was taken over bodily into Atlantic &amp; Pacific hands, and
      never again left them. Attempts at settlement were made in their behalf,
      and dragged wearily, due apparently to the fact that the plans were
      blocked by General Eckert, who had in some manner taken offence at a
      transaction effected without his active participation in all the details.
      Edison, who became under the agreement the electrician of the Atlantic
      &amp; Pacific Telegraph Company, has testified to the unfriendly attitude
      assumed toward him by General Eckert, as president. In a graphic letter
      from Menlo Park to Mr. Gould, dated February 2, 1877, Edison makes a most
      vigorous and impassioned complaint of his treatment, "which, acting
      cumulatively, was a long, unbroken disappointment to me"; and he reminds
      Mr. Gould of promises made to him the day the transfer had been effected
      of Edison's interest in the quadruplex. The situation was galling to the
      busy, high-spirited young inventor, who, moreover, "had to live"; and it
      led to his resumption of work for the Western Union Telegraph Company,
      which was only too glad to get him back. Meantime, the saddened and
      perplexed Automatic group was left unpaid, and it was not until 1906, on a
      bill filed nearly thirty years before, that Judge Hazel, in the United
      States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York, found strongly
      in favor of the claimants and ordered an accounting. The court held that
      there had been a most wrongful appropriation of the patents, including
      alike those relating to the automatic, the duplex, and the quadruplex, all
      being included in the general arrangement under which Mr. Gould had held
      put his tempting bait of $4,000,000. In the end, however, the complainant
      had nothing to show for all his struggle, as the master who made the
      accounting set the damages at one dollar!
    </p>
    <p>
      Aside from the great value of the quadruplex, saving millions of dollars,
      for a share in which Edison received $30,000, the automatic itself is
      described as of considerable utility by Sir William Thomson in his juror
      report at the Centennial Exposition of 1876, recommending it for award.
      This leading physicist of his age, afterward Lord Kelvin, was an adept in
      telegraphy, having made the ocean cable talk, and he saw in Edison's
      "American Automatic," as exhibited by the Atlantic &amp; Pacific company,
      a most meritorious and useful system. With the aid of Mr. E. H. Johnson he
      made exhaustive tests, carrying away with him to Glasgow University the
      surprising records that he obtained. His official report closes thus: "The
      electromagnetic shunt with soft iron core, invented by Mr. Edison,
      utilizing Professor Henry's discovery of electromagnetic induction in a
      single circuit to produce a momentary reversal of the line current at the
      instant when the battery is thrown off and so cut off the chemical marks
      sharply at the proper instant, is the electrical secret of the great speed
      he has achieved. The main peculiarities of Mr. Edison's automatic
      telegraph shortly stated in conclusion are: (1) the perforator; (2) the
      contact-maker; (3) the electromagnetic shunt; and (4) the ferric cyanide
      of iron solution. It deserves award as a very important step in land
      telegraphy." The attitude thus disclosed toward Mr. Edison's work was
      never changed, except that admiration grew as fresh inventions were
      brought forward. To the day of his death Lord Kelvin remained on terms of
      warmest friendship with his American co-laborer, with whose genius he thus
      first became acquainted at Philadelphia in the environment of Franklin.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is difficult to give any complete idea of the activity maintained at
      the Newark shops during these anxious, harassed years, but the statement
      that at one time no fewer than forty-five different inventions were being
      worked upon, will furnish some notion of the incandescent activity of the
      inventor and his assistants. The hours were literally endless; and upon
      one occasion, when the order was in hand for a large quantity of stock
      tickers, Edison locked his men in until the job had been finished of
      making the machine perfect, and "all the bugs taken out," which meant
      sixty hours of unintermitted struggle with the difficulties. Nor were the
      problems and inventions all connected with telegraphy. On the contrary,
      Edison's mind welcomed almost any new suggestion as a relief from the
      regular work in hand. Thus: "Toward the latter part of 1875, in the Newark
      shop, I invented a device for multiplying copies of letters, which I sold
      to Mr. A. B. Dick, of Chicago, and in the years since it has been
      universally introduced throughout the world. It is called the
      'Mimeograph.' I also invented devices for and introduced paraffin paper,
      now used universally for wrapping up candy, etc." The mimeograph employs a
      pointed stylus, used as in writing with a lead-pencil, which is moved over
      a kind of tough prepared paper placed on a finely grooved steel plate. The
      writing is thus traced by means of a series of minute perforations in the
      sheet, from which, as a stencil, hundreds of copies can be made. Such
      stencils can be prepared on typewriters. Edison elaborated this principle
      in two other forms&mdash;one pneumatic and one electric&mdash;the latter
      being in essence a reciprocating motor. Inside the barrel of the electric
      pen a little plunger, carrying the stylus, travels to and fro at a very
      high rate of speed, due to the attraction and repulsion of the solenoid
      coils of wire surrounding it; and as the hand of the writer guides it the
      pen thus makes its record in a series of very minute perforations in the
      paper. The current from a small battery suffices to energize the pen, and
      with the stencil thus made hundreds of copies of the document can be
      furnished. As a matter of fact, as many as three thousand copies have been
      made from a single mimeographic stencil of this character.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER IX
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE TELEPHONE, MOTOGRAPH, AND MICROPHONE
    </h3>
    <p>
      A VERY great invention has its own dramatic history. Episodes full of
      human interest attend its development. The periods of weary struggle, the
      daring adventure along unknown paths, the clash of rival claimants, are
      closely similar to those which mark the revelation and subjugation of a
      new continent. At the close of the epoch of discovery it is seen that
      mankind as a whole has made one more great advance; but in the earlier
      stages one watched chiefly the confused vicissitudes of fortune of the
      individual pioneers. The great modern art of telephony has had thus in its
      beginnings, its evolution, and its present status as a universal medium of
      intercourse, all the elements of surprise, mystery, swift creation of
      wealth, tragic interludes, and colossal battle that can appeal to the
      imagination and hold public attention. And in this new electrical
      industry, in laying its essential foundations, Edison has again been one
      of the dominant figures.
    </p>
    <p>
      As far back as 1837, the American, Page, discovered the curious fact that
      an iron bar, when magnetized and demagnetized at short intervals of time,
      emitted sounds due to the molecular disturbances in the mass. Philipp
      Reis, a simple professor in Germany, utilized this principle in the
      construction of apparatus for the transmission of sound; but in the grasp
      of the idea he was preceded by Charles Bourseul, a young French soldier in
      Algeria, who in 1854, under the title of "Electrical Telephony," in a
      Parisian illustrated paper, gave a brief and lucid description as follows:
    </p>
    <p>
      "We know that sounds are made by vibrations, and are made sensible to the
      ear by the same vibrations, which are reproduced by the intervening
      medium. But the intensity of the vibrations diminishes very rapidly with
      the distance; so that even with the aid of speaking-tubes and trumpets it
      is impossible to exceed somewhat narrow limits. Suppose a man speaks near
      a movable disk sufficiently flexible to lose none of the vibrations of the
      voice; that this disk alternately makes and breaks the connection with a
      battery; you may have at a distance another disk which will simultaneously
      execute the same vibrations.... Any one who is not deaf and dumb may use
      this mode of transmission, which would require no apparatus except an
      electric battery, two vibrating disks, and a wire."
    </p>
    <p>
      This would serve admirably for a portrayal of the Bell telephone, except
      that it mentions distinctly the use of the make-and-break method (i. e.,
      where the circuit is necessarily opened and closed as in telegraphy,
      although, of course, at an enormously higher rate), which has never proved
      practical.
    </p>
    <p>
      So far as is known Bourseul was not practical enough to try his own
      suggestion, and never made a telephone. About 1860, Reis built several
      forms of electrical telephonic apparatus, all imitating in some degree the
      human ear, with its auditory tube, tympanum, etc., and examples of the
      apparatus were exhibited in public not only in Germany, but in England.
      There is a variety of testimony to the effect that not only musical
      sounds, but stray words and phrases, were actually transmitted with
      mediocre, casual success. It was impossible, however, to maintain the
      devices in adjustment for more than a few seconds, since the invention
      depended upon the make-and-break principle, the circuit being made and
      broken every time an impulse-creating sound went through it, causing the
      movement of the diaphragm on which the sound-waves impinged. Reis himself
      does not appear to have been sufficiently interested in the marvellous
      possibilities of the idea to follow it up&mdash;remarking to the man who
      bought his telephonic instruments and tools that he had shown the world
      the way. In reality it was not the way, although a monument erected to his
      memory at Frankfort styles him the inventor of the telephone. As one of
      the American judges said, in deciding an early litigation over the
      invention of the telephone, a hundred years of Reis would not have given
      the world the telephonic art for public use. Many others after Reis tried
      to devise practical make-and-break telephones, and all failed; although
      their success would have rendered them very valuable as a means of
      fighting the Bell patent. But the method was a good starting-point, even
      if it did not indicate the real path. If Reis had been willing to
      experiment with his apparatus so that it did not make-and-break, he would
      probably have been the true father of the telephone, besides giving it the
      name by which it is known. It was not necessary to slam the gate open and
      shut. All that was required was to keep the gate closed, and rattle the
      latch softly. Incidentally it may be noted that Edison in experimenting
      with the Reis transmitter recognized at once the defect caused by the
      make-and-break action, and sought to keep the gap closed by the use,
      first, of one drop of water, and later of several drops. But the water
      decomposed, and the incurable defect was still there.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Reis telephone was brought to America by Dr. P. H. Van der Weyde, a
      well-known physicist in his day, and was exhibited by him before a
      technical audience at Cooper Union, New York, in 1868, and described
      shortly after in the technical press. The apparatus attracted attention,
      and a set was secured by Prof. Joseph Henry for the Smithsonian
      Institution. There the famous philosopher showed and explained it to
      Alexander Graham Bell, when that young and persevering Scotch genius went
      to get help and data as to harmonic telegraphy, upon which he was working,
      and as to transmitting vocal sounds. Bell took up immediately and
      energetically the idea that his two predecessors had dropped&mdash;and
      reached the goal. In 1875 Bell, who as a student and teacher of vocal
      physiology had unusual qualifications for determining feasible methods of
      speech transmission, constructed his first pair of magneto telephones for
      such a purpose. In February of 1876 his first telephone patent was applied
      for, and in March it was issued. The first published account of the modern
      speaking telephone was a paper read by Bell before the American Academy of
      Arts and Sciences in Boston in May of that year; while at the Centennial
      Exposition at Philadelphia the public first gained any familiarity with
      it. It was greeted at once with scientific acclaim and enthusiasm as a
      distinctly new and great invention, although at first it was regarded more
      as a scientific toy than as a commercially valuable device.
    </p>
    <p>
      By an extraordinary coincidence, the very day that Bell's application for
      a patent went into the United States Patent Office, a caveat was filed
      there by Elisha Gray, of Chicago, covering the specific idea of
      transmitting speech and reproducing it in a telegraphic circuit "through
      an instrument capable of vibrating responsively to all the tones of the
      human voice, and by which they are rendered audible." Out of this incident
      arose a struggle and a controversy whose echoes are yet heard as to the
      legal and moral rights of the two inventors, the assertion even being made
      that one of the most important claims of Gray, that on a liquid battery
      transmitter, was surreptitiously "lifted" into the Bell application, then
      covering only the magneto telephone. It was also asserted that the filing
      of the Gray caveat antedated by a few hours the filing of the Bell
      application. All such issues when brought to the American courts were
      brushed aside, the Bell patent being broadly maintained in all its
      remarkable breadth and fullness, embracing an entire art; but Gray was
      embittered and chagrined, and to the last expressed his belief that the
      honor and glory should have been his. The path of Gray to the telephone
      was a natural one. A Quaker carpenter who studied five years at Oberlin
      College, he took up electrical invention, and brought out many ingenious
      devices in rapid succession in the telegraphic field, including the now
      universal needle annunciator for hotels, etc., the useful telautograph,
      automatic self-adjusting relays, private-line printers&mdash;leading up to
      his famous "harmonic" system. This was based upon the principle that a
      sound produced in the presence of a reed or tuning-fork responding to the
      sound, and acting as the armature of a magnet in a closed circuit, would,
      by induction, set up electric impulses in the circuit and cause a distant
      magnet having a similarly tuned armature to produce the same tone or note.
      He also found that over the same wire at the same time another series of
      impulses corresponding to another note could be sent through the agency of
      a second set of magnets without in any way interfering with the first
      series of impulses. Building the principle into apparatus, with a keyboard
      and vibrating "reeds" before his magnets, Doctor Gray was able not only to
      transmit music by his harmonic telegraph, but went so far as to send nine
      different telegraph messages at the same instant, each set of instruments
      depending on its selective note, while any intermediate office could pick
      up the message for itself by simply tuning its relays to the keynote
      required. Theoretically the system could be split up into any number of
      notes and semi-tones. Practically it served as the basis of some real
      telegraphic work, but is not now in use. Any one can realize, however,
      that it did not take so acute and ingenious a mind very long to push
      forward to the telephone, as a dangerous competitor with Bell, who had
      also, like Edison, been working assiduously in the field of acoustic and
      multiple telegraphs. Seen in the retrospect, the struggle for the goal at
      this moment was one of the memorable incidents in electrical history.
    </p>
    <p>
      Among the interesting papers filed at the Orange Laboratory is a
      lithograph, the size of an ordinary patent drawing, headed "First
      Telephone on Record." The claim thus made goes back to the period when all
      was war, and when dispute was hot and rife as to the actual invention of
      the telephone. The device shown, made by Edison in 1875, was actually
      included in a caveat filed January 14, 1876, a month before Bell or Gray.
      It shows a little solenoid arrangement, with one end of the plunger
      attached to the diaphragm of a speaking or resonating chamber. Edison
      states that while the device is crudely capable of use as a magneto
      telephone, he did not invent it for transmitting speech, but as an
      apparatus for analyzing the complex waves arising from various sounds. It
      was made in pursuance of his investigations into the subject of harmonic
      telegraphs. He did not try the effect of sound-waves produced by the human
      voice until Bell came forward a few months later; but he found then that
      this device, made in 1875, was capable of use as a telephone. In his
      testimony and public utterances Edison has always given Bell credit for
      the discovery of the transmission of articulate speech by talking against
      a diaphragm placed in front of an electromagnet; but it is only proper
      here to note, in passing, the curious fact that he had actually produced a
      device that COULD talk, prior to 1876, and was therefore very close to
      Bell, who took the one great step further. A strong characterization of
      the value and importance of the work done by Edison in the development of
      the carbon transmitter will be found in the decision of Judge Brown in the
      United States Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in Boston, on February 27,
      1901, declaring void the famous Berliner patent of the Bell telephone
      system. [5]
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 5: See Federal Reporter, vol. 109, p. 976 et seq.]
</pre>
    <p>
      Bell's patent of 1876 was of an all-embracing character, which only the
      make-and-break principle, if practical, could have escaped. It was pointed
      out in the patent that Bell discovered the great principle that electrical
      undulations induced by the vibrations of a current produced by sound-waves
      can be represented graphically by the same sinusoidal curve that expresses
      the original sound vibrations themselves; or, in other words, that a curve
      representing sound vibrations will correspond precisely to a curve
      representing electric impulses produced or generated by those identical
      sound vibrations&mdash;as, for example, when the latter impinge upon a
      diaphragm acting as an armature of an electromagnet, and which by movement
      to and fro sets up the electric impulses by induction. To speak plainly,
      the electric impulses correspond in form and character to the sound
      vibration which they represent. This reduced to a patent "claim" governed
      the art as firmly as a papal bull for centuries enabled Spain to hold the
      Western world. The language of the claim is: "The method of and apparatus
      for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically as herein
      described, by causing electrical undulations similar in form to the
      vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sounds
      substantially as set forth." It was a long time, however, before the
      inclusive nature of this grant over every possible telephone was
      understood or recognized, and litigation for and against the patent lasted
      during its entire life. At the outset, the commercial value of the
      telephone was little appreciated by the public, and Bell had the greatest
      difficulty in securing capital; but among far-sighted inventors there was
      an immediate "rush to the gold fields." Bell's first apparatus was poor,
      the results being described by himself as "unsatisfactory and
      discouraging," which was almost as true of the devices he exhibited at the
      Philadelphia Centennial. The new-comers, like Edison, Berliner, Blake,
      Hughes, Gray, Dolbear, and others, brought a wealth of ideas, a fund of
      mechanical ingenuity, and an inventive ability which soon made the
      telephone one of the most notable gains of the century, and one of the
      most valuable additions to human resources. The work that Edison did was,
      as usual, marked by infinite variety of method as well as by the power to
      seize on the one needed element of practical success. Every one of the six
      million telephones in use in the United States, and of the other millions
      in use through out the world, bears the imprint of his genius, as at one
      time the instruments bore his stamped name. For years his name was branded
      on every Bell telephone set, and his patents were a mainstay of what has
      been popularly called the "Bell monopoly." Speaking of his own efforts in
      this field, Mr. Edison says:
    </p>
    <p>
      "In 1876 I started again to experiment for the Western Union and Mr.
      Orton. This time it was the telephone. Bell invented the first telephone,
      which consisted of the present receiver, used both as a transmitter and a
      receiver (the magneto type). It was attempted to introduce it
      commercially, but it failed on account of its faintness and the extraneous
      sounds which came in on its wires from various causes. Mr. Orton wanted me
      to take hold of it and make it commercial. As I had also been working on a
      telegraph system employing tuning-forks, simultaneously with both Bell and
      Gray, I was pretty familiar with the subject. I started in, and soon
      produced the carbon transmitter, which is now universally used.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Tests were made between New York and Philadelphia, also between New York
      and Washington, using regular Western Union wires. The noises were so
      great that not a word could be heard with the Bell receiver when used as a
      transmitter between New York and Newark, New Jersey. Mr. Orton and W. K.
      Vanderbilt and the board of directors witnessed and took part in the
      tests. The Western Union then put them on private lines. Mr. Theodore
      Puskas, of Budapest, Hungary, was the first man to suggest a telephone
      exchange, and soon after exchanges were established. The telephone
      department was put in the hands of Hamilton McK. Twombly, Vanderbilt's
      ablest son-in-law, who made a success of it. The Bell company, of Boston,
      also started an exchange, and the fight was on, the Western Union pirating
      the Bell receiver, and the Boston company pirating the Western Union
      transmitter. About this time I wanted to be taken care of. I threw out
      hints of this desire. Then Mr. Orton sent for me. He had learned that
      inventors didn't do business by the regular process, and concluded he
      would close it right up. He asked me how much I wanted. I had made up my
      mind it was certainly worth $25,000, if it ever amounted to anything for
      central-station work, so that was the sum I had in mind to stick to and
      get&mdash;obstinately. Still it had been an easy job, and only required a
      few months, and I felt a little shaky and uncertain. So I asked him to
      make me an offer. He promptly said he would give me $100,000. 'All right,'
      I said. 'It is yours on one condition, and that is that you do not pay it
      all at once, but pay me at the rate of $6000 per year for seventeen years'&mdash;the
      life of the patent. He seemed only too pleased to do this, and it was
      closed. My ambition was about four times too large for my business
      capacity, and I knew that I would soon spend this money experimenting if I
      got it all at once, so I fixed it that I couldn't. I saved seventeen years
      of worry by this stroke."
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus modestly is told the debut of Edison in the telephone art, to which
      with his carbon transmitter he gave the valuable principle of varying the
      resistance of the transmitting circuit with changes in the pressure, as
      well as the vital practice of using the induction coil as a means of
      increasing the effective length of the talking circuit. Without these,
      modern telephony would not and could not exist. [6] But Edison, in
      telephonic work, as in other directions, was remarkably fertile and
      prolific. His first inventions in the art, made in 1875-76, continue
      through many later years, including all kinds of carbon instruments
      &mdash;the water telephone, electrostatic telephone, condenser telephone,
      chemical telephone, various magneto telephones, inertia telephone, mercury
      telephone, voltaic pile telephone, musical transmitter, and the
      electromotograph. All were actually made and tested.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 6: Briefly stated, the essential difference
     between Bell's telephone and Edison's is this: With the
     former the sound vibrations impinge upon a steel diaphragm
     arranged adjacent to the pole of a bar electromagnet,
     whereby the diaphragm acts as an armature, and by its
     vibrations induces very weak electric impulses in the
     magnetic coil. These impulses, according to Bell's theory,
     correspond in form to the sound-waves, and passing over the
     line energize the magnet coil at the receiving end, and by
     varying the magnetism cause the receiving diaphragm to be
     similarly vibrated to reproduce the sounds. A single
     apparatus is therefore used at each end, performing the
     double function of transmitter and receiver. With Edison's
     telephone a closed circuit is used on which is constantly
     flowing a battery current, and included in that circuit is a
     pair of electrodes, one or both of which is of carbon. These
     electrodes are always in contact with a certain initial
     pressure, so that current will be always flowing over the
     circuit. One of the electrodes is connected with the
     diaphragm on which the sound-waves impinge, and the
     vibration of this diaphragm causes the pressure between the
     electrodes to be correspondingly varied, and thereby effects
     a variation in the current, resulting in the production of
     impulses which actuate the receiving magnet. In other words,
     with Bell's telephone the sound-waves themselves generate
     the electric impulses, which are hence extremely faint. With
     the Edison telephone, the sound-waves actuate an electric
     valve, so to speak, and permit variations in a current of
     any desired strength.

     A second distinction between the two telephones is this:
     With the Bell apparatus the very weak electric impulses
     generated by the vibration of the transmitting diaphragm
     pass over the entire line to the receiving end, and in
     consequence the permissible length of line is limited to a
     few miles under ideal conditions. With Edison's telephone
     the battery current does not flow on the main line, but
     passes through the primary circuit of an induction coil, by
     which corresponding impulses of enormously higher potential
     are sent out on the main line to the receiving end. In
     consequence, the line may be hundreds of miles in length. No
     modern telephone system in use to-day lacks these
     characteristic features&mdash;the varying resistance and the
     induction coil.]
</pre>
    <p>
      The principle of the electromotograph was utilized by Edison in more ways
      than one, first of all in telegraphy at this juncture. The well-known Page
      patent, which had lingered in the Patent Office for years, had just been
      issued, and was considered a formidable weapon. It related to the use of a
      retractile spring to withdraw the armature lever from the magnet of a
      telegraph or other relay or sounder, and thus controlled the art of
      telegraphy, except in simple circuits. "There was no known way," remarks
      Edison, "whereby this patent could be evaded, and its possessor would
      eventually control the use of what is known as the relay and sounder, and
      this was vital to telegraphy. Gould was pounding the Western Union on the
      Stock Exchange, disturbing its railroad contracts, and, being advised by
      his lawyers that this patent was of great value, bought it. The moment Mr.
      Orton heard this he sent for me and explained the situation, and wanted me
      to go to work immediately and see if I couldn't evade it or discover some
      other means that could be used in case Gould sustained the patent. It
      seemed a pretty hard job, because there was no known means of moving a
      lever at the other end of a telegraph wire except by the use of a magnet.
      I said I would go at it that night. In experimenting some years
      previously, I had discovered a very peculiar phenomenon, and that was that
      if a piece of metal connected to a battery was rubbed over a moistened
      piece of chalk resting on a metal connected to the other pole, when the
      current passed the friction was greatly diminished. When the current was
      reversed the friction was greatly increased over what it was when no
      current was passing. Remembering this, I substituted a piece of chalk
      rotated by a small electric motor for the magnet, and connecting a sounder
      to a metallic finger resting on the chalk, the combination claim of Page
      was made worthless. A hitherto unknown means was introduced in the
      electric art. Two or three of the devices were made and tested by the
      company's expert. Mr. Orton, after he had me sign the patent application
      and got it in the Patent Office, wanted to settle for it at once. He asked
      my price. Again I said: 'Make me an offer.' Again he named $100,000. I
      accepted, providing he would pay it at the rate of $6000 a year for
      seventeen years. This was done, and thus, with the telephone money, I
      received $12,000 yearly for that period from the Western Union Telegraph
      Company."
    </p>
    <p>
      A year or two later the motograph cropped up again in Edison's work in a
      curious manner. The telephone was being developed in England, and Edison
      had made arrangements with Colonel Gouraud, his old associate in the
      automatic telegraph, to represent his interests. A company was formed, a
      large number of instruments were made and sent to Gouraud in London, and
      prospects were bright. Then there came a threat of litigation from the
      owners of the Bell patent, and Gouraud found he could not push the
      enterprise unless he could avoid using what was asserted to be an
      infringement of the Bell receiver. He cabled for help to Edison, who sent
      back word telling him to hold the fort. "I had recourse again," says
      Edison, "to the phenomenon discovered by me years previous, that the
      friction of a rubbing electrode passing over a moist chalk surface was
      varied by electricity. I devised a telephone receiver which was afterward
      known as the 'loud-speaking telephone,' or 'chalk receiver.' There was no
      magnet, simply a diaphragm and a cylinder of compressed chalk about the
      size of a thimble. A thin spring connected to the centre of the diaphragm
      extended outwardly and rested on the chalk cylinder, and was pressed
      against it with a pressure equal to that which would be due to a weight of
      about six pounds. The chalk was rotated by hand. The volume of sound was
      very great. A person talking into the carbon transmitter in New York had
      his voice so amplified that he could be heard one thousand feet away in an
      open field at Menlo Park. This great excess of power was due to the fact
      that the latter came from the person turning the handle. The voice,
      instead of furnishing all the power as with the present receiver, merely
      controlled the power, just as an engineer working a valve would control a
      powerful engine.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I made six of these receivers and sent them in charge of an expert on the
      first steamer. They were welcomed and tested, and shortly afterward I
      shipped a hundred more. At the same time I was ordered to send twenty
      young men, after teaching them to become expert. I set up an exchange,
      around the laboratory, of ten instruments. I would then go out and get
      each one out of order in every conceivable way, cutting the wires of one,
      short-circuiting another, destroying the adjustment of a third, putting
      dirt between the electrodes of a fourth, and so on. A man would be sent to
      each to find out the trouble. When he could find the trouble ten
      consecutive times, using five minutes each, he was sent to London. About
      sixty men were sifted to get twenty. Before all had arrived, the Bell
      company there, seeing we could not be stopped, entered into negotiations
      for consolidation. One day I received a cable from Gouraud offering
      '30,000' for my interest. I cabled back I would accept. When the draft
      came I was astonished to find it was for L30,000. I had thought it was
      dollars."
    </p>
    <p>
      In regard to this singular and happy conclusion, Edison makes some
      interesting comments as to the attitude of the courts toward inventors,
      and the difference between American and English courts. "The men I sent
      over were used to establish telephone exchanges all over the Continent,
      and some of them became wealthy. It was among this crowd in London that
      Bernard Shaw was employed before he became famous. The chalk telephone was
      finally discarded in favor of the Bell receiver&mdash;the latter being
      more simple and cheaper. Extensive litigation with new-comers followed. My
      carbon-transmitter patent was sustained, and preserved the monopoly of the
      telephone in England for many years. Bell's patent was not sustained by
      the courts. Sir Richard Webster, now Chief-Justice of England, was my
      counsel, and sustained all of my patents in England for many years.
      Webster has a marvellous capacity for understanding things scientific; and
      his address before the courts was lucidity itself. His brain is highly
      organized. My experience with the legal fraternity is that scientific
      subjects are distasteful to them, and it is rare in this country, on
      account of the system of trying patent suits, for a judge really to reach
      the meat of the controversy, and inventors scarcely ever get a decision
      squarely and entirely in their favor. The fault rests, in my judgment,
      almost wholly with the system under which testimony to the extent of
      thousands of pages bearing on all conceivable subjects, many of them
      having no possible connection with the invention in dispute, is presented
      to an over-worked judge in an hour or two of argument supported by several
      hundred pages of briefs; and the judge is supposed to extract some essence
      of justice from this mass of conflicting, blind, and misleading
      statements. It is a human impossibility, no matter how able and
      fair-minded the judge may be. In England the case is different. There the
      judges are face to face with the experts and other witnesses. They get the
      testimony first-hand and only so much as they need, and there are no
      long-winded briefs and arguments, and the case is decided then and there,
      a few months perhaps after suit is brought, instead of many years
      afterward, as in this country. And in England, when a case is once finally
      decided it is settled for the whole country, while here it is not so. Here
      a patent having once been sustained, say, in Boston, may have to be
      litigated all over again in New York, and again in Philadelphia, and so on
      for all the Federal circuits. Furthermore, it seems to me that scientific
      disputes should be decided by some court containing at least one or two
      scientific men&mdash;men capable of comprehending the significance of an
      invention and the difficulties of its accomplishment&mdash;if justice is
      ever to be given to an inventor. And I think, also, that this court should
      have the power to summon before it and examine any recognized expert in
      the special art, who might be able to testify to FACTS for or against the
      patent, instead of trying to gather the truth from the tedious essays of
      hired experts, whose depositions are really nothing but sworn arguments.
      The real gist of patent suits is generally very simple, and I have no
      doubt that any judge of fair intelligence, assisted by one or more
      scientific advisers, could in a couple of days at the most examine all the
      necessary witnesses; hear all the necessary arguments, and actually decide
      an ordinary patent suit in a way that would more nearly be just, than can
      now be done at an expenditure of a hundred times as much money and months
      and years of preparation. And I have no doubt that the time taken by the
      court would be enormously less, because if a judge attempts to read the
      bulky records and briefs, that work alone would require several days.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Acting as judges, inventors would not be very apt to correctly decide a
      complicated law point; and on the other hand, it is hard to see how a
      lawyer can decide a complicated scientific point rightly. Some inventors
      complain of our Patent Office, but my own experience with the Patent
      Office is that the examiners are fair-minded and intelligent, and when
      they refuse a patent they are generally right; but I think the whole
      trouble lies with the system in vogue in the Federal courts for trying
      patent suits, and in the fact, which cannot be disputed, that the Federal
      judges, with but few exceptions, do not comprehend complicated scientific
      questions. To secure uniformity in the several Federal circuits and
      correct errors, it has been proposed to establish a central court of
      patent appeals in Washington. This I believe in; but this court should
      also contain at least two scientific men, who would not be blind to the
      sophistry of paid experts. [7] Men whose inventions would have created
      wealth of millions have been ruined and prevented from making any money
      whereby they could continue their careers as creators of wealth for the
      general good, just because the experts befuddled the judge by their
      misleading statements."
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 7: As an illustration of the perplexing nature of
     expert evidence in patent cases, the reader will probably be
     interested in perusing the following extracts from the
     opinion of Judge Dayton, in the suit of Bryce Bros. Co. vs.
     Seneca Glass Co., tried in the United States Circuit Court,
     Northern District of West Virginia, reported in The Federal
     Reporter, 140, page 161:

     "On this subject of the validity of this patent, a vast
     amount of conflicting, technical, perplexing, and almost
     hypercritical discussion and opinion has been indulged, both
     in the testimony and in the able and exhaustive arguments
     and briefs of counsel. Expert Osborn for defendant, after
     setting forth minutely his superior qualifications
     mechanical education, and great experience, takes up in
     detail the patent claims, and shows to his own entire
     satisfaction that none of them are new; that all of them
     have been applied, under one form or another, in some
     twenty-two previous patents, and in two other machines, not
     patented, to-wit, the Central Glass and Kuny Kahbel ones;
     that the whole machine is only 'an aggregation of well-known
     mechanical elements that any skilled designer would bring to
     his use in the construction of such a machine.' This
     certainly, under ordinary conditions, would settle the
     matter beyond peradventure; for this witness is a very wise
     and learned man in these things, and very positive. But
     expert Clarke appears for the plaintiff, and after setting
     forth just as minutely his superior qualifications,
     mechanical education, and great experience, which appear
     fully equal in all respects to those of expert Osborn,
     proceeds to take up in detail the patent claims, and shows
     to his entire satisfaction that all, with possibly one
     exception, are new, show inventive genius, and distinct
     advances upon the prior art. In the most lucid, and even
     fascinating, way he discusses all the parts of this machine,
     compares it with the others, draws distinctions, points out
     the merits of the one in controversy and the defects of all
     the others, considers the twenty-odd patents referred to by
     Osborn, and in the politest, but neatest, manner imaginable
     shows that expert Osborn did not know what he was talking
     about, and sums the whole matter up by declaring this
     'invention of Mr. Schrader's, as embodied in the patent in
     suit, a radical and wide departure, from the Kahbel machine'
     (admitted on all sides to be nearest prior approach to it),
     'a distinct and important advance in the art of engraving
     glassware, and generally a machine for this purpose which
     has involved the exercise of the inventive faculty in the
     highest degree.'

     "Thus a more radical and irreconcilable disagreement between
     experts touching the same thing could hardly be found. So it
     is with the testimony. If we take that for the defendant,
     the Central Glass Company machine, and especially the Kuny
     Kahbel machine, built and operated years before this patent
     issued, and not patented, are just as good, just as
     effective and practical, as this one, and capable of turning
     out just as perfect work and as great a variety of it. On
     the other hand, if we take that produced by the plaintiff,
     we are driven to the conclusion that these prior machines,
     the product of the same mind, were only progressive steps
     forward from utter darkness, so to speak, into full
     inventive sunlight, which made clear to him the solution of
     the problem in this patented machine. The shortcomings of
     the earlier machines are minutely set forth, and the
     witnesses for the plaintiff are clear that they are neither
     practical nor profitable.

     "But this is not all of the trouble that confronts us in
     this case. Counsel of both sides, with an indomitable
     courage that must command admiration, a courage that has led
     them to a vast amount of study, investigation, and thought,
     that in fact has made them all experts, have dissected this
     record of 356 closely printed pages, applied all mechanical
     principles and laws to the facts as they see them, and,
     besides, have ransacked the law-books and cited an enormous
     number of cases, more or less in point, as illustration of
     their respective contentions. The courts find nothing more
     difficult than to apply an abstract principle to all classes
     of cases that may arise. The facts in each case so
     frequently create an exception to the general rule that such
     rule must be honored rather in its breach than in its
     observance. Therefore, after a careful examination of these
     cases, it is no criticism of the courts to say that both
     sides have found abundant and about an equal amount of
     authority to sustain their respective contentions, and, as a
     result, counsel have submitted, in briefs, a sum total of
     225 closely printed pages, in which they have clearly, yet,
     almost to a mathematical certainty, demonstrated on the one
     side that this Schrader machine is new and patentable, and
     on the other that it is old and not so. Under these
     circumstances, it would be unnecessary labor and a fruitless
     task for me to enter into any further technical discussion
     of the mechanical problems involved, for the purpose of
     seeking to convince either side of its error. In cases of
     such perplexity as this generally some incidents appear that
     speak more unerringly than do the tongues of the witnesses,
     and to some of these I purpose to now refer."]
</pre>
    <p>
      Mr. Bernard Shaw, the distinguished English author, has given a most vivid
      and amusing picture of this introduction of Edison's telephone into
      England, describing the apparatus as "a much too ingenious invention,
      being nothing less than a telephone of such stentorian efficiency that it
      bellowed your most private communications all over the house, instead of
      whispering them with some sort of discretion." Shaw, as a young man, was
      employed by the Edison Telephone Company, and was very much alive to his
      surroundings, often assisting in public demonstrations of the apparatus
      "in a manner which I am persuaded laid the foundation of Mr. Edison's
      reputation." The sketch of the men sent over from America is graphic:
      "Whilst the Edison Telephone Company lasted it crowded the basement of a
      high pile of offices in Queen Victoria Street with American artificers.
      These deluded and romantic men gave me a glimpse of the skilled
      proletariat of the United States. They sang obsolete sentimental songs
      with genuine emotion; and their language was frightful even to an
      Irishman. They worked with a ferocious energy which was out of all
      proportion to the actual result achieved. Indomitably resolved to assert
      their republican manhood by taking no orders from a tall-hatted Englishman
      whose stiff politeness covered his conviction that they were relatively to
      himself inferior and common persons, they insisted on being slave-driven
      with genuine American oaths by a genuine free and equal American foreman.
      They utterly despised the artfully slow British workman, who did as little
      for his wages as he possibly could; never hurried himself; and had a deep
      reverence for one whose pocket could be tapped by respectful behavior.
      Need I add that they were contemptuously wondered at by this same British
      workman as a parcel of outlandish adult boys who sweated themselves for
      their employer's benefit instead of looking after their own interest? They
      adored Mr. Edison as the greatest man of all time in every possible
      department of science, art, and philosophy, and execrated Mr. Graham Bell,
      the inventor of the rival telephone, as his Satanic adversary; but each of
      them had (or intended to have) on the brink of completion an improvement
      on the telephone, usually a new transmitter. They were free-souled
      creatures, excellent company, sensitive, cheerful, and profane; liars,
      braggarts, and hustlers, with an air of making slow old England hum, which
      never left them even when, as often happened, they were wrestling with
      difficulties of their own making, or struggling in no-thoroughfares, from
      which they had to be retrieved like stray sheep by Englishmen without
      imagination enough to go wrong."
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Samuel Insull, who afterward became private secretary to Mr. Edison,
      and a leader in the development of American electrical manufacturing and
      the central-station art, was also in close touch with the London situation
      thus depicted, being at the time private secretary to Colonel Gouraud, and
      acting for the first half hour as the amateur telephone operator in the
      first experimental exchange erected in Europe. He took notes of an early
      meeting where the affairs of the company were discussed by leading men
      like Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) and the Right Hon. E. P. Bouverie
      (then a cabinet minister), none of whom could see in the telephone much
      more than an auxiliary for getting out promptly in the next morning's
      papers the midnight debates in Parliament. "I remember another incident,"
      says Mr. Insull. "It was at some celebration of one of the Royal Societies
      at the Burlington House, Piccadilly. We had a telephone line running
      across the roofs to the basement of the building. I think it was to
      Tyndall's laboratory in Burlington Street. As the ladies and gentlemen
      came through, they naturally wanted to look at the great curiosity, the
      loud-speaking telephone: in fact, any telephone was a curiosity then. Mr.
      and Mrs. Gladstone came through. I was handling the telephone at the
      Burlington House end. Mrs. Gladstone asked the man over the telephone
      whether he knew if a man or woman was speaking; and the reply came in
      quite loud tones that it was a man!"
    </p>
    <p>
      With Mr. E. H. Johnson, who represented Edison, there went to England for
      the furtherance of this telephone enterprise, Mr. Charles Edison, a nephew
      of the inventor. He died in Paris, October, 1879, not twenty years of age.
      Stimulated by the example of his uncle, this brilliant youth had already
      made a mark for himself as a student and inventor, and when only eighteen
      he secured in open competition the contract to install a complete
      fire-alarm telegraph system for Port Huron. A few months later he was
      eagerly welcomed by his uncle at Menlo Park, and after working on the
      telephone was sent to London to aid in its introduction. There he made the
      acquaintance of Professor Tyndall, exhibited the telephone to the late
      King of England; and also won the friendship of the late King of the
      Belgians, with whom he took up the project of establishing telephonic
      communication between Belgium and England. At the time of his premature
      death he was engaged in installing the Edison quadruplex between Brussels
      and Paris, being one of the very few persons then in Europe familiar with
      the working of that invention.
    </p>
    <p>
      Meantime, the telephonic art in America was undergoing very rapid
      development. In March, 1878, addressing "the capitalists of the Electric
      Telephone Company" on the future of his invention, Bell outlined with
      prophetic foresight and remarkable clearness the coming of the modern
      telephone exchange. Comparing with gas and water distribution, he said:
      "In a similar manner, it is conceivable that cables of telephone wires
      could be laid underground or suspended overhead communicating by branch
      wires with private dwellings, country houses, shops, manufactories, etc.,
      uniting them through the main cable with a central office, where the wire
      could be connected as desired, establishing direct communication between
      any two places in the city.... Not only so, but I believe, in the future,
      wires will unite the head offices of telephone companies in different
      cities; and a man in one part of the country may communicate by word of
      mouth with another in a distant place."
    </p>
    <p>
      All of which has come to pass. Professor Bell also suggested how this
      could be done by "the employ of a man in each central office for the
      purpose of connecting the wires as directed." He also indicated the two
      methods of telephonic tariff&mdash;a fixed rental and a toll; and
      mentioned the practice, now in use on long-distance lines, of a time
      charge. As a matter of fact, this "centralizing" was attempted in May,
      1877, in Boston, with the circuits of the Holmes burglar-alarm system,
      four banking-houses being thus interconnected; while in January of 1878
      the Bell telephone central-office system at New Haven, Connecticut, was
      opened for business, "the first fully equipped commercial telephone
      exchange ever established for public or general service."
    </p>
    <p>
      All through this formative period Bell had adhered to and introduced the
      magneto form of telephone, now used only as a receiver, and very poorly
      adapted for the vital function of a speech-transmitter. From August, 1877,
      the Western Union Telegraph Company worked along the other line, and in
      1878, with its allied Gold &amp; Stock Telegraph Company, it brought into
      existence the American Speaking Telephone Company to introduce the Edison
      apparatus, and to create telephone exchanges all over the country. In this
      warfare, the possession of a good battery transmitter counted very heavily
      in favor of the Western Union, for upon that the real expansion of the
      whole industry depended; but in a few months the Bell system had its
      battery transmitter, too, tending to equalize matters. Late in the same
      year patent litigation was begun which brought out clearly the merits of
      Bell, through his patent, as the original and first inventor of the
      electric speaking telephone; and the Western Union Telegraph Company made
      terms with its rival. A famous contract bearing date of November 10, 1879,
      showed that under the Edison and other controlling patents the Western
      Union Company had already set going some eighty-five exchanges, and was
      making large quantities of telephonic apparatus. In return for its
      voluntary retirement from the telephonic field, the Western Union
      Telegraph Company, under this contract, received a royalty of 20 per cent.
      of all the telephone earnings of the Bell system while the Bell patents
      ran; and thus came to enjoy an annual income of several hundred thousand
      dollars for some years, based chiefly on its modest investment in Edison's
      work. It was also paid several thousand dollars in cash for the Edison,
      Phelps, Gray, and other apparatus on hand. It secured further 40 per cent.
      of the stock of the local telephone systems of New York and Chicago; and
      last, but by no means least, it exacted from the Bell interests an
      agreement to stay out of the telegraph field.
    </p>
    <p>
      By March, 1881, there were in the United States only nine cities of more
      than ten thousand inhabitants, and only one of more than fifteen thousand,
      without a telephone exchange. The industry thrived under competition, and
      the absence of it now had a decided effect in checking growth; for when
      the Bell patent expired in 1893, the total of telephone sets in operation
      in the United States was only 291,253. To quote from an official Bell
      statement:
    </p>
    <p>
      "The brief but vigorous Western Union competition was a kind of blessing
      in disguise. The very fact that two distinct interests were actively
      engaged in the work of organizing and establishing competing telephone
      exchanges all over the country, greatly facilitated the spread of the idea
      and the growth of the business, and familiarized the people with the use
      of the telephone as a business agency; while the keenness of the
      competition, extending to the agents and employees of both companies,
      brought about a swift but quite unforeseen and unlooked-for expansion in
      the individual exchanges of the larger cities, and a corresponding advance
      in their importance, value, and usefulness."
    </p>
    <p>
      The truth of this was immediately shown in 1894, after the Bell patents
      had expired, by the tremendous outburst of new competitive activity, in
      "independent" country systems and toll lines through sparsely settled
      districts&mdash;work for which the Edison apparatus and methods were
      peculiarly adapted, yet against which the influence of the Edison patent
      was invoked. The data secured by the United States Census Office in 1902
      showed that the whole industry had made gigantic leaps in eight years, and
      had 2,371,044 telephone stations in service, of which 1,053,866 were
      wholly or nominally independent of the Bell. By 1907 an even more notable
      increase was shown, and the Census figures for that year included no fewer
      than 6,118,578 stations, of which 1,986,575 were "independent." These six
      million instruments every single set employing the principle of the carbon
      transmitter&mdash;were grouped into 15,527 public exchanges, in the very
      manner predicted by Bell thirty years before, and they gave service in the
      shape of over eleven billions of talks. The outstanding capitalized value
      of the plant was $814,616,004, the income for the year was nearly
      $185,000,000, and the people employed were 140,000. If Edison had done
      nothing else, his share in the creation of such an industry would have
      entitled him to a high place among inventors.
    </p>
    <p>
      This chapter is of necessity brief in its reference to many extremely
      interesting points and details; and to some readers it may seem incomplete
      in its references to the work of other men than Edison, whose influence on
      telephony as an art has also been considerable. In reply to this pertinent
      criticism, it may be pointed out that this is a life of Edison, and not of
      any one else; and that even the discussion of his achievements alone in
      these various fields requires more space than the authors have at their
      disposal. The attempt has been made, however, to indicate the course of
      events and deal fairly with the facts. The controversy that once waged
      with great excitement over the invention of the microphone, but has long
      since died away, is suggestive of the difficulties involved in trying to
      do justice to everybody. A standard history describes the microphone thus:
    </p>
    <p>
      "A form of apparatus produced during the early days of the telephone by
      Professor Hughes, of England, for the purpose of rendering faint,
      indistinct sounds distinctly audible, depended for its operation on the
      changes that result in the resistance of loose contacts. This apparatus
      was called the microphone, and was in reality but one of the many forms
      that it is possible to give to the telephone transmitter. For example, the
      Edison granular transmitter was a variety of microphone, as was also
      Edison's transmitter, in which the solid button of carbon was employed.
      Indeed, even the platinum point, which in the early form of the Reis
      transmitter pressed against the platinum contact cemented to the centre of
      the diaphragm, was a microphone."
    </p>
    <p>
      At a time when most people were amazed at the idea of hearing, with the
      aid of a "microphone," a fly walk at a distance of many miles, the
      priority of invention of such a device was hotly disputed. Yet without
      desiring to take anything from the credit of the brilliant American,
      Hughes, whose telegraphic apparatus is still in use all over Europe, it
      may be pointed out that this passage gives Edison the attribution of at
      least two original forms of which those suggested by Hughes were mere
      variations and modifications. With regard to this matter, Mr. Edison
      himself remarks: "After I sent one of my men over to London especially, to
      show Preece the carbon transmitter, and where Hughes first saw it, and
      heard it&mdash;then within a month he came out with the microphone,
      without any acknowledgment whatever. Published dates will show that Hughes
      came along after me."
    </p>
    <p>
      There have been other ways also in which Edison has utilized the peculiar
      property that carbon possesses of altering its resistance to the passage
      of current, according to the pressure to which it is subjected, whether at
      the surface, or through closer union of the mass. A loose road with a few
      inches of dust or pebbles on it offers appreciable resistance to the
      wheels of vehicles travelling over it; but if the surface is kept hard and
      smooth the effect is quite different. In the same way carbon, whether
      solid or in the shape of finely divided powder, offers a high resistance
      to the passage of electricity; but if the carbon is squeezed together the
      conditions change, with less resistance to electricity in the circuit. For
      his quadruplex system, Mr. Edison utilized this fact in the construction
      of a rheostat or resistance box. It consists of a series of silk disks
      saturated with a sizing of plumbago and well dried. The disks are
      compressed by means of an adjustable screw; and in this manner the
      resistance of a circuit can be varied over a wide range.
    </p>
    <p>
      In like manner Edison developed a "pressure" or carbon relay, adapted to
      the transference of signals of variable strength from one circuit to
      another. An ordinary relay consists of an electromagnet inserted in the
      main line for telegraphing, which brings a local battery and sounder
      circuit into play, reproducing in the local circuit the signals sent over
      the main line. The relay is adjusted to the weaker currents likely to be
      received, but the signals reproduced on the sounder by the agency of the
      relay are, of course, all of equal strength, as they depend upon the local
      battery, which has only this steady work to perform. In cases where it is
      desirable to reproduce the signals in the local circuit with the same
      variations in strength as they are received by the relay, the Edison
      carbon pressure relay does the work. The poles of the electromagnet in the
      local circuit are hollowed out and filled up with carbon disks or powdered
      plumbago. The armature and the carbon-tipped poles of the electromagnet
      form part of the local circuit; and if the relay is actuated by a weak
      current the armature will be attracted but feebly. The carbon being only
      slightly compressed will offer considerable resistance to the flow of
      current from the local battery, and therefore the signal on the local
      sounder will be weak. If, on the contrary, the incoming current on the
      main line be strong, the armature will be strongly attracted, the carbon
      will be sharply compressed, the resistance in the local circuit will be
      proportionately lowered, and the signal heard on the local sounder will be
      a loud one. Thus it will be seen, by another clever juggle with the
      willing agent, carbon, for which he has found so many duties, Edison is
      able to transfer or transmit exactly, to the local circuit, the main-line
      current in all its minutest variations.
    </p>
    <p>
      In his researches to determine the nature of the motograph phenomena, and
      to open up other sources of electrical current generation, Edison has
      worked out a very ingenious and somewhat perplexing piece of apparatus
      known as the "chalk battery." It consists of a series of chalk cylinders
      mounted on a shaft revolved by hand. Resting against each of these
      cylinders is a palladium-faced spring, and similar springs make contact
      with the shaft between each cylinder. By connecting all these springs in
      circuit with a galvanometer and revolving the shaft rapidly, a notable
      deflection is obtained of the galvanometer needle, indicating the
      production of electrical energy. The reason for this does not appear to
      have been determined.
    </p>
    <p>
      Last but not least, in this beautiful and ingenious series, comes the
      "tasimeter," an instrument of most delicate sensibility in the presence of
      heat. The name is derived from the Greek, the use of the apparatus being
      primarily to measure extremely minute differences of pressure. A strip of
      hard rubber with pointed ends rests perpendicularly on a platinum plate,
      beneath which is a carbon button, under which again lies another platinum
      plate. The two plates and the carbon button form part of an electric
      circuit containing a battery and a galvanometer. The hard-rubber strip is
      exceedingly sensitive to heat. The slightest degree of heat imparted to it
      causes it to expand invisibly, thus increasing the pressure contact on the
      carbon button and producing a variation in the resistance of the circuit,
      registered immediately by the little swinging needle of the galvanometer.
      The instrument is so sensitive that with a delicate galvanometer it will
      show the impingement of the heat from a person's hand thirty feet away.
      The suggestion to employ such an apparatus in astronomical observations
      occurs at once, and it may be noted that in one instance the heat of rays
      of light from the remote star Arcturus gave results.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER X
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE PHONOGRAPH
    </h3>
    <p>
      AT the opening of the Electrical Show in New York City in October, 1908,
      to celebrate the jubilee of the Atlantic Cable and the first quarter
      century of lighting with the Edison service on Manhattan Island, the
      exercises were all conducted by means of the Edison phonograph. This
      included the dedicatory speech of Governor Hughes, of New York; the modest
      remarks of Mr. Edison, as president; the congratulations of the presidents
      of several national electric bodies, and a number of vocal and
      instrumental selections of operatic nature. All this was heard clearly by
      a very large audience, and was repeated on other evenings. The same
      speeches were used again phonographically at the Electrical Show in
      Chicago in 1909&mdash;and now the records are preserved for reproduction a
      hundred or a thousand years hence. This tour de force, never attempted
      before, was merely an exemplification of the value of the phonograph not
      only in establishing at first hand the facts of history, but in preserving
      the human voice. What would we not give to listen to the very accents and
      tones of the Sermon on the Mount, the orations of Demosthenes, the first
      Pitt's appeal for American liberty, the Farewell of Washington, or the
      Address at Gettysburg? Until Edison made his wonderful invention in 1877,
      the human race was entirely without means for preserving or passing on to
      posterity its own linguistic utterances or any other vocal sound. We have
      some idea how the ancients looked and felt and wrote; the abundant
      evidence takes us back to the cave-dwellers. But all the old languages are
      dead, and the literary form is their embalmment. We do not even know
      definitely how Shakespeare's and Goldsmith's plays were pronounced on the
      stage in the theatres of the time; while it is only a guess that perhaps
      Chaucer would sound much more modern than he scans.
    </p>
    <p>
      The analysis of sound, which owes so much to Helmholtz, was one step
      toward recording; and the various means of illustrating the phenomena of
      sound to the eye and ear, prior to the phonograph, were all ingenious. One
      can watch the dancing little flames of Koenig, and see a voice expressed
      in tongues of fire; but the record can only be photographic. In like
      manner, the simple phonautograph of Leon Scott, invented about 1858,
      records on a revolving cylinder of blackened paper the sound vibrations
      transmitted through a membrane to which a tiny stylus is attached; so that
      a human mouth uses a pen and inscribes its sign vocal. Yet after all we
      are just as far away as ever from enabling the young actors at Harvard to
      give Aristophanes with all the true, subtle intonation and inflection of
      the Athens of 400 B.C. The instrument is dumb. Ingenuity has been shown
      also in the invention of "talking-machines," like Faber's, based on the
      reed organ pipe. These automata can be made by dexterous manipulation to
      jabber a little, like a doll with its monotonous "ma-ma," or a cuckoo
      clock; but they lack even the sterile utility of the imitative art of
      ventriloquism. The real great invention lies in creating devices that
      shall be able to evoke from tinfoil, wax, or composition at any time
      to-day or in the future the sound that once was as evanescent as the
      vibrations it made on the air.
    </p>
    <p>
      Contrary to the general notion, very few of the great modern inventions
      have been the result of a sudden inspiration by which, Minerva-like, they
      have sprung full-fledged from their creators' brain; but, on the contrary,
      they have been evolved by slow and gradual steps, so that frequently the
      final advance has been often almost imperceptible. The Edison phonograph
      is an important exception to the general rule; not, of course, the
      phonograph of the present day with all of its mechanical perfection, but
      as an instrument capable of recording and reproducing sound. Its invention
      has been frequently attributed to the discovery that a point attached to a
      telephone diaphragm would, under the effect of sound-waves, vibrate with
      sufficient force to prick the finger. The story, though interesting, is
      not founded on fact; but, if true, it is difficult to see how the
      discovery in question could have contributed materially to the ultimate
      accomplishment. To a man of Edison's perception it is absurd to suppose
      that the effect of the so-called discovery would not have been made as a
      matter of deduction long before the physical sensation was experienced. As
      a matter of fact, the invention of the phonograph was the result of pure
      reason. Some time prior to 1877, Edison had been experimenting on an
      automatic telegraph in which the letters were formed by embossing strips
      of paper with the proper arrangement of dots and dashes. By drawing this
      strip beneath a contact lever, the latter was actuated so as to control
      the circuits and send the desired signals over the line. It was observed
      that when the strip was moved very rapidly the vibration of the lever
      resulted in the production of an audible note. With these facts before
      him, Edison reasoned that if the paper strip could be imprinted with
      elevations and depressions representative of sound-waves, they might be
      caused to actuate a diaphragm so as to reproduce the corresponding sounds.
      The next step in the line of development was to form the necessary
      undulations on the strip, and it was then reasoned that original sounds
      themselves might be utilized to form a graphic record by actuating a
      diaphragm and causing a cutting or indenting point carried thereby to
      vibrate in contact with a moving surface, so as to cut or indent the
      record therein. Strange as it may seem, therefore, and contrary to the
      general belief, the phonograph was developed backward, the production of
      the sounds being of prior development to the idea of actually recording
      them.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Edison's own account of the invention of the phonograph is intensely
      interesting. "I was experimenting," he says, "on an automatic method of
      recording telegraph messages on a disk of paper laid on a revolving
      platen, exactly the same as the disk talking-machine of to-day. The platen
      had a spiral groove on its surface, like the disk. Over this was placed a
      circular disk of paper; an electromagnet with the embossing point
      connected to an arm travelled over the disk; and any signals given through
      the magnets were embossed on the disk of paper. If this disk was removed
      from the machine and put on a similar machine provided with a contact
      point, the embossed record would cause the signals to be repeated into
      another wire. The ordinary speed of telegraphic signals is thirty-five to
      forty words a minute; but with this machine several hundred words were
      possible.
    </p>
    <p>
      "From my experiments on the telephone I knew of the power of a diaphragm
      to take up sound vibrations, as I had made a little toy which, when you
      recited loudly in the funnel, would work a pawl connected to the
      diaphragm; and this engaging a ratchet-wheel served to give continuous
      rotation to a pulley. This pulley was connected by a cord to a little
      paper toy representing a man sawing wood. Hence, if one shouted: 'Mary had
      a little lamb,' etc., the paper man would start sawing wood. I reached the
      conclusion that if I could record the movements of the diaphragm properly,
      I could cause such record to reproduce the original movements imparted to
      the diaphragm by the voice, and thus succeed in recording and reproducing
      the human voice.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Instead of using a disk I designed a little machine using a cylinder
      provided with grooves around the surface. Over this was to be placed
      tinfoil, which easily received and recorded the movements of the
      diaphragm. A sketch was made, and the piece-work price, $18, was marked on
      the sketch. I was in the habit of marking the price I would pay on each
      sketch. If the workman lost, I would pay his regular wages; if he made
      more than the wages, he kept it. The workman who got the sketch was John
      Kruesi. I didn't have much faith that it would work, expecting that I
      might possibly hear a word or so that would give hope of a future for the
      idea. Kruesi, when he had nearly finished it, asked what it was for. I
      told him I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk
      back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on;
      I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb,' etc. I adjusted the reproducer,
      and the machine reproduced it perfectly. I was never so taken aback in my
      life. Everybody was astonished. I was always afraid of things that worked
      the first time. Long experience proved that there were great drawbacks
      found generally before they could be got commercial; but here was
      something there was no doubt of."
    </p>
    <p>
      No wonder that honest John Kruesi, as he stood and listened to the
      marvellous performance of the simple little machine he had himself just
      finished, ejaculated in an awe-stricken tone: "Mein Gott im Himmel!" And
      yet he had already seen Edison do a few clever things. No wonder they sat
      up all night fixing and adjusting it so as to get better and better
      results&mdash;reciting and singing, trying each other's voices, and then
      listening with involuntary awe as the words came back again and again,
      just as long as they were willing to revolve the little cylinder with its
      dotted spiral indentations in the tinfoil under the vibrating stylus of
      the reproducing diaphragm. It took a little time to acquire the knack of
      turning the crank steadily while leaning over the recorder to talk into
      the machine; and there was some deftness required also in fastening down
      the tinfoil on the cylinder where it was held by a pin running in a
      longitudinal slot. Paraffined paper appears also to have been experimented
      with as an impressible material. It is said that Carman, the foreman of
      the machine shop, had gone the length of wagering Edison a box of cigars
      that the device would not work. All the world knows that he lost.
    </p>
    <p>
      The original Edison phonograph thus built by Kruesi is preserved in the
      South Kensington Museum, London. That repository can certainly have no
      greater treasure of its kind. But as to its immediate use, the inventor
      says: "That morning I took it over to New York and walked into the office
      of the Scientific American, went up to Mr. Beach's desk, and said I had
      something to show him. He asked what it was. I told him I had a machine
      that would record and reproduce the human voice. I opened the package, set
      up the machine and recited, 'Mary had a little lamb,' etc. Then I
      reproduced it so that it could be heard all over the room. They kept me at
      it until the crowd got so great Mr. Beach was afraid the floor would
      collapse; and we were compelled to stop. The papers next morning contained
      columns. None of the writers seemed to understand how it was done. I tried
      to explain, it was so very simple, but the results were so surprising they
      made up their minds probably that they never would understand it&mdash;and
      they didn't.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I started immediately making several larger and better machines, which I
      exhibited at Menlo Park to crowds. The Pennsylvania Railroad ran special
      trains. Washington people telegraphed me to come on. I took a phonograph
      to Washington and exhibited it in the room of James G. Blaine's niece
      (Gail Hamilton); and members of Congress and notable people of that city
      came all day long until late in the evening. I made one break. I recited
      'Mary,' etc., and another ditty:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     'There was a little girl, who had a little curl
     Right in the middle of her forehead;
     And when she was good she was very, very good,
     But when she was bad she was horrid.'
</pre>
    <p>
      "It will be remembered that Senator Roscoe Conkling, then very prominent,
      had a curl of hair on his forehead; and all the caricaturists developed it
      abnormally. He was very sensitive about the subject. When he came in he
      was introduced; but being rather deaf, I didn't catch his name, but sat
      down and started the curl ditty. Everybody tittered, and I was told that
      Mr. Conkling was displeased. About 11 o'clock at night word was received
      from President Hayes that he would be very much pleased if I would come up
      to the White House. I was taken there, and found Mr. Hayes and several
      others waiting. Among them I remember Carl Schurz, who was playing the
      piano when I entered the room. The exhibition continued till about 12.30
      A.M., when Mrs. Hayes and several other ladies, who had been induced to
      get up and dress, appeared. I left at 3.30 A.M.
    </p>
    <p>
      "For a long time some people thought there was trickery. One morning at
      Menlo Park a gentleman came to the laboratory and asked to see the
      phonograph. It was Bishop Vincent, who helped Lewis Miller found the
      Chautauqua I exhibited it, and then he asked if he could speak a few
      words. I put on a fresh foil and told him to go ahead. He commenced to
      recite Biblical names with immense rapidity. On reproducing it he said: 'I
      am satisfied, now. There isn't a man in the United States who could recite
      those names with the same rapidity.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      The phonograph was now fairly launched as a world sensation, and a
      reference to the newspapers of 1878 will show the extent to which it and
      Edison were themes of universal discussion. Some of the press notices of
      the period were most amazing&mdash;and amusing. As though the real
      achievements of this young man, barely thirty, were not tangible and solid
      enough to justify admiration of his genius, the "yellow journalists" of
      the period began busily to create an "Edison myth," with gross absurdities
      of assertion and attribution from which the modest subject of it all has
      not yet ceased to suffer with unthinking people. A brilliantly vicious
      example of this method of treatment is to be found in the Paris Figaro of
      that year, which under the appropriate title of "This Astounding Eddison"
      lay bare before the French public the most startling revelations as to the
      inventor's life and character. "It should be understood," said this
      journal, "that Mr. Eddison does not belong to himself. He is the property
      of the telegraph company which lodges him in New York at a superb hotel;
      keeps him on a luxurious footing, and pays him a formidable salary so as
      to be the one to know of and profit by his discoveries. The company has,
      in the dwelling of Eddison, men in its employ who do not quit him for a
      moment, at the table, on the street, in the laboratory. So that this
      wretched man, watched more closely than ever was any malefactor, cannot
      even give a moment's thought to his own private affairs without one of his
      guards asking him what he is thinking about." This foolish "blague" was
      accompanied by a description of Edison's new "aerophone," a steam machine
      which carried the voice a distance of one and a half miles. "You speak to
      a jet of vapor. A friend previously advised can answer you by the same
      method." Nor were American journals backward in this wild exaggeration.
    </p>
    <p>
      The furor had its effect in stimulating a desire everywhere on the part of
      everybody to see and hear the phonograph. A small commercial organization
      was formed to build and exploit the apparatus, and the shops at Menlo Park
      laboratory were assisted by the little Bergmann shop in New York. Offices
      were taken for the new enterprise at 203 Broadway, where the Mail and
      Express building now stands, and where, in a general way, under the
      auspices of a talented dwarf, C. A. Cheever, the embryonic phonograph and
      the crude telephone shared rooms and expenses. Gardiner G. Hubbard,
      father-in-law of Alex. Graham Bell, was one of the stockholders in the
      Phonograph Company, which paid Edison $10,000 cash and a 20 per cent.
      royalty. This curious partnership was maintained for some time, even when
      the Bell Telephone offices were removed to Reade Street, New York, whither
      the phonograph went also; and was perhaps explained by the fact that just
      then the ability of the phonograph as a money-maker was much more easily
      demonstrated than was that of the telephone, still in its short range
      magneto stage and awaiting development with the aid of the carbon
      transmitter.
    </p>
    <p>
      The earning capacity of the phonograph then, as largely now, lay in its
      exhibition qualities. The royalties from Boston, ever intellectually awake
      and ready for something new, ran as high as $1800 a week. In New York
      there was a ceaseless demand for it, and with the aid of Hilbourne L.
      Roosevelt, a famous organ builder, and uncle of ex-President Roosevelt,
      concerts were given at which the phonograph was "featured." To manage this
      novel show business the services of James Redpath were called into
      requisition with great success. Redpath, famous as a friend and biographer
      of John Brown, as a Civil War correspondent, and as founder of the
      celebrated Redpath Lyceum Bureau in Boston, divided the country into
      territories, each section being leased for exhibition purposes on a basis
      of a percentage of the "gate money." To 203 Broadway from all over the
      Union flocked a swarm of showmen, cranks, and particularly of old
      operators, who, the seedier they were in appearance, the more insistent
      they were that "Tom" should give them, for the sake of "Auld lang syne,"
      this chance to make a fortune for him and for themselves. At the top of
      the building was a floor on which these novices were graduated in the use
      and care of the machine, and then, with an equipment of tinfoil and other
      supplies, they were sent out on the road. It was a diverting experience
      while it lasted. The excitement over the phonograph was maintained for
      many months, until a large proportion of the inhabitants of the country
      had seen it; and then the show receipts declined and dwindled away. Many
      of the old operators, taken on out of good-nature, were poor exhibitors
      and worse accountants, and at last they and the machines with which they
      had been intrusted faded from sight. But in the mean time Edison had
      learned many lessons as to this practical side of development that were
      not forgotten when the renascence of the phonograph began a few years
      later, leading up to the present enormous and steady demand for both
      machines and records.
    </p>
    <p>
      It deserves to be pointed out that the phonograph has changed little in
      the intervening years from the first crude instruments of 1877-78. It has
      simply been refined and made more perfect in a mechanical sense. Edison
      was immensely impressed with its possibilities, and greatly inclined to
      work upon it, but the coming of the electric light compelled him to throw
      all his energies for a time into the vast new field awaiting conquest. The
      original phonograph, as briefly noted above, was rotated by hand, and the
      cylinder was fed slowly longitudinally by means of a nut engaging a screw
      thread on the cylinder shaft. Wrapped around the cylinder was a sheet of
      tinfoil, with which engaged a small chisel-like recording needle,
      connected adhesively with the centre of an iron diaphragm. Obviously, as
      the cylinder was turned, the needle followed a spiral path whose pitch
      depended upon that of the feed screw. Along this path a thread was cut in
      the cylinder so as to permit the needle to indent the foil readily as the
      diaphragm vibrated. By rotating the cylinder and by causing the diaphragm
      to vibrate under the effect of vocal or musical sounds, the needle-like
      point would form a series of indentations in the foil corresponding to and
      characteristic of the sound-waves. By now engaging the point with the
      beginning of the grooved record so formed, and by again rotating the
      cylinder, the undulations of the record would cause the needle and its
      attached diaphragm to vibrate so as to effect the reproduction. Such an
      apparatus was necessarily undeveloped, and was interesting only from a
      scientific point of view. It had many mechanical defects which prevented
      its use as a practical apparatus. Since the cylinder was rotated by hand,
      the speed at which the record was formed would vary considerably, even
      with the same manipulator, so that it would have been impossible to record
      and reproduce music satisfactorily; in doing which exact uniformity of
      speed is essential. The formation of the record in tinfoil was also
      objectionable from a practical standpoint, since such a record was faint
      and would be substantially obliterated after two or three reproductions.
      Furthermore, the foil could not be easily removed from and replaced upon
      the instrument, and consequently the reproduction had to follow the
      recording immediately, and the successive tinfoils were thrown away. The
      instrument was also heavy and bulky. Notwithstanding these objections the
      original phonograph created, as already remarked, an enormous popular
      excitement, and the exhibitions were considered by many sceptical persons
      as nothing more than clever ventriloquism. The possibilities of the
      instrument as a commercial apparatus were recognized from the very first,
      and some of the fields in which it was predicted that the phonograph would
      be used are now fully occupied. Some have not yet been realized. Writing
      in 1878 in the North American-Review, Mr. Edison thus summed up his own
      ideas as to the future applications of the new invention:
    </p>
    <p>
      "Among the many uses to which the phonograph will be applied are the
      following:
    </p>
    <p>
      1. Letter writing and all kinds of dictation without the aid of a
      stenographer.
    </p>
    <p>
      2. Phonographic books, which will speak to blind people without effort on
      their part.
    </p>
    <p>
      3. The teaching of elocution.
    </p>
    <p>
      4. Reproduction of music.
    </p>
    <p>
      5. The 'Family Record'&mdash;a registry of sayings, reminiscences, etc.,
      by members of a family in their own voices, and of the last words of dying
      persons.
    </p>
    <p>
      6. Music-boxes and toys.
    </p>
    <p>
      7. Clocks that should announce in articulate speech the time for going
      home, going to meals, etc.
    </p>
    <p>
      8. The preservation of languages by exact reproduction of the manner of
      pronouncing.
    </p>
    <p>
      9. Educational purposes; such as preserving the explanations made by a
      teacher, so that the pupil can refer to them at any moment, and spelling
      or other lessons placed upon the phonograph for convenience in committing
      to memory.
    </p>
    <p>
      10. Connection with the telephone, so as to make that instrument an
      auxiliary in the transmission of permanent and invaluable records, instead
      of being the recipient of momentary and fleeting communication."
    </p>
    <p>
      Of the above fields of usefulness in which it was expected that the
      phonograph might be applied, only three have been commercially realized&mdash;namely,
      the reproduction of musical, including vaudeville or talking selections,
      for which purpose a very large proportion of the phonographs now made is
      used; the employment of the machine as a mechanical stenographer, which
      field has been taken up actively only within the past few years; and the
      utilization of the device for the teaching of languages, for which purpose
      it has been successfully employed, for example, by the International
      Correspondence Schools of Scranton, Pennsylvania, for several years. The
      other uses, however, which were early predicted for the phonograph have
      not as yet been worked out practically, although the time seems not far
      distant when its general utility will be widely enlarged. Both dolls and
      clocks have been made, but thus far the world has not taken them
      seriously.
    </p>
    <p>
      The original phonograph, as invented by Edison, remained in its crude and
      immature state for almost ten years&mdash;still the object of
      philosophical interest, and as a convenient text-book illustration of the
      effect of sound vibration. It continued to be a theme of curious interest
      to the imaginative, and the subject of much fiction, while its neglected
      commercial possibilities were still more or less vaguely referred to.
      During this period of arrested development, Edison was continuously
      working on the invention and commercial exploitation of the incandescent
      lamp. In 1887 his time was comparatively free, and the phonograph was then
      taken up with renewed energy, and the effort made to overcome its
      mechanical defects and to furnish a commercial instrument, so that its
      early promise might be realized. The important changes made from that time
      up to 1890 converted the phonograph from a scientific toy into a
      successful industrial apparatus. The idea of forming the record on tinfoil
      had been early abandoned, and in its stead was substituted a cylinder of
      wax-like material, in which the record was cut by a minute chisel-like
      gouging tool. Such a record or phonogram, as it was then called, could be
      removed from the machine or replaced at any time, many reproductions could
      be obtained without wearing out the record, and whenever desired the
      record could be shaved off by a turning-tool so as to present a fresh
      surface on which a new record could be formed, something like an ancient
      palimpsest. A wax cylinder having walls less than one-quarter of an inch
      in thickness could be used for receiving a large number of records, since
      the maximum depth of the record groove is hardly ever greater than one
      one-thousandth of an inch. Later on, and as the crowning achievement in
      the phonograph field, from a commercial point of view, came the
      duplication of records to the extent of many thousands from a single
      "master." This work was actively developed between the years 1890 and
      1898, and its difficulties may be appreciated when the problem is stated;
      the copying from a single master of many millions of excessively minute
      sound-waves having a maximum width of one hundredth of an inch, and a
      maximum depth of one thousandth of an inch, or less than the thickness of
      a sheet of tissue-paper. Among the interesting developments of this
      process was the coating of the original or master record with a
      homogeneous film of gold so thin that three hundred thousand of these
      piled one on top of the other would present a thickness of only one inch!
    </p>
    <p>
      Another important change was in the nature of a reversal of the original
      arrangement, the cylinder or mandrel carrying the record being mounted in
      fixed bearings, and the recording or reproducing device being fed
      lengthwise, like the cutting-tool of a lathe, as the blank or record was
      rotated. It was early recognized that a single needle for forming the
      record and the reproduction therefrom was an undesirable arrangement,
      since the formation of the record required a very sharp cutting-tool,
      while satisfactory and repeated reproduction suggested the use of a stylus
      which would result in the minimum wear. After many experiments and the
      production of a number of types of machines, the present recorders and
      reproducers were evolved, the former consisting of a very small
      cylindrical gouging tool having a diameter of about forty thousandths of
      an inch, and the latter a ball or button-shaped stylus with a diameter of
      about thirty-five thousandths of an inch. By using an incisor of this
      sort, the record is formed of a series of connected gouges with rounded
      sides, varying in depth and width, and with which the reproducer
      automatically engages and maintains its engagement. Another difficulty
      encountered in the commercial development of the phonograph was the
      adjustment of the recording stylus so as to enter the wax-like surface to
      a very slight depth, and of the reproducer so as to engage exactly the
      record when formed. The earlier types of machines were provided with
      separate screws for effecting these adjustments; but considerable skill
      was required to obtain good results, and great difficulty was experienced
      in meeting the variations in the wax-like cylinders, due to the warping
      under atmospheric changes. Consequently, with the early types of
      commercial phonographs, it was first necessary to shave off the blank
      accurately before a record was formed thereon, in order that an absolutely
      true surface might be presented. To overcome these troubles, the very
      ingenious suggestion was then made and adopted, of connecting the
      recording and reproducing styluses to their respective diaphragms through
      the instrumentality of a compensating weight, which acted practically as a
      fixed support under the very rapid sound vibrations, but which yielded
      readily to distortions or variations in the wax-like cylinders. By reason
      of this improvement, it became possible to do away with all adjustments,
      the mass of the compensating weight causing the recorder to engage the
      blank automatically to the required depth, and to maintain the reproducing
      stylus always with the desired pressure on the record when formed. These
      automatic adjustments were maintained even though the blank or record
      might be so much out of true as an eighth of an inch, equal to more than
      two hundred times the maximum depth of the record groove.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another improvement that followed along the lines adopted by Edison for
      the commercial development of the phonograph was making the recording and
      reproducing styluses of sapphire, an extremely hard, non-oxidizable jewel,
      so that those tiny instruments would always retain their true form and
      effectively resist wear. Of course, in this work many other things were
      done that may still be found on the perfected phonograph as it stands
      to-day, and many other suggestions were made which were contemporaneously
      adopted, but which were later abandoned. For the curious-minded, reference
      is made to the records in the Patent Office, which will show that up to
      1893 Edison had obtained upward of sixty-five patents in this art, from
      which his line of thought can be very closely traced. The phonograph of
      to-day, except for the perfection of its mechanical features, in its
      beauty of manufacture and design, and in small details, may be considered
      identical with the machine of 1889, with the exception that with the
      latter the rotation of the record cylinder was effected by an electric
      motor.
    </p>
    <p>
      Its essential use as then contemplated was as a substitute for
      stenographers, and the most extravagant fancies were indulged in as to
      utility in that field. To exploit the device commercially, the patents
      were sold to Philadelphia capitalists, who organized the North American
      Phonograph Company, through which leases for limited periods were granted
      to local companies doing business in special territories, generally within
      the confines of a single State. Under that plan, resembling the methods of
      1878, the machines and blank cylinders were manufactured by the Edison
      Phonograph Works, which still retains its factories at Orange, New Jersey.
      The marketing enterprise was early doomed to failure, principally because
      the instruments were not well understood, and did not possess the
      necessary refinements that would fit them for the special field in which
      they were to be used. At first the instruments were leased; but it was
      found that the leases were seldom renewed. Efforts were then made to sell
      them, but the prices were high&mdash;from $100 to $150. In the midst of
      these difficulties, the chief promoter of the enterprise, Mr. Lippincott,
      died; and it was soon found that the roseate dreams of success entertained
      by the sanguine promoters were not to be realized. The North American
      Phonograph Company failed, its principal creditor being Mr. Edison, who,
      having acquired the assets of the defunct concern, organized the National
      Phonograph Company, to which he turned over the patents; and with
      characteristic energy he attempted again to build up a business with which
      his favorite and, to him, most interesting invention might be successfully
      identified. The National Phonograph Company from the very start determined
      to retire at least temporarily from the field of stenographic use, and to
      exploit the phonograph for musical purposes as a competitor of the
      music-box. Hence it was necessary that for such work the relatively heavy
      and expensive electric motor should be discarded, and a simple spring
      motor constructed with a sufficiently sensitive governor to permit
      accurate musical reproduction. Such a motor was designed, and is now used
      on all phonographs except on such special instruments as may be made with
      electric motors, as well as on the successful apparatus that has more
      recently been designed and introduced for stenographic use. Improved
      factory facilities were introduced; new tools were made, and various types
      of machines were designed so that phonographs can now be bought at prices
      ranging from $10 to $200. Even with the changes which were thus made in
      the two machines, the work of developing the business was slow, as a
      demand had to be created; and the early prejudice of the public against
      the phonograph, due to its failure as a stenographic apparatus, had to be
      overcome. The story of the phonograph as an industrial enterprise, from
      this point of departure, is itself full of interest, but embraces so many
      details that it is necessarily given in a separate later chapter. We must
      return to the days of 1878, when Edison, with at least three first-class
      inventions to his credit&mdash;the quadruplex, the carbon telephone, and
      the phonograph&mdash;had become a man of mark and a "world character."
    </p>
    <p>
      The invention of the phonograph was immediately followed, as usual, by the
      appearance of several other incidental and auxiliary devices, some
      patented, and others remaining simply the application of the principles of
      apparatus that had been worked out. One of these was the telephonograph, a
      combination of a telephone at a distant station with a phonograph. The
      diaphragm of the phonograph mouthpiece is actuated by an electromagnet in
      the same way as that of an ordinary telephone receiver, and in this manner
      a record of the message spoken from a distance can be obtained and turned
      into sound at will. Evidently such a process is reversible, and the
      phonograph can send a message to the distant receiver.
    </p>
    <p>
      This idea was brilliantly demonstrated in practice in February, 1889, by
      Mr. W. J. Hammer, one of Edison's earliest and most capable associates,
      who carried on telephonographic communication between New York and an
      audience in Philadelphia. The record made in New York on the Edison
      phonograph was repeated into an Edison carbon transmitter, sent over one
      hundred and three miles of circuit, including six miles of underground
      cable; received by an Edison motograph; repeated by that on to a
      phonograph; transferred from the phonograph to an Edison carbon
      transmitter, and by that delivered to the Edison motograph receiver in the
      enthusiastic lecture-hall, where every one could hear each sound and
      syllable distinctly. In real practice this spectacular playing with sound
      vibrations, as if they were lacrosse balls to toss around between the
      goals, could be materially simplified.
    </p>
    <p>
      The modern megaphone, now used universally in making announcements to
      large crowds, particularly at sporting events, is also due to this period
      as a perfection by Edison of many antecedent devices going back, perhaps,
      much further than the legendary funnels through which Alexander the Great
      is said to have sent commands to his outlying forces. The improved Edison
      megaphone for long-distance work comprised two horns of wood or metal
      about six feet long, tapering from a diameter of two feet six inches at
      the mouth to a small aperture provided with ear-tubes. These converging
      horns or funnels, with a large speaking-trumpet in between them, are
      mounted on a tripod, and the megaphone is complete. Conversation can be
      carried on with this megaphone at a distance of over two miles, as with a
      ship or the balloon. The modern megaphone now employs the receiver form
      thus introduced as its very effective transmitter, with which the
      old-fashioned speaking-trumpet cannot possibly compete; and the word
      "megaphone" is universally applied to the single, side-flaring horn.
    </p>
    <p>
      A further step in this line brought Edison to the "aerophone," around
      which the Figaro weaved its fanciful description. In the construction of
      the aerophone the same kind of tympanum is used as in the phonograph, but
      the imitation of the human voice, or the transmission of sound, is
      effected by the quick opening and closing of valves placed within a
      steam-whistle or an organ-pipe. The vibrations of the diaphragm
      communicated to the valves cause them to operate in synchronism, so that
      the vibrations are thrown upon the escaping air or steam; and the result
      is an instrument with a capacity of magnifying the sounds two hundred
      times, and of hurling them to great distances intelligibly, like a huge
      fog-siren, but with immense clearness and penetration. All this study of
      sound transmission over long distances without wires led up to the
      consideration and invention of pioneer apparatus for wireless telegraphy&mdash;but
      that also is another chapter.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yet one more ingenious device of this period must be noted&mdash;Edison's
      vocal engine, the patent application for which was executed in August,
      1878, the patent being granted the following December. Reference to this
      by Edison himself has already been quoted. The "voice-engine," or
      "phonomotor," converts the vibrations of the voice or of music, acting on
      the diaphragm, into motion which is utilized to drive some secondary
      appliance, whether as a toy or for some useful purpose. Thus a man can
      actually talk a hole through a board.
    </p>
    <p>
      Somewhat weary of all this work and excitement, and not having enjoyed any
      cessation from toil, or period of rest, for ten years, Edison jumped
      eagerly at the opportunity afforded him in the summer of 1878 of making a
      westward trip. Just thirty years later, on a similar trip over the same
      ground, he jotted down for this volume some of his reminiscences. The lure
      of 1878 was the opportunity to try the ability of his delicate tasimeter
      during the total eclipse of the sun, July 29. His admiring friend, Prof.
      George F. Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania, with whom he had now
      been on terms of intimacy for some years, suggested the holiday, and was
      himself a member of the excursion party that made its rendezvous at
      Rawlins, Wyoming Territory. Edison had tested his tasimeter, and was
      satisfied that it would measure down to the millionth part of a degree
      Fahrenheit. It was just ten years since he had left the West in poverty
      and obscurity, a penniless operator in search of a job; but now he was a
      great inventor and famous, a welcome addition to the band of astronomers
      and physicists assembled to observe the eclipse and the corona.
    </p>
    <p>
      "There were astronomers from nearly every nation," says Mr. Edison. "We
      had a special car. The country at that time was rather new; game was in
      great abundance, and could be seen all day long from the car window,
      especially antelope. We arrived at Rawlins about 4 P.M. It had a small
      machine shop, and was the point where locomotives were changed for the
      next section. The hotel was a very small one, and by doubling up we were
      barely accommodated. My room-mate was Fox, the correspondent of the New
      York Herald. After we retired and were asleep a thundering knock on the
      door awakened us. Upon opening the door a tall, handsome man with flowing
      hair dressed in western style entered the room. His eyes were bloodshot,
      and he was somewhat inebriated. He introduced himself as 'Texas Jack'&mdash;Joe
      Chromondo&mdash;and said he wanted to see Edison, as he had read about me
      in the newspapers. Both Fox and I were rather scared, and didn't know what
      was to be the result of the interview. The landlord requested him not to
      make so much noise, and was thrown out into the hall. Jack explained that
      he had just come in with a party which had been hunting, and that he felt
      fine. He explained, also, that he was the boss pistol-shot of the West;
      that it was he who taught the celebrated Doctor Carver how to shoot. Then
      suddenly pointing to a weather-vane on the freight depot, he pulled out a
      Colt revolver and fired through the window, hitting the vane. The shot
      awakened all the people, and they rushed in to see who was killed. It was
      only after I told him I was tired and would see him in the morning that he
      left. Both Fox and I were so nervous we didn't sleep any that night.
    </p>
    <p>
      "We were told in the morning that Jack was a pretty good fellow, and was
      not one of the 'bad men,' of whom they had a good supply. They had one in
      the jail, and Fox and I went over to see him. A few days before he had
      held up a Union Pacific train and robbed all the passengers. In the jail
      also was a half-breed horse-thief. We interviewed the bad man through bars
      as big as railroad rails. He looked like a 'bad man.' The rim of his ear
      all around came to a sharp edge and was serrated. His eyes were nearly
      white, and appeared as if made of glass and set in wrong, like the
      life-size figures of Indians in the Smithsonian Institution. His face was
      also extremely irregular. He wouldn't answer a single question. I learned
      afterward that he got seven years in prison, while the horse-thief was
      hanged. As horses ran wild, and there was no protection, it meant death to
      steal one."
    </p>
    <p>
      This was one interlude among others. "The first thing the astronomers did
      was to determine with precision their exact locality upon the earth. A
      number of observations were made, and Watson, of Michigan University, with
      two others, worked all night computing, until they agreed. They said they
      were not in error more than one hundred feet, and that the station was
      twelve miles out of the position given on the maps. It seemed to take an
      immense amount of mathematics. I preserved one of the sheets, which looked
      like the time-table of a Chinese railroad. The instruments of the various
      parties were then set up in different parts of the little town, and got
      ready for the eclipse which was to occur in three or four days. Two days
      before the event we all got together, and obtaining an engine and car,
      went twelve miles farther west to visit the United States Government
      astronomers at a place called Separation, the apex of the Great Divide,
      where the waters run east to the Mississippi and west to the Pacific. Fox
      and I took our Winchester rifles with an idea of doing a little shooting.
      After calling on the Government people we started to interview the
      telegraph operator at this most lonely and desolate spot. After talking
      over old acquaintances I asked him if there was any game around. He said,
      'Plenty of jack-rabbits.' These jack-rabbits are a very peculiar species.
      They have ears about six inches long and very slender legs, about three
      times as long as those of an ordinary rabbit, and travel at a great speed
      by a series of jumps, each about thirty feet long, as near as I could
      judge. The local people called them 'narrow-gauge mules.' Asking the
      operator the best direction, he pointed west, and noticing a rabbit in a
      clear space in the sage bushes, I said, 'There is one now.' I advanced
      cautiously to within one hundred feet and shot. The rabbit paid no
      attention. I then advanced to within ten feet and shot again&mdash;the
      rabbit was still immovable. On looking around, the whole crowd at the
      station were watching&mdash;and then I knew the rabbit was stuffed!
      However, we did shoot a number of live ones until Fox ran out of
      cartridges. On returning to the station I passed away the time shooting at
      cans set on a pile of tins. Finally the operator said to Fox: 'I have a
      fine Springfield musket, suppose you try it!' So Fox took the musket and
      fired. It knocked him nearly over. It seems that the musket had been run
      over by a handcar, which slightly bent the long barrel, but not
      sufficiently for an amateur like Fox to notice. After Fox had his shoulder
      treated with arnica at the Government hospital tent, we returned to
      Rawlins."
    </p>
    <p>
      The eclipse was, however, the prime consideration, and Edison followed the
      example of his colleagues in making ready. The place which he secured for
      setting up his tasimeter was an enclosure hardly suitable for the purpose,
      and he describes the results as follows:
    </p>
    <p>
      "I had my apparatus in a small yard enclosed by a board fence six feet
      high, at one end there was a house for hens. I noticed that they all went
      to roost just before totality. At the same time a slight wind arose, and
      at the moment of totality the atmosphere was filled with thistle-down and
      other light articles. I noticed one feather, whose weight was at least one
      hundred and fifty milligrams, rise perpendicularly to the top of the
      fence, where it floated away on the wind. My apparatus was entirely too
      sensitive, and I got no results." It was found that the heat from the
      corona of the sun was ten times the index capacity of the instrument; but
      this result did not leave the value of the device in doubt. The Scientific
      American remarked;
    </p>
    <p>
      "Seeing that the tasimeter is affected by a wider range of etheric
      undulations than the eye can take cognizance of, and is withal far more
      acutely sensitive, the probabilities are that it will open up hitherto
      inaccessible regions of space, and possibly extend the range of aerial
      knowledge as far beyond the limit obtained by the telescope as that is
      beyond the narrow reach of unaided vision."
    </p>
    <p>
      The eclipse over, Edison, with Professor Barker, Major Thornberg, several
      soldiers, and a number of railroad officials, went hunting about one
      hundred miles south of the railroad in the Ute country. A few months later
      the Major and thirty soldiers were ambushed near the spot at which the
      hunting-party had camped, and all were killed. Through an introduction
      from Mr. Jay Gould, who then controlled the Union Pacific, Edison was
      allowed to ride on the cow-catchers of the locomotives. "The different
      engineers gave me a small cushion, and every day I rode in this manner,
      from Omaha to the Sacramento Valley, except through the snow-shed on the
      summit of the Sierras, without dust or anything else to obstruct the view.
      Only once was I in danger when the locomotive struck an animal about the
      size of a small cub bear&mdash;which I think was a badger. This animal
      struck the front of the locomotive just under the headlight with great
      violence, and was then thrown off by the rebound. I was sitting to one
      side grasping the angle brace, so no harm was done."
    </p>
    <p>
      This welcome vacation lasted nearly two months; but Edison was back in his
      laboratory and hard at work before the end of August, gathering up many
      loose ends, and trying out many thoughts and ideas that had accumulated on
      the trip. One hot afternoon&mdash;August 30th, as shown by the document in
      the case&mdash;Mr. Edison was found by one of the authors of this
      biography employed most busily in making a mysterious series of tests on
      paper, using for ink acids that corrugated and blistered the paper where
      written upon. When interrogated as to his object, he stated that the plan
      was to afford blind people the means of writing directly to each other,
      especially if they were also deaf and could not hear a message on the
      phonograph. The characters which he was thus forming on the paper were
      high enough in relief to be legible to the delicate touch of a blind man's
      fingers, and with simple apparatus letters could be thus written, sent,
      and read. There was certainly no question as to the result obtained at the
      moment, which was all that was asked; but the Edison autograph thus and
      then written now shows the paper eaten out by the acid used, although
      covered with glass for many years. Mr. Edison does not remember that he
      ever recurred to this very interesting test.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was, however, ready for anything new or novel, and no record can ever
      be made or presented that would do justice to a tithe of the thoughts and
      fancies daily and hourly put upon the rack. The famous note-books, to
      which reference will be made later, were not begun as a regular series, as
      it was only the profusion of these ideas that suggested the vital value of
      such systematic registration. Then as now, the propositions brought to
      Edison ranged over every conceivable subject, but the years have taught
      him caution in grappling with them. He tells an amusing story of one
      dilemma into which his good-nature led him at this period: "At Menlo Park
      one day, a farmer came in and asked if I knew any way to kill potato-bugs.
      He had twenty acres of potatoes, and the vines were being destroyed. I
      sent men out and culled two quarts of bugs, and tried every chemical I had
      to destroy them. Bisulphide of carbon was found to do it instantly. I got
      a drum and went over to the potato farm and sprinkled it on the vines with
      a pot. Every bug dropped dead. The next morning the farmer came in very
      excited and reported that the stuff had killed the vines as well. I had to
      pay $300 for not experimenting properly."
    </p>
    <p>
      During this year, 1878, the phonograph made its way also to Europe, and
      various sums of money were paid there to secure the rights to its
      manufacture and exploitation. In England, for example, the Microscopic
      Company paid $7500 down and agreed to a royalty, while arrangements were
      effected also in France, Russia, and other countries. In every instance,
      as in this country, the commercial development had to wait several years,
      for in the mean time another great art had been brought into existence,
      demanding exclusive attention and exhaustive toil. And when the work was
      done the reward was a new heaven and a new earth&mdash;in the art of
      illumination.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XI
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE INVENTION OF THE INCANDESCENT LAMP
    </h3>
    <p>
      IT is possible to imagine a time to come when the hours of work and rest
      will once more be regulated by the sun. But the course of civilization has
      been marked by an artificial lengthening of the day, and by a constant
      striving after more perfect means of illumination. Why mankind should
      sleep through several hours of sunlight in the morning, and stay awake
      through a needless time in the evening, can probably only be attributed to
      total depravity. It is certainly a most stupid, expensive, and harmful
      habit. In no one thing has man shown greater fertility of invention than
      in lighting; to nothing does he cling more tenaciously than to his devices
      for furnishing light. Electricity to-day reigns supreme in the field of
      illumination, but every other kind of artificial light that has ever been
      known is still in use somewhere. Toward its light-bringers the race has
      assumed an attitude of veneration, though it has forgotten, if it ever
      heard, the names of those who first brightened its gloom and dissipated
      its darkness. If the tallow candle, hitherto unknown, were now invented,
      its creator would be hailed as one of the greatest benefactors of the
      present age.
    </p>
    <p>
      Up to the close of the eighteenth century, the means of house and street
      illumination were of two generic kinds&mdash;grease and oil; but then came
      a swift and revolutionary change in the adoption of gas. The ideas and
      methods of Murdoch and Lebon soon took definite shape, and "coal smoke"
      was piped from its place of origin to distant points of consumption. As
      early as 1804, the first company ever organized for gas lighting was
      formed in London, one side of Pall Mall being lit up by the enthusiastic
      pioneer, Winsor, in 1807. Equal activity was shown in America, and
      Baltimore began the practice of gas lighting in 1816. It is true that
      there were explosions, and distinguished men like Davy and Watt opined
      that the illuminant was too dangerous; but the "spirit of coal" had
      demonstrated its usefulness convincingly, and a commercial development
      began, which, for extent and rapidity, was not inferior to that marking
      the concurrent adoption of steam in industry and transportation.
    </p>
    <p>
      Meantime the wax candle and the Argand oil lamp held their own bravely.
      The whaling fleets, long after gas came into use, were one of the greatest
      sources of our national wealth. To New Bedford, Massachusetts, alone, some
      three or four hundred ships brought their whale and sperm oil, spermaceti,
      and whalebone; and at one time that port was accounted the richest city in
      the United States in proportion to its population. The ship-owners and
      refiners of that whaling metropolis were slow to believe that their
      monopoly could ever be threatened by newer sources of illumination; but
      gas had become available in the cities, and coal-oil and petroleum were
      now added to the list of illuminating materials. The American whaling
      fleet, which at the time of Edison's birth mustered over seven hundred
      sail, had dwindled probably to a bare tenth when he took up the problem of
      illumination; and the competition of oil from the ground with oil from the
      sea, and with coal-gas, had made the artificial production of light
      cheaper than ever before, when up to the middle of the century it had
      remained one of the heaviest items of domestic expense. Moreover, just
      about the time that Edison took up incandescent lighting, water-gas was
      being introduced on a large scale as a commercial illuminant that could be
      produced at a much lower cost than coal-gas.
    </p>
    <p>
      Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century the search for a
      practical electric light was almost wholly in the direction of employing
      methods analogous to those already familiar; in other words, obtaining the
      illumination from the actual consumption of the light-giving material. In
      the third quarter of the century these methods were brought to
      practicality, but all may be referred back to the brilliant demonstrations
      of Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution, circa 1809-10, when, with
      the current from a battery of two thousand cells, he produced an intense
      voltaic arc between the points of consuming sticks of charcoal. For more
      than thirty years the arc light remained an expensive laboratory
      experiment; but the coming of the dynamo placed that illuminant on a
      commercial basis. The mere fact that electrical energy from the least
      expensive chemical battery using up zinc and acids costs twenty times as
      much as that from a dynamo&mdash;driven by steam-engine&mdash;is in itself
      enough to explain why so many of the electric arts lingered in embryo
      after their fundamental principles had been discovered. Here is seen also
      further proof of the great truth that one invention often waits for
      another.
    </p>
    <p>
      From 1850 onward the improvements in both the arc lamp and the dynamo were
      rapid; and under the superintendence of the great Faraday, in 1858,
      protecting beams of intense electric light from the voltaic arc were shed
      over the waters of the Straits of Dover from the beacons of South Foreland
      and Dungeness. By 1878 the arc-lighting industry had sprung into existence
      in so promising a manner as to engender an extraordinary fever and furor
      of speculation. At the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876,
      Wallace-Farmer dynamos built at Ansonia, Connecticut, were shown, with the
      current from which arc lamps were there put in actual service. A year or
      two later the work of Charles F. Brush and Edward Weston laid the deep
      foundation of modern arc lighting in America, securing as well substantial
      recognition abroad.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus the new era had been ushered in, but it was based altogether on the
      consumption of some material&mdash;carbon&mdash;in a lamp open to the air.
      Every lamp the world had ever known did this, in one way or another.
      Edison himself began at that point, and his note-books show that he made
      various experiments with this type of lamp at a very early stage. Indeed,
      his experiments had led him so far as to anticipate in 1875 what are now
      known as "flaming arcs," the exceedingly bright and generally orange or
      rose-colored lights which have been introduced within the last few years,
      and are now so frequently seen in streets and public places. While the
      arcs with plain carbons are bluish-white, those with carbons containing
      calcium fluoride have a notable golden glow.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was convinced, however, that the greatest field of lighting lay in the
      illumination of houses and other comparatively enclosed areas, to replace
      the ordinary gas light, rather than in the illumination of streets and
      other outdoor places by lights of great volume and brilliancy. Dismissing
      from his mind quickly the commercial impossibility of using arc lights for
      general indoor illumination, he arrived at the conclusion that an electric
      lamp giving light by incandescence was the solution of the problem.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison was familiar with the numerous but impracticable and commercially
      unsuccessful efforts that had been previously made by other inventors and
      investigators to produce electric light by incandescence, and at the time
      that he began his experiments, in 1877, almost the whole scientific world
      had pronounced such an idea as impossible of fulfilment. The leading
      electricians, physicists, and experts of the period had been studying the
      subject for more than a quarter of a century, and with but one known
      exception had proven mathematically and by close reasoning that the
      "Subdivision of the Electric Light," as it was then termed, was
      practically beyond attainment. Opinions of this nature have ever been but
      a stimulus to Edison when he has given deep thought to a subject, and has
      become impressed with strong convictions of possibility, and in this
      particular case he was satisfied that the subdivision of the electric
      light&mdash;or, more correctly, the subdivision of the electric current&mdash;was
      not only possible but entirely practicable.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will have been perceived from the foregoing chapters that from the time
      of boyhood, when he first began to rub against the world, his commercial
      instincts were alert and predominated in almost all of the enterprises
      that he set in motion. This characteristic trait had grown stronger as he
      matured, having received, as it did, fresh impetus and strength from his
      one lapse in the case of his first patented invention, the vote-recorder.
      The lesson he then learned was to devote his inventive faculties only to
      things for which there was a real, genuine demand, and that would subserve
      the actual necessities of humanity; and it was probably a fortunate
      circumstance that this lesson was learned at the outset of his career as
      an inventor. He has never assumed to be a philosopher or "pure scientist."
    </p>
    <p>
      In order that the reader may grasp an adequate idea of the magnitude and
      importance of Edison's invention of the incandescent lamp, it will be
      necessary to review briefly the "state of the art" at the time he began
      his experiments on that line. After the invention of the voltaic battery,
      early in the last century, experiments were made which determined that
      heat could be produced by the passage of the electric current through
      wires of platinum and other metals, and through pieces of carbon, as noted
      already, and it was, of course, also observed that if sufficient current
      were passed through these conductors they could be brought from the lower
      stage of redness up to the brilliant white heat of incandescence. As early
      as 1845 the results of these experiments were taken advantage of when
      Starr, a talented American who died at the early age of twenty-five,
      suggested, in his English patent of that year, two forms of small
      incandescent electric lamps, one having a burner made from platinum foil
      placed under a glass cover without excluding the air; and the other
      composed of a thin plate or pencil of carbon enclosed in a Torricellian
      vacuum. These suggestions of young Starr were followed by many other
      experimenters, whose improvements consisted principally in devices to
      increase the compactness and portability of the lamp, in the sealing of
      the lamp chamber to prevent the admission of air, and in means for
      renewing the carbon burner when it had been consumed. Thus Roberts, in
      1852, proposed to cement the neck of the glass globe into a metallic cup,
      and to provide it with a tube or stop-cock for exhaustion by means of a
      hand-pump. Lodyguine, Konn, Kosloff, and Khotinsky, between 1872 and 1877,
      proposed various ingenious devices for perfecting the joint between the
      metal base and the glass globe, and also provided their lamps with several
      short carbon pencils, which were automatically brought into circuit
      successively as the pencils were consumed. In 1876 or 1877, Bouliguine
      proposed the employment of a long carbon pencil, a short section only of
      which was in circuit at any one time and formed the burner, the lamp being
      provided with a mechanism for automatically pushing other sections of the
      pencil into position between the contacts to renew the burner. Sawyer and
      Man proposed, in 1878, to make the bottom plate of glass instead of metal,
      and provided ingenious arrangements for charging the lamp chamber with an
      atmosphere of pure nitrogen gas which does not support combustion.
    </p>
    <p>
      These lamps and many others of similar character, ingenious as they were,
      failed to become of any commercial value, due, among other things, to the
      brief life of the carbon burner. Even under the best conditions it was
      found that the carbon members were subject to a rapid disintegration or
      evaporation, which experimenters assumed was due to the disrupting action
      of the electric current; and hence the conclusion that carbon contained in
      itself the elements of its own destruction, and was not a suitable
      material for the burner of an incandescent lamp. On the other hand,
      platinum, although found to be the best of all materials for the purpose,
      aside from its great expense, and not combining with oxygen at high
      temperatures as does carbon, required to be brought so near the
      melting-point in order to give light, that a very slight increase in the
      temperature resulted in its destruction. It was assumed that the
      difficulty lay in the material of the burner itself, and not in its
      environment.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was not realized up to such a comparatively recent date as 1879 that
      the solution of the great problem of subdivision of the electric current
      would not, however, be found merely in the production of a durable
      incandescent electric lamp&mdash;even if any of the lamps above referred
      to had fulfilled that requirement. The other principal features necessary
      to subdivide the electric current successfully were: the burning of an
      indefinite number of lights on the same circuit; each light to give a
      useful and economical degree of illumination; and each light to be
      independent of all the others in regard to its operation and
      extinguishment.
    </p>
    <p>
      The opinions of scientific men of the period on the subject are well
      represented by the two following extracts&mdash;the first, from a lecture
      at the Royal United Service Institution, about February, 1879, by Mr.
      (Sir) W. H. Preece, one of the most eminent electricians in England, who,
      after discussing the question mathematically, said: "Hence the
      sub-division of the light is an absolute ignis fatuus." The other extract
      is from a book written by Paget Higgs, LL.D., D.Sc., published in London
      in 1879, in which he says: "Much nonsense has been talked in relation to
      this subject. Some inventors have claimed the power to 'indefinitely
      divide' the electric current, not knowing or forgetting that such a
      statement is incompatible with the well-proven law of conservation of
      energy."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Some inventors," in the last sentence just quoted, probably&mdash;indeed,
      we think undoubtedly&mdash;refers to Edison, whose earlier work in
      electric lighting (1878) had been announced in this country and abroad,
      and who had then stated boldly his conviction of the practicability of the
      subdivision of the electrical current. The above extracts are good
      illustrations, however, of scientific opinions up to the end of 1879, when
      Mr. Edison's epoch-making invention rendered them entirely untenable. The
      eminent scientist, John Tyndall, while not sharing these precise views, at
      least as late as January 17, 1879, delivered a lecture before the Royal
      Institution on "The Electric Light," when, after pointing out the
      development of the art up to Edison's work, and showing the apparent
      hopelessness of the problem, he said: "Knowing something of the intricacy
      of the practical problem, I should certainly prefer seeing it in Edison's
      hands to having it in mine."
    </p>
    <p>
      The reader may have deemed this sketch of the state of the art to be a
      considerable digression; but it is certainly due to the subject to present
      the facts in such a manner as to show that this great invention was
      neither the result of improving some process or device that was known or
      existing at the time, nor due to any unforeseen lucky chance, nor the
      accidental result of other experiments. On the contrary, it was the
      legitimate outcome of a series of exhaustive experiments founded upon
      logical and original reasoning in a mind that had the courage and
      hardihood to set at naught the confirmed opinions of the world, voiced by
      those generally acknowledged to be the best exponents of the art&mdash;experiments
      carried on amid a storm of jeers and derision, almost as contemptuous as
      if the search were for the discovery of perpetual motion. In this we see
      the man foreshadowed by the boy who, when he obtained his books on
      chemistry or physics, did not accept any statement of fact or experiment
      therein, but worked out every one of them himself to ascertain whether or
      not they were true.
    </p>
    <p>
      Although this brings the reader up to the year 1879, one must turn back
      two years and accompany Edison in his first attack on the electric-light
      problem. In 1877 he sold his telephone invention (the carbon transmitter)
      to the Western Union Telegraph Company, which had previously come into
      possession also of his quadruplex inventions, as already related. He was
      still busily engaged on the telephone, on acoustic electrical
      transmission, sextuplex telegraphs, duplex telegraphs, miscellaneous
      carbon articles, and other inventions of a minor nature. During the whole
      of the previous year and until late in the summer of 1877, he had been
      working with characteristic energy and enthusiasm on the telephone; and,
      in developing this invention to a successful issue, had preferred the use
      of carbon and had employed it in numerous forms, especially in the form of
      carbonized paper.
    </p>
    <p>
      Eighteen hundred and seventy-seven in Edison's laboratory was a veritable
      carbon year, for it was carbon in some shape or form for interpolation in
      electric circuits of various kinds that occupied the thoughts of the whole
      force from morning to night. It is not surprising, therefore, that in
      September of that year, when Edison turned his thoughts actively toward
      electric lighting by incandescence, his early experiments should be in the
      line of carbon as an illuminant. His originality of method was displayed
      at the very outset, for one of the first experiments was the bringing to
      incandescence of a strip of carbon in the open air to ascertain merely how
      much current was required. This conductor was a strip of carbonized paper
      about an inch long, one-sixteenth of an inch broad, and six or seven
      one-thousandths of an inch thick, the ends of which were secured to clamps
      that formed the poles of a battery. The carbon was lighted up to
      incandescence, and, of course, oxidized and disintegrated immediately.
      Within a few days this was followed by experiments with the same kind of
      carbon, but in vacuo by means of a hand-worked air-pump. This time the
      carbon strip burned at incandescence for about eight minutes. Various
      expedients to prevent oxidization were tried, such, for instance, as
      coating the carbon with powdered glass, which in melting would protect the
      carbon from the atmosphere, but without successful results.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison was inclined to concur in the prevailing opinion as to the easy
      destructibility of carbon, but, without actually settling the point in his
      mind, he laid aside temporarily this line of experiment and entered a new
      field. He had made previously some trials of platinum wire as an
      incandescent burner for a lamp, but left it for a time in favor of carbon.
      He now turned to the use of almost infusible metals&mdash;such as boron,
      ruthenium, chromium, etc.&mdash;as separators or tiny bridges between two
      carbon points, the current acting so as to bring these separators to a
      high degree of incandescence, at which point they would emit a brilliant
      light. He also placed some of these refractory metals directly in the
      circuit, bringing them to incandescence, and used silicon in powdered form
      in glass tubes placed in the electric circuit. His notes include the use
      of powdered silicon mixed with lime or other very infusible non-conductors
      or semi-conductors. Edison's conclusions on these substances were that,
      while in some respects they were within the bounds of possibility for the
      subdivision of the electric current, they did not reach the ideal that he
      had in mind for commercial results.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's systematized attacks on the problem were two in number, the first
      of which we have just related, which began in September, 1877, and
      continued until about January, 1878. Contemporaneously, he and his force
      of men were very busily engaged day and night on other important
      enterprises and inventions. Among the latter, the phonograph may be
      specially mentioned, as it was invented in the late fall of 1877. From
      that time until July, 1878, his time and attention day and night were
      almost completely absorbed by the excitement caused by the invention and
      exhibition of the machine. In July, feeling entitled to a brief vacation
      after several years of continuous labor, Edison went with the expedition
      to Wyoming to observe an eclipse of the sun, and incidentally to test his
      tasimeter, a delicate instrument devised by him for measuring heat
      transmitted through immense distances of space. His trip has been already
      described. He was absent about two months. Coming home rested and
      refreshed, Mr. Edison says: "After my return from the trip to observe the
      eclipse of the sun, I went with Professor Barker, Professor of Physics in
      the University of Pennsylvania, and Doctor Chandler, Professor of
      Chemistry in Columbia College, to see Mr. Wallace, a large manufacturer of
      brass in Ansonia, Connecticut. Wallace at this time was experimenting on
      series arc lighting. Just at that time I wanted to take up something new,
      and Professor Barker suggested that I go to work and see if I could
      subdivide the electric light so it could be got in small units like gas.
      This was not a new suggestion, because I had made a number of experiments
      on electric lighting a year before this. They had been laid aside for the
      phonograph. I determined to take up the search again and continue it. On
      my return home I started my usual course of collecting every kind of data
      about gas; bought all the transactions of the gas-engineering societies,
      etc., all the back volumes of gas journals, etc. Having obtained all the
      data, and investigated gas-jet distribution in New York by actual
      observations, I made up my mind that the problem of the subdivision of the
      electric current could be solved and made commercial." About the end of
      August, 1878, he began his second organized attack on the subdivision of
      the current, which was steadily maintained until he achieved signal
      victory a year and two months later.
    </p>
    <p>
      The date of this interesting visit to Ansonia is fixed by an inscription
      made by Edison on a glass goblet which he used. The legend in diamond
      scratches runs: "Thomas A. Edison, September 8, 1878, made under the
      electric light." Other members of the party left similar memorials, which
      under the circumstances have come to be greatly prized. A number of
      experiments were witnessed in arc lighting, and Edison secured a small
      Wallace-Farmer dynamo for his own work, as well as a set of Wallace arc
      lamps for lighting the Menlo Park laboratory. Before leaving Ansonia,
      Edison remarked, significantly: "Wallace, I believe I can beat you making
      electric lights. I don't think you are working in the right direction."
      Another date which shows how promptly the work was resumed is October 14,
      1878, when Edison filed an application for his first lighting patent:
      "Improvement in Electric Lights." In after years, discussing the work of
      Wallace, who was not only a great pioneer electrical manufacturer, but one
      of the founders of the wire-drawing and brass-working industry, Edison
      said: "Wallace was one of the earliest pioneers in electrical matters in
      this country. He has done a great deal of good work, for which others have
      received the credit; and the work which he did in the early days of
      electric lighting others have benefited by largely, and he has been
      crowded to one side and forgotten." Associated in all this work with
      Wallace at Ansonia was Prof. Moses G. Farmer, famous for the introduction
      of the fire-alarm system; as the discoverer of the self-exciting principle
      of the modern dynamo; as a pioneer experimenter in the electric-railway
      field; as a telegraph engineer, and as a lecturer on mines and explosives
      to naval classes at Newport. During 1858, Farmer, who, like Edison, was a
      ceaseless investigator, had made a series of studies upon the production
      of light by electricity, and had even invented an automatic regulator by
      which a number of platinum lamps in multiple arc could be kept at uniform
      voltage for any length of time. In July, 1859, he lit up one of the rooms
      of his house at Salem, Massachusetts, every evening with such lamps, using
      in them small pieces of platinum and iridium wire, which were made to
      incandesce by means of current from primary batteries. Farmer was not one
      of the party that memorable day in September, but his work was known
      through his intimate connection with Wallace, and there is no doubt that
      reference was made to it. Such work had not led very far, the "lamps" were
      hopelessly short-lived, and everything was obviously experimental; but it
      was all helpful and suggestive to one whose open mind refused no hint from
      any quarter.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the commencement of his new attempts, Edison returned to his
      experiments with carbon as an incandescent burner for a lamp, and made a
      very large number of trials, all in vacuo. Not only were the ordinary
      strip paper carbons tried again, but tissue-paper coated with tar and
      lampblack was rolled into thin sticks, like knitting-needles, carbonized
      and raised to incandescence in vacuo. Edison also tried hard carbon, wood
      carbons, and almost every conceivable variety of paper carbon in like
      manner. With the best vacuum that he could then get by means of the
      ordinary air-pump, the carbons would last, at the most, only from ten to
      fifteen minutes in a state of incandescence. Such results were evidently
      not of commercial value.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison then turned his attention in other directions. In his earliest
      consideration of the problem of subdividing the electric current, he had
      decided that the only possible solution lay in the employment of a lamp
      whose incandescing body should have a high resistance combined with a
      small radiating surface, and be capable of being used in what is called
      "multiple arc," so that each unit, or lamp, could be turned on or off
      without interfering with any other unit or lamp. No other arrangement
      could possibly be considered as commercially practicable.
    </p>
    <p>
      The full significance of the three last preceding sentences will not be
      obvious to laymen, as undoubtedly many of the readers of this book may be;
      and now being on the threshold of the series of Edison's experiments that
      led up to the basic invention, we interpolate a brief explanation, in
      order that the reader may comprehend the logical reasoning and work that
      in this case produced such far-reaching results.
    </p>
    <p>
      If we consider a simple circuit in which a current is flowing, and include
      in the circuit a carbon horseshoe-like conductor which it is desired to
      bring to incandescence by the heat generated by the current passing
      through it, it is first evident that the resistance offered to the current
      by the wires themselves must be less than that offered by the burner,
      because, otherwise current would be wasted as heat in the conducting
      wires. At the very foundation of the electric-lighting art is the
      essentially commercial consideration that one cannot spend very much for
      conductors, and Edison determined that, in order to use wires of a
      practicable size, the voltage of the current (i.e., its pressure or the
      characteristic that overcomes resistance to its flow) should be one
      hundred and ten volts, which since its adoption has been the standard. To
      use a lower voltage or pressure, while making the solution of the lighting
      problem a simple one as we shall see, would make it necessary to increase
      the size of the conducting wires to a prohibitive extent. To increase the
      voltage or pressure materially, while permitting some saving in the cost
      of conductors, would enormously increase the difficulties of making a
      sufficiently high resistance conductor to secure light by incandescence.
      This apparently remote consideration &mdash;weight of copper used&mdash;was
      really the commercial key to the problem, just as the incandescent burner
      was the scientific key to that problem. Before Edison's invention
      incandescent lamps had been suggested as a possibility, but they were
      provided with carbon rods or strips of relatively low resistance, and to
      bring these to incandescence required a current of low pressure, because a
      current of high voltage would pass through them so readily as not to
      generate heat; and to carry a current of low pressure through wires
      without loss would require wires of enormous size. [8] Having a current of
      relatively high pressure to contend with, it was necessary to provide a
      carbon burner which, as compared with what had previously been suggested,
      should have a very great resistance. Carbon as a material, determined
      after patient search, apparently offered the greatest hope, but even with
      this substance the necessary high resistance could be obtained only by
      making the burner of extremely small cross-section, thereby also reducing
      its radiating surface. Therefore, the crucial point was the production of
      a hair-like carbon filament, with a relatively great resistance and small
      radiating surface, capable of withstanding mechanical shock, and
      susceptible of being maintained at a temperature of over two thousand
      degrees for a thousand hours or more before breaking. And this filamentary
      conductor required to be supported in a vacuum chamber so perfectly formed
      and constructed that during all those hours, and subjected as it is to
      varying temperatures, not a particle of air should enter to disintegrate
      the filament. And not only so, but the lamp after its design must not be a
      mere laboratory possibility, but a practical commercial article capable of
      being manufactured at low cost and in large quantities. A statement of
      what had to be done in those days of actual as well as scientific
      electrical darkness is quite sufficient to explain Tyndall's attitude of
      mind in preferring that the problem should be in Edison's hands rather
      than in his own. To say that the solution of the problem lay merely in
      reducing the size of the carbon burner to a mere hair, is to state a
      half-truth only; but who, we ask, would have had the temerity even to
      suggest that such an attenuated body could be maintained at a white heat,
      without disintegration, for a thousand hours? The solution consisted not
      only in that, but in the enormous mass of patiently worked-out details&mdash;the
      manufacture of the filaments, their uniform carbonization, making the
      globes, producing a perfect vacuum, and countless other factors, the
      omission of any one of which would probably have resulted eventually in
      failure.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 8: As a practical illustration of these facts it
     was calculated by Professor Barker, of the University of
     Pennsylvania (after Edison had invented the incandescent
     lamp), that if it should cost $100,000 for copper conductors
     to supply current to Edison lamps in a given area, it would
     cost about $200,000,000 for copper conductors for lighting
     the same area by lamps of the earlier experimenters&mdash;such,
     for instance, as the lamp invented by Konn in 1875. This
     enormous difference would be accounted for by the fact that
     Edison's lamp was one having a high resistance and
     relatively small radiating surface, while Konn's lamp was
     one having a very low resistance and large radiating
     surface.]
</pre>
    <p>
      Continuing the digression one step farther in order to explain the term
      "multiple arc," it may be stated that there are two principal systems of
      distributing electric current, one termed "series," and the other
      "multiple arc." The two are illustrated, diagrammatically, side by side,
      the arrows indicating flow of current. The series system, it will be seen,
      presents one continuous path for the current. The current for the last
      lamp must pass through the first and all the intermediate lamps. Hence, if
      any one light goes out, the continuity of the path is broken, current
      cannot flow, and all the lamps are extinguished unless a loop or by-path
      is provided. It is quite obvious that such a system would be commercially
      impracticable where small units, similar to gas jets, were employed. On
      the other hand, in the multiple-arc system, current may be considered as
      flowing in two parallel conductors like the vertical sides of a ladder,
      the ends of which never come together. Each lamp is placed in a separate
      circuit across these two conductors, like a rung in the ladder, thus
      making a separate and independent path for the current in each case.
      Hence, if a lamp goes out, only that individual subdivision, or ladder
      step, is affected; just that one particular path for the current is
      interrupted, but none of the other lamps is interfered with. They remain
      lighted, each one independent of the other. The reader will quite readily
      understand, therefore, that a multiple-arc system is the only one
      practically commercial where electric light is to be used in small units
      like those of gas or oil.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such was the nature of the problem that confronted Edison at the outset.
      There was nothing in the whole world that in any way approximated a
      solution, although the most brilliant minds in the electrical art had been
      assiduously working on the subject for a quarter of a century preceding.
      As already seen, he came early to the conclusion that the only solution
      lay in the use of a lamp of high resistance and small radiating surface,
      and, with characteristic fervor and energy, he attacked the problem from
      this standpoint, having absolute faith in a successful outcome. The mere
      fact that even with the successful production of the electric lamp the
      assault on the complete problem of commercial lighting would hardly be
      begun did not deter him in the slightest. To one of Edison's enthusiastic
      self-confidence the long vista of difficulties ahead&mdash;we say it in
      all sincerity&mdash;must have been alluring.
    </p>
    <p>
      After having devoted several months to experimental trials of carbon, at
      the end of 1878, as already detailed, he turned his attention to the
      platinum group of metals and began a series of experiments in which he
      used chiefly platinum wire and iridium wire, and alloys of refractory
      metals in the form of wire burners for incandescent lamps. These metals
      have very high fusing-points, and were found to last longer than the
      carbon strips previously used when heated up to incandescence by the
      electric current, although under such conditions as were then possible
      they were melted by excess of current after they had been lighted a
      comparatively short time, either in the open air or in such a vacuum as
      could be obtained by means of the ordinary air-pump.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nevertheless, Edison continued along this line of experiment with
      unremitting vigor, making improvement after improvement, until about
      April, 1879, he devised a means whereby platinum wire of a given length,
      which would melt in the open air when giving a light equal to four
      candles, would emit a light of twenty-five candle-power without fusion.
      This was accomplished by introducing the platinum wire into an all-glass
      globe, completely sealed and highly exhausted of air, and passing a
      current through the platinum wire while the vacuum was being made. In
      this, which was a new and radical invention, we see the first step toward
      the modern incandescent lamp. The knowledge thus obtained that current
      passing through the platinum during exhaustion would drive out occluded
      gases (i.e., gases mechanically held in or upon the metal), and increase
      the infusibility of the platinum, led him to aim at securing greater
      perfection in the vacuum, on the theory that the higher the vacuum
      obtained, the higher would be the infusibility of the platinum burner. And
      this fact also was of the greatest importance in making successful the
      final use of carbon, because without the subjection of the carbon to the
      heating effect of current during the formation of the vacuum, the presence
      of occluded gases would have been a fatal obstacle.
    </p>
    <p>
      Continuing these experiments with most fervent zeal, taking no account of
      the passage of time, with an utter disregard for meals, and but scanty
      hours of sleep snatched reluctantly at odd periods of the day or night,
      Edison kept his laboratory going without cessation. A great variety of
      lamps was made of the platinum-iridium type, mostly with thermal devices
      to regulate the temperature of the burner and prevent its being melted by
      an excess of current. The study of apparatus for obtaining more perfect
      vacua was unceasingly carried on, for Edison realized that in this there
      lay a potent factor of ultimate success. About August he had obtained a
      pump that would produce a vacuum up to about the one-hundred-thousandth
      part of an atmosphere, and some time during the next month, or beginning
      of October, had obtained one that would produce a vacuum up to the
      one-millionth part of an atmosphere. It must be remembered that the
      conditions necessary for MAINTAINING this high vacuum were only made
      possible by his invention of the one-piece all-glass globe, in which all
      the joints were hermetically sealed during its manufacture into a lamp,
      whereby a high vacuum could be retained continuously for any length of
      time.
    </p>
    <p>
      In obtaining this perfection of vacuum apparatus, Edison realized that he
      was approaching much nearer to a solution of the problem. In his
      experiments with the platinum-iridium lamps, he had been working all the
      time toward the proposition of high resistance and small radiating
      surface, until he had made a lamp having thirty feet of fine platinum wire
      wound upon a small bobbin of infusible material; but the desired economy,
      simplicity, and durability were not obtained in this manner, although at
      all times the burner was maintained at a critically high temperature.
      After attaining a high degree of perfection with these lamps, he
      recognized their impracticable character, and his mind reverted to the
      opinion he had formed in his early experiments two years before&mdash;viz.,
      that carbon had the requisite resistance to permit a very simple conductor
      to accomplish the object if it could be used in the form of a hair-like
      "filament," provided the filament itself could be made sufficiently
      homogeneous. As we have already seen, he could not use carbon successfully
      in his earlier experiments, for the strips of carbon he then employed,
      although they were much larger than "filaments," would not stand, but were
      consumed in a few minutes under the imperfect conditions then at his
      command.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now, however, that he had found means for obtaining and maintaining high
      vacua, Edison immediately went back to carbon, which from the first he had
      conceived of as the ideal substance for a burner. His next step proved
      conclusively the correctness of his old deductions. On October 21, 1879,
      after many patient trials, he carbonized a piece of cotton sewing-thread
      bent into a loop or horseshoe form, and had it sealed into a glass globe
      from which he exhausted the air until a vacuum up to one-millionth of an
      atmosphere was produced. This lamp, when put on the circuit, lighted up
      brightly to incandescence and maintained its integrity for over forty
      hours, and lo! the practical incandescent lamp was born. The impossible,
      so called, had been attained; subdivision of the electric-light current
      was made practicable; the goal had been reached; and one of the greatest
      inventions of the century was completed. Up to this time Edison had spent
      over $40,000 in his electric-light experiments, but the results far more
      than justified the expenditure, for with this lamp he made the discovery
      that the FILAMENT of carbon, under the conditions of high vacuum, was
      commercially stable and would stand high temperatures without the
      disintegration and oxidation that took place in all previous attempts that
      he knew of for making an incandescent burner out of carbon. Besides, this
      lamp possessed the characteristics of high resistance and small radiating
      surface, permitting economy in the outlay for conductors, and requiring
      only a small current for each unit of light&mdash;conditions that were
      absolutely necessary of fulfilment in order to accomplish commercially the
      subdivision of the electric-light current.
    </p>
    <p>
      This slender, fragile, tenuous thread of brittle carbon, glowing steadily
      and continuously with a soft light agreeable to the eyes, was the tiny key
      that opened the door to a world revolutionized in its interior
      illumination. It was a triumphant vindication of Edison's reasoning
      powers, his clear perceptions, his insight into possibilities, and his
      inventive faculty, all of which had already been productive of so many
      startling, practical, and epoch-making inventions. And now he had stepped
      over the threshold of a new art which has since become so world-wide in
      its application as to be an integral part of modern human experience. [9]
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 9: The following extract from Walker on Patents
     (4th edition) will probably be of interest to the reader:

     "Sec. 31a. A meritorious exception, to the rule of the last
     section, is involved in the adjudicated validity of the
     Edison incandescent-light patent. The carbon filament, which
     constitutes the only new part of the combination of the
     second claim of that patent, differs from the earlier carbon
     burners of Sawyer and Man, only in having a diameter of one-
     sixty-fourth of an inch or less, whereas the burners of
     Sawyer and Man had a diameter of one-thirty-second of an
     inch or more. But that reduction of one-half in diameter
     increased the resistance of the burner FOURFOLD, and reduced
     its radiating surface TWOFOLD, and thus increased eightfold,
     its ratio of resistance to radiating surface. That eightfold
     increase of proportion enabled the resistance of the
     conductor of electricity from the generator to the burner to
     be increased eightfold, without any increase of percentage
     of loss of energy in that conductor, or decrease of
     percentage of development of heat in the burner; and thus
     enabled the area of the cross-section of that conductor to
     be reduced eightfold, and thus to be made with one-eighth of
     the amount of copper or other metal, which would be required
     if the reduction of diameter of the burner from one-thirty-
     second to one-sixty-fourth of an inch had not been made. And
     that great reduction in the size and cost of conductors,
     involved also a great difference in the composition of the
     electric energy employed in the system; that difference
     consisting in generating the necessary amount of electrical
     energy with comparatively high electromotive force, and
     comparatively low current, instead of contrariwise. For this
     reason, the use of carbon filaments, one-sixty-fourth of an
     inch in diameter or less, instead of carbon burners one-
     thirty-second of an inch in diameter or more, not only
     worked an enormous economy in conductors, but also
     necessitated a great change in generators, and did both
     according to a philosophy, which Edison was the first to
     know, and which is stated in this paragraph in its simplest
     form and aspect, and which lies at the foundation of the
     incandescent electric lighting of the world."]
</pre>
    <p>
      No sooner had the truth of this new principle been established than the
      work to establish it firmly and commercially was carried on more
      assiduously than ever. The next immediate step was a further investigation
      of the possibilities of improving the quality of the carbon filament.
      Edison had previously made a vast number of experiments with carbonized
      paper for various electrical purposes, with such good results that he once
      more turned to it and now made fine filament-like loops of this material
      which were put into other lamps. These proved even more successful
      (commercially considered) than the carbonized thread&mdash;so much so that
      after a number of such lamps had been made and put through severe tests,
      the manufacture of lamps from these paper carbons was begun and carried on
      continuously. This necessitated first the devising and making of a large
      number of special tools for cutting the carbon filaments and for making
      and putting together the various parts of the lamps. Meantime, great
      excitement had been caused in this country and in Europe by the
      announcement of Edison's success. In the Old World, scientists generally
      still declared the impossibility of subdividing the electric-light
      current, and in the public press Mr. Edison was denounced as a dreamer.
      Other names of a less complimentary nature were applied to him, even
      though his lamp were actually in use, and the principle of commercial
      incandescent lighting had been established.
    </p>
    <p>
      Between October 21, 1879, and December 21, 1879, some hundreds of these
      paper-carbon lamps had been made and put into actual use, not only in the
      laboratory, but in the streets and several residences at Menlo Park, New
      Jersey, causing great excitement and bringing many visitors from far and
      near. On the latter date a full-page article appeared in the New York
      Herald which so intensified the excited feeling that Mr. Edison deemed it
      advisable to make a public exhibition. On New Year's Eve, 1879, special
      trains were run to Menlo Park by the Pennsylvania Railroad, and over three
      thousand persons took advantage of the opportunity to go out there and
      witness this demonstration for themselves. In this great crowd were many
      public officials and men of prominence in all walks of life, who were
      enthusiastic in their praises.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the mean time, the mind that conceived and made practical this
      invention could not rest content with anything less than perfection, so
      far as it could be realized. Edison was not satisfied with paper carbons.
      They were not fully up to the ideal that he had in mind. What he sought
      was a perfectly uniform and homogeneous carbon, one like the "One-Hoss
      Shay," that had no weak spots to break down at inopportune times. He began
      to carbonize everything in nature that he could lay hands on. In his
      laboratory note-books are innumerable jottings of the things that were
      carbonized and tried, such as tissue-paper, soft paper, all kinds of
      cardboards, drawing-paper of all grades, paper saturated with tar, all
      kinds of threads, fish-line, threads rubbed with tarred lampblack, fine
      threads plaited together in strands, cotton soaked in boiling tar,
      lamp-wick, twine, tar and lampblack mixed with a proportion of lime,
      vulcanized fibre, celluloid, boxwood, cocoanut hair and shell, spruce,
      hickory, baywood, cedar and maple shavings, rosewood, punk, cork, bagging,
      flax, and a host of other things. He also extended his searches far into
      the realms of nature in the line of grasses, plants, canes, and similar
      products, and in these experiments at that time and later he carbonized,
      made into lamps, and tested no fewer than six thousand different species
      of vegetable growths.
    </p>
    <p>
      The reasons for such prodigious research are not apparent on the face of
      the subject, nor is this the occasion to enter into an explanation, as
      that alone would be sufficient to fill a fair-sized book. Suffice it to
      say that Edison's omnivorous reading, keen observation, power of
      assimilating facts and natural phenomena, and skill in applying the
      knowledge thus attained to whatever was in hand, now came into full play
      in determining that the results he desired could only be obtained in
      certain directions.
    </p>
    <p>
      At this time he was investigating everything with a microscope, and one
      day in the early part of 1880 he noticed upon a table in the laboratory an
      ordinary palm-leaf fan. He picked it up and, looking it over, observed
      that it had a binding rim made of bamboo, cut from the outer edge of the
      cane; a very long strip. He examined this, and then gave it to one of his
      assistants, telling him to cut it up and get out of it all the filaments
      he could, carbonize them, put them into lamps, and try them. The results
      of this trial were exceedingly successful, far better than with anything
      else thus far used; indeed, so much so, that after further experiments and
      microscopic examinations Edison was convinced that he was now on the right
      track for making a thoroughly stable, commercial lamp; and shortly
      afterward he sent a man to Japan to procure further supplies of bamboo.
      The fascinating story of the bamboo hunt will be told later; but even this
      bamboo lamp was only one item of a complete system to be devised&mdash;a
      system that has since completely revolutionized the art of interior
      illumination.
    </p>
    <p>
      Reference has been made in this chapter to the preliminary study that
      Edison brought to bear on the development of the gas art and industry.
      This study was so exhaustive that one can only compare it to the careful
      investigation made in advance by any competent war staff of the elements
      of strength and weakness, on both sides, in a possible campaign. A popular
      idea of Edison that dies hard, pictures a breezy, slap-dash, energetic
      inventor arriving at new results by luck and intuition, making boastful
      assertions and then winning out by mere chance. The native simplicity of
      the man, the absence of pose and ceremony, do much to strengthen this
      notion; but the real truth is that while gifted with unusual imagination,
      Edison's march to the goal of a new invention is positively humdrum and
      monotonous in its steady progress. No one ever saw Edison in a hurry; no
      one ever saw him lazy; and that which he did with slow, careful scrutiny
      six months ago, he will be doing with just as much calm deliberation of
      research six months hence&mdash;and six years hence if necessary. If, for
      instance, he were asked to find the most perfect pebble on the Atlantic
      shore of New Jersey, instead of hunting here, there, and everywhere for
      the desired object, we would no doubt find him patiently screening the
      entire beach, sifting out the most perfect stones and eventually, by
      gradual exclusion, reaching the long-sought-for pebble; and the mere fact
      that in this search years might be taken, would not lessen his enthusiasm
      to the slightest extent.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the "prospectus book" among the series of famous note-books, all the
      references and data apply to gas. The book is numbered 184, falls into the
      period now dealt with, and runs along casually with items spread out over
      two or three years. All these notes refer specifically to "Electricity vs.
      Gas as General Illuminants," and cover an astounding range of inquiry and
      comment. One of the very first notes tells the whole story: "Object,
      Edison to effect exact imitation of all done by gas, so as to replace
      lighting by gas by lighting by electricity. To improve the illumination to
      such an extent as to meet all requirements of natural, artificial, and
      commercial conditions." A large programme, but fully executed! The notes,
      it will be understood, are all in Edison's handwriting. They go on to
      observe that "a general system of distribution is the only possible means
      of economical illumination," and they dismiss isolated-plant lighting as
      in mills and factories as of so little importance to the public&mdash;"we
      shall leave the consideration of this out of this book." The shrewd
      prophecy is made that gas will be manufactured less for lighting, as the
      result of electrical competition, and more and more for heating, etc.,
      thus enlarging its market and increasing its income. Comment is made on
      kerosene and its cost, and all kinds of general statistics are jotted down
      as desirable. Data are to be obtained on lamp and dynamo efficiency, and
      "Another review of the whole thing as worked out upon pure science
      principles by Rowland, Young, Trowbridge; also Rowland on the
      possibilities and probabilities of cheaper production by better
      manufacture&mdash;higher incandescence without decrease of life of lamps."
      Notes are also made on meters and motors. "It doesn't matter if
      electricity is used for light or for power"; while small motors, it is
      observed, can be used night or day, and small steam-engines are
      inconvenient. Again the shrewd comment: "Generally poorest district for
      light, best for power, thus evening up whole city&mdash;the effect of this
      on investment."
    </p>
    <p>
      It is pointed out that "Previous inventions failed&mdash;necessities for
      commercial success and accomplishment by Edison. Edison's great effort&mdash;not
      to make a large light or a blinding light, but a small light having the
      mildness of gas." Curves are then called for of iron and copper investment&mdash;also
      energy line&mdash;curves of candle-power and electromotive force; curves
      on motors; graphic representation of the consumption of gas January to
      December; tables and formulae; representations graphically of what one
      dollar will buy in different kinds of light; "table, weight of copper
      required different distance, 100-ohm lamp, 16 candles"; table with curves
      showing increased economy by larger engine, higher power, etc. There is
      not much that is dilettante about all this. Note is made of an article in
      April, 1879, putting the total amount of gas investment in the whole world
      at that time at $1,500,000,000; which is now (1910) about the amount of
      the electric-lighting investment in the United States. Incidentally a note
      remarks: "So unpleasant is the effect of the products of gas that in the
      new Madison Square Theatre every gas jet is ventilated by special tubes to
      carry away the products of combustion." In short, there is no aspect of
      the new problem to which Edison failed to apply his acutest powers; and
      the speed with which the new system was worked out and introduced was
      simply due to his initial mastery of all the factors in the older art.
      Luther Stieringer, an expert gas engineer and inventor, whose services
      were early enlisted, once said that Edison knew more about gas than any
      other man he had ever met. The remark is an evidence of the kind of
      preparation Edison gave himself for his new task.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      MEMORIES OF MENLO PARK
    </h3>
    <p>
      FROM the spring of 1876 to 1886 Edison lived and did his work at Menlo
      Park; and at this stage of the narrative, midway in that interesting and
      eventful period, it is appropriate to offer a few notes and jottings on
      the place itself, around which tradition is already weaving its fancies,
      just as at the time the outpouring of new inventions from it invested the
      name with sudden prominence and with the glamour of romance. "In 1876 I
      moved," says Edison, "to Menlo Park, New Jersey, on the Pennsylvania
      Railroad, several miles below Elizabeth. The move was due to trouble I had
      about rent. I had rented a small shop in Newark, on the top floor of a
      padlock factory, by the month. I gave notice that I would give it up at
      the end of the month, paid the rent, moved out, and delivered the keys.
      Shortly afterward I was served with a paper, probably a judgment, wherein
      I was to pay nine months' rent. There was some law, it seems, that made a
      monthly renter liable for a year. This seemed so unjust that I determined
      to get out of a place that permitted such injustice." For several Sundays
      he walked through different parts of New Jersey with two of his assistants
      before he decided on Menlo Park. The change was a fortunate one, for the
      inventor had married Miss Mary E. Stillwell, and was now able to establish
      himself comfortably with his wife and family while enjoying immediate
      access to the new laboratory. Every moment thus saved was valuable.
    </p>
    <p>
      To-day the place and region have gone back to the insignificance from
      which Edison's genius lifted them so startlingly. A glance from the car
      windows reveals only a gently rolling landscape dotted with modest
      residences and unpretentious barns; and there is nothing in sight by way
      of memorial to suggest that for nearly a decade this spot was the scene of
      the most concentrated and fruitful inventive activity the world has ever
      known. Close to the Menlo Park railway station is a group of gaunt and
      deserted buildings, shelter of the casual tramp, and slowly crumbling away
      when not destroyed by the carelessness of some ragged smoker. This silent
      group of buildings comprises the famous old laboratory and workshops of
      Mr. Edison, historic as being the birthplace of the carbon transmitter,
      the phonograph, the incandescent lamp, and the spot where Edison also
      worked out his systems of electrical distribution, his commercial dynamo,
      his electric railway, his megaphone, his tasimeter, and many other
      inventions of greater or lesser degree. Here he continued, moreover, his
      earlier work on the quadruplex, sextuplex, multiplex, and automatic
      telegraphs, and did his notable pioneer work in wireless telegraphy. As
      the reader knows, it had been a master passion with Edison from boyhood up
      to possess a laboratory, in which with free use of his own time and
      powers, and with command of abundant material resources, he could wrestle
      with Nature and probe her closest secrets. Thus, from the little cellar at
      Port Huron, from the scant shelves in a baggage car, from the nooks and
      corners of dingy telegraph offices, and the grimy little shops in New York
      and Newark, he had now come to the proud ownership of an establishment to
      which his favorite word "laboratory" might justly be applied. Here he
      could experiment to his heart's content and invent on a larger, bolder
      scale than ever&mdash;and he did!
    </p>
    <p>
      Menlo Park was the merest hamlet. Omitting the laboratory structures, it
      had only about seven houses, the best looking of which Edison lived in, a
      place that had a windmill pumping water into a reservoir. One of the
      stories of the day was that Edison had his front gate so connected with
      the pumping plant that every visitor as he opened or closed the gate added
      involuntarily to the supply in the reservoir. Two or three of the houses
      were occupied by the families of members of the staff; in the others
      boarders were taken, the laboratory, of course, furnishing all the
      patrons. Near the railway station was a small saloon kept by an old
      Scotchman named Davis, where billiards were played in idle moments, and
      where in the long winter evenings the hot stove was a centre of attraction
      to loungers and story-tellers. The truth is that there was very little
      social life of any kind possible under the strenuous conditions prevailing
      at the laboratory, where, if anywhere, relaxation was enjoyed at odd
      intervals of fatigue and waiting.
    </p>
    <p>
      The main laboratory was a spacious wooden building of two floors. The
      office was in this building at first, until removed to the brick library
      when that was finished. There S. L. Griffin, an old telegraph friend of
      Edison, acted as his secretary and had charge of a voluminous and amazing
      correspondence. The office employees were the Carman brothers and the late
      John F. Randolph, afterwards secretary. According to Mr. Francis Jehl, of
      Budapest, then one of the staff, to whom the writers are indebted for a
      great deal of valuable data on this period: "It was on the upper story of
      this laboratory that the most important experiments were executed, and
      where the incandescent lamp was born. This floor consisted of a large hall
      containing several long tables, upon which could be found all the various
      instruments, scientific and chemical apparatus that the arts at that time
      could produce. Books lay promiscuously about, while here and there long
      lines of bichromate-of-potash cells could be seen, together with
      experimental models of ideas that Edison or his assistants were engaged
      upon. The side walls of this hall were lined with shelves filled with
      bottles, phials, and other receptacles containing every imaginable
      chemical and other material that could be obtained, while at the end of
      this hall, and near the organ which stood in the rear, was a large glass
      case containing the world's most precious metals in sheet and wire form,
      together with very rare and costly chemicals. When evening came on, and
      the last rays of the setting sun penetrated through the side windows, this
      hall looked like a veritable Faust laboratory.
    </p>
    <p>
      "On the ground floor we had our testing-table, which stood on two large
      pillars of brick built deep into the earth in order to get rid of all
      vibrations on account of the sensitive instruments that were upon it.
      There was the Thomson reflecting mirror galvanometer and electrometer,
      while nearby were the standard cells by which the galvanometers were
      adjusted and standardized. This testing-table was connected by means of
      wires with all parts of the laboratory and machine-shop, so that
      measurements could be conveniently made from a distance, as in those days
      we had no portable and direct-reading instruments, such as now exist.
      Opposite this table we installed, later on, our photometrical chamber,
      which was constructed on the Bunsen principle. A little way from this
      table, and separated by a partition, we had the chemical laboratory with
      its furnaces and stink-chambers. Later on another chemical laboratory was
      installed near the photometer-room, and this Dr. A. Haid had charge of."
    </p>
    <p>
      Next to the laboratory in importance was the machine-shop, a large and
      well-lighted building of brick, at one end of which there was the boiler
      and engine-room. This shop contained light and heavy lathes, boring and
      drilling machines, all kinds of planing machines; in fact, tools of all
      descriptions, so that any apparatus, however delicate or heavy, could be
      made and built as might be required by Edison in experimenting. Mr. John
      Kruesi had charge of this shop, and was assisted by a number of skilled
      mechanics, notably John Ott, whose deft fingers and quick intuitive grasp
      of the master's ideas are still in demand under the more recent conditions
      at the Llewellyn Park laboratory in Orange.
    </p>
    <p>
      Between the machine-shop and the laboratory was a small building of wood
      used as a carpenter-shop, where Tom Logan plied his art. Nearby was the
      gasoline plant. Before the incandescent lamp was perfected, the only
      illumination was from gasoline gas; and that was used later for
      incandescent-lamp glass-blowing, which was done in another small building
      on one side of the laboratory. Apparently little or no lighting service
      was obtained from the Wallace-Farmer arc lamps secured from Ansonia,
      Connecticut. The dynamo was probably needed for Edison's own experiments.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the outskirts of the property was a small building in which lampblack
      was crudely but carefully manufactured and pressed into very small cakes,
      for use in the Edison carbon transmitters of that time. The
      night-watchman, Alfred Swanson, took care of this curious plant, which
      consisted of a battery of petroleum lamps that were forced to burn to the
      sooting point. During his rounds in the night Swanson would find time to
      collect from the chimneys the soot that the lamps gave. It was then
      weighed out into very small portions, which were pressed into cakes or
      buttons by means of a hand-press. These little cakes were delicately
      packed away between layers of cotton in small, light boxes and shipped to
      Bergmann in New York, by whom the telephone transmitters were being made.
      A little later the Edison electric railway was built on the confines of
      the property out through the woods, at first only a third of a mile in
      length, but reaching ultimately to Pumptown, almost three miles away.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Edison's own words may be quoted as to the men with whom he surrounded
      himself here and upon whose services he depended principally for help in
      the accomplishment of his aims. In an autobiographical article in the
      Electrical World of March 5, 1904, he says: "It is interesting to note
      that in addition to those mentioned above (Charles Batchelor and Frank
      Upton), I had around me other men who ever since have remained active in
      the field, such as Messrs. Francis Jehl, William J. Hammer, Martin Force,
      Ludwig K. Boehm, not forgetting that good friend and co-worker, the late
      John Kruesi. They found plenty to do in the various developments of the
      art, and as I now look back I sometimes wonder how we did so much in so
      short a time." Mr. Jehl in his reminiscences adds another name to the
      above&mdash;namely, that of John W. Lawson, and then goes on to say:
      "These are the names of the pioneers of incandescent lighting, who were
      continuously at the side of Edison day and night for some years, and who,
      under his guidance, worked upon the carbon-filament lamp from its birth to
      ripe maturity. These men all had complete faith in his ability and stood
      by him as on a rock, guarding their work with the secretiveness of a
      burglar-proof safe. Whenever it leaked out in the world that Edison was
      succeeding in his work on the electric light, spies and others came to the
      Park; so it was of the utmost importance that the experiments and their
      results should be kept a secret until Edison had secured the protection of
      the Patent Office." With this staff was associated from the first Mr. E.
      H. Johnson, whose work with Mr. Edison lay chiefly, however, outside the
      laboratory, taking him to all parts of the country and to Europe. There
      were also to be regarded as detached members of it the Bergmann brothers,
      manufacturing for Mr. Edison in New York, and incessantly experimenting
      for him. In addition there must be included Mr. Samuel Insull, whose
      activities for many years as private secretary and financial manager were
      devoted solely to Mr. Edison's interests, with Menlo Park as a centre and
      main source of anxiety as to pay-rolls and other constantly recurring
      obligations. The names of yet other associates occur from time to time in
      this narrative&mdash;"Edison men" who have been very proud of their close
      relationship to the inventor and his work at old Menlo. "There was also
      Mr. Charles L. Clarke, who devoted himself mainly to engineering matters,
      and later on acted as chief engineer of the Edison Electric Light Company
      for some years. Then there were William Holzer and James Hipple, both of
      whom took an active part in the practical development of the glass-blowing
      department of the laboratory, and, subsequently, at the first Edison lamp
      factory at Menlo Park. Later on Messrs. Jehl, Hipple, and Force assisted
      Mr. Batchelor to install the lamp-works of the French Edison Company at
      Ivry-sur-Seine. Then there were Messrs. Charles T. Hughes, Samuel D. Mott,
      and Charles T. Mott, who devoted their time chiefly to commercial affairs.
      Mr. Hughes conducted most of this work, and later on took a prominent part
      in Edison's electric-railway experiments. His business ability was on a
      high level, while his personal character endeared him to us all."
    </p>
    <p>
      Among other now well-known men who came to us and assisted in various
      kinds of work were Messrs. Acheson, Worth, Crosby, Herrick, and Hill,
      while Doctor Haid was placed by Mr. Edison in charge of a special chemical
      laboratory. Dr. E. L. Nichols was also with us for a short time conducting
      a special series of experiments. There was also Mr. Isaacs, who did a
      great deal of photographic work, and to whom we must be thankful for the
      pictures of Menlo Park in connection with Edison's work.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Among others who were added to Mr. Kruesi's staff in the machine-shop
      were Messrs. J. H. Vail and W. S. Andrews. Mr. Vail had charge of the
      dynamo-room. He had a good general knowledge of machinery, and very soon
      acquired such familiarity with the dynamos that he could skip about among
      them with astonishing agility to regulate their brushes or to throw rosin
      on the belts when they began to squeal. Later on he took an active part in
      the affairs and installations of the Edison Light Company. Mr. Andrews
      stayed on Mr. Kruesi's staff as long as the laboratory machine-shop was
      kept open, after which he went into the employ of the Edison Electric
      Light Company and became actively engaged in the commercial and technical
      exploitation of the system. Another man who was with us at Menlo Park was
      Mr. Herman Claudius, an Austrian, who at one time was employed in
      connection with the State Telegraphs of his country. To him Mr. Edison
      assigned the task of making a complete model of the network of conductors
      for the contemplated first station in New York."
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Francis R. Upton, who was early employed by Mr. Edison as his
      mathematician, furnishes a pleasant, vivid picture of his chief associates
      engaged on the memorable work at Menlo Park. He says: "Mr. Charles
      Batchelor was Mr. Edison's principal assistant at that time. He was an
      Englishman, and came to this country to set up the thread-weaving
      machinery for the Clark thread-works. He was a most intelligent, patient,
      competent, and loyal assistant to Mr. Edison. I remember distinctly seeing
      him work many hours to mount a small filament; and his hand would be as
      steady and his patience as unyielding at the end of those many hours as it
      was at the beginning, in spite of repeated failures. He was a wonderful
      mechanic; the control that he had of his fingers was marvellous, and his
      eyesight was sharp. Mr. Batchelor's judgment and good sense were always in
      evidence.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Mr. Kruesi was the superintendent, a Swiss trained in the best Swiss
      ideas of accuracy. He was a splendid mechanic with a vigorous temper, and
      wonderful ability to work continuously and to get work out of men. It was
      an ideal combination, that of Edison, Batchelor, and Kruesi. Mr. Edison
      with his wonderful flow of ideas which were sharply defined in his mind,
      as can be seen by any of the sketches that he made, as he evidently always
      thinks in three dimensions; Mr. Kruesi, willing to take the ideas, and
      capable of comprehending them, would distribute the work so as to get it
      done with marvellous quickness and great accuracy. Mr. Batchelor was
      always ready for any special fine experimenting or observation, and could
      hold to whatever he was at as long as Mr. Edison wished; and always
      brought to bear on what he was at the greatest skill."
    </p>
    <p>
      While Edison depended upon Upton for his mathematical work, he was wont to
      check it up in a very practical manner, as evidenced by the following
      incident described by Mr. Jehl: "I was once with Mr. Upton calculating
      some tables which he had put me on, when Mr. Edison appeared with a glass
      bulb having a pear-shaped appearance in his hand. It was the kind that we
      were going to use for our lamp experiments; and Mr. Edison asked Mr. Upton
      to please calculate for him its cubic contents in centimetres. Now Mr.
      Upton was a very able mathematician, who, after he finished his studies at
      Princeton, went to Germany and got his final gloss under that great
      master, Helmholtz. Whatever he did and worked on was executed in a pure
      mathematical manner, and any wrangler at Oxford would have been delighted
      to see him juggle with integral and differential equations, with a
      dexterity that was surprising. He drew the shape of the bulb exactly on
      paper, and got the equation of its lines with which he was going to
      calculate its contents, when Mr. Edison again appeared and asked him what
      it was. He showed Edison the work he had already done on the subject, and
      told him that he would very soon finish calculating it. 'Why,' said
      Edison, 'I would simply take that bulb and fill it with mercury and weigh
      it; and from the weight of the mercury and its specific gravity I'll get
      it in five minutes, and use less mental energy than is necessary in such a
      fatiguing operation.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      Menlo Park became ultimately the centre of Edison's business life as it
      was of his inventing. After the short distasteful period during the
      introduction of his lighting system, when he spent a large part of his
      time at the offices at 65 Fifth Avenue, New York, or on the actual work
      connected with the New York Edison installation, he settled back again in
      Menlo Park altogether. Mr. Samuel Insull describes the business methods
      which prevailed throughout the earlier Menlo Park days of "storm and
      stress," and the curious conditions with which he had to deal as private
      secretary: "I never attempted to systematize Edison's business life.
      Edison's whole method of work would upset the system of any office. He was
      just as likely to be at work in his laboratory at midnight as midday. He
      cared not for the hours of the day or the days of the week. If he was
      exhausted he might more likely be asleep in the middle of the day than in
      the middle of the night, as most of his work in the way of inventions was
      done at night. I used to run his office on as close business methods as my
      experience admitted; and I would get at him whenever it suited his
      convenience. Sometimes he would not go over his mail for days at a time;
      but other times he would go regularly to his office in the morning. At
      other times my engagements used to be with him to go over his business
      affairs at Menlo Park at night, if I was occupied in New York during the
      day. In fact, as a matter of convenience I used more often to get at him
      at night, as it left my days free to transact his affairs, and enabled me,
      probably at a midnight luncheon, to get a few minutes of his time to look
      over his correspondence and get his directions as to what I should do in
      some particular negotiation or matter of finance. While it was a matter of
      suiting Edison's convenience as to when I should transact business with
      him, it also suited my own ideas, as it enabled me after getting through
      my business with him to enjoy the privilege of watching him at his work,
      and to learn something about the technical side of matters. Whatever
      knowledge I may have of the electric light and power industry I feel I owe
      it to the tuition of Edison. He was about the most willing tutor, and I
      must confess that he had to be a patient one."
    </p>
    <p>
      Here again occurs the reference to the incessant night-work at Menlo Park,
      a note that is struck in every reminiscence and in every record of the
      time. But it is not to be inferred that the atmosphere of grim
      determination and persistent pursuit of the new invention characteristic
      of this period made life a burden to the small family of laborers
      associated with Edison. Many a time during the long, weary nights of
      experimenting Edison would call a halt for refreshments, which he had
      ordered always to be sent in when night-work was in progress. Everything
      would be dropped, all present would join in the meal, and the last good
      story or joke would pass around. In his notes Mr. Jehl says: "Our lunch
      always ended with a cigar, and I may mention here that although Edison was
      never fastidious in eating, he always relished a good cigar, and seemed to
      find in it consolation and solace.... It often happened that while we were
      enjoying the cigars after our midnight repast, one of the boys would start
      up a tune on the organ and we would all sing together, or one of the
      others would give a solo. Another of the boys had a voice that sounded
      like something between the ring of an old tomato can and a pewter jug. He
      had one song that he would sing while we roared with laughter. He was also
      great in imitating the tin-foil phonograph.... When Boehm was in
      good-humor he would play his zither now and then, and amuse us by singing
      pretty German songs. On many of these occasions the laboratory was the
      rendezvous of jolly and convivial visitors, mostly old friends and
      acquaintances of Mr. Edison. Some of the office employees would also drop
      in once in a while, and as everybody present was always welcome to partake
      of the midnight meal, we all enjoyed these gatherings. After a while, when
      we were ready to resume work, our visitors would intimate that they were
      going home to bed, but we fellows could stay up and work, and they would
      depart, generally singing some song like Good-night, ladies! . . . It
      often happened that when Edison had been working up to three or four
      o'clock in the morning, he would lie down on one of the laboratory tables,
      and with nothing but a couple of books for a pillow, would fall into a
      sound sleep. He said it did him more good than being in a soft bed, which
      spoils a man. Some of the laboratory assistants could be seen now and then
      sleeping on a table in the early morning hours. If their snoring became
      objectionable to those still at work, the 'calmer' was applied. This
      machine consisted of a Babbitt's soap box without a cover. Upon it was
      mounted a broad ratchet-wheel with a crank, while into the teeth of the
      wheel there played a stout, elastic slab of wood. The box would be placed
      on the table where the snorer was sleeping and the crank turned rapidly.
      The racket thus produced was something terrible, and the sleeper would
      jump up as though a typhoon had struck the laboratory. The irrepressible
      spirit of humor in the old days, although somewhat strenuous at times,
      caused many a moment of hilarity which seemed to refresh the boys, and
      enabled them to work with renewed vigor after its manifestation." Mr.
      Upton remarks that often during the period of the invention of the
      incandescent lamp, when under great strain and fatigue, Edison would go to
      the organ and play tunes in a primitive way, and come back to crack jokes
      with the staff. "But I have often felt that Mr. Edison never could
      comprehend the limitations of the strength of other men, as his own
      physical and mental strength have always seemed to be without limit. He
      could work continuously as long as he wished, and had sleep at his
      command. His sleep was always instant, profound, and restful. He has told
      me that he never dreamed. I have known Mr. Edison now for thirty-one
      years, and feel that he has always kept his mind direct and simple, going
      straight to the root of troubles. One of the peculiarities I have noticed
      is that I have never known him to break into a conversation going on
      around him, and ask what people were talking about. The nearest he would
      ever come to it was when there had evidently been some story told, and his
      face would express a desire to join in the laugh, which would immediately
      invite telling the story to him."
    </p>
    <p>
      Next to those who worked with Edison at the laboratory and were with him
      constantly at Menlo Park were the visitors, some of whom were his business
      associates, some of them scientific men, and some of them hero-worshippers
      and curiosity-hunters. Foremost in the first category was Mr. E. H.
      Johnson, who was in reality Edison's most intimate friend, and was
      required for constant consultation; but whose intense activity, remarkable
      grasp of electrical principles, and unusual powers of exposition, led to
      his frequent detachment for long trips, including those which resulted in
      the introduction of the telephone, phonograph, and electric light in
      England and on the Continent. A less frequent visitor was Mr. S. Bergmann,
      who had all he needed to occupy his time in experimenting and
      manufacturing, and whose contemporaneous Wooster Street letter-heads
      advertised Edison's inventions as being made there, Among the scientists
      were Prof. George F. Barker, of Philadelphia, a big, good-natured
      philosopher, whose valuable advice Edison esteemed highly. In sharp
      contrast to him was the earnest, serious Rowland, of Johns Hopkins
      University, afterward the leading American physicist of his day. Profs. C.
      F. Brackett and C. F. Young, of Princeton University, were often received,
      always interested in what Edison was doing, and proud that one of their
      own students, Mr. Upton, was taking such a prominent part in the
      development of the work.
    </p>
    <p>
      Soon after the success of the lighting experiments and the installation at
      Menlo Park became known, Edison was besieged by persons from all parts of
      the world anxious to secure rights and concessions for their respective
      countries. Among these was Mr. Louis Rau, of Paris, who organized the
      French Edison Company, the pioneer Edison lighting corporation in Europe,
      and who, with the aid of Mr. Batchelor, established lamp-works and a
      machine-shop at Ivry sur-Seine, near Paris, in 1882. It was there that Mr.
      Nikola Tesla made his entree into the field of light and power, and began
      his own career as an inventor; and there also Mr. Etienne Fodor, general
      manager of the Hungarian General Electric Company at Budapest, received
      his early training. It was he who erected at Athens the first European
      Edison station on the now universal three-wire system. Another visitor
      from Europe, a little later, was Mr. Emil Rathenau, the present director
      of the great Allgemeine Elektricitaets Gesellschaft of Germany. He secured
      the rights for the empire, and organized the Berlin Edison system, now one
      of the largest in the world. Through his extraordinary energy and
      enterprise the business made enormous strides, and Mr. Rathenau has become
      one of the most conspicuous industrial figures in his native country. From
      Italy came Professor Colombo, later a cabinet minister, with his friend
      Signor Buzzi, of Milan. The rights were secured for the peninsula; Colombo
      and his friends organized the Italian Edison Company, and erected at Milan
      the first central station in that country. Mr. John W. Lieb, Jr., now a
      vice-president of the New York Edison Company, was sent over by Mr. Edison
      to steer the enterprise technically, and spent ten years in building it
      up, with such brilliant success that he was later decorated as Commander
      of the Order of the Crown of Italy by King Victor. Another young American
      enlisted into European service was Mr. E. G. Acheson, the inventor of
      carborundum, who built a number of plants in Italy and France before he
      returned home. Mr. Lieb has since become President of the American
      Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Association of Edison
      Illuminating Companies, while Doctor Acheson has been President of the
      American Electrochemical Society.
    </p>
    <p>
      Switzerland sent Messrs. Turrettini, Biedermann, and Thury, all
      distinguished engineers, to negotiate for rights in the republic; and so
      it went with regard to all the other countries of Europe, as well as those
      of South America. It was a question of keeping such visitors away rather
      than of inviting them to take up the exploitation of the Edison system;
      for what time was not spent in personal interviews was required for the
      masses of letters from every country under the sun, all making inquiries,
      offering suggestions, proposing terms. Nor were the visitors merely those
      on business bent. There were the lion-hunters and celebrities, of whom
      Sarah Bernhardt may serve as a type. One visit of note was that paid by
      Lieut. G. W. De Long, who had an earnest and protracted conversation with
      Edison over the Arctic expedition he was undertaking with the aid of Mr.
      James Gordon Bennett, of the New York Herald. The Jeannette was being
      fitted out, and Edison told De Long that he would make and present him
      with a small dynamo machine, some incandescent lamps, and an arc lamp.
      While the little dynamo was being built all the men in the laboratory
      wrote their names on the paper insulation that was wound upon the iron
      core of the armature. As the Jeannette had no steam-engine on board that
      could be used for the purpose, Edison designed the dynamo so that it could
      be worked by man power and told Lieutenant De Long "it would keep the boys
      warm up in the Arctic," when they generated current with it. The ill-fated
      ship never returned from her voyage, but went down in the icy waters of
      the North, there to remain until some future cataclysm of nature, ten
      thousand years hence, shall reveal the ship and the first marine dynamo as
      curious relics of a remote civilization.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison also furnished De Long with a set of telephones provided with
      extensible circuits, so that parties on the ice-floes could go long
      distances from the ship and still keep in communication with her. So far
      as the writers can ascertain this is the first example of "field
      telephony." Another nautical experiment that he made at this time,
      suggested probably by the requirements of the Arctic expedition, was a
      buoy that was floated in New York harbor, and which contained a small
      Edison dynamo and two or three incandescent lamps. The dynamo was driven
      by the wave or tide motion through intermediate mechanism, and thus the
      lamps were lit up from time to time, serving as signals. These were the
      prototypes of the lighted buoys which have since become familiar, as in
      the channel off Sandy Hook.
    </p>
    <p>
      One notable afternoon was that on which the New York board of aldermen
      took a special train out to Menlo Park to see the lighting system with its
      conductors underground in operation. The Edison Electric Illuminating
      Company was applying for a franchise, and the aldermen, for lack of
      scientific training and specific practical information, were very
      sceptical on the subject&mdash;as indeed they might well be. "Mr. Edison
      demonstrated personally the details and merits of the system to them. The
      voltage was increased to a higher pressure than usual, and all the
      incandescent lamps at Menlo Park did their best to win the approbation of
      the New York City fathers. After Edison had finished exhibiting all the
      good points of his system, he conducted his guests upstairs in the
      laboratory, where a long table was spread with the best things that one of
      the most prominent New York caterers could furnish. The laboratory
      witnessed high times that night, for all were in the best of humor, and
      many a bottle was drained in toasting the health of Edison and the
      aldermen." This was one of the extremely rare occasions on which Edison
      has addressed an audience; but the stake was worth the effort. The
      representatives of New York could with justice drink the health of the
      young inventor, whose system is one of the greatest boons the city has
      ever had conferred upon it.
    </p>
    <p>
      Among other frequent visitors was Mr, Edison's father, "one of those
      amiable, patriarchal characters with a Horace Greeley beard, typical
      Americans of the old school," who would sometimes come into the laboratory
      with his two grandchildren, a little boy and girl called "Dash" and "Dot."
      He preferred to sit and watch his brilliant son at work "with an
      expression of satisfaction on his face that indicated a sense of happiness
      and content that his boy, born in that distant, humble home in Ohio, had
      risen to fame and brought such honor upon the name. It was, indeed, a
      pathetic sight to see a father venerate his son as the elder Edison did."
      Not less at home was Mr. Mackenzie, the Mt. Clemens station agent, the
      life of whose child Edison had saved when a train newsboy. The old
      Scotchman was one of the innocent, chartered libertines of the place, with
      an unlimited stock of good jokes and stories, but seldom of any practical
      use. On one occasion, however, when everything possible and impossible
      under the sun was being carbonized for lamp filaments, he allowed a
      handful of his bushy red beard to be taken for the purpose; and his laugh
      was the loudest when the Edison-Mackenzie hair lamps were brought up to
      incandescence&mdash;their richness in red rays being slyly attributed to
      the nature of the filamentary material! Oddly enough, a few years later,
      some inventor actually took out a patent for making incandescent lamps
      with carbonized hair for filaments!
    </p>
    <p>
      Yet other visitors again haunted the place, and with the following
      reminiscence of one of them, from Mr. Edison himself, this part of the
      chapter must close: "At Menlo Park one cold winter night there came into
      the laboratory a strange man in a most pitiful condition. He was nearly
      frozen, and he asked if he might sit by the stove. In a few moments he
      asked for the head man, and I was brought forward. He had a head of
      abnormal size, with highly intellectual features and a very small and
      emaciated body. He said he was suffering very much, and asked if I had any
      morphine. As I had about everything in chemistry that could be bought, I
      told him I had. He requested that I give him some, so I got the morphine
      sulphate. He poured out enough to kill two men, when I told him that we
      didn't keep a hotel for suicides, and he had better cut the quantity down.
      He then bared his legs and arms, and they were literally pitted with
      scars, due to the use of hypodermic syringes. He said he had taken it for
      years, and it required a big dose to have any effect. I let him go ahead.
      In a short while he seemed like another man and began to tell stories, and
      there were about fifty of us who sat around listening until morning. He
      was a man of great intelligence and education. He said he was a Jew, but
      there was no distinctive feature to verify this assertion. He continued to
      stay around until he finished every combination of morphine with an acid
      that I had, probably ten ounces all told. Then he asked if he could have
      strychnine. I had an ounce of the sulphate. He took enough to kill a
      horse, and asserted it had as good an effect as morphine. When this was
      gone, the only thing I had left was a chunk of crude opium, perhaps two or
      three pounds. He chewed this up and disappeared. I was greatly
      disappointed, because I would have laid in another stock of morphine to
      keep him at the laboratory. About a week afterward he was found dead in a
      barn at Perth Amboy."
    </p>
    <p>
      Returning to the work itself, note of which has already been made in this
      and preceding chapters, we find an interesting and unique reminiscence in
      Mr. Jehl's notes of the reversion to carbon as a filament in the lamps,
      following an exhibition of metallic-filament lamps given in the spring of
      1879 to the men in the syndicate advancing the funds for these
      experiments: "They came to Menlo Park on a late afternoon train from New
      York. It was already dark when they were conducted into the machine-shop,
      where we had several platinum lamps installed in series. When Edison had
      finished explaining the principles and details of the lamp, he asked
      Kruesi to let the dynamo machine run. It was of the Gramme type, as our
      first dynamo of the Edison design was not yet finished. Edison then
      ordered the 'juice' to be turned on slowly. To-day I can see those lamps
      rising to a cherry red, like glowbugs, and hear Mr. Edison saying 'a
      little more juice,' and the lamps began to glow. 'A little more' is the
      command again, and then one of the lamps emits for an instant a light like
      a star in the distance, after which there is an eruption and a puff; and
      the machine-shop is in total darkness. We knew instantly which lamp had
      failed, and Batchelor replaced that by a good one, having a few in reserve
      near by. The operation was repeated two or three times with about the same
      results, after which the party went into the library until it was time to
      catch the train for New York."
    </p>
    <p>
      Such an exhibition was decidedly discouraging, and it was not a jubilant
      party that returned to New York, but: "That night Edison remained in the
      laboratory meditating upon the results that the platinum lamp had given so
      far. I was engaged reading a book near a table in the front, while Edison
      was seated in a chair by a table near the organ. With his head turned
      downward, and that conspicuous lock of hair hanging loosely on one side,
      he looked like Napoleon in the celebrated picture, On the Eve of a Great
      Battle. Those days were heroic ones, for he then battled against mighty
      odds, and the prospects were dim and not very encouraging. In cases of
      emergency Edison always possessed a keen faculty of deciding immediately
      and correctly what to do; and the decision he then arrived at was
      predestined to be the turning-point that led him on to ultimate
      success.... After that exhibition we had a house-cleaning at the
      laboratory, and the metallic-filament lamps were stored away, while
      preparations were made for our experiments on carbon lamps."
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus the work went on. Menlo Park has hitherto been associated in the
      public thought with the telephone, phonograph, and incandescent lamp; but
      it was there, equally, that the Edison dynamo and system of distribution
      were created and applied to their specific purposes. While all this study
      of a possible lamp was going on, Mr. Upton was busy calculating the
      economy of the "multiple arc" system, and making a great many tables to
      determine what resistance a lamp should have for the best results, and at
      what point the proposed general system would fall off in economy when the
      lamps were of the lower resistance that was then generally assumed to be
      necessary. The world at that time had not the shadow of an idea as to what
      the principles of a multiple arc system should be, enabling millions of
      lamps to be lighted off distributing circuits, each lamp independent of
      every other; but at Menlo Park at that remote period in the seventies Mr.
      Edison's mathematician was formulating the inventor's conception in clear,
      instructive figures; "and the work then executed has held its own ever
      since." From the beginning of his experiments on electric light, Mr.
      Edison had a well-defined idea of producing not only a practicable lamp,
      but also a SYSTEM of commercial electric lighting. Such a scheme involved
      the creation of an entirely new art, for there was nothing on the face of
      the earth from which to draw assistance or precedent, unless we except the
      elementary forms of dynamos then in existence. It is true, there were
      several types of machines in use for the then very limited field of arc
      lighting, but they were regarded as valueless as a part of a great
      comprehensive scheme which could supply everybody with light. Such
      machines were confessedly inefficient, although representing the farthest
      reach of a young art. A commission appointed at that time by the Franklin
      Institute, and including Prof. Elihu Thomson, investigated the merits of
      existing dynamos and reported as to the best of them: "The Gramme machine
      is the most economical as a means of converting motive force into
      electricity; it utilizes in the arc from 38 to 41 per cent. of the motive
      work produced, after deduction is made for friction and the resistance of
      the air." They reported also that the Brush arc lighting machine "produces
      in the luminous arc useful work equivalent to 31 per cent. of the motive
      power employed, or to 38 1/2 per cent. after the friction has been
      deducted." Commercial possibilities could not exist in the face of such
      low economy as this, and Mr. Edison realized that he would have to improve
      the dynamo himself if he wanted a better machine. The scientific world at
      that time was engaged in a controversy regarding the external and internal
      resistance of a circuit in which a generator was situated. Discussing the
      subject Mr. Jehl, in his biographical notes, says: "While this controversy
      raged in the scientific papers, and criticism and confusion seemed at its
      height, Edison and Upton discussed this question very thoroughly, and
      Edison declared he did not intend to build up a system of distribution in
      which the external resistance would be equal to the internal resistance.
      He said he was just about going to do the opposite; he wanted a large
      external resistance and a low internal one. He said he wanted to sell the
      energy outside of the station and not waste it in the dynamo and
      conductors, where it brought no profits.... In these later days, when
      these ideas of Edison are used as common property, and are applied in
      every modern system of distribution, it is astonishing to remember that
      when they were propounded they met with most vehement antagonism from the
      world at large." Edison, familiar with batteries in telegraphy, could not
      bring himself to believe that any substitute generator of electrical
      energy could be efficient that used up half its own possible output before
      doing an equal amount of outside work.
    </p>
    <p>
      Undaunted by the dicta of contemporaneous science, Mr. Edison attacked the
      dynamo problem with his accustomed vigor and thoroughness. He chose the
      drum form for his armature, and experimented with different kinds of iron.
      Cores were made of cast iron, others of forged iron; and still others of
      sheets of iron of various thicknesses separated from each other by paper
      or paint. These cores were then allowed to run in an excited field, and
      after a given time their temperature was measured and noted. By such
      practical methods Edison found that the thin, laminated cores of sheet
      iron gave the least heat, and had the least amount of wasteful eddy
      currents. His experiments and ideas on magnetism at that period were far
      in advance of the time. His work and tests regarding magnetism were
      repeated later on by Hopkinson and Kapp, who then elucidated the whole
      theory mathematically by means of formulae and constants. Before this,
      however, Edison had attained these results by pioneer work, founded on his
      original reasoning, and utilized them in the construction of his dynamo,
      thus revolutionizing the art of building such machines.
    </p>
    <p>
      After thorough investigation of the magnetic qualities of different kinds
      of iron, Edison began to make a study of winding the cores, first
      determining the electromotive force generated per turn of wire at various
      speeds in fields of different intensities. He also considered various
      forms and shapes for the armature, and by methodical and systematic
      research obtained the data and best conditions upon which he could build
      his generator. In the field magnets of his dynamo he constructed the cores
      and yoke of forged iron having a very large cross-section, which was a new
      thing in those days. Great attention was also paid to all the joints,
      which were smoothed down so as to make a perfect magnetic contact. The
      Edison dynamo, with its large masses of iron, was a vivid contrast to the
      then existing types with their meagre quantities of the ferric element.
      Edison also made tests on his field magnets by slowly raising the strength
      of the exciting current, so that he obtained figures similar to those
      shown by a magnetic curve, and in this way found where saturation
      commenced, and where it was useless to expend more current on the field.
      If he had asked Upton at the time to formulate the results of his work in
      this direction, for publication, he would have anticipated the historic
      work on magnetism that was executed by the two other investigators;
      Hopkinson and Kapp, later on.
    </p>
    <p>
      The laboratory note-books of the period bear abundant evidence of the
      systematic and searching nature of these experiments and investigations,
      in the hundreds of pages of notes, sketches, calculations, and tables made
      at the time by Edison, Upton, Batchelor, Jehl, and by others who from time
      to time were intrusted with special experiments to elucidate some
      particular point. Mr. Jehl says: "The experiments on armature-winding were
      also very interesting. Edison had a number of small wooden cores made, at
      both ends of which we inserted little brass nails, and we wound the wooden
      cores with twine as if it were wire on an armature. In this way we studied
      armature-winding, and had matches where each of us had a core, while bets
      were made as to who would be the first to finish properly and correctly a
      certain kind of winding. Care had to be taken that the wound core
      corresponded to the direction of the current, supposing it were placed in
      a field and revolved. After Edison had decided this question, Upton made
      drawings and tables from which the real armatures were wound and connected
      to the commutator. To a student of to-day all this seems simple, but in
      those days the art of constructing dynamos was about as dark as air
      navigation is at present.... Edison also improved the armature by dividing
      it and the commutator into a far greater number of sections than up to
      that time had been the practice. He was also the first to use mica in
      insulating the commutator sections from each other."
    </p>
    <p>
      In the mean time, during the progress of the investigations on the dynamo,
      word had gone out to the world that Edison expected to invent a generator
      of greater efficiency than any that existed at the time. Again he was
      assailed and ridiculed by the technical press, for had not the foremost
      electricians and physicists of Europe and America worked for years on the
      production of dynamos and arc lamps as they then existed? Even though this
      young man at Menlo Park had done some wonderful things for telegraphy and
      telephony; even if he had recorded and reproduced human speech, he had his
      limitations, and could not upset the settled dictum of science that the
      internal resistance must equal the external resistance.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such was the trend of public opinion at the time, but "after Mr. Kruesi
      had finished the first practical dynamo, and after Mr. Upton had tested it
      thoroughly and verified his figures and results several times&mdash;for he
      also was surprised&mdash;Edison was able to tell the world that he had
      made a generator giving an efficiency of 90 per cent." Ninety per cent. as
      against 40 per cent. was a mighty hit, and the world would not believe it.
      Criticism and argument were again at their height, while Upton, as
      Edison's duellist, was kept busy replying to private and public challenges
      of the fact.... "The tremendous progress of the world in the last quarter
      of a century, owing to the revolution caused by the all-conquering march
      of 'Heavy Current Engineering,' is the outcome of Edison's work at Menlo
      Park that raised the efficiency of the dynamo from 40 per cent. to 90 per
      cent."
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Upton sums it all up very precisely in his remarks upon this period:
      "What has now been made clear by accurate nomenclature was then very foggy
      in the text-books. Mr. Edison had completely grasped the effect of
      subdivision of circuits, and the influence of wires leading to such
      subdivisions, when it was most difficult to express what he knew in
      technical language. I remember distinctly when Mr. Edison gave me the
      problem of placing a motor in circuit in multiple arc with a fixed
      resistance; and I had to work out the problem entirely, as I could find no
      prior solution. There was nothing I could find bearing upon the counter
      electromotive force of the armature, and the effect of the resistance of
      the armature on the work given out by the armature. It was a wonderful
      experience to have problems given me out of the intuitions of a great
      mind, based on enormous experience in practical work, and applying to new
      lines of progress. One of the main impressions left upon me after knowing
      Mr. Edison for many years is the marvellous accuracy of his guesses. He
      will see the general nature of a result long before it can be reached by
      mathematical calculation. His greatness was always to be clearly seen when
      difficulties arose. They always made him cheerful, and started him
      thinking; and very soon would come a line of suggestions which would not
      end until the difficulty was met and overcome, or found insurmountable. I
      have often felt that Mr. Edison got himself purposely into trouble by
      premature publications and otherwise, so that he would have a full
      incentive to get himself out of the trouble."
    </p>
    <p>
      This chapter may well end with a statement from Mr. Jehl, shrewd and
      observant, as a participator in all the early work of the development of
      the Edison lighting system: "Those who were gathered around him in the old
      Menlo Park laboratory enjoyed his confidence, and he theirs. Nor was this
      confidence ever abused. He was respected with a respect which only great
      men can obtain, and he never showed by any word or act that he was their
      employer in a sense that would hurt the feelings, as is often the case in
      the ordinary course of business life. He conversed, argued, and disputed
      with us all as if he were a colleague on the same footing. It was his
      winning ways and manners that attached us all so loyally to his side, and
      made us ever ready with a boundless devotion to execute any request or
      desire." Thus does a great magnet, run through a heap of sand and filings,
      exert its lines of force and attract irresistibly to itself the iron and
      steel particles that are its affinity, and having sifted them out, leaving
      the useless dust behind, hold them to itself with responsive tenacity.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XIII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      A WORLD-HUNT FOR FILAMENT MATERIAL
    </h3>
    <p>
      IN writing about the old experimenting days at Menlo Park, Mr. F. R. Upton
      says: "Edison's day is twenty-four hours long, for he has always worked
      whenever there was anything to do, whether day or night, and carried a
      force of night workers, so that his experiments could go on continually.
      If he wanted material, he always made it a principle to have it at once,
      and never hesitated to use special messengers to get it. I remember in the
      early days of the electric light he wanted a mercury pump for exhausting
      the lamps. He sent me to Princeton to get it. I got back to Metuchen late
      in the day, and had to carry the pump over to the laboratory on my back
      that evening, set it up, and work all night and the next day getting
      results."
    </p>
    <p>
      This characteristic principle of obtaining desired material in the
      quickest and most positive way manifested itself in the search that Edison
      instituted for the best kind of bamboo for lamp filaments, immediately
      after the discovery related in a preceding chapter. It is doubtful
      whether, in the annals of scientific research and experiment, there is
      anything quite analogous to the story of this search and the various
      expeditions that went out from the Edison laboratory in 1880 and
      subsequent years, to scour the earth for a material so apparently simple
      as a homogeneous strip of bamboo, or other similar fibre. Prolonged and
      exhaustive experiment, microscopic examination, and an intimate knowledge
      of the nature of wood and plant fibres, however, had led Edison to the
      conclusion that bamboo or similar fibrous filaments were more suitable
      than anything else then known for commercial incandescent lamps, and he
      wanted the most perfect for that purpose. Hence, the quickest way was to
      search the tropics until the proper material was found.
    </p>
    <p>
      The first emissary chosen for this purpose was the late William H. Moore,
      of Rahway, New Jersey, who left New York in the summer of 1880, bound for
      China and Japan, these being the countries preeminently noted for the
      production of abundant species of bamboo. On arrival in the East he
      quickly left the cities behind and proceeded into the interior, extending
      his search far into the more remote country districts, collecting
      specimens on his way, and devoting much time to the study of the bamboo,
      and in roughly testing the relative value of its fibre in canes of one,
      two, three, four, and five year growths. Great bales of samples were sent
      to Edison, and after careful tests a certain variety and growth of
      Japanese bamboo was determined to be the most satisfactory material for
      filaments that had been found. Mr. Moore, who was continuing his searches
      in that country, was instructed to arrange for the cultivation and
      shipment of regular supplies of this particular species. Arrangements to
      this end were accordingly made with a Japanese farmer, who began to make
      immediate shipments, and who subsequently displayed so much ingenuity in
      fertilizing and cross-fertilizing that the homogeneity of the product was
      constantly improved. The use of this bamboo for Edison lamp filaments was
      continued for many years.
    </p>
    <p>
      Although Mr. Moore did not meet with the exciting adventures of some
      subsequent explorers, he encountered numerous difficulties and novel
      experiences in his many months of travel through the hinterland of Japan
      and China. The attitude toward foreigners thirty years ago was not as
      friendly as it has since become, but Edison, as usual, had made a happy
      choice of messengers, as Mr. Moore's good nature and diplomacy attested.
      These qualities, together with his persistence and perseverance and
      faculty of intelligent discrimination in the matter of fibres, helped to
      make his mission successful, and gave to him the honor of being the one
      who found the bamboo which was adopted for use as filaments in commercial
      Edison lamps.
    </p>
    <p>
      Although Edison had satisfied himself that bamboo furnished the most
      desirable material thus far discovered for incandescent-lamp filaments, he
      felt that in some part of the world there might be found a natural product
      of the same general character that would furnish a still more perfect and
      homogeneous material. In his study of this subject, and during the
      prosecution of vigorous and searching inquiries in various directions, he
      learned that Mr. John C. Brauner, then residing in Brooklyn, New York, had
      an expert knowledge of indigenous plants of the particular kind desired.
      During the course of a geological survey which he had made for the
      Brazilian Government, Mr. Brauner had examined closely the various species
      of palms which grow plentifully in that country, and of them there was one
      whose fibres he thought would be just what Edison wanted.
    </p>
    <p>
      Accordingly, Mr. Brauner was sent for and dispatched to Brazil in
      December, 1880, to search for and send samples of this and such other
      palms, fibres, grasses, and canes as, in his judgment, would be suitable
      for the experiments then being carried on at Menlo Park. Landing at Para,
      he crossed over into the Amazonian province, and thence proceeded through
      the heart of the country, making his way by canoe on the rivers and their
      tributaries, and by foot into the forests and marshes of a vast and almost
      untrodden wilderness. In this manner Mr. Brauner traversed about two
      thousand miles of the comparatively unknown interior of Southern Brazil,
      and procured a large variety of fibrous specimens, which he shipped to
      Edison a few months later. When these fibres arrived in the United States
      they were carefully tested and a few of them found suitable but not
      superior to the Japanese bamboo, which was then being exclusively used in
      the manufacture of commercial Edison lamps.
    </p>
    <p>
      Later on Edison sent out an expedition to explore the wilds of Cuba and
      Jamaica. A two months' investigation of the latter island revealed a
      variety of bamboo growths, of which a great number of specimens were
      obtained and shipped to Menlo Park; but on careful test they were found
      inferior to the Japanese bamboo, and hence rejected. The exploration of
      the glades and swamps of Florida by three men extended over a period of
      five months in a minute search for fibrous woods of the palmetto species.
      A great variety was found, and over five hundred boxes of specimens were
      shipped to the laboratory from time to time, but none of them tested out
      with entirely satisfactory results.
    </p>
    <p>
      The use of Japanese bamboo for carbon filaments was therefore continued in
      the manufacture of lamps, although an incessant search was maintained for
      a still more perfect material. The spirit of progress, so pervasive in
      Edison's character, led him, however, to renew his investigations further
      afield by sending out two other men to examine the bamboo and similar
      growths of those parts of South America not covered by Mr. Brauner. These
      two men were Frank McGowan and C. F. Hanington, both of whom had been for
      nearly seven years in the employ of the Edison Electric Light Company in
      New York. The former was a stocky, rugged Irishman, possessing the native
      shrewdness and buoyancy of his race, coupled with undaunted courage and
      determination; and the latter was a veteran of the Civil War, with some
      knowledge of forest and field, acquired as a sportsman. They left New York
      in September, 1887, arriving in due time at Para, proceeding thence
      twenty-three hundred miles up the Amazon River to Iquitos. Nothing of an
      eventful nature occurred during this trip, but on arrival at Iquitos the
      two men separated; Mr. McGowan to explore on foot and by canoe in Peru,
      Ecuador, and Colombia, while Mr. Hanington returned by the Amazon River to
      Para. Thence Hanington went by steamer to Montevideo, and by similar
      conveyance up the River de la Plata and through Uruguay, Argentine, and
      Paraguay to the southernmost part of Brazil, collecting a large number of
      specimens of palms and grasses.
    </p>
    <p>
      The adventures of Mr. McGowan, after leaving Iquitos, would fill a book if
      related in detail. The object of the present narrative and the space at
      the authors' disposal, however, do not permit of more than a brief mention
      of his experiences. His first objective point was Quito, about five
      hundred miles away, which he proposed to reach on foot and by means of
      canoeing on the Napo River through a wild and comparatively unknown
      country teeming with tribes of hostile natives. The dangers of the
      expedition were pictured to him in glowing colors, but spurning prophecies
      of dire disaster, he engaged some native Indians and a canoe and started
      on his explorations, reaching Quito in eighty-seven days, after a thorough
      search of the country on both sides of the Napo River. From Quito he went
      to Guayaquil, from there by steamer to Buenaventura, and thence by rail,
      twelve miles, to Cordova. From this point he set out on foot to explore
      the Cauca Valley and the Cordilleras.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. McGowan found in these regions a great variety of bamboo, small and
      large, some species growing seventy-five to one hundred feet in height,
      and from six to nine inches in diameter. He collected a large number of
      specimens, which were subsequently sent to Orange for Edison's
      examination. After about fifteen months of exploration attended by much
      hardship and privation, deserted sometimes by treacherous guides, twice
      laid low by fevers, occasionally in peril from Indian attacks, wild
      animals and poisonous serpents, tormented by insect pests, endangered by
      floods, one hundred and nineteen days without meat, ninety-eight days
      without taking off his clothes, Mr. McGowan returned to America, broken in
      health but having faithfully fulfilled the commission intrusted to him.
      The Evening Sun, New York, obtained an interview with him at that time,
      and in its issue of May 2, 1889, gave more than a page to a brief story of
      his interesting adventures, and then commented editorially upon them, as
      follows:
    </p>
    <p>
      "A ROMANCE OF SCIENCE"
    </p>
    <p>
      "The narrative given elsewhere in the Evening Sun of the wanderings of
      Edison's missionary of science, Mr. Frank McGowan, furnishes a new proof
      that the romances of real life surpass any that the imagination can frame.
    </p>
    <p>
      "In pursuit of a substance that should meet the requirements of the Edison
      incandescent lamp, Mr. McGowan penetrated the wilderness of the Amazon,
      and for a year defied its fevers, beasts, reptiles, and deadly insects in
      his quest of a material so precious that jealous Nature has hidden it in
      her most secret fastnesses.
    </p>
    <p>
      "No hero of mythology or fable ever dared such dragons to rescue some
      captive goddess as did this dauntless champion of civilization. Theseus,
      or Siegfried, or any knight of the fairy books might envy the victories of
      Edison's irresistible lieutenant.
    </p>
    <p>
      "As a sample story of adventure, Mr. McGowan's narrative is a marvel fit
      to be classed with the historic journeyings of the greatest travellers.
      But it gains immensely in interest when we consider that it succeeded in
      its scientific purpose. The mysterious bamboo was discovered, and large
      quantities of it were procured and brought to the Wizard's laboratory,
      there to suffer another wondrous change and then to light up our
      pleasure-haunts and our homes with a gentle radiance."
    </p>
    <p>
      A further, though rather sad, interest attaches to the McGowan story, for
      only a short time had elapsed after his return to America when he
      disappeared suddenly and mysteriously, and in spite of long-continued and
      strenuous efforts to obtain some light on the subject, no clew or trace of
      him was ever found. He was a favorite among the Edison "oldtimers," and
      his memory is still cherished, for when some of the "boys" happen to get
      together, as they occasionally do, some one is almost sure to "wonder what
      became of poor 'Mac.'" He was last seen at Mouquin's famous old French
      restaurant on Fulton Street, New York, where he lunched with one of the
      authors of this book and the late Luther Stieringer. He sat with them for
      two or three hours discussing his wonderful trip, and telling some
      fascinating stories of adventure. Then the party separated at the Ann
      Street door of the restaurant, after making plans to secure the narrative
      in more detailed form for subsequent use&mdash;and McGowan has not been
      seen from that hour to this. The trail of the explorer was more instantly
      lost in New York than in the vast recesses of the Amazon swamps.
    </p>
    <p>
      The next and last explorer whom Edison sent out in search of natural
      fibres was Mr. James Ricalton, of Maplewood, New Jersey, a
      school-principal, a well-known traveller, and an ardent student of natural
      science. Mr. Ricalton's own story of his memorable expedition is so
      interesting as to be worthy of repetition here:
    </p>
    <p>
      "A village schoolmaster is not unaccustomed to door-rappings; for the
      steps of belligerent mothers are often thitherward bent seeking redress
      for conjured wrongs to their darling boobies.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It was a bewildering moment, therefore, to the Maplewood teacher when, in
      answering a rap at the door one afternoon, he found, instead of an irate
      mother, a messenger from the laboratory of the world's greatest inventor
      bearing a letter requesting an audience a few hours later.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Being the teacher to whom reference is made, I am now quite willing to
      confess that for the remainder of that afternoon, less than a problem in
      Euclid would have been sufficient to disqualify me for the remaining
      scholastic duties of the hour. I felt it, of course, to be no small honor
      for a humble teacher to be called to the sanctum of Thomas A. Edison. The
      letter, however, gave no intimation of the nature of the object for which
      I had been invited to appear before Mr. Edison....
    </p>
    <p>
      "When I was presented to Mr. Edison his way of setting forth the mission
      he had designated for me was characteristic of how a great mind conceives
      vast undertakings and commands great things in few words. At this time Mr.
      Edison had discovered that the fibre of a certain bamboo afforded a very
      desirable carbon for the electric lamp, and the variety of bamboo used was
      a product of Japan. It was his belief that in other parts of the world
      other and superior varieties might be found, and to that end he had
      dispatched explorers to bamboo regions in the valleys of the great South
      American rivers, where specimens were found of extraordinary quality; but
      the locality in which these specimens were found was lost in the limitless
      reaches of those great river-bottoms. The great necessity for more durable
      carbons became a desideratum so urgent that the tireless inventor decided
      to commission another explorer to search the tropical jungles of the
      Orient.
    </p>
    <p>
      "This brings me then to the first meeting of Edison, when he set forth
      substantially as follows, as I remember it twenty years ago, the purpose
      for which he had called me from my scholastic duties. With a quizzical
      gleam in his eye, he said: 'I want a man to ransack all the tropical
      jungles of the East to find a better fibre for my lamp; I expect it to be
      found in the palm or bamboo family. How would you like that job?' Suiting
      my reply to his love of brevity and dispatch, I said, 'That would suit
      me.' 'Can you go to-morrow?' was his next question. 'Well, Mr. Edison, I
      must first of all get a leave of absence from my Board of Education, and
      assist the board to secure a substitute for the time of my absence. How
      long will it take, Mr. Edison?' 'How can I tell? Maybe six months, and
      maybe five years; no matter how long, find it.' He continued: 'I sent a
      man to South America to find what I want; he found it; but lost the place
      where he found it, so he might as well never have found it at all.' Hereat
      I was enjoined to proceed forthwith to court the Board of Education for a
      leave of absence, which I did successfully, the board considering that a
      call so important and honorary was entitled to their unqualified favor,
      which they generously granted.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I reported to Mr. Edison on the following day, when he instructed me to
      come to the laboratory at once to learn all the details of drawing and
      carbonizing fibres, which it would be necessary to do in the Oriental
      jungles. This I did, and, in the mean time, a set of suitable tools for
      this purpose had been ordered to be made in the laboratory. As soon as I
      learned my new trade, which I accomplished in a few days, Mr. Edison
      directed me to the library of the laboratory to occupy a few days in
      studying the geography of the Orient and, particularly, in drawing maps of
      the tributaries of the Ganges, the Irrawaddy, and the Brahmaputra rivers,
      and other regions which I expected to explore.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It was while thus engaged that Mr. Edison came to me one day and said:
      'If you will go up to the house' (his palatial home not far away) 'and
      look behind the sofa in the library you will find a joint of bamboo, a
      specimen of that found in South America; bring it down and make a study of
      it; if you find something equal to that I will be satisfied.' At the home
      I was guided to the library by an Irish servant-woman, to whom I
      communicated my knowledge of the definite locality of the sample joint.
      She plunged her arm, bare and herculean, behind the aforementioned sofa,
      and holding aloft a section of wood, called out in a mood of discovery:
      'Is that it?' Replying in the affirmative, she added, under an impulse of
      innocent divination that whatever her wizard master laid hands upon could
      result in nothing short of an invention, 'Sure, sor, and what's he going
      to invint out o' that?'
    </p>
    <p>
      "My kit of tools made, my maps drawn, my Oriental geography reviewed, I
      come to the point when matters of immediate departure are discussed; and
      when I took occasion to mention to my chief that, on the subject of life
      insurance, underwriters refuse to take any risks on an enterprise so
      hazardous, Mr. Edison said that, if I did not place too high a valuation
      on my person, he would take the risk himself. I replied that I was born
      and bred in New York State, but now that I had become a Jersey man I did
      not value myself at above fifteen hundred dollars. Edison laughed and said
      that he would assume the risk, and another point was settled. The next
      matter was the financing of the trip, about which Mr. Edison asked in a
      tentative way about the rates to the East. I told him the expense of such
      a trip could not be determined beforehand in detail, but that I had
      established somewhat of a reputation for economic travel, and that I did
      not believe any traveller could surpass me in that respect. He desired no
      further assurance in that direction, and thereupon ordered a letter of
      credit made out with authorization to order a second when the first was
      exhausted. Herein then are set forth in briefest space the preliminaries
      of a circuit of the globe in quest of fibre.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It so happened that the day on which I set out fell on Washington's
      Birthday, and I suggested to my boys and girls at school that they make a
      line across the station platform near the school at Maplewood, and from
      this line I would start eastward around the world, and if good-fortune
      should bring me back I would meet them from the westward at the same line.
      As I had often made them 'toe the scratch,' for once they were only too
      well pleased to have me toe the line for them.
    </p>
    <p>
      "This was done, and I sailed via England and the Suez Canal to Ceylon,
      that fair isle to which Sindbad the Sailor made his sixth voyage,
      picturesquely referred to in history as the 'brightest gem in the British
      Colonial Crown.' I knew Ceylon to be eminently tropical; I knew it to be
      rich in many varieties of the bamboo family, which has been called the
      king of the grasses; and in this family had I most hope of finding the
      desired fibre. Weeks were spent in this paradisiacal isle. Every part was
      visited. Native wood craftsmen were offered a premium on every new species
      brought in, and in this way nearly a hundred species were tested, a
      greater number than was found in any other country. One of the best
      specimens tested during the entire trip around the world was found first
      in Ceylon, although later in Burmah, it being indigenous to the latter
      country. It is a gigantic tree-grass or reed growing in clumps of from one
      to two hundred, often twelve inches in diameter, and one hundred and fifty
      feet high, and known as the giant bamboo (Bambusa gigantia). This giant
      grass stood the highest test as a carbon, and on account of its
      extraordinary size and qualities I extend it this special mention. With
      others who have given much attention to this remarkable reed, I believe
      that in its manifold uses the bamboo is the world's greatest dendral
      benefactor.
    </p>
    <p>
      "From Ceylon I proceeded to India, touching the great peninsula first at
      Cape Comorin, and continuing northward by way of Pondicherry, Madura, and
      Madras; and thence to the tableland of Bangalore and the Western Ghauts,
      testing many kinds of wood at every point, but particularly the palm and
      bamboo families. From the range of the Western Ghauts I went to Bombay and
      then north by the way of Delhi to Simla, the summer capital of the
      Himalayas; thence again northward to the headwaters of the Sutlej River,
      testing everywhere on my way everything likely to afford the desired
      carbon.
    </p>
    <p>
      "On returning from the mountains I followed the valleys of the Jumna and
      the Ganges to Calcutta, whence I again ascended the Sub-Himalayas to
      Darjeeling, where the numerous river-bottoms were sprinkled plentifully
      with many varieties of bamboo, from the larger sizes to dwarfed species
      covering the mountain slopes, and not longer than the grass of meadows.
      Again descending to the plains I passed eastward to the Brahmaputra River,
      which I ascended to the foot-hills in Assam; but finding nothing of
      superior quality in all this northern region I returned to Calcutta and
      sailed thence to Rangoon, in Burmah; and there, finding no samples giving
      more excellent tests in the lower reaches of the Irrawaddy, I ascended
      that river to Mandalay, where, through Burmese bamboo wiseacres, I
      gathered in from round about and tested all that the unusually rich
      Burmese flora could furnish. In Burmah the giant bamboo, as already
      mentioned, is found indigenous; but beside it no superior varieties were
      found. Samples tested at several points on the Malay Peninsula showed no
      new species, except at a point north of Singapore, where I found a species
      large and heavy which gave a test nearly equal to that of the giant bamboo
      in Ceylon.
    </p>
    <p>
      "After completing the Malay Peninsula I had planned to visit Java and
      Borneo; but having found in the Malay Peninsula and in Ceylon a bamboo
      fibre which averaged a test from one to two hundred per cent. better than
      that in use at the lamp factory, I decided it was unnecessary to visit
      these countries or New Guinea, as my 'Eureka' had already been
      established, and that I would therefore set forth over the return
      hemisphere, searching China and Japan on the way. The rivers in Southern
      China brought down to Canton bamboos of many species, where this
      wondrously utilitarian reed enters very largely into the industrial life
      of that people, and not merely into the industrial life, but even into the
      culinary arts, for bamboo sprouts are a universal vegetable in China; but
      among all the bamboos of China I found none of superexcellence in
      carbonizing qualities. Japan came next in the succession of countries to
      be explored, but there the work was much simplified, from the fact that
      the Tokio Museum contains a complete classified collection of all the
      different species in the empire, and there samples could be obtained and
      tested.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Now the last of the important bamboo-producing countries in the globe
      circuit had been done, and the 'home-lap' was in order; the broad Pacific
      was spanned in fourteen days; my natal continent in six; and on the 22d of
      February, on the same day, at the same hour, at the same minute, one year
      to a second, 'little Maude,' a sweet maid of the school, led me across the
      line which completed the circuit of the globe, and where I was greeted by
      the cheers of my boys and girls. I at once reported to Mr. Edison, whose
      manner of greeting my return was as characteristic of the man as his
      summary and matter-of-fact manner of my dispatch. His little catechism of
      curious inquiry was embraced in four small and intensely Anglo-Saxon words&mdash;with
      his usual pleasant smile he extended his hand and said: 'Did you get it?'
      This was surely a summing of a year's exploration not less laconic than
      Caesar's review of his Gallic campaign. When I replied that I had, but
      that he must be the final judge of what I had found, he said that during
      my absence he had succeeded in making an artificial carbon which was
      meeting the requirements satisfactorily; so well, indeed, that I believe
      no practical use was ever made of the bamboo fibres thereafter.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I have herein given a very brief resume of my search for fibre through
      the Orient; and during my connection with that mission I was at all times
      not less astonished at Mr. Edison's quick perception of conditions and his
      instant decision and his bigness of conceptions, than I had always been
      with his prodigious industry and his inventive genius.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Thinking persons know that blatant men never accomplish much, and
      Edison's marvellous brevity of speech along with his miraculous
      achievements should do much to put bores and garrulity out of fashion."
    </p>
    <p>
      Although Edison had instituted such a costly and exhaustive search
      throughout the world for the most perfect of natural fibres, he did not
      necessarily feel committed for all time to the exclusive use of that
      material for his lamp filaments. While these explorations were in
      progress, as indeed long before, he had given much thought to the
      production of some artificial compound that would embrace not only the
      required homogeneity, but also many other qualifications necessary for the
      manufacture of an improved type of lamp which had become desirable by
      reason of the rapid adoption of his lighting system.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the very time Mr. McGowan was making his explorations deep in South
      America, and Mr. Ricalton his swift trip around the world, Edison, after
      much investigation and experiment, had produced a compound which promised
      better results than bamboo fibres. After some changes dictated by
      experience, this artificial filament was adopted in the manufacture of
      lamps. No radical change was immediately made, however, but the product of
      the lamp factory was gradually changed over, during the course of a few
      years, from the use of bamboo to the "squirted" filament, as the new
      material was called. An artificial compound of one kind or another has
      indeed been universally adopted for the purpose by all manufacturers;
      hence the incandescing conductors in all carbon-filament lamps of the
      present day are made in that way. The fact remains, however, that for
      nearly nine years all Edison lamps (many millions in the aggregate) were
      made with bamboo filaments, and many of them for several years after that,
      until bamboo was finally abandoned in the early nineties, except for use
      in a few special types which were so made until about the end of 1908. The
      last few years have witnessed a remarkable advance in the manufacture of
      incandescent lamps in the substitution of metallic filaments for those of
      carbon. It will be remembered that many of the earlier experiments were
      based on the use of strips of platinum; while other rare metals were the
      subject of casual trial. No real success was attained in that direction,
      and for many years the carbon-filament lamp reigned supreme. During the
      last four or five years lamps with filaments made from tantalum and
      tungsten have been produced and placed on the market with great success,
      and are now largely used. Their price is still very high, however, as
      compared with that of the carbon lamp, which has been vastly improved in
      methods of construction, and whose average price of fifteen cents is only
      one-tenth of what it was when Edison first brought it out.
    </p>
    <p>
      With the close of Mr. McGowan's and Mr. Ricalton's expeditions, there
      ended the historic world-hunt for natural fibres. From start to finish the
      investigations and searches made by Edison himself, and carried on by
      others under his direction, are remarkable not only from the fact that
      they entailed a total expenditure of about $100,000, (disbursed under his
      supervision by Mr. Upton), but also because of their unique inception and
      thoroughness they illustrate one of the strongest traits of his character&mdash;an
      invincible determination to leave no stone unturned to acquire that which
      he believes to be in existence, and which, when found, will answer the
      purpose that he has in mind.
    </p>
    <p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XIV
    </h2>
    <h3>
      INVENTING A COMPLETE SYSTEM OF LIGHTING
    </h3>
    <p>
      IN Berlin, on December 11, 1908, with notable eclat, the seventieth
      birthday was celebrated of Emil Rathenau, the founder of the great
      Allgemein Elektricitaets Gesellschaft. This distinguished German, creator
      of a splendid industry, then received the congratulations of his
      fellow-countrymen, headed by Emperor William, who spoke enthusiastically
      of his services to electro-technics and to Germany. In his interesting
      acknowledgment, Mr. Rathenau told how he went to Paris in 1881, and at the
      electrical exhibition there saw the display of Edison's inventions in
      electric lighting "which have met with as little proper appreciation as
      his countless innovations in connection with telegraphy, telephony, and
      the entire electrical industry." He saw the Edison dynamo, and he saw the
      incandescent lamp, "of which millions have been manufactured since that
      day without the great master being paid the tribute to his invention." But
      what impressed the observant, thoroughgoing German was the breadth with
      which the whole lighting art had been elaborated and perfected, even at
      that early day. "The Edison system of lighting was as beautifully
      conceived down to the very details, and as thoroughly worked out as if it
      had been tested for decades in various towns. Neither sockets, switches,
      fuses, lamp-holders, nor any of the other accessories necessary to
      complete the installation were wanting; and the generating of the current,
      the regulation, the wiring with distributing boxes, house connections,
      meters, etc., all showed signs of astonishing skill and incomparable
      genius."
    </p>
    <p>
      Such praise on such an occasion from the man who introduced incandescent
      electric lighting into Germany is significant as to the continued
      appreciation abroad of Mr. Edison's work. If there is one thing modern
      Germany is proud and jealous of, it is her leadership in electrical
      engineering and investigation. But with characteristic insight, Mr.
      Rathenau here placed his finger on the great merit that has often been
      forgotten. Edison was not simply the inventor of a new lamp and a new
      dynamo. They were invaluable elements, but far from all that was
      necessary. His was the mighty achievement of conceiving and executing in
      all its details an art and an industry absolutely new to the world. Within
      two years this man completed and made that art available in its essential,
      fundamental facts, which remain unchanged after thirty years of rapid
      improvement and widening application.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such a stupendous feat, whose equal is far to seek anywhere in the history
      of invention, is worth studying, especially as the task will take us over
      much new ground and over very little of the territory already covered.
      Notwithstanding the enormous amount of thought and labor expended on the
      incandescent lamp problem from the autumn of 1878 to the winter of 1879,
      it must not be supposed for one moment that Edison's whole endeavor and
      entire inventive skill had been given to the lamp alone, or the dynamo
      alone. We have sat through the long watches of the night while Edison
      brooded on the real solution of the swarming problems. We have gazed
      anxiously at the steady fingers of the deft and cautious Batchelor, as one
      fragile filament after another refused to stay intact until it could be
      sealed into its crystal prison and there glow with light that never was
      before on land or sea. We have calculated armatures and field coils for
      the new dynamo with Upton, and held the stakes for Jehl and his fellows at
      their winding bees. We have seen the mineral and vegetable kingdoms rifled
      and ransacked for substances that would yield the best "filament." We have
      had the vague consciousness of assisting at a great development whose
      evidences to-day on every hand attest its magnitude. We have felt the
      fierce play of volcanic effort, lifting new continents of opportunity from
      the infertile sea, without any devastation of pre-existing fields of human
      toil and harvest. But it still remains to elucidate the actual thing done;
      to reduce it to concrete data, and in reducing, to unfold its colossal
      dimensions.
    </p>
    <p>
      The lighting system that Edison contemplated in this entirely new
      departure from antecedent methods included the generation of electrical
      energy, or current, on a very large scale; its distribution throughout
      extended areas, and its division and subdivision into small units
      converted into light at innumerable points in every direction from the
      source of supply, each unit to be independent of every other and
      susceptible to immediate control by the user.
    </p>
    <p>
      This was truly an altogether prodigious undertaking. We need not wonder
      that Professor Tyndall, in words implying grave doubt as to the
      possibility of any solution of the various problems, said publicly that he
      would much rather have the matter in Edison's hands than in his own. There
      were no precedents, nothing upon which to build or improve. The problems
      could only be answered by the creation of new devices and methods
      expressly worked out for their solution. An electric lamp answering
      certain specific requirements would, indeed, be the key to the situation,
      but its commercial adaptation required a multifarious variety of apparatus
      and devices. The word "system" is much abused in invention, and during the
      early days of electric lighting its use applied to a mere freakish lamp or
      dynamo was often ludicrous. But, after all, nothing short of a complete
      system could give real value to the lamp as an invention; nothing short of
      a system could body forth the new art to the public. Let us therefore set
      down briefly a few of the leading items needed for perfect illumination by
      electricity, all of which were part of the Edison programme:
    </p>
    <p>
      First&mdash;To conceive a broad and fundamentally correct method of
      distributing the current, satisfactory in a scientific sense and practical
      commercially in its efficiency and economy. This meant, ready made, a
      comprehensive plan analogous to illumination by gas, with a network of
      conductors all connected together, so that in any given city area the
      lights could be fed with electricity from several directions, thus
      eliminating any interruption due to the disturbance on any particular
      section.
    </p>
    <p>
      Second&mdash;To devise an electric lamp that would give about the same
      amount of light as a gas jet, which custom had proven to be a suitable and
      useful unit. This lamp must possess the quality of requiring only a small
      investment in the copper conductors reaching it. Each lamp must be
      independent of every other lamp. Each and all the lights must be produced
      and operated with sufficient economy to compete on a commercial basis with
      gas. The lamp must be durable, capable of being easily and safely handled
      by the public, and one that would remain capable of burning at full
      incandescence and candle-power a great length of time.
    </p>
    <p>
      Third&mdash;To devise means whereby the amount of electrical energy
      furnished to each and every customer could be determined, as in the case
      of gas, and so that this could be done cheaply and reliably by a meter at
      the customer's premises.
    </p>
    <p>
      Fourth&mdash;To elaborate a system or network of conductors capable of
      being placed underground or overhead, which would allow of being tapped at
      any intervals, so that service wires could be run from the main conductors
      in the street into each building. Where these mains went below the surface
      of the thoroughfare, as in large cities, there must be protective conduit
      or pipe for the copper conductors, and these pipes must allow of being
      tapped wherever necessary. With these conductors and pipes must also be
      furnished manholes, junction-boxes, connections, and a host of varied
      paraphernalia insuring perfect general distribution.
    </p>
    <p>
      Fifth&mdash;To devise means for maintaining at all points in an extended
      area of distribution a practically even pressure of current, so that all
      the lamps, wherever located, near or far away from the central station,
      should give an equal light at all times, independent of the number that
      might be turned on; and safeguarding the lamps against rupture by sudden
      and violent fluctuations of current. There must also be means for thus
      regulating at the point where the current was generated the quality or
      pressure of the current throughout the whole lighting area, with devices
      for indicating what such pressure might actually be at various points in
      the area.
    </p>
    <p>
      Sixth&mdash;To design efficient dynamos, such not being in existence at
      the time, that would convert economically the steam-power of high-speed
      engines into electrical energy, together with means for connecting and
      disconnecting them with the exterior consumption circuits; means for
      regulating, equalizing their loads, and adjusting the number of dynamos to
      be used according to the fluctuating demands on the central station. Also
      the arrangement of complete stations with steam and electric apparatus and
      auxiliary devices for insuring their efficient and continuous operation.
    </p>
    <p>
      Seventh&mdash;To invent devices that would prevent the current from
      becoming excessive upon any conductors, causing fire or other injury; also
      switches for turning the current on and off; lamp-holders, fixtures, and
      the like; also means and methods for establishing the interior circuits
      that were to carry current to chandeliers and fixtures in buildings.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here was the outline of the programme laid down in the autumn of 1878, and
      pursued through all its difficulties to definite accomplishment in about
      eighteen months, some of the steps being made immediately, others being
      taken as the art evolved. It is not to be imagined for one moment that
      Edison performed all the experiments with his own hands. The method of
      working at Menlo Park has already been described in these pages by those
      who participated. It would not only have been physically impossible for
      one man to have done all this work himself, in view of the time and labor
      required, and the endless detail; but most of the apparatus and devices
      invented or suggested by him as the art took shape required the handiwork
      of skilled mechanics and artisans of a high order of ability. Toward the
      end of 1879 the laboratory force thus numbered at least one hundred
      earnest men. In this respect of collaboration, Edison has always adopted a
      policy that must in part be taken to explain his many successes. Some
      inventors of the greatest ability, dealing with ideas and conceptions of
      importance, have found it impossible to organize or even to tolerate a
      staff of co-workers, preferring solitary and secret toil, incapable of
      team work, or jealous of any intrusion that could possibly bar them from a
      full and complete claim to the result when obtained. Edison always stood
      shoulder to shoulder with his associates, but no one ever questioned the
      leadership, nor was it ever in doubt where the inspiration originated. The
      real truth is that Edison has always been so ceaselessly fertile of ideas
      himself, he has had more than his whole staff could ever do to try them
      all out; he has sought co-operation, but no exterior suggestion. As a
      matter of fact a great many of the "Edison men" have made notable
      inventions of their own, with which their names are imperishably
      associated; but while they were with Edison it was with his work that they
      were and must be busied.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was during this period of "inventing a system" that so much systematic
      and continuous work with good results was done by Edison in the design and
      perfection of dynamos. The value of his contributions to the art of
      lighting comprised in this work has never been fully understood or
      appreciated, having been so greatly overshadowed by his invention of the
      incandescent lamp, and of a complete system of distribution. It is a fact,
      however, that the principal improvements he made in dynamo-electric
      generators were of a radical nature and remain in the art. Thirty years
      bring about great changes, especially in a field so notably progressive as
      that of the generation of electricity; but different as are the dynamos of
      to-day from those of the earlier period, they embody essential principles
      and elements that Edison then marked out and elaborated as the conditions
      of success. There was indeed prompt appreciation in some well-informed
      quarters of what Edison was doing, evidenced by the sensation caused in
      the summer of 1881, when he designed, built, and shipped to Paris for the
      first Electrical Exposition ever held, the largest dynamo that had been
      built up to that time. It was capable of lighting twelve hundred
      incandescent lamps, and weighed with its engine twenty-seven tons, the
      armature alone weighing six tons. It was then, and for a long time after,
      the eighth wonder of the scientific world, and its arrival and
      installation in Paris were eagerly watched by the most famous physicists
      and electricians of Europe.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's amusing description of his experience in shipping the dynamo to
      Paris when built may appropriately be given here: "I built a very large
      dynamo with the engine directly connected, which I intended for the Paris
      Exposition of 1881. It was one or two sizes larger than those I had
      previously built. I had only a very short period in which to get it ready
      and put it on a steamer to reach the Exposition in time. After the machine
      was completed we found the voltage was too low. I had to devise a way of
      raising the voltage without changing the machine, which I did by adding
      extra magnets. After this was done, we tested the machine, and the
      crank-shaft of the engine broke and flew clear across the shop. By working
      night and day a new crank-shaft was put in, and we only had three days
      left from that time to get it on board the steamer; and had also to run a
      test. So we made arrangements with the Tammany leader, and through him
      with the police, to clear the street&mdash;one of the New York crosstown
      streets&mdash;and line it with policemen, as we proposed to make a quick
      passage, and didn't know how much time it would take. About four hours
      before the steamer had to get it, the machine was shut down after the
      test, and a schedule was made out in advance of what each man had to do.
      Sixty men were put on top of the dynamo to get it ready, and each man had
      written orders as to what he was to perform. We got it all taken apart and
      put on trucks and started off. They drove the horses with a fire-bell in
      front of them to the French pier, the policemen lining the streets. Fifty
      men were ready to help the stevedores get it on the steamer&mdash;and we
      were one hour ahead of time."
    </p>
    <p>
      This Exposition brings us, indeed, to a dramatic and rather pathetic
      parting of the ways. The hour had come for the old laboratory force that
      had done such brilliant and memorable work to disband, never again to
      assemble under like conditions for like effort, although its members all
      remained active in the field, and many have ever since been associated
      prominently with some department of electrical enterprise. The fact was
      they had done their work so well they must now disperse to show the world
      what it was, and assist in its industrial exploitation. In reality, they
      were too few for the demands that reached Edison from all parts of the
      world for the introduction of his system; and in the emergency the men
      nearest to him and most trusted were those upon whom he could best depend
      for such missionary work as was now required. The disciples full of fire
      and enthusiasm, as well as of knowledge and experience, were soon
      scattered to the four winds, and the rapidity with which the Edison system
      was everywhere successfully introduced is testimony to the good judgment
      with which their leader had originally selected them as his colleagues. No
      one can say exactly just how this process of disintegration began, but Mr.
      E. H. Johnson had already been sent to England in the Edison interests,
      and now the question arose as to what should be done with the French
      demands and the Paris Electrical Exposition, whose importance as a point
      of new departure in electrical industry was speedily recognized on both
      sides of the Atlantic. It is very interesting to note that as the earlier
      staff broke up, Edison became the centre of another large body, equally
      devoted, but more particularly concerned with the commercial development
      of his ideas. Mr. E. G. Acheson mentions in his personal notes on work at
      the laboratory, that in December of 1880, while on some experimental work,
      he was called to the new lamp factory started recently at Menlo Park, and
      there found Edison, Johnson, Batchelor, and Upton in conference, and
      "Edison informed me that Mr. Batchelor, who was in charge of the
      construction, development, and operation of the lamp factory, was soon to
      sail for Europe to prepare for the exhibit to be made at the Electrical
      Exposition to be held in Paris during the coming summer." These
      preparations overlap the reinforcement of the staff with some notable
      additions, chief among them being Mr. Samuel Insull, whose interesting
      narrative of events fits admirably into the story at this stage, and gives
      a vivid idea of the intense activity and excitement with which the whole
      atmosphere around Edison was then surcharged: "I first met Edison on March
      1, 1881. I arrived in New York on the City of Chester about five or six in
      the evening, and went direct to 65 Fifth Avenue. I had come over to act as
      Edison's private secretary, the position having been obtained for me
      through the good offices of Mr. E. H. Johnson, whom I had known in London,
      and who wrote to Mr. U. H. Painter, of Washington, about me in the fall of
      1880. Mr. Painter sent the letter on to Mr. Batchelor, who turned it over
      to Edison. Johnson returned to America late in the fall of 1880, and in
      January, 1881, cabled to me to come to this country. At the time he cabled
      for me Edison was still at Menlo Park, but when I arrived in New York the
      famous offices of the Edison Electric Light Company had been opened at
      '65' Fifth Avenue, and Edison had moved into New York with the idea of
      assisting in the exploitation of the Light Company's business.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I was taken by Johnson direct from the Inman Steamship pier to 65 Fifth
      Avenue, and met Edison for the first time. There were three rooms on the
      ground floor at that time. The front one was used as a kind of
      reception-room; the room immediately behind it was used as the office of
      the president of the Edison Electric Light Company, Major S. B. Eaton. The
      rear room, which was directly back of the front entrance hall, was
      Edison's office, and there I first saw him. There was very little in the
      room except a couple of walnut roller-top desks&mdash;which were very
      generally used in American offices at that time. Edison received me with
      great cordiality. I think he was possibly disappointed at my being so
      young a man; I had only just turned twenty-one, and had a very boyish
      appearance. The picture of Edison is as vivid to me now as if the incident
      occurred yesterday, although it is now more than twenty-nine years since
      that first meeting. I had been connected with Edison's affairs in England
      as private secretary to his London agent for about two years; and had been
      taught by Johnson to look on Edison as the greatest electrical inventor of
      the day&mdash;a view of him, by-the-way, which has been greatly
      strengthened as the years have rolled by. Owing to this, and to the fact
      that I felt highly flattered at the appointment as his private secretary,
      I was naturally prepared to accept him as a hero. With my strict English
      ideas as to the class of clothes to be worn by a prominent man, there was
      nothing in Edison's dress to impress me. He wore a rather seedy black
      diagonal Prince Albert coat and waistcoat, with trousers of a dark
      material, and a white silk handkerchief around his neck, tied in a
      careless knot falling over the stiff bosom of a white shirt somewhat the
      worse for wear. He had a large wide-awake hat of the sombrero pattern then
      generally used in this country, and a rough, brown overcoat, cut somewhat
      similarly to his Prince Albert coat. His hair was worn quite long, and
      hanging carelessly over his fine forehead. His face was at that time, as
      it is now, clean shaven. He was full in face and figure, although by no
      means as stout as he has grown in recent years. What struck me above
      everything else was the wonderful intelligence and magnetism of his
      expression, and the extreme brightness of his eyes. He was far more modest
      than in my youthful picture of him. I had expected to find a man of
      distinction. His appearance, as a whole, was not what you would call
      'slovenly,' it is best expressed by the word 'careless.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Insull supplements this pen-picture by another, bearing upon the
      hustle and bustle of the moment: "After a short conversation Johnson
      hurried me off to meet his family, and later in the evening, about eight
      o'clock, he and I returned to Edison's office; and I found myself launched
      without further ceremony into Edison's business affairs. Johnson had
      already explained to me that he was sailing the next morning, March 2d, on
      the S.S. Arizona, and that Mr. Edison wanted to spend the evening
      discussing matters in connection with his European affairs. It was
      assumed, inasmuch as I had just arrived from London, that I would be able
      to give more or less information on this subject. As Johnson was to sail
      the next morning at five o'clock, Edison explained that it would be
      necessary for him to have an understanding of European matters. Edison
      started out by drawing from his desk a check-book and stating how much
      money he had in the bank; and he wanted to know what European telephone
      securities were most salable, as he wished to raise the necessary funds to
      put on their feet the incandescent lamp factory, the Electric Tube works,
      and the necessary shops to build dynamos. All through the interview I was
      tremendously impressed with Edison's wonderful resourcefulness and grasp,
      and his immediate appreciation of any suggestion of consequence bearing on
      the subject under discussion.
    </p>
    <p>
      "He spoke with very great enthusiasm of the work before him&mdash;namely,
      the development of his electric-lighting system; and his one idea seemed
      to be to raise all the money he could with the object of pouring it into
      the manufacturing side of the lighting business. I remember how
      extraordinarily I was impressed with him on this account, as I had just
      come from a circle of people in London who not only questioned the
      possibility of the success of Edison's invention, but often expressed
      doubt as to whether the work he had done could be called an invention at
      all. After discussing affairs with Johnson&mdash;who was receiving his
      final instructions from Edison&mdash;far into the night, and going down to
      the steamer to see Johnson aboard, I finished my first night's business
      with Edison somewhere between four and five in the morning, feeling
      thoroughly imbued with the idea that I had met one of the great master
      minds of the world. You must allow for my youthful enthusiasm, but you
      must also bear in mind Edison's peculiar gift of magnetism, which has
      enabled him during his career to attach so many men to him. I fell a
      victim to the spell at the first interview."
    </p>
    <p>
      Events moved rapidly in those days. The next morning, Tuesday, Edison took
      his new fidus Achates with him to a conference with John Roach, the famous
      old ship-builder, and at it agreed to take the AEtna Iron works, where
      Roach had laid the foundations of his fame and fortune. These works were
      not in use at the time. They were situated on Goerck Street, New York,
      north of Grand Street, on the east side of the city, and there, very soon
      after, was established the first Edison dynamo-manufacturing
      establishment, known for many years as the Edison Machine Works. The same
      night Insull made his first visit to Menlo Park. Up to that time he had
      seen very little incandescent lighting, for the simple reason that there
      was very little to see. Johnson had had a few Edison lamps in London, lit
      up from primary batteries, as a demonstration; and in the summer of 1880
      Swan had had a few series lamps burning in London. In New York a small
      gas-engine plant was being started at the Edison offices on Fifth Avenue.
      But out at Menlo Park there was the first actual electric-lighting central
      station, supplying distributed incandescent lamps and some electric motors
      by means of underground conductors imbedded in asphaltum and surrounded by
      a wooden box. Mr. Insull says: "The system employed was naturally the
      two-wire, as at that time the three-wire had not been thought of. The
      lamps were partly of the horseshoe filament paper-carbon type, and partly
      bamboo-filament lamps, and were of an efficiency of 95 to 100 watts per 16
      c.p. I can never forget the impression that this first view of the
      electric-lighting industry produced on me. Menlo Park must always be
      looked upon as the birthplace of the electric light and power industry. At
      that time it was the only place where could be seen an electric light and
      power multiple arc distribution system, the operation of which seemed as
      successful to my youthful mind as the operation of one of the large
      metropolitan systems to-day. I well remember about ten o'clock that night
      going down to the Menlo Park depot and getting the station agent, who was
      also the telegraph operator, to send some cable messages for me to my
      London friends, announcing that I had seen Edison's incandescent lighting
      system in actual operation, and that so far as I could tell it was an
      accomplished fact. A few weeks afterward I received a letter from one of
      my London friends, who was a doubting Thomas, upbraiding me for coming so
      soon under the spell of the 'Yankee inventor.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      It was to confront and deal with just this element of doubt in London and
      in Europe generally, that the dispatch of Johnson to England and of
      Batchelor to France was intended. Throughout the Edison staff there was a
      mingled feeling of pride in the work, resentment at the doubts expressed
      about it, and keen desire to show how excellent it was. Batchelor left for
      Paris in July, 1881&mdash;on his second trip to Europe that year&mdash;and
      the exhibit was made which brought such an instantaneous recognition of
      the incalculable value of Edison's lighting inventions, as evidenced by
      the awards and rewards immediately bestowed upon him. He was made an
      officer of the Legion of Honor, and Prof. George F. Barker cabled as
      follows from Paris, announcing the decision of the expert jury which
      passed upon the exhibits: "Accept my congratulations. You have distanced
      all competitors and obtained a diploma of honor, the highest award given
      in the Exposition. No person in any class in which you were an exhibitor
      received a like reward."
    </p>
    <p>
      Nor was this all. Eminent men in science who had previously expressed
      their disbelief in the statements made as to the Edison system were now
      foremost in generous praise of his notable achievements, and accorded him
      full credit for its completion. A typical instance was M. Du Moncel, a
      distinguished electrician, who had written cynically about Edison's work
      and denied its practicability. He now recanted publicly in this language,
      which in itself shows the state of the art when Edison came to the front:
      "All these experiments achieved but moderate success, and when, in 1879,
      the new Edison incandescent carbon lamp was announced, many of the
      scientists, and I, particularly, doubted the accuracy of the reports which
      came from America. This horseshoe of carbonized paper seemed incapable to
      resist mechanical shocks and to maintain incandescence for any
      considerable length of time. Nevertheless, Mr. Edison was not discouraged,
      and despite the active opposition made to his lamp, despite the polemic
      acerbity of which he was the object, he did not cease to perfect it; and
      he succeeded in producing the lamps which we now behold exhibited at the
      Exposition, and are admired by all for their perfect steadiness."
    </p>
    <p>
      The competitive lamps exhibited and tested at this time comprised those of
      Edison, Maxim, Swan, and Lane-Fox. The demonstration of Edison's success
      stimulated the faith of his French supporters, and rendered easier the
      completion of plans for the Societe Edison Continental, of Paris, formed
      to operate the Edison patents on the Continent of Europe. Mr. Batchelor,
      with Messrs. Acheson and Hipple, and one or two other assistants, at the
      close of the Exposition transferred their energies to the construction and
      equipment of machine-shops and lamp factories at Ivry-sur-Seine for the
      company, and in a very short time the installation of plants began in
      various countries&mdash;France, Italy, Holland, Belgium, etc.
    </p>
    <p>
      All through 1881 Johnson was very busy, for his part, in England. The
      first "Jumbo" Edison dynamo had gone to Paris; the second and third went
      to London, where they were installed in 1881 by Mr. Johnson and his
      assistant, Mr. W. J. Hammer, in the three-thousand-light central station
      on Holborn Viaduct, the plant going into operation on January 12, 1882.
      Outside of Menlo Park this was the first regular station for incandescent
      lighting in the world, as the Pearl Street station in New York did not go
      into operation until September of the same year. This historic plant was
      hurriedly thrown together on Crown land, and would doubtless have been the
      nucleus of a great system but for the passage of the English electric
      lighting act of 1882, which at once throttled the industry by its absurd
      restrictive provisions, and which, though greatly modified, has left
      England ever since in a condition of serious inferiority as to development
      in electric light and power. The streets and bridges of Holborn Viaduct
      were lighted by lamps turned on and off from the station, as well as the
      famous City Temple of Dr. Joseph Parker, the first church in the world to
      be lighted by incandescent lamps&mdash;indeed, so far as can be
      ascertained, the first church to be illuminated by electricity in any
      form. Mr. W. J. Hammer, who supplies some very interesting notes on the
      installation, says: "I well remember the astonishment of Doctor Parker and
      his associates when they noted the difference of temperature as compared
      with gas. I was informed that the people would not go in the gallery in
      warm weather, owing to the great heat caused by the many gas jets, whereas
      on the introduction of the incandescent lamp there was no complaint." The
      telegraph operating-room of the General Post-Office, at St. Martin's-Le
      Grand and Newgate Street nearby, was supplied with four hundred lamps
      through the instrumentality of Mr. (Sir) W. H. Preece, who, having been
      seriously sceptical as to Mr. Edison's results, became one of his most
      ardent advocates, and did much to facilitate the introduction of the
      light. This station supplied its customers by a network of feeders and
      mains of the standard underground two-wire Edison tubing-conductors in
      sections of iron pipe&mdash;such as was used subsequently in New York,
      Milan, and other cities. It also had a measuring system for the current,
      employing the Edison electrolytic meter. Arc lamps were operated from its
      circuits, and one of the first sets of practicable storage batteries was
      used experimentally at the station. In connection with these batteries Mr.
      Hammer tells a characteristic anecdote of Edison: "A careless boy passing
      through the station whistling a tune and swinging carelessly a hammer in
      his hand, rapped a carboy of sulphuric acid which happened to be on the
      floor above a 'Jumbo' dynamo. The blow broke the glass carboy, and the
      acid ran down upon the field magnets of the dynamo, destroying the
      windings of one of the twelve magnets. This accident happened while I was
      taking a vacation in Germany, and a prominent scientific man connected
      with the company cabled Mr. Edison to know whether the machine would work
      if the coil was cut out. Mr. Edison sent the laconic reply: 'Why doesn't
      he try it and see?' Mr. E. H. Johnson was kept busy not only with the
      cares and responsibilities of this pioneer English plant, but by
      negotiations as to company formations, hearings before Parliamentary
      committees, and particularly by distinguished visitors, including all the
      foremost scientific men in England, and a great many well-known members of
      the peerage. Edison was fortunate in being represented by a man with so
      much address, intimate knowledge of the subject, and powers of
      explanation. As one of the leading English papers said at the time, with
      equal humor and truth: 'There is but one Edison, and Johnson is his
      prophet.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      As the plant continued in operation, various details and ideas of
      improvement emerged, and Mr. Hammer says: "Up to the time of the
      construction of this plant it had been customary to place a single-pole
      switch on one wire and a safety fuse on the other; and the practice of
      putting fuses on both sides of a lighting circuit was first used here.
      Some of the first, if not the very first, of the insulated fixtures were
      used in this plant, and many of the fixtures were equipped with ball
      insulating joints, enabling the chandeliers&mdash;or 'electroliers'&mdash;to
      be turned around, as was common with the gas chandeliers. This particular
      device was invented by Mr. John B. Verity, whose firm built many of the
      fixtures for the Edison Company, and constructed the notable electroliers
      shown at the Crystal Palace Exposition of 1882."
    </p>
    <p>
      We have made a swift survey of developments from the time when the system
      of lighting was ready for use, and when the staff scattered to introduce
      it. It will be readily understood that Edison did not sit with folded
      hands or drop into complacent satisfaction the moment he had reached the
      practical stage of commercial exploitation. He was not willing to say "Let
      us rest and be thankful," as was one of England's great Liberal leaders
      after a long period of reform. On the contrary, he was never more active
      than immediately after the work we have summed up at the beginning of this
      chapter. While he had been pursuing his investigations of the generator in
      conjunction with the experiments on the incandescent lamp, he gave much
      thought to the question of distribution of the current over large areas,
      revolving in his mind various plans for the accomplishment of this
      purpose, and keeping his mathematicians very busy working on the various
      schemes that suggested themselves from time to time. The idea of a
      complete system had been in his mind in broad outline for a long time, but
      did not crystallize into commercial form until the incandescent lamp was
      an accomplished fact. Thus in January, 1880, his first patent application
      for a "System of Electrical Distribution" was signed. It was filed in the
      Patent Office a few days later, but was not issued as a patent until
      August 30, 1887. It covered, fundamentally, multiple arc distribution, how
      broadly will be understood from the following extracts from the New York
      Electrical Review of September 10, 1887: "It would appear as if the entire
      field of multiple distribution were now in the hands of the owners of this
      patent.... The patent is about as broad as a patent can be, being
      regardless of specific devices, and laying a powerful grasp on the
      fundamental idea of multiple distribution from a number of generators
      throughout a metallic circuit."
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Edison made a number of other applications for patents on electrical
      distribution during the year 1880. Among these was the one covering the
      celebrated "Feeder" invention, which has been of very great commercial
      importance in the art, its object being to obviate the "drop" in pressure,
      rendering lights dim in those portions of an electric-light system that
      were remote from the central station. [10]
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 10: For further explanation of "Feeder" patent,
     see Appendix.]
</pre>
    <p>
      From these two patents alone, which were absolutely basic and fundamental
      in effect, and both of which were, and still are, put into actual use
      wherever central-station lighting is practiced, the reader will see that
      Mr. Edison's patient and thorough study, aided by his keen foresight and
      unerring judgment, had enabled him to grasp in advance with a master hand
      the chief and underlying principles of a true system&mdash;that system
      which has since been put into practical use all over the world, and whose
      elements do not need the touch or change of more modern scientific
      knowledge.
    </p>
    <p>
      These patents were not by any means all that he applied for in the year
      1880, which it will be remembered was the year in which he was perfecting
      the incandescent electric lamp and methods, to put into the market for
      competition with gas. It was an extraordinarily busy year for Mr. Edison
      and his whole force, which from time to time was increased in number.
      Improvement upon improvement was the order of the day. That which was
      considered good to-day was superseded by something better and more
      serviceable to-morrow. Device after device, relating to some part of the
      entire system, was designed, built, and tried, only to be rejected
      ruthlessly as being unsuitable; but the pursuit was not abandoned. It was
      renewed over and over again in innumerable ways until success had been
      attained.
    </p>
    <p>
      During the year 1880 Edison had made application for sixty patents, of
      which thirty-two were in relation to incandescent lamps; seven covered
      inventions relating to distributing systems (including the two above
      particularized); five had reference to inventions of parts, such as
      motors, sockets, etc.; six covered inventions relating to dynamo-electric
      machines; three related to electric railways, and seven to miscellaneous
      apparatus, such as telegraph relays, magnetic ore separators, magneto
      signalling apparatus, etc.
    </p>
    <p>
      The list of Mr. Edison's patents (see Appendices) is not only a monument
      to his life's work, but serves to show what subjects he has worked on from
      year to year since 1868. The reader will see from an examination of this
      list that the years 1880, 1881, 1882, and 1883 were the most prolific
      periods of invention. It is worth while to scrutinize this list closely to
      appreciate the wide range of his activities. Not that his patents cover
      his entire range of work by any means, for his note-books reveal a great
      number of major and minor inventions for which he has not seen fit to take
      out patents. Moreover, at the period now described Edison was the victim
      of a dishonest patent solicitor, who deprived him of a number of patents
      in the following manner:
    </p>
    <p>
      "Around 1881-82 I had several solicitors attending to different classes of
      work. One of these did me a most serious injury. It was during the time
      that I was developing my electric-lighting system, and I was working and
      thinking very hard in order to cover all the numerous parts, in order that
      it would be complete in every detail. I filed a great many applications
      for patents at that time, but there were seventy-eight of the inventions I
      made in that period that were entirely lost to me and my company by reason
      of the dishonesty of this patent solicitor. Specifications had been drawn,
      and I had signed and sworn to the application for patents for these
      seventy-eight inventions, and naturally I supposed they had been filed in
      the regular way.
    </p>
    <p>
      "As time passed I was looking for some action of the Patent Office, as
      usual, but none came. I thought it very strange, but had no suspicions
      until I began to see my inventions recorded in the Patent Office Gazette
      as being patented by others. Of course I ordered an investigation, and
      found that the patent solicitor had drawn from the company the fees for
      filing all these applications, but had never filed them. All the papers
      had disappeared, however, and what he had evidently done was to sell them
      to others, who had signed new applications and proceeded to take out
      patents themselves on my inventions. I afterward found that he had been
      previously mixed up with a somewhat similar crooked job in connection with
      telephone patents.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I am free to confess that the loss of these seventy-eight inventions has
      left a sore spot in me that has never healed. They were important, useful,
      and valuable, and represented a whole lot of tremendous work and mental
      effort, and I had had a feeling of pride in having overcome through them a
      great many serious obstacles, One of these inventions covered the
      multipolar dynamo. It was an elaborated form of the type covered by my
      patent No. 219,393 which had a ring armature. I modified and improved on
      this form and had a number of pole pieces placed all around the ring, with
      a modified form of armature winding. I built one of these machines and ran
      it successfully in our early days at the Goerck Street shop.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is of no practical use to mention the man's name. I believe he is
      dead, but he may have left a family. The occurrence is a matter of the old
      Edison Company's records."
    </p>
    <p>
      It will be seen from an examination of the list of patents in the Appendix
      that Mr. Edison has continued year after year adding to his contributions
      to the art of electric lighting, and in the last twenty-eight years&mdash;1880-1908&mdash;has
      taken out no fewer than three hundred and seventy-five patents in this
      branch of industry alone. These patents may be roughly tabulated as
      follows:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
Incandescent lamps and their manufacture....................149
Distributing systems and their control and regulation....... 77
Dynamo-electric machines and accessories....................106
Minor parts, such as sockets, switches, safety catches,
meters, underground conductors and parts, etc............... 43
</pre>
    <p>
      Quite naturally most of these patents cover inventions that are in the
      nature of improvements or based upon devices which he had already created;
      but there are a number that relate to inventions absolutely fundamental
      and original in their nature. Some of these have already been alluded to;
      but among the others there is one which is worthy of special mention in
      connection with the present consideration of a complete system. This is
      patent No. 274,290, applied for November 27, 1882, and is known as the
      "Three-wire" patent. It is described more fully in the Appendix.
    </p>
    <p>
      The great importance of the "Feeder" and "Three-wire" inventions will be
      apparent when it is realized that without them it is a question whether
      electric light could be sold to compete with low-priced gas, on account of
      the large investment in conductors that would be necessary. If a large
      city area were to be lighted from a central station by means of copper
      conductors running directly therefrom to all parts of the district, it
      would be necessary to install large conductors, or suffer such a drop of
      pressure at the ends most remote from the station as to cause the lights
      there to burn with a noticeable diminution of candle-power. The Feeder
      invention overcame this trouble, and made it possible to use conductors
      ONLY ONE-EIGHTH THE SIZE that would otherwise have been necessary to
      produce the same results.
    </p>
    <p>
      A still further economy in cost of conductors was effected by the
      "Three-wire" invention, by the use of which the already diminished
      conductors could be still further reduced TO ONE-THIRD of this smaller
      size, and at the same time allow of the successful operation of the
      station with far better results than if it were operated exactly as at
      first conceived. The Feeder and Three-wire systems are at this day used in
      all parts of the world, not only in central-station work, but in the
      installation and operation of isolated electric-light plants in large
      buildings. No sensible or efficient station manager or electric contractor
      would ever think of an installation made upon any other plan. Thus Mr.
      Edison's early conceptions of the necessities of a complete system, one of
      them made even in advance of practice, have stood firm, unimproved, and
      unchanged during the past twenty-eight years, a period of time which has
      witnessed more wonderful and rapid progress in electrical science and art
      than has been known during any similar art or period of time since the
      world began.
    </p>
    <p>
      It must be remembered that the complete system in all its parts is not
      comprised in the few of Mr. Edison's patents, of which specific mention is
      here made. In order to comprehend the magnitude and extent of his work and
      the quality of his genius, it is necessary to examine minutely the list of
      patents issued for the various elements which go to make up such a system.
      To attempt any relation in detail of the conception and working-out of
      each part or element; to enter into any description of the almost
      innumerable experiments and investigations that were made would entail the
      writing of several volumes, for Mr. Edison's close-written note-books
      covering these subjects number nearly two hundred.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is believed that enough evidence has been given in this chapter to lead
      to an appreciation of the assiduous work and practical skill involved in
      "inventing a system" of lighting that would surpass, and to a great
      extent, in one single quarter of a century, supersede all the other
      methods of illumination developed during long centuries. But it will be
      appropriate before passing on to note that on January 17, 1908, while this
      biography was being written, Mr. Edison became the fourth recipient of the
      John Fritz gold medal for achievement in industrial progress. This medal
      was founded in 1902 by the professional friends and associates of the
      veteran American ironmaster and metallurgical inventor, in honor of his
      eightieth birthday. Awards are made by a board of sixteen engineers
      appointed in equal numbers from the four great national engineering
      societies&mdash;the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American
      Institute of Mining Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical
      Engineers, and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, whose
      membership embraces the very pick and flower of professional engineering
      talent in America. Up to the time of the Edison award, three others had
      been made. The first was to Lord Kelvin, the Nestor of physics in Europe,
      for his work in submarine-cable telegraphy and other scientific
      achievement. The second was to George Westinghouse for the air-brake. The
      third was to Alexander Graham Bell for the invention and introduction of
      the telephone. The award to Edison was not only for his inventions in
      duplex and quadruplex telegraphy, and for the phonograph, but for the
      development of a commercially practical incandescent lamp, and the
      development of a complete system of electric lighting, including dynamos,
      regulating devices, underground system, protective devices, and meters.
      Great as has been the genius brought to bear on electrical development,
      there is no other man to whom such a comprehensive tribute could be paid.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XV
    </h2>
    <h3>
      INTRODUCTION OF THE EDISON ELECTRIC LIGHT
    </h3>
    <p>
      IN the previous chapter on the invention of a system, the narrative has
      been carried along for several years of activity up to the verge of the
      successful and commercial application of Edison's ideas and devices for
      incandescent electric lighting. The story of any one year in this period,
      if treated chronologically, would branch off in a great many different
      directions, some going back to earlier work, others forward to arts not
      yet within the general survey; and the effect of such treatment would be
      confusing. In like manner the development of the Edison lighting system
      followed several concurrent, simultaneous lines of advance; and an effort
      was therefore made in the last chapter to give a rapid glance over the
      whole movement, embracing a term of nearly five years, and including in
      its scope both the Old World and the New. What is necessary to the
      completeness of the story at this stage is not to recapitulate, but to
      take up some of the loose ends of threads woven in and follow them through
      until the clear and comprehensive picture of events can be seen.
    </p>
    <p>
      Some things it would be difficult to reproduce in any picture of the art
      and the times. One of the greatest delusions of the public in regard to
      any notable invention is the belief that the world is waiting for it with
      open arms and an eager welcome. The exact contrary is the truth. There is
      not a single new art or device the world has ever enjoyed of which it can
      be said that it was given an immediate and enthusiastic reception. The way
      of the inventor is hard. He can sometimes raise capital to help him in
      working out his crude conceptions, but even then it is frequently done at
      a distressful cost of personal surrender. When the result is achieved the
      invention makes its appeal on the score of economy of material or of
      effort; and then "labor" often awaits with crushing and tyrannical spirit
      to smash the apparatus or forbid its very use. Where both capital and
      labor are agreed that the object is worthy of encouragement, there is the
      supreme indifference of the public to overcome, and the stubborn
      resistance of pre-existing devices to combat. The years of hardship and
      struggle are thus prolonged, the chagrin of poverty and neglect too
      frequently embitters the inventor's scanty bread; and one great spirit
      after another has succumbed to the defeat beyond which lay the
      procrastinated triumph so dearly earned. Even in America, where the
      adoption of improvements and innovations is regarded as so prompt and
      sure, and where the huge tolls of the Patent Office and the courts bear
      witness to the ceaseless efforts of the inventor, it is impossible to deny
      the sad truth that unconsciously society discourages invention rather than
      invites it. Possibly our national optimism as revealed in invention&mdash;the
      seeking a higher good&mdash;needs some check. Possibly the leaders would
      travel too fast and too far on the road to perfection if conservatism did
      not also play its salutary part in insisting that the procession move
      forward as a whole.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison and his electric light were happily more fortunate than other men
      and inventions, in the relative cordiality of the reception given them.
      The merit was too obvious to remain unrecognized. Nevertheless, it was
      through intense hostility and opposition that the young art made its way,
      pushed forward by Edison's own strong personality and by his unbounded,
      unwavering faith in the ultimate success of his system. It may seem
      strange that great effort was required to introduce a light so manifestly
      convenient, safe, agreeable, and advantageous, but the facts are matter of
      record; and to-day the recollection of some of the episodes brings a
      fierce glitter into the eye and keen indignation into the voice of the man
      who has come so victoriously through it all.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was not a fact at any time that the public was opposed to the idea of
      the electric light. On the contrary, the conditions for its acceptance had
      been ripening fast. Yet the very vogue of the electric arc light made
      harder the arrival of the incandescent. As a new illuminant for the
      streets, the arc had become familiar, either as a direct substitute for
      the low gas lamp along the sidewalk curb, or as a novel form of moonlight,
      raised in groups at the top of lofty towers often a hundred and fifty feet
      high. Some of these lights were already in use for large indoor spaces,
      although the size of the unit, the deadly pressure of the current, and the
      sputtering sparks from the carbons made them highly objectionable for such
      purposes. A number of parent arc-lighting companies were in existence, and
      a great many local companies had been called into being under franchises
      for commercial business and to execute regular city contracts for street
      lighting. In this manner a good deal of capital and the energies of many
      prominent men in politics and business had been rallied distinctively to
      the support of arc lighting. Under the inventive leadership of such
      brilliant men as Brush, Thomson, Weston, and Van Depoele&mdash;there were
      scores of others&mdash;the industry had made considerable progress and the
      art had been firmly established. Here lurked, however, very vigorous
      elements of opposition, for Edison predicted from the start the
      superiority of the small electric unit of light, and devoted himself
      exclusively to its perfection and introduction. It can be readily seen
      that this situation made it all the more difficult for the Edison system
      to secure the large sums of money needed for its exploitation, and to
      obtain new franchises or city ordinances as a public utility. Thus in a
      curious manner the modern art of electric lighting was in a very true
      sense divided against itself, with intense rivalries and jealousies which
      were none the less real because they were but temporary and occurred in a
      field where ultimate union of forces was inevitable. For a long period the
      arc was dominant and supreme in the lighting branch of the electrical
      industries, in all respects, whether as to investment, employees, income,
      and profits, or in respect to the manufacturing side. When the great
      National Electric Light Association was formed in 1885, its organizers
      were the captains of arc lighting, and not a single Edison company or
      licensee could be found in its ranks, or dared to solicit membership. The
      Edison companies, soon numbering about three hundred, formed their own
      association&mdash;still maintained as a separate and useful body&mdash;and
      the lines were tensely drawn in a way that made it none too easy for the
      Edison service to advance, or for an impartial man to remain friendly with
      both sides. But the growing popularity of incandescent lighting, the
      flexibility and safety of the system, the ease with which other electric
      devices for heat, power, etc., could be put indiscriminately on the same
      circuits with the lamps, in due course rendered the old attitude of
      opposition obviously foolish and untenable. The United States Census
      Office statistics of 1902 show that the income from incandescent lighting
      by central stations had by that time become over 52 per cent. of the
      total, while that from arc lighting was less than 29; and electric-power
      service due to the ease with which motors could be introduced on
      incandescent circuits brought in 15 per cent. more. Hence twenty years
      after the first Edison stations were established the methods they involved
      could be fairly credited with no less than 67 per cent. of all
      central-station income in the country, and the proportion has grown since
      then. It will be readily understood that under these conditions the modern
      lighting company supplies to its customers both incandescent and arc
      lighting, frequently from the same dynamo-electric machinery as a source
      of current; and that the old feud as between the rival systems has died
      out. In fact, for some years past the presidents of the National Electric
      Light Association have been chosen almost exclusively from among the
      managers of the great Edison lighting companies in the leading cities.
    </p>
    <p>
      The other strong opposition to the incandescent light came from the gas
      industry. There also the most bitter feeling was shown. The gas manager
      did not like the arc light, but it interfered only with his street
      service, which was not his largest source of income by any means. What did
      arouse his ire and indignation was to find this new opponent, the little
      incandescent lamp, pushing boldly into the field of interior lighting,
      claiming it on a great variety of grounds of superiority, and calmly
      ignoring the question of price, because it was so much better. Newspaper
      records and the pages of the technical papers of the day show to what an
      extent prejudice and passion were stirred up and the astounding degree to
      which the opposition to the new light was carried.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here again was given a most convincing demonstration of the truth that
      such an addition to the resources of mankind always carries with it
      unsuspected benefits even for its enemies. In two distinct directions the
      gas art was immediately helped by Edison's work. The competition was most
      salutary in the stimulus it gave to improvements in processes for making,
      distributing, and using gas, so that while vast economies have been
      effected at the gas works, the customer has had an infinitely better light
      for less money. In the second place, the coming of the incandescent light
      raised the standard of illumination in such a manner that more gas than
      ever was wanted in order to satisfy the popular demand for brightness and
      brilliancy both indoors and on the street. The result of the operation of
      these two forces acting upon it wholly from without, and from a rival it
      was desired to crush, has been to increase enormously the production and
      use of gas in the last twenty-five years. It is true that the income of
      the central stations is now over $300,000,000 a year, and that
      isolated-plant lighting represents also a large amount of diverted
      business; but as just shown, it would obviously be unfair to regard all
      this as a loss from the standpoint of gas. It is in great measure due to
      new sources of income developed by electricity for itself.
    </p>
    <p>
      A retrospective survey shows that had the men in control of the American
      gas-lighting art, in 1880, been sufficiently far-sighted, and had they
      taken a broader view of the situation, they might easily have remained
      dominant in the whole field of artificial lighting by securing the
      ownership of the patents and devices of the new industry. Apparently not a
      single step of that kind was undertaken, nor probably was there a gas
      manager who would have agreed with Edison in the opinion written down by
      him at the time in little note-book No. 184, that gas properties were
      having conferred on them an enhanced earning capacity. It was doubtless
      fortunate and providential for the electric-lighting art that in its state
      of immature development it did not fall into the hands of men who were
      opposed to its growth, and would not have sought its technical perfection.
      It was allowed to carve out its own career, and thus escaped the fate that
      is supposed to have attended other great inventions&mdash;of being bought
      up merely for purposes of suppression. There is a vague popular notion
      that this happens to the public loss; but the truth is that no discovery
      of any real value is ever entirely lost. It may be retarded; but that is
      all. In the case of the gas companies and the incandescent light, many of
      them to whom it was in the early days as great an irritant as a red flag
      to a bull, emulated the performance of that animal and spent a great deal
      of money and energy in bellowing and throwing up dirt in the effort to
      destroy the hated enemy. This was not long nor universally the spirit
      shown; and to-day in hundreds of cities the electric and gas properties
      are united under the one management, which does not find it impossible to
      push in a friendly and progressive way the use of both illuminants. The
      most conspicuous example of this identity of interest is given in New York
      itself.
    </p>
    <p>
      So much for the early opposition, of which there was plenty. But it may be
      questioned whether inertia is not equally to be dreaded with active
      ill-will. Nothing is more difficult in the world than to get a good many
      hundreds of thousands or millions of people to do something they have
      never done before. A very real difficulty in the introduction of his lamp
      and lighting system by Edison lay in the absolute ignorance of the public
      at large, not only as to its merits, but as to the very appearance of the
      light, Some few thousand people had gone out to Menlo Park, and had there
      seen the lamps in operation at the laboratory or on the hillsides, but
      they were an insignificant proportion of the inhabitants of the United
      States. Of course, a great many accounts were written and read, but while
      genuine interest was aroused it was necessarily apathetic. A newspaper
      description or a magazine article may be admirably complete in itself,
      with illustrations, but until some personal experience is had of the thing
      described it does not convey a perfect mental picture, nor can it always
      make the desire active and insistent. Generally, people wait to have the
      new thing brought to them; and hence, as in the case of the Edison light,
      an educational campaign of a practical nature is a fundamental condition
      of success.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another serious difficulty confronting Edison and his associates was that
      nowhere in the world were there to be purchased any of the appliances
      necessary for the use of the lighting system. Edison had resolved from the
      very first that the initial central station embodying his various ideas
      should be installed in New York City, where he could superintend the
      installation personally, and then watch the operation. Plans to that end
      were now rapidly maturing; but there would be needed among many other
      things&mdash;every one of them new and novel&mdash;dynamos, switchboards,
      regulators, pressure and current indicators, fixtures in great variety,
      incandescent lamps, meters, sockets, small switches, underground
      conductors, junction-boxes, service-boxes, manhole-boxes, connectors, and
      even specially made wire. Now, not one of these miscellaneous things was
      in existence; not an outsider was sufficiently informed about such devices
      to make them on order, except perhaps the special wire. Edison therefore
      started first of all a lamp factory in one of the buildings at Menlo Park,
      equipped it with novel machinery and apparatus, and began to instruct men,
      boys, and girls, as they could be enlisted, in the absolutely new art,
      putting Mr. Upton in charge.
    </p>
    <p>
      With regard to the conditions attendant upon the manufacture of the lamps,
      Edison says: "When we first started the electric light we had to have a
      factory for manufacturing lamps. As the Edison Light Company did not seem
      disposed to go into manufacturing, we started a small lamp factory at
      Menlo Park with what money I could raise from my other inventions and
      royalties, and some assistance. The lamps at that time were costing about
      $1.25 each to make, so I said to the company: 'If you will give me a
      contract during the life of the patents, I will make all the lamps
      required by the company and deliver them for forty cents.' The company
      jumped at the chance of this offer, and a contract was drawn up. We then
      bought at a receiver's sale at Harrison, New Jersey, a very large brick
      factory building which had been used as an oil-cloth works. We got it at a
      great bargain, and only paid a small sum down, and the balance on
      mortgage. We moved the lamp works from Menlo Park to Harrison. The first
      year the lamps cost us about $1.10 each. We sold them for forty cents; but
      there were only about twenty or thirty thousand of them. The next year
      they cost us about seventy cents, and we sold them for forty. There were a
      good many, and we lost more money the second year than the first. The
      third year I succeeded in getting up machinery and in changing the
      processes, until it got down so that they cost somewhere around fifty
      cents. I still sold them for forty cents, and lost more money that year
      than any other, because the sales were increasing rapidly. The fourth year
      I got it down to thirty-seven cents, and I made all the money up in one
      year that I had lost previously. I finally got it down to twenty-two
      cents, and sold them for forty cents; and they were made by the million.
      Whereupon the Wall Street people thought it was a very lucrative business,
      so they concluded they would like to have it, and bought us out.
    </p>
    <p>
      "One of the incidents which caused a very great cheapening was that, when
      we started, one of the important processes had to be done by experts. This
      was the sealing on of the part carrying the filament into the globe, which
      was rather a delicate operation in those days, and required several months
      of training before any one could seal in a fair number of parts in a day.
      When we got to the point where we employed eighty of these experts they
      formed a union; and knowing it was impossible to manufacture lamps without
      them, they became very insolent. One instance was that the son of one of
      these experts was employed in the office, and when he was told to do
      anything would not do it, or would give an insolent reply. He was
      discharged, whereupon the union notified us that unless the boy was taken
      back the whole body would go out. It got so bad that the manager came to
      me and said he could not stand it any longer; something had got to be
      done. They were not only more surly; they were diminishing the output, and
      it became impossible to manage the works. He got me enthused on the
      subject, so I started in to see if it were not possible to do that
      operation by machinery. After feeling around for some days I got a clew
      how to do it. I then put men on it I could trust, and made the preliminary
      machinery. That seemed to work pretty well. I then made another machine
      which did the work nicely. I then made a third machine, and would bring in
      yard men, ordinary laborers, etc., and when I could get these men to put
      the parts together as well as the trained experts, in an hour, I
      considered the machine complete. I then went secretly to work and made
      thirty of the machines. Up in the top loft of the factory we stored those
      machines, and at night we put up the benches and got everything all ready.
      Then we discharged the office-boy. Then the union went out. It has been
      out ever since.
    </p>
    <p>
      "When we formed the works at Harrison we divided the interests into one
      hundred shares or parts at $100 par. One of the boys was hard up after a
      time, and sold two shares to Bob Cutting. Up to that time we had never
      paid anything; but we got around to the point where the board declared a
      dividend every Saturday night. We had never declared a dividend when
      Cutting bought his shares, and after getting his dividends for three weeks
      in succession, he called up on the telephone and wanted to know what kind
      of a concern this was that paid a weekly dividend. The works sold for
      $1,085,000."
    </p>
    <p>
      Incidentally it may be noted, as illustrative of the problems brought to
      Edison, that while he had the factory at Harrison an importer in the
      Chinese trade went to him and wanted a dynamo to be run by hand power. The
      importer explained that in China human labor was cheaper than steam power.
      Edison devised a machine to answer the purpose, and put long spokes on it,
      fitted it up, and shipped it to China. He has not, however, heard of it
      since.
    </p>
    <p>
      For making the dynamos Edison secured, as noted in the preceding chapter,
      the Roach Iron Works on Goerck Street, New York, and this was also
      equipped. A building was rented on Washington Street, where machinery and
      tools were put in specially designed for making the underground tube
      conductors and their various paraphernalia; and the faithful John Kruesi
      was given charge of that branch of production. To Sigmund Bergmann, who
      had worked previously with Edison on telephone apparatus and phonographs,
      and was already making Edison specialties in a small way in a loft on
      Wooster Street, New York, was assigned the task of constructing sockets,
      fixtures, meters, safety fuses, and numerous other details.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus, broadly, the manufacturing end of the problem of introduction was
      cared for. In the early part of 1881 the Edison Electric Light Company
      leased the old Bishop mansion at 65 Fifth Avenue, close to Fourteenth
      Street, for its headquarters and show-rooms. This was one of the finest
      homes in the city of that period, and its acquisition was a premonitory
      sign of the surrender of the famous residential avenue to commerce. The
      company needed not only offices, but, even more, such an interior as would
      display to advantage the new light in everyday use; and this house with
      its liberal lines, spacious halls, lofty ceilings, wide parlors, and
      graceful, winding stairway was ideal for the purpose. In fact, in
      undergoing this violent change, it did not cease to be a home in the real
      sense, for to this day many an Edison veteran's pulse is quickened by some
      chance reference to "65," where through many years the work of development
      by a loyal and devoted band of workers was centred. Here Edison and a few
      of his assistants from Menlo Park installed immediately in the basement a
      small generating plant, at first with a gas-engine which was not
      successful, and then with a Hampson high-speed engine and boiler,
      constituting a complete isolated plant. The building was wired from top to
      bottom, and equipped with all the appliances of the art. The experience
      with the little gas-engine was rather startling. "At an early period at
      '65' we decided," says Edison, "to light it up with the Edison system, and
      put a gas-engine in the cellar, using city gas. One day it was not going
      very well, and I went down to the man in charge and got exploring around.
      Finally I opened the pedestal&mdash;a storehouse for tools, etc. We had an
      open lamp, and when we opened the pedestal, it blew the doors off, and
      blew out the windows, and knocked me down, and the other man."
    </p>
    <p>
      For the next four or five years "65" was a veritable beehive, day and
      night. The routine was very much the same as that at the laboratory, in
      its utter neglect of the clock. The evenings were not only devoted to the
      continuance of regular business, but the house was thrown open to the
      public until late at night, never closing before ten o'clock, so as to
      give everybody who wished an opportunity to see that great novelty of the
      time&mdash;the incandescent light&mdash;whose fame had meanwhile been
      spreading all over the globe. The first year, 1881, was naturally that
      which witnessed the greatest rush of visitors; and the building hardly
      ever closed its doors till midnight. During the day business was carried
      on under great stress, and Mr. Insull has described how Edison was to be
      found there trying to lead the life of a man of affairs in the
      conventional garb of polite society, instead of pursuing inventions and
      researches in his laboratory. But the disagreeable ordeal could not be
      dodged. After the experience Edison could never again be tempted to quit
      his laboratory and work for any length of time; but in this instance there
      were some advantages attached to the sacrifice, for the crowds of
      lion-hunters and people seeking business arrangements would only have gone
      out to Menlo Park; while, on the other hand, the great plans for lighting
      New York demanded very close personal attention on the spot.
    </p>
    <p>
      As it was, not only Edison, but all the company's directors, officers, and
      employees, were kept busy exhibiting and explaining the light. To the
      public of that day, when the highest known form of house illuminant was
      gas, the incandescent lamp, with its ability to burn in any position, its
      lack of heat so that you could put your hand on the brilliant glass globe;
      the absence of any vitiating effect on the atmosphere, the obvious safety
      from fire; the curious fact that you needed no matches to light it, and
      that it was under absolute control from a distance&mdash;these and many
      other features came as a distinct revelation and marvel, while promising
      so much additional comfort, convenience, and beauty in the home, that
      inspection was almost invariably followed by a request for installation.
    </p>
    <p>
      The camaraderie that existed at this time was very democratic, for all
      were workers in a common cause; all were enthusiastic believers in the
      doctrine they proclaimed, and hoped to profit by the opening up of the new
      art. Often at night, in the small hours, all would adjourn for
      refreshments to a famous resort nearby, to discuss the events of to-day
      and to-morrow, full of incident and excitement. The easy relationship of
      the time is neatly sketched by Edison in a humorous complaint as to his
      inability to keep his own cigars: "When at '65' I used to have in my desk
      a box of cigars. I would go to the box four or five times to get a cigar,
      but after it got circulated about the building, everybody would come to
      get my cigars, so that the box would only last about a day and a half. I
      was telling a gentleman one day that I could not keep a cigar. Even if I
      locked them up in my desk they would break it open. He suggested to me
      that he had a friend over on Eighth Avenue who made a superior grade of
      cigars, and who would show them a trick. He said he would have some of
      them made up with hair and old paper, and I could put them in without a
      word and see the result. I thought no more about the matter. He came in
      two or three months after, and said: 'How did that cigar business work?' I
      didn't remember anything about it. On coming to investigate, it appeared
      that the box of cigars had been delivered and had been put in my desk, and
      I had smoked them all! I was too busy on other things to notice."
    </p>
    <p>
      It was no uncommon sight to see in the parlors in the evening John
      Pierpont Morgan, Norvin Green, Grosvenor P. Lowrey, Henry Villard, Robert
      L. Cutting, Edward D. Adams, J. Hood Wright, E. G. Fabbri, R. M. Galloway,
      and other men prominent in city life, many of them stock-holders and
      directors; all interested in doing this educational work. Thousands of
      persons thus came&mdash;bankers, brokers, lawyers, editors, and reporters,
      prominent business men, electricians, insurance experts, under whose
      searching and intelligent inquiries the facts were elicited, and general
      admiration was soon won for the system, which in advance had solved so
      many new problems. Edison himself was in universal request and the subject
      of much adulation, but altogether too busy and modest to be spoiled by it.
      Once in a while he felt it his duty to go over the ground with scientific
      visitors, many of whom were from abroad, and discuss questions which were
      not simply those of technique, but related to newer phenomena, such as the
      action of carbon, the nature and effects of high vacua; the principles of
      electrical subdivision; the value of insulation, and many others which,
      unfortunate to say, remain as esoteric now as they were then, ever
      fruitful themes of controversy.
    </p>
    <p>
      Speaking of those days or nights, Edison says: "Years ago one of the great
      violinists was Remenyi. After his performances were over he used to come
      down to '65' and talk economics, philosophy, moral science, and everything
      else. He was highly educated and had great mental capacity. He would talk
      with me, but I never asked him to bring his violin. One night he came with
      his violin, about twelve o'clock. I had a library at the top of the house,
      and Remenyi came up there. He was in a genial humor, and played the violin
      for me for about two hours&mdash;$2000 worth. The front doors were closed,
      and he walked up and down the room as he played. After that, every time he
      came to New York he used to call at '65' late at night with his violin. If
      we were not there, he could come down to the slums at Goerck Street, and
      would play for an hour or two and talk philosophy. I would talk for the
      benefit of his music. Henry E. Dixey, then at the height of his 'Adonis'
      popularity, would come in in those days, after theatre hours, and would
      entertain us with stories&mdash;1882-84. Another visitor who used to give
      us a good deal of amusement and pleasure was Captain Shaw, the head of the
      London Fire Brigade. He was good company. He would go out among the
      fire-laddies and have a great time. One time Robert Lincoln and Anson
      Stager, of the Western Union, interested in the electric light, came on to
      make some arrangement with Major Eaton, President of the Edison Electric
      Light Company. They came to '65' in the afternoon, and Lincoln commenced
      telling stories&mdash;like his father. They told stories all the
      afternoon, and that night they left for Chicago. When they got to
      Cleveland, it dawned upon them that they had not done any business, so
      they had to come back on the next train to New York to transact it. They
      were interested in the Chicago Edison Company, now one of the largest of
      the systems in the world. Speaking of telling stories, I once got telling
      a man stories at the Harrison lamp factory, in the yard, as he was
      leaving. It was winter, and he was all in furs. I had nothing on to
      protect me against the cold. I told him one story after the other&mdash;six
      of them. Then I got pleurisy, and had to be shipped to Florida for cure."
    </p>
    <p>
      The organization of the Edison Electric Light Company went back to 1878;
      but up to the time of leasing 65 Fifth Avenue it had not been engaged in
      actual business. It had merely enjoyed the delights of anxious
      anticipation, and the perilous pleasure of backing Edison's experiments.
      Now active exploitation was required. Dr. Norvin Green, the well-known
      President of the Western Union Telegraph Company, was president also of
      the Edison Company, but the pressing nature of his regular duties left him
      no leisure for such close responsible management as was now required.
      Early in 1881 Mr. Grosvenor P. Lowrey, after consultation with Mr. Edison,
      prevailed upon Major S. B. Eaton, the leading member of a very prominent
      law firm in New York, to accept the position of vice-president and general
      manager of the company, in which, as also in some of the subsidiary Edison
      companies, and as president, he continued actively and energetically for
      nearly four years, a critical, formative period in which the solidity of
      the foundation laid is attested by the magnitude and splendor of the
      superstructure.
    </p>
    <p>
      The fact that Edison conferred at this point with Mr. Lowrey should,
      perhaps, be explained in justice to the distinguished lawyer, who for so
      many years was the close friend of the inventor, and the chief counsel in
      all the tremendous litigation that followed the effort to enforce and
      validate the Edison patents. As in England Mr. Edison was fortunate in
      securing the legal assistance of Sir Richard Webster, afterward Lord Chief
      Justice of England, so in America it counted greatly in his favor to enjoy
      the advocacy of such a man as Lowrey, prominent among the famous leaders
      of the New York bar. Born in Massachusetts, Mr. Lowrey, in his earlier
      days of straitened circumstances, was accustomed to defray some portion of
      his educational expenses by teaching music in the Berkshire villages, and
      by a curious coincidence one of his pupils was F. L. Pope, later Edison's
      partner for a time. Lowrey went West to "Bleeding Kansas" with the first
      Governor, Reeder, and both were active participants in the exciting scenes
      of the "Free State" war until driven away in 1856, like many other
      free-soilers, by the acts of the "Border Ruffian" legislature. Returning
      East, Mr. Lowrey took up practice in New York, soon becoming eminent in
      his profession, and upon the accession of William Orton to the presidency
      of the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1866, he was appointed its
      general counsel, the duties of which post he discharged for fifteen years.
      One of the great cases in which he thus took a leading and distinguished
      part was that of the quadruplex telegraph; and later he acted as legal
      adviser to Henry Villard in his numerous grandiose enterprises. Lowrey
      thus came to know Edison, to conceive an intense admiration for him, and
      to believe in his ability at a time when others could not detect the fire
      of genius smouldering beneath the modest exterior of a gaunt young
      operator slowly "finding himself." It will be seen that Mr Lowrey was in a
      peculiarly advantageous position to make his convictions about Edison
      felt, so that it was he and his friends who rallied quickly to the new
      banner of discovery, and lent to the inventor the aid that came at a
      critical period. In this connection it may be well to quote an article
      that appeared at the time of Mr. Lowrey's death, in 1893: "One of the most
      important services which Mr. Lowrey has ever performed was in furnishing
      and procuring the necessary financial backing for Thomas A. Edison in
      bringing out and perfecting his system of incandescent lighting. With
      characteristic pertinacity, Mr. Lowrey stood by the inventor through thick
      and thin, in spite of doubt, discouragement, and ridicule, until at last
      success crowned his efforts. In all the litigation which has resulted from
      the wide-spread infringements of the Edison patents, Mr. Lowrey has ever
      borne the burden and heat of the day, and perhaps in no other field has he
      so personally distinguished himself as in the successful advocacy of the
      claims of Edison to the invention of the incandescent lamp and everything
      'hereunto pertaining.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      This was the man of whom Edison had necessarily to make a confidant and
      adviser, and who supplied other things besides the legal direction and
      financial alliance, by his knowledge of the world and of affairs. There
      were many vital things to be done in the exploitation of the system that
      Edison simply could not and would not do; but in Lowrey's savoir faire,
      ready wit and humor, chivalry of devotion, graceful eloquence, and
      admirable equipoise of judgment were all the qualities that the occasion
      demanded and that met the exigencies.
    </p>
    <p>
      We are indebted to Mr. Insull for a graphic sketch of Edison at this
      period, and of the conditions under which work was done and progress was
      made: "I do not think I had any understanding with Edison when I first
      went with him as to my duties. I did whatever he told me, and looked after
      all kinds of affairs, from buying his clothes to financing his business. I
      used to open the correspondence and answer it all, sometimes signing
      Edison's name with my initial, and sometimes signing my own name. If the
      latter course was pursued, and I was addressing a stranger, I would sign
      as Edison's private secretary. I held his power of attorney, and signed
      his checks. It was seldom that Edison signed a letter or check at this
      time. If he wanted personally to send a communication to anybody, if it
      was one of his close associates, it would probably be a pencil memorandum
      signed 'Edison.' I was a shorthand writer, but seldom took down from
      Edison's dictation, unless it was on some technical subject that I did not
      understand. I would go over the correspondence with Edison, sometimes
      making a marginal note in shorthand, and sometimes Edison would make his
      own notes on letters, and I would be expected to clean up the
      correspondence with Edison's laconic comments as a guide as to the
      character of answer to make. It was a very common thing for Edison to
      write the words 'Yes' or 'No,' and this would be all I had on which to
      base my answer. Edison marginalized documents extensively. He had a
      wonderful ability in pointing out the weak points of an agreement or a
      balance-sheet, all the while protesting he was no lawyer or accountant;
      and his views were expressed in very few words, but in a characteristic
      and emphatic manner.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The first few months I was with Edison he spent most of the time in the
      office at 65 Fifth Avenue. Then there was a great deal of trouble with the
      life of the lamps there, and he disappeared from the office and spent his
      time largely at Menlo Park. At another time there was a great deal of
      trouble with some of the details of construction of the dynamos, and
      Edison spent a lot of time at Goerck Street, which had been rapidly
      equipped with the idea of turning out bi-polar dynamo-electric machines,
      direct-connected to the engine, the first of which went to Paris and
      London, while the next were installed in the old Pearl Street station of
      the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York, just south of Fulton
      Street, on the west side of the street. Edison devoted a great deal of his
      time to the engineering work in connection with the laying out of the
      first incandescent electric-lighting system in New York. Apparently at
      that time&mdash;between the end of 1881 and spring of 1882&mdash;the most
      serious work was the manufacture and installation of underground
      conductors in this territory. These conductors were manufactured by the
      Electric Tube Company, which Edison controlled in a shop at 65 Washington
      Street, run by John Kruesi. Half-round copper conductors were used, kept
      in place relatively to each other and in the tube, first of all by a heavy
      piece of cardboard, and later on by a rope; and then put in a twenty-foot
      iron pipe; and a combination of asphaltum and linseed oil was forced into
      the pipe for the insulation. I remember as a coincidence that the building
      was only twenty feet wide. These lengths of conductors were twenty feet
      six inches long, as the half-round coppers extended three inches beyond
      the drag-ends of the lengths of pipe; and in one of the operations we used
      to take the length of tubing out of the window in order to turn it around.
      I was elected secretary of the Electric Tube Company, and was expected to
      look after its finance; and it was in this position that my long intimacy
      with John Kruesi started."
    </p>
    <p>
      At this juncture a large part of the correspondence referred very
      naturally to electric lighting, embodying requests for all kinds of
      information, catalogues, prices, terms, etc.; and all these letters were
      turned over to the lighting company by Edison for attention. The company
      was soon swamped with propositions for sale of territorial rights and with
      other negotiations, and some of these were accompanied by the offer of
      very large sums of money. It was the beginning of the electric-light furor
      which soon rose to sensational heights. Had the company accepted the cash
      offers from various localities, it could have gathered several millions of
      dollars at once into its treasury; but this was not at all in accord with
      Mr. Edison's idea, which was to prove by actual experience the commercial
      value of the system, and then to license central-station companies in
      large cities and towns, the parent company taking a percentage of their
      capital for the license under the Edison patents, and contracting also for
      the supply of apparatus, lamps, etc. This left the remainder of the
      country open for the cash sale of plants wherever requested. His counsels
      prevailed, and the wisdom of the policy adopted was seen in the swift
      establishment of Edison companies in centres of population both great and
      small, whose business has ever been a constant and growing source of
      income for the parent manufacturing interests.
    </p>
    <p>
      From first to last Edison has been an exponent and advocate of the
      central-station idea of distribution now so familiar to the public mind,
      but still very far from being carried out to its logical conclusion. In
      this instance, demands for isolated plants for lighting factories, mills,
      mines, hotels, etc., began to pour in, and something had to be done with
      them. This was a class of plant which the inquirers desired to purchase
      outright and operate themselves, usually because of remoteness from any
      possible source of general supply of current. It had not been Edison's
      intention to cater to this class of customer until his broad
      central-station plan had been worked out, and he has always discouraged
      the isolated plant within the limits of urban circuits; but this demand
      was so insistent it could not be denied, and it was deemed desirable to
      comply with it at once, especially as it was seen that the steady call for
      supplies and renewals would benefit the new Edison manufacturing plants.
      After a very short trial, it was found necessary to create a separate
      organization for this branch of the industry, leaving the Edison Electric
      Light Company to continue under the original plan of operation as a
      parent, patent-holding and licensing company. Accordingly a new and
      distinct corporation was formed called the Edison Company for Isolated
      Lighting, to which was issued a special license to sell and operate plants
      of a self-contained character. As a matter of fact such work began in
      advance of almost every other kind. A small plant using the paper-carbon
      filament lamps was furnished by Edison at the earnest solicitation of Mr.
      Henry Villard for the steamship Columbia, in 1879, and it is amusing to
      note that Mr. Upton carried the lamps himself to the ship, very tenderly
      and jealously, like fresh eggs, in a market-garden basket. The
      installation was most successful. Another pioneer plant was that equipped
      and started in January, 1881, for Hinds &amp; Ketcham, a New York firm of
      lithographers and color printers, who had previously been able to work
      only by day, owing to difficulties in color-printing by artificial light.
      A year later they said: "It is the best substitute for daylight we have
      ever known, and almost as cheap."
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Edison himself describes various instances in which the demand for
      isolated plants had to be met: "One night at '65,'" he says, "James Gordon
      Bennett came in. We were very anxious to get into a printing
      establishment. I had caused a printer's composing case to be set up with
      the idea that if we could get editors and publishers in to see it, we
      should show them the advantages of the electric light. So ultimately Mr.
      Bennett came, and after seeing the whole operation of everything, he
      ordered Mr. Howland, general manager of the Herald, to light the newspaper
      offices up at once with electricity."
    </p>
    <p>
      Another instance of the same kind deals with the introduction of the light
      for purely social purposes: "While at 65 Fifth Avenue," remarks Mr.
      Edison, "I got to know Christian Herter, then the largest decorator in the
      United States. He was a highly intellectual man, and I loved to talk to
      him. He was always railing against the rich people, for whom he did work,
      for their poor taste. One day Mr. W. H. Vanderbilt came to '65,' saw the
      light, and decided that he would have his new house lighted with it. This
      was one of the big 'box houses' on upper Fifth Avenue. He put the whole
      matter in the hands of his son-in-law, Mr. H. McK. Twombly, who was then
      in charge of the telephone department of the Western Union. Twombly closed
      the contract with us for a plant. Mr. Herter was doing the decoration, and
      it was extraordinarily fine. After a while we got the engines and boilers
      and wires all done, and the lights in position, before the house was quite
      finished, and thought we would have an exhibit of the light. About eight
      o'clock in the evening we lit up, and it was very good. Mr. Vanderbilt and
      his wife and some of his daughters came in, and were there a few minutes
      when a fire occurred. The large picture-gallery was lined with silk cloth
      interwoven with fine metallic thread. In some manner two wires had got
      crossed with this tinsel, which became red-hot, and the whole mass was
      soon afire. I knew what was the matter, and ordered them to run down and
      shut off. It had not burst into flame, and died out immediately. Mrs.
      Vanderbilt became hysterical, and wanted to know where it came from. We
      told her we had the plant in the cellar, and when she learned we had a
      boiler there she said she would not occupy the house. She would not live
      over a boiler. We had to take the whole installation out. The houses
      afterward went onto the New York Edison system."
    </p>
    <p>
      The art was, however, very crude and raw, and as there were no artisans in
      existence as mechanics or electricians who had any knowledge of the
      practice, there was inconceivable difficulty in getting such isolated
      plants installed, as well as wiring the buildings in the district to be
      covered by the first central station in New York. A night school was,
      therefore, founded at Fifth Avenue, and was put in charge of Mr. E. H.
      Johnson, fresh from his successes in England. The most available men for
      the purpose were, of course, those who had been accustomed to wiring for
      the simpler electrical systems then in vogue&mdash;telephones,
      district-messenger calls, burglar alarms, house annunciators, etc., and a
      number of these "wiremen" were engaged and instructed patiently in the
      rudiments of the new art by means of a blackboard and oral lessons.
      Students from the technical schools and colleges were also eager recruits,
      for here was something that promised a career, and one that was especially
      alluring to youth because of its novelty. These beginners were also
      instructed in general engineering problems under the guidance of Mr. C. L.
      Clarke, who was brought in from the Menlo Park laboratory to assume charge
      of the engineering part of the company's affairs. Many of these pioneer
      students and workmen became afterward large and successful contractors, or
      have filled positions of distinction as managers and superintendents of
      central stations. Possibly the electrical industry may not now attract as
      much adventurous genius as it did then, for automobiles, aeronautics, and
      other new arts have come to the front in a quarter of a century to enlist
      the enthusiasm of a younger generation of mercurial spirits; but it is
      certain that at the period of which we write, Edison himself, still under
      thirty-five, was the centre of an extraordinary group of men, full of
      effervescing and aspiring talent, to which he gave glorious opportunity.
    </p>
    <p>
      A very novel literary feature of the work was the issuance of a bulletin
      devoted entirely to the Edison lighting propaganda. Nowadays the "house
      organ," as it is called, has become a very hackneyed feature of industrial
      development, confusing in its variety and volume, and a somewhat doubtful
      adjunct to a highly perfected, widely circulating periodical technical
      press. But at that time, 1882, the Bulletin of the Edison Electric Light
      Company, published in ordinary 12mo form, was distinctly new in
      advertising and possibly unique, as it is difficult to find anything that
      compared with it. The Bulletin was carried on for some years, until its
      necessity was removed by the development of other opportunities for
      reaching the public; and its pages serve now as a vivid and lively picture
      of the period to which its record applies. The first issue, of January 12,
      1882, was only four pages, but it dealt with the question of insurance;
      plants at Santiago, Chili, and Rio de Janeiro; the European Company with
      3,500,000 francs subscribed; the work in Paris, London, Strasburg, and
      Moscow; the laying of over six miles of street mains in New York; a patent
      decision in favor of Edison; and the size of safety catch wire. By April
      of 1882, the Bulletin had attained the respectable size of sixteen pages;
      and in December it was a portly magazine of forty-eight. Every item bears
      testimony to the rapid progress being made; and by the end of 1882 it is
      seen that no fewer than 153 isolated Edison plants had been installed in
      the United States alone, with a capacity of 29,192 lamps. Moreover, the
      New York central station had gone into operation, starting at 3 P.M. on
      September 4, and at the close of 1882 it was lighting 225 houses wired for
      about 5000 lamps. This epochal story will be told in the next chapter.
      Most interesting are the Bulletin notes from England, especially in regard
      to the brilliant exhibition given by Mr. E. H. Johnson at the Crystal
      Palace, Sydenham, visited by the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, twice by
      the Dukes of Westminster and Sutherland, by three hundred members of the
      Gas Institute, and by innumerable delegations from cities, boroughs, etc.
      Describing this before the Royal Society of Arts, Sir W. H. Preece,
      F.R.S., remarked: "Many unkind things have been said of Mr. Edison and his
      promises; perhaps no one has been severer in this direction than myself.
      It is some gratification for me to announce my belief that he has at last
      solved the problem he set himself to solve, and to be able to describe to
      the Society the way in which he has solved it." Before the exhibition
      closed it was visited by the Prince and Princess of Wales&mdash;now the
      deceased Edward VII. and the Dowager Queen Alexandra&mdash;and the
      Princess received from Mr. Johnson as a souvenir a tiny electric
      chandelier fashioned like a bouquet of fern leaves and flowers, the buds
      being some of the first miniature incandescent lamps ever made.
    </p>
    <p>
      The first item in the first Bulletin dealt with the "Fire Question," and
      all through the successive issues runs a series of significant items on
      the same subject. Many of them are aimed at gas, and there are several
      grim summaries of death and fires due to gas-leaks or explosions. A
      tendency existed at the time to assume that electricity was altogether
      safe, while its opponents, predicating their attacks on arc-lighting
      casualties, insisted it was most dangerous. Edison's problem in educating
      the public was rather difficult, for while his low-pressure,
      direct-current system has always been absolutely without danger to life,
      there has also been the undeniable fact that escaping electricity might
      cause a fire just as a leaky water-pipe can flood a house. The important
      question had arisen, therefore, of satisfying the fire underwriters as to
      the safety of the system. He had foreseen that there would be an absolute
      necessity for special devices to prevent fires from occurring by reason of
      any excess of current flowing in any circuit; and several of his earliest
      detail lighting inventions deal with this subject. The insurance
      underwriters of New York and other parts of the country gave a great deal
      of time and study to the question through their most expert
      representatives, with the aid of Edison and his associates, other
      electric-light companies cooperating; and the knowledge thus gained was
      embodied in insurance rules to govern wiring for electric lights,
      formulated during the latter part of 1881, adopted by the New York Board
      of Fire Underwriters, January 12, 1882, and subsequently endorsed by other
      boards in the various insurance districts. Under temporary rulings,
      however, a vast amount of work had already been done, but it was obvious
      that as the industry grew there would be less and less possibility of
      supervision except through such regulations, insisting upon the use of the
      best devices and methods. Indeed, the direct superintendence soon became
      unnecessary, owing to the increasing knowledge and greater skill acquired
      by the installing staff; and this system of education was notably improved
      by a manual written by Mr. Edison himself. Copies of this brochure are as
      scarce to-day as First Folio Shakespeares, and command prices equal to
      those of other American first editions. The little book is the only known
      incursion of its author into literature, if we except the brief articles
      he has written for technical papers and for the magazines. It contained
      what was at once a full, elaborate, and terse explanation of a complete
      isolated plant, with diagrams of various methods of connection and
      operation, and a carefully detailed description of every individual part,
      its functions and its characteristics. The remarkable success of those
      early years was indeed only achieved by following up with Chinese
      exactness the minute and intimate methods insisted upon by Edison as to
      the use of the apparatus and devices employed. It was a curious example of
      establishing standard practice while changing with kaleidoscopic rapidity
      all the elements involved. He was true to an ideal as to the pole-star,
      but was incessantly making improvements in every direction. With an
      iconoclasm that has often seemed ruthless and brutal he did not hesitate
      to sacrifice older devices the moment a new one came in sight that
      embodied a real advance in securing effective results. The process is
      heroic but costly. Nobody ever had a bigger scrap-heap than Edison; but
      who dare proclaim the process intrinsically wasteful if the losses occur
      in the initial stages, and the economies in all the later ones?
    </p>
    <p>
      With Edison in this introduction of his lighting system the method was
      ruthless, but not reckless. At an early stage of the commercial
      development a standardizing committee was formed, consisting of the heads
      of all the departments, and to this body was intrusted the task of testing
      and criticising all existing and proposed devices, as well as of
      considering the suggestions and complaints of workmen offered from time to
      time. This procedure was fruitful in two principal results&mdash;the
      education of the whole executive force in the technical details of the
      system; and a constant improvement in the quality of the Edison
      installations; both contributing to the rapid growth of the industry.
    </p>
    <p>
      For many years Goerck Street played an important part in Edison's affairs,
      being the centre of all his manufacture of heavy machinery. But it was not
      in a desirable neighborhood, and owing to the rapid growth of the business
      soon became disadvantageous for other reasons. Edison tells of his
      frequent visits to the shops at night, with the escort of "Jim" Russell, a
      well-known detective, who knew all the denizens of the place: "We used to
      go out at night to a little, low place, an all-night house&mdash;eight
      feet wide and twenty-two feet long&mdash;where we got a lunch at two or
      three o'clock in the morning. It was the toughest kind of restaurant ever
      seen. For the clam chowder they used the same four clams during the whole
      season, and the average number of flies per pie was seven. This was by
      actual count."
    </p>
    <p>
      As to the shops and the locality: "The street was lined with rather old
      buildings and poor tenements. We had not much frontage. As our business
      increased enormously, our quarters became too small, so we saw the
      district Tammany leader and asked him if we could not store castings and
      other things on the sidewalk. He gave us permission&mdash;told us to go
      ahead, and he would see it was all right. The only thing he required for
      this was that when a man was sent with a note from him asking us to give
      him a job, he was to be put on. We had a hand-laborer foreman&mdash;'Big
      Jim'&mdash;a very powerful Irishman, who could lift above half a ton. When
      one of the Tammany aspirants appeared, he was told to go right to work at
      $1.50 per day. The next day he was told off to lift a certain piece, and
      if the man could not lift it he was discharged. That made the Tammany man
      all safe. Jim could pick the piece up easily. The other man could not, and
      so we let him out. Finally the Tammany leader called a halt, as we were
      running big engine lathes out on the sidewalk, and he was afraid we were
      carrying it a little too far. The lathes were worked right out in the
      street, and belted through the windows of the shop."
    </p>
    <p>
      At last it became necessary to move from Goerck Street, and Mr. Edison
      gives a very interesting account of the incidents in connection with the
      transfer of the plant to Schenectady, New York: "After our works at Goerck
      Street got too small, we had labor troubles also. It seems I had rather a
      socialistic strain in me, and I raised the pay of the workmen twenty-five
      cents an hour above the prevailing rate of wages, whereupon Hoe &amp;
      Company, our near neighbors, complained at our doing this. I said I
      thought it was all right. But the men, having got a little more wages,
      thought they would try coercion and get a little more, as we were
      considered soft marks. Whereupon they struck at a time that was critical.
      However, we were short of money for pay-rolls; and we concluded it might
      not be so bad after all, as it would give us a couple of weeks to catch
      up. So when the men went out they appointed a committee to meet us; but
      for two weeks they could not find us, so they became somewhat more anxious
      than we were. Finally they said they would like to go back. We said all
      right, and back they went. It was quite a novelty to the men not to be
      able to find us when they wanted to; and they didn't relish it at all.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What with these troubles and the lack of room, we decided to find a
      factory elsewhere, and decided to try the locomotive works up at
      Schenectady. It seems that the people there had had a falling out among
      themselves, and one of the directors had started opposition works; but
      before he had completed all the buildings and put in machinery some
      compromise was made, and the works were for sale. We bought them very
      reasonably and moved everything there. These works were owned by me and my
      assistants until sold to the Edison General Electric Company. At one time
      we employed several thousand men; and since then the works have been
      greatly expanded.
    </p>
    <p>
      "At these new works our orders were far in excess of our capital to handle
      the business, and both Mr. Insull and I were afraid we might get into
      trouble for lack of money. Mr. Insull was then my business manager,
      running the whole thing; and, therefore, when Mr. Henry Villard and his
      syndicate offered to buy us out, we concluded it was better to be sure
      than be sorry; so we sold out for a large sum. Villard was a very
      aggressive man with big ideas, but I could never quite understand him. He
      had no sense of humor. I remember one time we were going up on the Hudson
      River boat to inspect the works, and with us was Mr. Henderson, our chief
      engineer, who was certainly the best raconteur of funny stories I ever
      knew. We sat at the tail-end of the boat, and he started in to tell funny
      stories. Villard could not see a single point, and scarcely laughed at
      all; and Henderson became so disconcerted he had to give it up. It was the
      same way with Gould. In the early telegraph days I remember going with him
      to see Mackay in 'The Impecunious Country Editor.' It was very funny, full
      of amusing and absurd situations; but Gould never smiled once."
    </p>
    <p>
      The formation of the Edison General Electric Company involved the
      consolidation of the immediate Edison manufacturing interests in electric
      light and power, with a capitalization of $12,000,000, now a relatively
      modest sum; but in those days the amount was large, and the combination
      caused a great deal of newspaper comment as to such a coinage of brain
      power. The next step came with the creation of the great General Electric
      Company of to-day, a combination of the Edison, Thomson-Houston, and Brush
      lighting interests in manufacture, which to this day maintains the
      ever-growing plants at Harrison, Lynn, and Schenectady, and there employs
      from twenty to twenty-five thousand people.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XVI
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE FIRST EDISON CENTRAL STATION
    </h3>
    <p>
      A NOTED inventor once said at the end of a lifetime of fighting to defend
      his rights, that he found there were three stages in all great inventions:
      the first, in which people said the thing could not be done; the second,
      in which they said anybody could do it; and the third, in which they said
      it had always been done by everybody. In his central-station work Edison
      has had very much this kind of experience; for while many of his opponents
      came to acknowledge the novelty and utility of his plans, and gave him
      unstinted praise, there are doubtless others who to this day profess to
      look upon him merely as an adapter. How different the view of so eminent a
      scientist as Lord Kelvin was, may be appreciated from his remark when in
      later years, in reply to the question why some one else did not invent so
      obvious and simple a thing as the Feeder System, he said: "The only answer
      I can think of is that no one else was Edison."
    </p>
    <p>
      Undaunted by the attitude of doubt and the predictions of impossibility,
      Edison had pushed on until he was now able to realize all his ideas as to
      the establishment of a central station in the work that culminated in New
      York City in 1882. After he had conceived the broad plan, his ambition was
      to create the initial plant on Manhattan Island, where it would be
      convenient of access for watching its operation, and where the
      demonstration of its practicability would have influence in financial
      circles. The first intention was to cover a district extending from Canal
      Street on the north to Wall Street on the south; but Edison soon realized
      that this territory was too extensive for the initial experiment, and he
      decided finally upon the district included between Wall, Nassau, Spruce,
      and Ferry streets, Peck Slip and the East River, an area nearly a square
      mile in extent. One of the preliminary steps taken to enable him to figure
      on such a station and system was to have men go through this district on
      various days and note the number of gas jets burning at each hour up to
      two or three o'clock in the morning. The next step was to divide the
      region into a number of sub-districts and institute a house-to-house
      canvass to ascertain precisely the data and conditions pertinent to the
      project. When the canvass was over, Edison knew exactly how many gas jets
      there were in every building in the entire district, the average hours of
      burning, and the cost of light; also every consumer of power, and the
      quantity used; every hoistway to which an electric motor could be applied;
      and other details too numerous to mention, such as related to the gas
      itself, the satisfaction of the customers, and the limitations of day and
      night demand. All this information was embodied graphically in large maps
      of the district, by annotations in colored inks; and Edison thus could
      study the question with every detail before him. Such a reconnaissance,
      like that of a coming field of battle, was invaluable, and may help give a
      further idea of the man's inveterate care for the minutiae of things.
    </p>
    <p>
      The laboratory note-books of this period&mdash;1878-80, more particularly&mdash;show
      an immense amount of calculation by Edison and his chief mathematician,
      Mr. Upton, on conductors for the distribution of current over large areas,
      and then later in the district described. With the results of this canvass
      before them, the sizes of the main conductors to be laid throughout the
      streets of this entire territory were figured, block by block; and the
      results were then placed on the map. These data revealed the fact that the
      quantity of copper required for the main conductors would be exceedingly
      large and costly; and, if ever, Edison was somewhat dismayed. But as usual
      this apparently insurmountable difficulty only spurred him on to further
      effort. It was but a short time thereafter that he solved the knotty
      problem by an invention mentioned in a previous chapter. This is known as
      the "feeder and main" system, for which he signed the application for a
      patent on August 4, 1880. As this invention effected a saving of
      seven-eighths of the cost of the chief conductors in a straight multiple
      arc system, the mains for the first district were refigured, and enormous
      new maps were made, which became the final basis of actual installation,
      as they were subsequently enlarged by the addition of every proposed
      junction-box, bridge safety-catch box, and street-intersection box in the
      whole area.
    </p>
    <p>
      When this patent, after protracted fighting, was sustained by Judge Green
      in 1893, the Electrical Engineer remarked that the General Electric
      Company "must certainly feel elated" because of its importance; and the
      journal expressed its fear that although the specifications and claims
      related only to the maintenance of uniform pressure of current on lighting
      circuits, the owners might naturally seek to apply it also to feeders used
      in the electric-railway work already so extensive. At this time, however,
      the patent had only about a year of life left, owing to the expiration of
      the corresponding English patent. The fact that thirteen years had elapsed
      gives a vivid idea of the ordeal involved in sustaining a patent and the
      injustice to the inventor, while there is obviously hardship to those who
      cannot tell from any decision of the court whether they are infringing or
      not. It is interesting to note that the preparation for hearing this case
      in New Jersey was accompanied by models to show the court exactly the
      method and its economy, as worked out in comparison with what is known as
      the "tree system" of circuits&mdash;the older alternative way of doing it.
      As a basis of comparison, a district of thirty-six city blocks in the form
      of a square was assumed. The power station was placed at the centre of the
      square; each block had sixteen consumers using fifteen lights each.
      Conductors were run from the station to supply each of the four quarters
      of the district with light. In one example the "feeder" system was used;
      in the other the "tree." With these models were shown two cubes which
      represented one one-hundredth of the actual quantity of copper required
      for each quarter of the district by the two-wire tree system as compared
      with the feeder system under like conditions. The total weight of copper
      for the four quarter districts by the tree system was 803,250 pounds, but
      when the feeder system was used it was only 128,739 pounds! This was a
      reduction from $23.24 per lamp for copper to $3.72 per lamp. Other models
      emphasized this extraordinary contrast. At the time Edison was doing this
      work on economizing in conductors, much of the criticism against him was
      based on the assumed extravagant use of copper implied in the obvious
      "tree" system, and it was very naturally said that there was not enough
      copper in the world to supply his demands. It is true that the modern
      electrical arts have been a great stimulator of copper production, now
      taking a quarter of all made; yet evidently but for such inventions as
      this such arts could not have come into existence at all, or else in
      growing up they would have forced copper to starvation prices. [11]
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 11: For description of feeder patent see
     Appendix.]
</pre>
    <p>
      It should be borne in mind that from the outset Edison had determined upon
      installing underground conductors as the only permanent and satisfactory
      method for the distribution of current from central stations in cities;
      and that at Menlo Park he laid out and operated such a system with about
      four hundred and twenty-five lamps. The underground system there was
      limited to the immediate vicinity of the laboratory and was somewhat
      crude, as well as much less complicated than would be the network of over
      eighty thousand lineal feet, which he calculated to be required for the
      underground circuits in the first district of New York City. At Menlo Park
      no effort was made for permanency; no provision was needed in regard to
      occasional openings of the street for various purposes; no new customers
      were to be connected from time to time to the mains, and no repairs were
      within contemplation. In New York the question of permanency was of
      paramount importance, and the other contingencies were sure to arise as
      well as conditions more easy to imagine than to forestall. These problems
      were all attacked in a resolute, thoroughgoing manner, and one by one
      solved by the invention of new and unprecedented devices that were
      adequate for the purposes of the time, and which are embodied in apparatus
      of slight modification in use up to the present day.
    </p>
    <p>
      Just what all this means it is hard for the present generation to imagine.
      New York and all the other great cities in 1882, and for some years
      thereafter, were burdened and darkened by hideous masses of overhead wires
      carried on ugly wooden poles along all the main thoroughfares. One after
      another rival telegraph and telephone, stock ticker, burglar-alarm, and
      other companies had strung their circuits without any supervision or
      restriction; and these wires in all conditions of sag or decay ramified
      and crisscrossed in every direction, often hanging broken and loose-ended
      for months, there being no official compulsion to remove any dead wire.
      None of these circuits carried dangerous currents; but the introduction of
      the arc light brought an entirely new menace in the use of pressures that
      were even worse than the bully of the West who "kills on sight," because
      this kindred peril was invisible, and might lurk anywhere. New poles were
      put up, and the lighting circuits on them, with but a slight insulation of
      cotton impregnated with some "weather-proof" compound, straggled all over
      the city exposed to wind and rain and accidental contact with other wires,
      or with the metal of buildings. So many fatalities occurred that the
      insulated wire used, called "underwriters," because approved by the
      insurance bodies, became jocularly known as "undertakers," and efforts
      were made to improve its protective qualities. Then came the overhead
      circuits for distributing electrical energy to motors for operating
      elevators, driving machinery, etc., and these, while using a lower, safer
      potential, were proportionately larger. There were no wires underground.
      Morse had tried that at the very beginning of electrical application, in
      telegraphy, and all agreed that renewals of the experiment were at once
      costly and foolish. At last, in cities like New York, what may be styled
      generically the "overhead system" of wires broke down under its own
      weight; and various methods of underground conductors were tried, hastened
      in many places by the chopping down of poles and wires as the result of
      some accident that stirred the public indignation. One typical tragic
      scene was that in New York, where, within sight of the City Hall, a
      lineman was killed at his work on the arc light pole, and his body slowly
      roasted before the gaze of the excited populace, which for days afterward
      dropped its silver and copper coin into the alms-box nailed to the fatal
      pole for the benefit of his family. Out of all this in New York came a
      board of electrical control, a conduit system, and in the final analysis
      the Public Service Commission, that is credited to Governor Hughes as the
      furthest development of utility corporation control.
    </p>
    <p>
      The "road to yesterday" back to Edison and his insistence on underground
      wires is a long one, but the preceding paragraph traces it. Even admitting
      that the size and weight of his low-tension conductors necessitated
      putting them underground, this argues nothing against the propriety and
      sanity of his methods. He believed deeply and firmly in the analogy
      between electrical supply and that for water and gas, and pointed to the
      trite fact that nobody hoisted the water and gas mains into the air on
      stilts, and that none of the pressures were inimical to human safety. The
      arc-lighting methods were unconsciously and unwittingly prophetic of the
      latter-day long-distance transmissions at high pressure that,
      electrically, have placed the energy of Niagara at the command of Syracuse
      and Utica, and have put the power of the falling waters of the Sierras at
      the disposal of San Francisco, two hundred miles away. But within city
      limits overhead wires, with such space-consuming potentials, are as
      fraught with mischievous peril to the public as the dynamite stored by a
      nonchalant contractor in the cellar of a schoolhouse. As an offset, then,
      to any tendency to depreciate the intrinsic value of Edison's lighting
      work, let the claim be here set forth modestly and subject to
      interference, that he was the father of underground wires in America, and
      by his example outlined the policy now dominant in every city of the first
      rank. Even the comment of a cynic in regard to electrical development may
      be accepted: "Some electrical companies wanted all the air; others
      apparently had use for all the water; Edison only asked for the earth."
    </p>
    <p>
      The late Jacob Hess, a famous New York Republican politician, was a member
      of the commission appointed to put the wires underground in New York City,
      in the "eighties." He stated that when the commission was struggling with
      the problem, and examining all kinds of devices and plans, patented and
      unpatented, for which fabulous sums were often asked, the body turned to
      Edison in its perplexity and asked for advice. Edison said: "All you have
      to do, gentlemen, is to insulate your wires, draw them through the
      cheapest thing on earth&mdash;iron pipe&mdash;run your pipes through
      channels or galleries under the street, and you've got the whole thing
      done." This was practically the system adopted and in use to this day.
      What puzzled the old politician was that Edison would accept nothing for
      his advice.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another story may also be interpolated here as to the underground work
      done in New York for the first Edison station. It refers to the "man
      higher up," although the phrase had not been coined in those days of lower
      public morality. That a corporation should be "held up" was accepted
      philosophically by the corporation as one of the unavoidable incidents of
      its business; and if the corporation "got back" by securing some privilege
      without paying for it, the public was ready to condone if not applaud.
      Public utilities were in the making, and no one in particular had a keen
      sense of what was right or what was wrong, in the hard, practical details
      of their development. Edison tells this illuminating story: "When I was
      laying tubes in the streets of New York, the office received notice from
      the Commissioner of Public Works to appear at his office at a certain
      hour. I went up there with a gentleman to see the Commissioner, H. O.
      Thompson. On arrival he said to me: 'You are putting down these tubes. The
      Department of Public Works requires that you should have five inspectors
      to look after this work, and that their salary shall be $5 per day,
      payable at the end of each week. Good-morning.' I went out very much
      crestfallen, thinking I would be delayed and harassed in the work which I
      was anxious to finish, and was doing night and day. We watched patiently
      for those inspectors to appear. The only appearance they made was to draw
      their pay Saturday afternoon."
    </p>
    <p>
      Just before Christmas in 1880&mdash;December 17&mdash;as an item for the
      silk stocking of Father Knickerbocker&mdash;the Edison Electric
      Illuminating Company of New York was organized. In pursuance of the policy
      adhered to by Edison, a license was issued to it for the exclusive use of
      the system in that territory&mdash;Manhattan Island&mdash;in consideration
      of a certain sum of money and a fixed percentage of its capital in stock
      for the patent rights. Early in 1881 it was altogether a paper enterprise,
      but events moved swiftly as narrated already, and on June 25, 1881, the
      first "Jumbo" prototype of the dynamo-electric machines to generate
      current at the Pearl Street station was put through its paces before being
      shipped to Paris to furnish new sensations to the flaneur of the
      boulevards. A number of the Edison officers and employees assembled at
      Goerck Street to see this "gigantic" machine go into action, and watched
      its performance with due reverence all through the night until five
      o'clock on Sunday morning, when it respected the conventionalities by
      breaking a shaft and suspending further tests. After this dynamo was
      shipped to France, and its successors to England for the Holborn Viaduct
      plant, Edison made still further improvements in design, increasing
      capacity and economy, and then proceeded vigorously with six machines for
      Pearl Street.
    </p>
    <p>
      An ideal location for any central station is at the very centre of the
      district served. It may be questioned whether it often goes there. In the
      New York first district the nearest property available was a double
      building at Nos. 255 and 257 Pearl Street, occupying a lot so by 100 feet.
      It was four stories high, with a fire-wall dividing it into two equal
      parts. One of these parts was converted for the uses of the station
      proper, and the other was used as a tube-shop by the underground
      construction department, as well as for repair-shops, storage, etc. Those
      were the days when no one built a new edifice for station purposes; that
      would have been deemed a fantastic extravagance. One early station in New
      York for arc lighting was an old soap-works whose well-soaked floors did
      not need much additional grease to render them choice fuel for the
      inevitable flames. In this Pearl Street instance, the building, erected
      originally for commercial uses, was quite incapable of sustaining the
      weight of the heavy dynamos and steam-engines to be installed on the
      second floor; so the old flooring was torn out and a new one of heavy
      girders supported by stiff columns was substituted. This heavy
      construction, more familiar nowadays, and not unlike the supporting metal
      structure of the Manhattan Elevated road, was erected independent of the
      enclosing walls, and occupied the full width of 257 Pearl Street, and
      about three-quarters of its depth. This change in the internal
      arrangements did not at all affect the ugly external appearance, which did
      little to suggest the stately and ornate stations since put up by the New
      York Edison Company, the latest occupying whole city blocks.
    </p>
    <p>
      Of this episode Edison gives the following account: "While planning for my
      first New York station&mdash;Pearl Street&mdash;of course, I had no real
      estate, and from lack of experience had very little knowledge of its cost
      in New York; so I assumed a rather large, liberal amount of it to plan my
      station on. It occurred to me one day that before I went too far with my
      plans I had better find out what real estate was worth. In my original
      plan I had 200 by 200 feet. I thought that by going down on a slum street
      near the water-front I would get some pretty cheap property. So I picked
      out the worst dilapidated street there was, and found I could only get two
      buildings, each 25 feet front, one 100 feet deep and the other 85 feet
      deep. I thought about $10,000 each would cover it; but when I got the
      price I found that they wanted $75,000 for one and $80,000 for the other.
      Then I was compelled to change my plans and go upward in the air where
      real estate was cheap. I cleared out the building entirely to the walls
      and built my station of structural ironwork, running it up high."
    </p>
    <p>
      Into this converted structure was put the most complete steam plant
      obtainable, together with all the mechanical and engineering adjuncts
      bearing upon economical and successful operation. Being in a narrow street
      and a congested district, the plant needed special facilities for the
      handling of coal and ashes, as well as for ventilation and forced draught.
      All of these details received Mr. Edison's personal care and consideration
      on the spot, in addition to the multitude of other affairs demanding his
      thought. Although not a steam or mechanical engineer, his quick grasp of
      principles and omnivorous reading had soon supplied the lack of training;
      nor had he forgotten the practical experience picked up as a boy on the
      locomotives of the Grand Trunk road. It is to be noticed as a feature of
      the plant, in common with many of later construction, that it was placed
      well away from the water's edge, and equipped with non-condensing engines;
      whereas the modern plant invariably seeks the bank of a river or lake for
      the purpose of a generous supply of water for its condensing engines or
      steam-turbines. These are among the refinements of practice coincidental
      with the advance of the art.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the award of the John Fritz gold medal in April, 1909, to Charles T.
      Porter for his work in advancing the knowledge of steam-engineering, and
      for improvements in engine construction, Mr. Frank J. Sprague spoke on
      behalf of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers of the debt of
      electricity to the high-speed steam-engine. He recalled the fact that at
      the French Exposition of 1867 Mr. Porter installed two Porter-Allen
      engines to drive electric alternating-current generators for supplying
      current to primitive lighthouse apparatus. While the engines were not
      directly coupled to the dynamos, it was a curious fact that the piston
      speeds and number of revolutions were what is common to-day in isolated
      direct-coupled plants. In the dozen years following Mr. Porter built many
      engines with certain common characteristics&mdash;i.e., high piston speed
      and revolutions, solid engine bed, and babbitt-metal bearings; but there
      was no electric driving until 1880, when Mr. Porter installed a high-speed
      engine for Edison at his laboratory in Menlo Park. Shortly after this he
      was invited to construct for the Edison Pearl Street station the first of
      a series of engines for so-called "steam-dynamos," each independently
      driven by a direct-coupled engine. Mr. Sprague compared the relations thus
      established between electricity and the high-speed engine not to those of
      debtor and creditor, but rather to those of partners&mdash;an industrial
      marriage&mdash;one of the most important in the engineering world. Here
      were two machines destined to be joined together, economizing space,
      enhancing economy, augmenting capacity, reducing investment, and
      increasing dividends.
    </p>
    <p>
      While rapid progress was being made in this and other directions, the
      wheels of industry were humming merrily at the Edison Tube Works, for over
      fifteen miles of tube conductors were required for the district, besides
      the boxes to connect the network at the street intersections, and the
      hundreds of junction boxes for taking the service conductors into each of
      the hundreds of buildings. In addition to the immense amount of money
      involved, this specialized industry required an enormous amount of
      experiment, as it called for the development of an entirely new art. But
      with Edison's inventive fertility&mdash;if ever there was a
      cross-fertilizer of mechanical ideas it is he&mdash;and with Mr. Kruesi's
      never-failing patience and perseverance applied to experiment and
      evolution, rapid progress was made. A franchise having been obtained from
      the city, the work of laying the underground conductors began in the late
      fall of 1881, and was pushed with almost frantic energy. It is not to be
      supposed, however, that the Edison tube system had then reached a finality
      of perfection in the eyes of its inventor. In his correspondence with
      Kruesi, as late as 1887, we find Edison bewailing the inadequacy of the
      insulation of the conductors under twelve hundred volts pressure, as for
      example: "Dear Kruesi,&mdash;There is nothing wrong with your present
      compound. It is splendid. The whole trouble is air-bubbles. The hotter it
      is poured the greater the amount of air-bubbles. At 212 it can be put on
      rods and there is no bubble. I have a man experimenting and testing all
      the time. Until I get at the proper method of pouring and getting rid of
      the air-bubbles, it will be waste of time to experiment with other
      asphalts. Resin oil distils off easily. It may answer, but paraffine or
      other similar substances must be put in to prevent brittleness, One thing
      is certain, and that is, everything must be poured in layers, not only the
      boxes, but the tubes. The tube itself should have a thin coating. The rope
      should also have a coating. The rods also. The whole lot, rods and rope,
      when ready for tube, should have another coat, and then be placed in tube
      and filled. This will do the business." Broad and large as a continent in
      his ideas, if ever there was a man of finical fussiness in attention to
      detail, it is Edison. A letter of seven pages of about the same date in
      1887 expatiates on the vicious troubles caused by the air-bubble, and
      remarks with fine insight into the problems of insulation and the idea of
      layers of it: "Thus you have three separate coatings, and it is impossible
      an air-hole in one should match the other."
    </p>
    <p>
      To a man less thorough and empirical in method than Edison, it would have
      been sufficient to have made his plans clear to associates or subordinates
      and hold them responsible for accurate results. No such vicarious
      treatment would suit him, ready as he has always been to share the work
      where he could give his trust. In fact he realized, as no one else did at
      this stage, the tremendous import of this novel and comprehensive scheme
      for giving the world light; and he would not let go, even if busy to the
      breaking-point. Though plunged in a veritable maelstrom of new and
      important business interests, and though applying for no fewer than
      eighty-nine patents in 1881, all of which were granted, he superintended
      on the spot all this laying of underground conductors for the first
      district. Nor did he merely stand around and give orders. Day and night he
      actually worked in the trenches with the laborers, amid the dirt and
      paving-stones and hurry-burly of traffic, helping to lay the tubes,
      filling up junction-boxes, and taking part in all the infinite detail. He
      wanted to know for himself how things went, why for some occult reason a
      little change was necessary, what improvement could be made in the
      material. His hours of work were not regulated by the clock, but lasted
      until he felt the need of a little rest. Then he would go off to the
      station building in Pearl Street, throw an overcoat on a pile of tubes,
      lie down and sleep for a few hours, rising to resume work with the first
      gang. There was a small bedroom on the third floor of the station
      available for him, but going to bed meant delay and consumed time. It is
      no wonder that such impatience, such an enthusiasm, drove the work forward
      at a headlong pace.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison says of this period: "When we put down the tubes in the lower part
      of New York, in the streets, we kept a big stock of them in the cellar of
      the station at Pearl Street. As I was on all the time, I would take a nap
      of an hour or so in the daytime&mdash;any time&mdash;and I used to sleep
      on those tubes in the cellar. I had two Germans who were testing there,
      and both of them died of diphtheria, caught in the cellar, which was cold
      and damp. It never affected me."
    </p>
    <p>
      It is worth pausing just a moment to glance at this man taking a fitful
      rest on a pile of iron pipe in a dingy building. His name is on the tip of
      the world's tongue. Distinguished scientists from every part of Europe
      seek him eagerly. He has just been decorated and awarded high honors by
      the French Government. He is the inventor of wonderful new apparatus, and
      the exploiter of novel and successful arts. The magic of his achievements
      and the rumors of what is being done have caused a wild drop in gas
      securities, and a sensational rise in his own electric-light stock from
      $100 to $3500 a share. Yet these things do not at all affect his slumber
      or his democratic simplicity, for in that, as in everything else, he is
      attending strictly to business, "doing the thing that is next to him."
    </p>
    <p>
      Part of the rush and feverish haste was due to the approach of frost,
      which, as usual in New York, suspended operations in the earth; but the
      laying of the conductors was resumed promptly in the spring of 1882; and
      meantime other work had been advanced. During the fall and winter months
      two more "Jumbo" dynamos were built and sent to London, after which the
      construction of six for New York was swiftly taken in hand. In the month
      of May three of these machines, each with a capacity of twelve hundred
      incandescent lamps, were delivered at Pearl Street and assembled on the
      second floor. On July 5th&mdash;owing to the better opportunity for
      ceaseless toil given by a public holiday&mdash;the construction of the
      operative part of the station was so far completed that the first of the
      dynamos was operated under steam; so that three days later the
      satisfactory experiment was made of throwing its flood of electrical
      energy into a bank of one thousand lamps on an upper floor. Other tests
      followed in due course. All was excitement. The field-regulating apparatus
      and the electrical-pressure indicator&mdash;first of its kind&mdash;were
      also tested, and in turn found satisfactory. Another vital test was made
      at this time&mdash;namely, of the strength of the iron structure itself on
      which the plant was erected. This was done by two structural experts; and
      not till he got their report as to ample factors of safety was Edison
      reassured as to this detail.
    </p>
    <p>
      A remark of Edison, familiar to all who have worked with him, when it is
      reported to him that something new goes all right and is satisfactory from
      all points of view, is: "Well, boys, now let's find the bugs," and the
      hunt for the phylloxera begins with fiendish, remorseless zest. Before
      starting the plant for regular commercial service, he began personally a
      series of practical experiments and tests to ascertain in advance what
      difficulties would actually arise in practice, so that he could provide
      remedies or preventives. He had several cots placed in the adjoining
      building, and he and a few of his most strenuous assistants worked day and
      night, leaving the work only for hurried meals and a snatch of sleep.
      These crucial tests, aiming virtually to break the plant down if possible
      within predetermined conditions, lasted several weeks, and while most
      valuable in the information they afforded, did not hinder anything, for
      meantime customers' premises throughout the district were being wired and
      supplied with lamps and meters.
    </p>
    <p>
      On Monday, September 4, 1882, at 3 o'clock, P.M., Edison realized the
      consummation of his broad and original scheme. The Pearl Street station
      was officially started by admitting steam to the engine of one of the
      "Jumbos," current was generated, turned into the network of underground
      conductors, and was transformed into light by the incandescent lamps that
      had thus far been installed. This date and event may properly be regarded
      as historical, for they mark the practical beginning of a new art, which
      in the intervening years has grown prodigiously, and is still increasing
      by leaps and bounds.
    </p>
    <p>
      Everything worked satisfactorily in the main. There were a few mechanical
      and engineering annoyances that might naturally be expected to arise in a
      new and unprecedented enterprise; but nothing of sufficient moment to
      interfere with the steady and continuous supply of current to customers at
      all hours of the day and night. Indeed, once started, this station was
      operated uninterruptedly for eight years with only insignificant stoppage.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will have been noted by the reader that there was nothing to indicate
      rashness in starting up the station, as only one dynamo was put in
      operation. Within a short time, however, it was deemed desirable to supply
      the underground network with more current, as many additional customers
      had been connected and the demand for the new light was increasing very
      rapidly. Although Edison had successfully operated several dynamos in
      multiple arc two years before&mdash;i.e., all feeding current together
      into the same circuits&mdash;there was not, at this early period of
      experience, any absolute certainty as to what particular results might
      occur upon the throwing of the current from two or more such massive
      dynamos into a great distributing system. The sequel showed the value of
      Edison's cautious method in starting the station by operating only a
      single unit at first.
    </p>
    <p>
      He decided that it would be wise to make the trial operation of a second
      "Jumbo" on a Sunday, when business houses were closed in the district,
      thus obviating any danger of false impressions in the public mind in the
      event of any extraordinary manifestations. The circumstances attending the
      adding of a second dynamo are thus humorously described by Edison: "My
      heart was in my mouth at first, but everything worked all right.... Then
      we started another engine and threw them in parallel. Of all the circuses
      since Adam was born, we had the worst then! One engine would stop, and the
      other would run up to about a thousand revolutions, and then they would
      see-saw. The trouble was with the governors. When the circus commenced,
      the gang that was standing around ran out precipitately, and I guess some
      of them kept running for a block or two. I grabbed the throttle of one
      engine, and E. H. Johnson, who was the only one present to keep his wits,
      caught hold of the other, and we shut them off." One of the "gang" that
      ran, but, in this case, only to the end of the room, afterward said: "At
      the time it was a terrifying experience, as I didn't know what was going
      to happen. The engines and dynamos made a horrible racket, from loud and
      deep groans to a hideous shriek, and the place seemed to be filled with
      sparks and flames of all colors. It was as if the gates of the infernal
      regions had been suddenly opened."
    </p>
    <p>
      This trouble was at once attacked by Edison in his characteristic and
      strenuous way. The above experiment took place between three and four
      o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, and within a few hours he had gathered his
      superintendent and men of the machine-works and had them at work on a
      shafting device that he thought would remedy the trouble. He says: "Of
      course, I discovered that what had happened was that one set was running
      the other as a motor. I then put up a long shaft, connecting all the
      governors together, and thought this would certainly cure the trouble; but
      it didn't. The torsion of the shaft was so great that one governor still
      managed to get ahead of the others. Well, it was a serious state of
      things, and I worried over it a lot. Finally I went down to Goerck Street
      and got a piece of shafting and a tube in which it fitted. I twisted the
      shafting one way and the tube the other as far as I could, and pinned them
      together. In this way, by straining the whole outfit up to its elastic
      limit in opposite directions, the torsion was practically eliminated, and
      after that the governors ran together all right."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison realized, however, that in commercial practice this was only a
      temporary expedient, and that a satisfactory permanence of results could
      only be attained with more perfect engines that could be depended upon for
      close and simple regulation. The engines that were made part of the first
      three "Jumbos" placed in the station were the very best that could be
      obtained at the time, and even then had been specially designed and built
      for the purpose. Once more quoting Edison on this subject: "About that
      time" (when he was trying to run several dynamos in parallel in the Pearl
      Street station) "I got hold of Gardiner C. Sims, and he undertook to build
      an engine to run at three hundred and fifty revolutions and give one
      hundred and seventy-five horse-power. He went back to Providence and set
      to work, and brought the engine back with him to the shop. It worked only
      a few minutes when it busted. That man sat around that shop and slept in
      it for three weeks, until he got his engine right and made it work the way
      he wanted it to. When he reached this period I gave orders for the
      engine-works to run night and day until we got enough engines, and when
      all was ready we started the engines. Then everything worked all right....
      One of these engines that Sims built ran twenty-four hours a day, three
      hundred and sixty-five days in the year, for over a year before it
      stopped." [12]
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 12: We quote the following interesting notes of
     Mr. Charles L. Clarke on the question of see-sawing, or
     "hunting," as it was afterward termed:
</pre>
    <p>
      "In the Holborn Viaduct station the difficulty of 'hunting' was not
      experienced. At the time the 'Jumbos' were first operated in multiple arc,
      April 8, 1882, one machine was driven by a Porter-Allen engine, and the
      other by an Armington &amp; Sims engine, and both machines were on a solid
      foundation. At the station at Milan, Italy, the first 'Jumbos' operated in
      multiple arc were driven by Porter-Allen engines, and dash-pots were
      applied to the governors. These machines were also upon a solid
      foundation, and no trouble was experienced.
    </p>
    <p>
      "At the Pearl Street station, however, the machines were supported upon
      long iron floor-beams, and at the high speed of 350 revolutions per
      minute, considerable vertical vibration was given to the engines. And the
      writer is inclined to the opinion that this vibration, acting in the same
      direction as the action of gravitation, which was one of the two
      controlling forces in the operation of the Porter-Allen governor, was the
      primary cause of the 'hunting.' In the Armington &amp; Sims engine the
      controlling forces in the operation of the governor were the centrifugal
      force of revolving weights, and the opposing force of compressed springs,
      and neither the action of gravitation nor the vertical vibrations of the
      engine could have any sensible effect upon the governor."]
    </p>
    <p>
      The Pearl Street station, as this first large plant was called, made rapid
      and continuous growth in its output of electric current. It started, as we
      have said, on September 4, 1882, supplying about four hundred lights to a
      comparatively small number of customers. Among those first supplied was
      the banking firm of Drexel, Morgan &amp; Company, corner of Broad and Wall
      streets, at the outermost limits of the system. Before the end of December
      of the same year the light had so grown in favor that it was being
      supplied to over two hundred and forty customers whose buildings were
      wired for over five thousand lamps. By this time three more "Jumbos" had
      been added to the plant. The output from this time forward increased
      steadily up to the spring of 1884, when the demands of the station
      necessitated the installation of two additional "Jumbos" in the adjoining
      building, which, with the venous improvements that had been made in the
      mean time, gave the station a capacity of over eleven thousand lamps
      actually in service at any one time.
    </p>
    <p>
      During the first three months of operating the Pearl Street station light
      was supplied to customers without charge. Edison had perfect confidence in
      his meters, and also in the ultimate judgment of the public as to the
      superiority of the incandescent electric light as against other
      illuminants. He realized, however, that in the beginning of the operation
      of an entirely novel plant there was ample opportunity for unexpected
      contingencies, although the greatest care had been exercised to make
      everything as perfect as possible. Mechanical defects or other unforeseen
      troubles in any part of the plant or underground system might arise and
      cause temporary stoppages of operation, thus giving grounds for
      uncertainty which would create a feeling of public distrust in the
      permanence of the supply of light.
    </p>
    <p>
      As to the kind of mishap that was wont to occur, Edison tells the
      following story: "One afternoon, after our Pearl Street station started, a
      policeman rushed in and told us to send an electrician at once up to the
      corner of Ann and Nassau streets&mdash;some trouble. Another man and I
      went up. We found an immense crowd of men and boys there and in the
      adjoining streets&mdash;a perfect jam. There was a leak in one of our
      junction-boxes, and on account of the cellars extending under the street,
      the top soil had become insulated. Hence, by means of this leak powerful
      currents were passing through this thin layer of moist earth. When a horse
      went to pass over it he would get a very severe shock. When I arrived I
      saw coming along the street a ragman with a dilapidated old horse, and one
      of the boys told him to go over on the other side of the road&mdash;which
      was the place where the current leaked. When the ragman heard this he took
      that side at once. The moment the horse struck the electrified soil he
      stood straight up in the air, and then reared again; and the crowd yelled,
      the policeman yelled; and the horse started to run away. This continued
      until the crowd got so serious that the policeman had to clear it out; and
      we were notified to cut the current off. We got a gang of men, cut the
      current off for several junction-boxes, and fixed the leak. One man who
      had seen it came to me next day and wanted me to put in apparatus for him
      at a place where they sold horses. He said he could make a fortune with
      it, because he could get old nags in there and make them act like
      thoroughbreds."
    </p>
    <p>
      So well had the work been planned and executed, however, that nothing
      happened to hinder the continuous working of the station and the supply of
      light to customers. Hence it was decided in December, 1882, to begin
      charging a price for the service, and, accordingly, Edison electrolytic
      meters were installed on the premises of each customer then connected. The
      first bill for lighting, based upon the reading of one of these meters,
      amounted to $50.40, and was collected on January 18, 1883, from the
      Ansonia Brass and Copper Company, 17 and 19 Cliff Street. Generally
      speaking, customers found that their bills compared fairly with gas bills
      for corresponding months where the same amount of light was used, and they
      paid promptly and cheerfully, with emphatic encomiums of the new light.
      During November, 1883, a little over one year after the station was
      started, bills for lighting amounting to over $9000 were collected.
    </p>
    <p>
      An interesting story of meter experience in the first few months of
      operation of the Pearl Street station is told by one of the "boys" who was
      then in position to know the facts; "Mr. J. P. Morgan, whose firm was one
      of the first customers, expressed to Mr. Edison some doubt as to the
      accuracy of the meter. The latter, firmly convinced of its correctness,
      suggested a strict test by having some cards printed and hung on each
      fixture at Mr. Morgan's place. On these cards was to be noted the number
      of lamps in the fixture, and the time they were turned on and off each day
      for a month. At the end of that time the lamp-hours were to be added
      together by one of the clerks and figured on a basis of a definite amount
      per lamp-hour, and compared with the bill that would be rendered by the
      station for the corresponding period. The results of the first month's
      test showed an apparent overcharge by the Edison company. Mr. Morgan was
      exultant, while Mr. Edison was still confident and suggested a
      continuation of the test. Another month's trial showed somewhat similar
      results. Mr. Edison was a little disturbed, but insisted that there was a
      mistake somewhere. He went down to Drexel, Morgan &amp; Company's office
      to investigate, and, after looking around, asked when the office was
      cleaned out. He was told it was done at night by the janitor, who was sent
      for, and upon being interrogated as to what light he used, said that he
      turned on a central fixture containing about ten lights. It came out that
      he had made no record of the time these lights were in use. He was told to
      do so in future, and another month's test was made. On comparison with the
      company's bill, rendered on the meter-reading, the meter came within a few
      cents of the amount computed from the card records, and Mr. Morgan was
      completely satisfied of the accuracy of the meter."
    </p>
    <p>
      It is a strange but not extraordinary commentary on the perversity of
      human nature and the lack of correct observation, to note that even after
      the Pearl Street station had been in actual operation twenty-four hours a
      day for nearly three months, there should still remain an attitude of
      "can't be done." That such a scepticism still obtained is evidenced by the
      public prints of the period. Edison's electric-light system and his broad
      claims were freely discussed and animadverted upon at the very time he was
      demonstrating their successful application. To show some of the feeling at
      the time, we reproduce the following letter, which appeared November 29,
      1882:
    </p>
    <p>
      "To the Editor of the Sun:
    </p>
    <p>
      "SIR,&mdash;In reading the discussions relative to the Pearl Street
      station of the Edison light, I have noted that while it is claimed that
      there is scarcely any loss from leakage of current, nothing is said about
      the loss due to the resistance of the long circuits. I am informed that
      this is the secret of the failure to produce with the power in position a
      sufficient amount of current to run all the lamps that have been put up,
      and that while six, and even seven, lights to the horse-power may be
      produced from an isolated plant, the resistance of the long underground
      wires reduces this result in the above case to less than three lights to
      the horse-power, thus making the cost of production greatly in excess of
      gas. Can the Edison company explain this? 'INVESTIGATOR'."
    </p>
    <p>
      This was one of the many anonymous letters that had been written to the
      newspapers on the subject, and the following reply by the Edison company
      was printed December 3, 1882:
    </p>
    <p>
      "To the Editor of the Sun:
    </p>
    <p>
      "SIR,&mdash;'Investigator' in Wednesday's Sun, says that the Edison
      company is troubled at its Pearl Street station with a 'loss of current,
      due to the resistance of the long circuits'; also that, whereas Edison
      gets 'six or even seven lights to the horse-power in isolated plants, the
      resistance of the long underground wires reduces that result in the Pearl
      Street station to less than three lights to the horse-power.' Both of
      these statements are false. As regards loss due to resistance, there is a
      well-known law for determining it, based on Ohm's law. By use of that law
      we knew in advance, that is to say, when the original plans for the
      station were drawn, just what this loss would be, precisely the same as a
      mechanical engineer when constructing a mill with long lines of shafting
      can forecast the loss of power due to friction. The practical result in
      the Pearl Street station has fully demonstrated the correctness of our
      estimate thus made in advance. As regards our getting only three lights
      per horse-power, our station has now been running three months, without
      stopping a moment, day or night, and we invariably get over six lamps per
      horse-power, or substantially the same as we do in our isolated plants. We
      are now lighting one hundred and ninety-three buildings, wired for
      forty-four hundred lamps, of which about two-thirds are in constant use,
      and we are adding additional houses and lamps daily. These figures can be
      verified at the office of the Board of Underwriters, where certificates
      with full details permitting the use of our light are filed by their own
      inspector. To light these lamps we run from one to three dynamos,
      according to the lamps in use at any given time, and we shall start
      additional dynamos as fast as we can connect more buildings. Neither as
      regards the loss due to resistance, nor as regards the number of lamps per
      horse-power, is there the slightest trouble or disappointment on the part
      of our company, and your correspondent is entirely in error is assuming
      that there is. Let me suggest that if 'Investigator' really wishes to
      investigate, and is competent and willing to learn the exact facts, he can
      do so at this office, where there is no mystery of concealment, but, on
      the contrary, a strong desire to communicate facts to intelligent
      inquirers. Such a method of investigating must certainly be more
      satisfactory to one honestly seeking knowledge than that of first assuming
      an error as the basis of a question, and then demanding an explanation.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yours very truly,
    </p>
    <p>
      "S. B. EATON, President."
    </p>
    <p>
      Viewed from the standpoint of over twenty-seven years later, the wisdom
      and necessity of answering anonymous newspaper letters of this kind might
      be deemed questionable, but it must be remembered that, although the Pearl
      Street station was working successfully, and Edison's comprehensive plans
      were abundantly vindicated, the enterprise was absolutely new and only
      just stepping on the very threshold of commercial exploitation. To enter
      in and possess the land required the confidence of capital and the general
      public. Hence it was necessary to maintain a constant vigilance to defeat
      the insidious attacks of carping critics and others who would attempt to
      injure the Edison system by misleading statements.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will be interesting to the modern electrician to note that when this
      pioneer station was started, and in fact for some little time afterward,
      there was not a single electrical instrument in the whole station&mdash;not
      a voltmeter or an ammeter! Nor was there a central switchboard! Each
      dynamo had its own individual control switch. The feeder connections were
      all at the front of the building, and the general voltage control
      apparatus was on the floor above. An automatic pressure indicator had been
      devised and put in connection with the main circuits. It consisted,
      generally speaking, of an electromagnet with relays connecting with a red
      and a blue lamp. When the electrical pressure was normal, neither lamp was
      lighted; but if the electromotive force rose above a predetermined amount
      by one or two volts, the red lamp lighted up, and the attendant at the
      hand-wheel of the field regulator inserted resistance in the field
      circuit, whereas, if the blue lamp lighted, resistance was cut out until
      the pressure was raised to normal. Later on this primitive indicator was
      supplanted by the "Bradley Bridge," a crude form of the "Howell" pressure
      indicators, which were subsequently used for many years in the Edison
      stations.
    </p>
    <p>
      Much could be added to make a complete pictorial description of the
      historic Pearl Street station, but it is not within the scope of this
      narrative to enter into diffuse technical details, interesting as they may
      be to many persons. We cannot close this chapter, however, without mention
      of the fate of the Pearl Street station, which continued in successful
      commercial operation until January 2, 1890, when it was partially
      destroyed by fire. All the "Jumbos" were ruined, excepting No. 9, which is
      still a venerated relic in the possession of the New York Edison Company.
      Luckily, the boilers were unharmed. Belt-driven generators and engines
      were speedily installed, and the station was again in operation in a few
      days. The uninjured "Jumbo," No. 9, again continued to perform its duty.
      But in the words of Mr. Charles L. Clarke, "the glory of the old Pearl
      Street station, unique in bearing the impress of Mr. Edison's personality,
      and, as it were, constructed with his own hands, disappeared in the flame
      and smoke of that Thursday morning fire."
    </p>
    <p>
      The few days' interruption of the service was the only serious one that
      has taken place in the history of the New York Edison Company from
      September 4, 1882, to the present date. The Pearl Street station was
      operated for some time subsequent to the fire, but increasing demands in
      the mean time having led to the construction of other stations, the mains
      of the First District were soon afterward connected to another plant, the
      Pearl Street station was dismantled, and the building was sold in 1895.
    </p>
    <p>
      The prophetic insight into the magnitude of central-station lighting that
      Edison had when he was still experimenting on the incandescent lamp over
      thirty years ago is a little less than astounding, when it is so amply
      verified in the operations of the New York Edison Company (the successor
      of the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York) and many others.
      At the end of 1909 the New York Edison Company alone was operating
      twenty-eight stations and substations, having a total capacity of 159,500
      kilowatts. Connected with its lines were approximately 85,000 customers
      wired for 3,813,899 incandescent lamps and nearly 225,000 horse-power
      through industrial electric motors connected with the underground service.
      A large quantity of electrical energy is also supplied for heating and
      cooking, charging automobiles, chemical and plating work, and various
      other uses.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XVII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      OTHER EARLY STATIONS&mdash;THE METER
    </h3>
    <p>
      WE have now seen the Edison lighting system given a complete, convincing
      demonstration in Paris, London, and New York; and have noted steps taken
      for its introduction elsewhere on both sides of the Atlantic. The Paris
      plant, like that at the Crystal Palace, was a temporary exhibit. The
      London plant was less temporary, but not permanent, supplying before it
      was torn out no fewer than three thousand lamps in hotels, churches,
      stores, and dwellings in the vicinity of Holborn Viaduct. There Messrs.
      Johnson and Hammer put into practice many of the ideas now standard in the
      art, and secured much useful data for the work in New York, of which the
      story has just been told.
    </p>
    <p>
      As a matter of fact the first Edison commercial station to be operated in
      this country was that at Appleton, Wisconsin, but its only serious claim
      to notice is that it was the initial one of the system driven by
      water-power. It went into service August 15, 1882, about three weeks
      before the Pearl Street station. It consisted of one small dynamo of a
      capacity of two hundred and eighty lights of 10 c.p. each, and was housed
      in an unpretentious wooden shed. The dynamo-electric machine, though
      small, was robust, for under all the varying speeds of water-power, and
      the vicissitudes of the plant to which it, belonged, it continued in
      active use until 1899&mdash;seventeen years.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison was from the first deeply impressed with the possibilities of
      water-power, and, as this incident shows, was prompt to seize such a very
      early opportunity. But his attention was in reality concentrated closely
      on the supply of great centres of population, a task which he then felt
      might well occupy his lifetime; and except in regard to furnishing
      isolated plants he did not pursue further the development of
      hydro-electric stations. That was left to others, and to the application
      of the alternating current, which has enabled engineers to harness remote
      powers, and, within thoroughly economical limits, transmit thousands of
      horse-power as much as two hundred miles at pressures of 80,000 and
      100,000 volts. Owing to his insistence on low pressure, direct current for
      use in densely populated districts, as the only safe and truly universal,
      profitable way of delivering electrical energy to the consumers, Edison
      has been frequently spoken of as an opponent of the alternating current.
      This does him an injustice. At the time a measure was before the Virginia
      legislature, in 1890, to limit the permissible pressures of current so as
      to render it safe, he said: "You want to allow high pressure wherever the
      conditions are such that by no possible accident could that pressure get
      into the houses of the consumers; you want to give them all the latitude
      you can." In explaining this he added: "Suppose you want to take the falls
      down at Richmond, and want to put up a water-power? Why, if we erect a
      station at the falls, it is a great economy to get it up to the city. By
      digging a cheap trench and putting in an insulated cable, and connecting
      such station with the central part of Richmond, having the end of the
      cable come up into the station from the earth and there connected with
      motors, the power of the falls would be transmitted to these motors. If
      now the motors were made to run dynamos conveying low-pressure currents to
      the public, there is no possible way whereby this high-pressure current
      could get to the public." In other words, Edison made the sharp
      fundamental distinction between high pressure alternating current for
      transmission and low pressure direct current for distribution; and this is
      exactly the practice that has been adopted in all the great cities of the
      country to-day. There seems no good reason for believing that it will
      change. It might perhaps have been altogether better for Edison, from the
      financial standpoint, if he had not identified himself so completely with
      one kind of current, but that made no difference to him, as it was a
      matter of conviction; and Edison's convictions are granitic. Moreover,
      this controversy over the two currents, alternating and direct, which has
      become historical in the field of electricity&mdash;and is something like
      the "irrepressible conflict" we heard of years ago in national affairs&mdash;illustrates
      another aspect of Edison's character. Broad as the prairies and free in
      thought as the winds that sweep them, he is idiosyncratically opposed to
      loose and wasteful methods, to plans of empire that neglect the poor at
      the gate. Everything he has done has been aimed at the conservation of
      energy, the contraction of space, the intensification of culture. Burbank
      and his tribe represent in the vegetable world, Edison in the mechanical.
      Not only has he developed distinctly new species, but he has elucidated
      the intensive art of getting $1200 out of an electrical acre instead of
      $12&mdash;a manured market-garden inside London and a ten-bushel exhausted
      wheat farm outside Lawrence, Kansas, being the antipodes of productivity&mdash;yet
      very far short of exemplifying the difference of electrical yield between
      an acre of territory in Edison's "first New York district" and an acre in
      some small town.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's lighting work furnished an excellent basis&mdash;in fact, the
      only one&mdash;for the development of the alternating current now so
      generally employed in central-station work in America; and in the McGraw
      Electrical Directory of April, 1909, no fewer than 4164 stations out of
      5780 reported its use. When the alternating current was introduced for
      practical purposes it was not needed for arc lighting, the circuit for
      which, from a single dynamo, would often be twenty or thirty miles in
      length, its current having a pressure of not less than five or six
      thousand volts. For some years it was not found feasible to operate motors
      on alternating-current circuits, and that reason was often urged against
      it seriously. It could not be used for electroplating or deposition, nor
      could it charge storage batteries, all of which are easily within the
      ability of the direct current. But when it came to be a question of
      lighting a scattered suburb, a group of dwellings on the outskirts, a
      remote country residence or a farm-house, the alternating current, in all
      elements save its danger, was and is ideal. Its thin wires can be carried
      cheaply over vast areas, and at each local point of consumption the
      transformer of size exactly proportioned to its local task takes the
      high-voltage transmission current and lowers its potential at a ratio of
      20 or 40 to 1, for use in distribution and consumption circuits. This
      evolution has been quite distinct, with its own inventors like Gaulard and
      Gibbs and Stanley, but came subsequent to the work of supplying small,
      dense areas of population; the art thus growing from within, and using
      each new gain as a means for further achievement.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nor was the effect of such great advances as those made by Edison limited
      to the electrical field. Every department of mechanics was stimulated and
      benefited to an extraordinary degree. Copper for the circuits was more
      highly refined than ever before to secure the best conductivity, and
      purity was insisted on in every kind of insulation. Edison was intolerant
      of sham and shoddy, and nothing would satisfy him that could not stand
      cross-examination by microscope, test-tube, and galvanometer. It was,
      perhaps, the steam-engine on which the deepest imprint for good was made,
      referred to already in the remarks of Mr. F. J. Sprague in the preceding
      chapter, but best illustrated in the perfection of the modern high-speed
      engine of the Armington &amp; Sims type. Unless he could secure an engine
      of smoother running and more exactly governed and regulated than those
      available for his dynamo and lamp, Edison realized that he would find it
      almost impossible to give a steady light. He did not want his customers to
      count the heart-beats of the engine in the flicker of the lamp. Not a
      single engine was even within gunshot of the standard thus set up, but the
      emergency called forth its man in Gardiner C. Sims, a talented draughtsman
      and designer who had been engaged in locomotive construction and in the
      engineering department of the United States Navy. He may be quoted as to
      what happened: "The deep interest, financial and moral, and friendly
      backing I received from Mr. Edison, together with valuable suggestions,
      enabled me to bring out the engine; as I was quite alone in the world&mdash;poor&mdash;I
      had found a friend who knew what he wanted and explained it clearly. Mr.
      Edison was a leader far ahead of the time. He compelled the design of the
      successful engine.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Our first engine compelled the inventing and making of a suitable engine
      indicator to indicate it&mdash;the Tabor. He obtained the desired speed
      and load with a friction brake; also regulator of speed; but waited for an
      indicator to verify it. Then again there was no known way to lubricate an
      engine for continuous running, and Mr. Edison informed me that as a marine
      engine started before the ship left New York and continued running until
      it reached its home port, so an engine for his purposes must produce light
      at all times. That was a poser to me, for a five-hours' run was about all
      that had been required up to that time.
    </p>
    <p>
      "A day or two later Mr. Edison inquired: 'How far is it from here to
      Lawrence; it is a long walk, isn't it?' 'Yes, rather.' He said: 'Of course
      you will understand I meant without oil.' To say I was deeply perplexed
      does not express my feelings. We were at the machine works, Goerck Street.
      I started for the oil-room, when, about entering, I saw a small funnel
      lying on the floor. It had been stepped on and flattened. I took it up,
      and it had solved the engine-oiling problem&mdash;and my walk to Lawrence
      like a tramp actor's was off! The eccentric strap had a round glass
      oil-cup with a brass base that screwed into the strap. I took it off, and
      making a sketch, went to Dave Cunningham, having the funnel in my hand to
      illustrate what I wanted made. I requested him to make a sheet-brass
      oil-cup and solder it to the base I had. He did so. I then had a standard
      made to hold another oil-cup, so as to see and regulate the drop-feed. On
      this combination I obtained a patent which is now universally used."
    </p>
    <p>
      It is needless to say that in due course the engine builders of the United
      States developed a variety of excellent prime movers for electric-light
      and power plants, and were grateful to the art from which such a stimulus
      came to their industry; but for many years one never saw an Edison
      installation without expecting to find one or more Armington &amp; Sims
      high-speed engines part of it. Though the type has gone out of existence,
      like so many other things that are useful in their day and generation, it
      was once a very vital part of the art, and one more illustration of that
      intimate manner in which the advances in different fields of progress
      interact and co-operate.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison had installed his historic first great central-station system in
      New York on the multiple arc system covered by his feeder and main
      invention, which resulted in a notable saving in the cost of conductors as
      against a straight two-wire system throughout of the "tree" kind. He soon
      foresaw that still greater economy would be necessary for commercial
      success not alone for the larger territory opening, but for the compact
      districts of large cities. Being firmly convinced that there was a way
      out, he pushed aside a mass of other work, and settled down to this
      problem, with the result that on November 20, 1882, only two months after
      current had been sent out from Pearl Street, he executed an application
      for a patent covering what is now known as the "three-wire system." It has
      been universally recognized as one of the most valuable inventions in the
      history of the lighting art. [13] Its use resulted in a saving of over 60
      per cent. of copper in conductors, figured on the most favorable basis
      previously known, inclusive of those calculated under his own feeder and
      main system. Such economy of outlay being effected in one of the heaviest
      items of expense in central-station construction, it was now made possible
      to establish plants in towns where the large investment would otherwise
      have been quite prohibitive. The invention is in universal use today,
      alike for direct and for alternating current, and as well in the equipment
      of large buildings as in the distribution system of the most extensive
      central-station networks. One cannot imagine the art without it.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 13: For technical description and illustration of
     this invention, see Appendix.]
</pre>
    <p>
      The strong position held by the Edison system, under the strenuous
      competition that was already springing up, was enormously improved by the
      introduction of the three-wire system; and it gave an immediate impetus to
      incandescent lighting. Desiring to put this new system into practical use
      promptly, and receiving applications for licenses from all over the
      country, Edison selected Brockton, Massachusetts, and Sunbury,
      Pennsylvania, as the two towns for the trial. Of these two Brockton
      required the larger plant, but with the conductors placed underground. It
      was the first to complete its arrangements and close its contract. Mr.
      Henry Villard, it will be remembered, had married the daughter of
      Garrison, the famous abolitionist, and it was through his relationship
      with the Garrison family that Brockton came to have the honor of
      exemplifying so soon the principles of an entirely new art. Sunbury,
      however, was a much smaller installation, employed overhead conductors,
      and hence was the first to "cross the tape." It was specially suited for a
      trial plant also, in the early days when a yield of six or eight lamps to
      the horse-power was considered subject for congratulation. The town being
      situated in the coal region of Pennsylvania, good coal could then be
      obtained there at seventy-five cents a ton.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Sunbury generating plant consisted of an Armington &amp; Sims engine
      driving two small Edison dynamos having a total capacity of about four
      hundred lamps of 16 c.p. The indicating instruments were of the crudest
      construction, consisting of two voltmeters connected by "pressure wires"
      to the centre of electrical distribution. One ammeter, for measuring the
      quantity of current output, was interpolated in the "neutral bus" or
      third-wire return circuit to indicate when the load on the two machines
      was out of balance. The circuits were opened and closed by means of about
      half a dozen roughly made plug-switches. [14] The "bus-bars" to receive
      the current from the dynamos were made of No. 000 copper line wire,
      straightened out and fastened to the wooden sheathing of the station by
      iron staples without any presence to insulation. Commenting upon this Mr.
      W. S. Andrews, detailed from the central staff, says: "The interior
      winding of the Sunbury station, including the running of two three-wire
      feeders the entire length of the building from back to front, the wiring
      up of the dynamos and switchboard and all instruments, together with
      bus-bars, etc.&mdash;in fact, all labor and material used in the
      electrical wiring installation&mdash;amounted to the sum of $90. I
      received a rather sharp letter from the New York office expostulating for
      this EXTRAVAGANT EXPENDITURE, and stating that great economy must be
      observed in future!" The street conductors were of the overhead pole-line
      construction, and were installed by the construction company that had been
      organized by Edison to build and equip central stations. A special type of
      street pole had been devised by him for the three-wire system.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 14: By reason of the experience gained at this
     station through the use of these crude plug-switches, Mr.
     Edison started a competition among a few of his assistants
     to devise something better. The result was the invention of
     a "breakdown" switch by Mr. W. S. Andrews, which was
     accepted by Mr. Edison as the best of the devices suggested,
     and was developed and used for a great many years
     afterward.]
</pre>
    <p>
      Supplementing the story of Mr. Andrews is that of Lieut. F. J. Sprague,
      who also gives a curious glimpse of the glorious uncertainties and
      vicissitudes of that formative period. Mr. Sprague served on the jury at
      the Crystal Palace Exhibition with Darwin's son&mdash;the present Sir
      Horace&mdash;and after the tests were ended left the Navy and entered
      Edison's service at the suggestion of Mr. E. H. Johnson, who was Edison's
      shrewd recruiting sergeant in those days: "I resigned sooner than Johnson
      expected, and he had me on his hands. Meanwhile he had called upon me to
      make a report of the three-wire system, known in England as the Hopkinson,
      both Dr. John Hopkinson and Mr. Edison being independent inventors at
      practically the same time. I reported on that, left London, and landed in
      New York on the day of the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883&mdash;May
      24&mdash;with a year's leave of absence.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I reported at the office of Mr. Edison on Fifth Avenue and told him I had
      seen Johnson. He looked me over and said: 'What did he promise you?' I
      replied: 'Twenty-five hundred dollars a year.' He did not say much, but
      looked it. About that time Mr. Andrews and I came together. On July 2d of
      that year we were ordered to Sunbury, and to be ready to start the station
      on the fourth. The electrical work had to be done in forty-eight hours!
      Having travelled around the world, I had cultivated an indifference to any
      special difficulties of that kind. Mr. Andrews and I worked in
      collaboration until the night of the third. I think he was perhaps more
      appreciative than I was of the discipline of the Edison Construction
      Department, and thought it would be well for us to wait until the morning
      of the fourth before we started up. I said we were sent over to get going,
      and insisted on starting up on the night of the third. We had an Armington
      &amp; Sims engine with sight-feed oiler. I had never seen one, and did not
      know how it worked, with the result that we soon burned up the babbitt
      metal in the bearings and spent a good part of the night getting them in
      order. The next day Mr. Edison, Mr. Insull, and the chief engineer of the
      construction department appeared on the scene and wanted to know what had
      happened. They found an engine somewhat loose in the bearings, and there
      followed remarks which would not look well in print. Andrews skipped from
      under; he obeyed orders; I did not. But the plant ran, and it was the
      first three-wire station in this country."
    </p>
    <p>
      Seen from yet another angle, the worries of this early work were not
      merely those of the men on the "firing line." Mr. Insull, in speaking of
      this period, says: "When it was found difficult to push the
      central-station business owing to the lack of confidence in its financial
      success, Edison decided to go into the business of promoting and
      constructing central-station plants, and he formed what was known as the
      Thomas A. Edison Construction Department, which he put me in charge of.
      The organization was crude, the steam-engineering talent poor, and owing
      to the impossibility of getting any considerable capital subscribed, the
      plants were put in as cheaply as possible. I believe that this
      construction department was unkindly named the 'Destruction Department.'
      It served its purpose; never made any money; and I had the unpleasant task
      of presiding at its obsequies."
    </p>
    <p>
      On July 4th the Sunbury plant was put into commercial operation by Edison,
      and he remained a week studying its conditions and watching for any
      unforeseen difficulty that might arise. Nothing happened, however, to
      interfere with the successful running of the station, and for twenty years
      thereafter the same two dynamos continued to furnish light in Sunbury.
      They were later used as reserve machines, and finally, with the engine,
      retired from service as part of the "Collection of Edisonia"; but they
      remain in practically as good condition as when installed in 1883.
    </p>
    <p>
      Sunbury was also provided with the first electro-chemical meters used in
      the United States outside New York City, so that it served also to
      accentuate electrical practice in a most vital respect&mdash;namely, the
      measurement of the electrical energy supplied to customers. At this time
      and long after, all arc lighting was done on a "flat rate" basis. The arc
      lamp installed outside a customer's premises, or in a circuit for public
      street lighting, burned so many hours nightly, so many nights in the
      month; and was paid for at that rate, subject to rebate for hours when the
      lamp might be out through accident. The early arc lamps were rated to
      require 9 to 10 amperes of current, at 45 volts pressure each, receiving
      which they were estimated to give 2000 c.p., which was arrived at by
      adding together the light found at four different positions, so that in
      reality the actual light was about 500 c.p. Few of these data were ever
      actually used, however; and it was all more or less a matter of guesswork,
      although the central-station manager, aiming to give good service, would
      naturally see that the dynamos were so operated as to maintain as steadily
      as possible the normal potential and current. The same loose methods
      applied to the early attempts to use electric motors on arc-lighting
      circuits, and contracts were made based on the size of the motor, the
      width of the connecting belt, or the amount of power the customer thought
      he used&mdash;never on the measurement of the electrical energy furnished
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here again Edison laid the foundation of standard practice. It is true
      that even down to the present time the flat rate is applied to a great
      deal of incandescent lighting, each lamp being charged for individually
      according to its probable consumption during each month. This may answer,
      perhaps, in a small place where the manager can gauge pretty closely from
      actual observation what each customer does; but even then there are
      elements of risk and waste; and obviously in a large city such a method
      would soon be likely to result in financial disaster to the plant. Edison
      held that the electricity sold must be measured just like gas or water,
      and he proceeded to develop a meter. There was infinite scepticism around
      him on the subject, and while other inventors were also giving the subject
      their thought, the public took it for granted that anything so utterly
      intangible as electricity, that could not be seen or weighed, and only
      gave secondary evidence of itself at the exact point of use, could not be
      brought to accurate registration. The general attitude of doubt was
      exemplified by the incident in Mr. J. P. Morgan's office, noted in the
      last chapter. Edison, however, had satisfied himself that there were
      various ways of accomplishing the task, and had determined that the
      current should be measured on the premises of every consumer. His
      electrolytic meter was very successful, and was of widespread use in
      America and in Europe until the perfection of mechanical meters by Elihu
      Thomson and others brought that type into general acceptance. Hence the
      Edison electrolytic meter is no longer used, despite its excellent
      qualities. Houston &amp; Kennelly in their Electricity in Everyday Life
      sum the matter up as follows: "The Edison chemical meter is capable of
      giving fair measurements of the amount of current passing. By reason,
      however, of dissatisfaction caused from the inability of customers to read
      the indications of the meter, it has in later years, to a great extent,
      been replaced by registering meters that can be read by the customer."
    </p>
    <p>
      The principle employed in the Edison electrolytic meter is that which
      exemplifies the power of electricity to decompose a chemical substance. In
      other words it is a deposition bath, consisting of a glass cell in which
      two plates of chemically pure zinc are dipped in a solution of zinc
      sulphate. When the lights or motors in the circuit are turned on, and a
      certain definite small portion of the current is diverted to flow through
      the meter, from the positive plate to the negative plate, the latter
      increases in weight by receiving a deposit of metallic zinc; the positive
      plate meantime losing in weight by the metal thus carried away from it.
      This difference in weight is a very exact measure of the quantity of
      electricity, or number of ampere-hours, that have, so to speak, passed
      through the cell, and hence of the whole consumption in the circuit. The
      amount thus due from the customer is ascertained by removing the cell,
      washing and drying the plates, and weighing them in a chemical balance.
      Associated with this simple form of apparatus were various ingenious
      details and refinements to secure regularity of operation, freedom from
      inaccuracy, and immunity from such tampering as would permit theft of
      current or damage. As the freezing of the zinc sulphate solution in cold
      weather would check its operation, Edison introduced, for example, into
      the meter an incandescent lamp and a thermostat so arranged that when the
      temperature fell to a certain point, or rose above another point, it was
      cut in or out; and in this manner the meter could be kept from freezing.
      The standard Edison meter practice was to remove the cells once a month to
      the meter-room of the central-station company for examination, another set
      being substituted. The meter was cheap to manufacture and install, and not
      at all liable to get out of order.
    </p>
    <p>
      In December, 1888, Mr. W. J. Jenks read an interesting paper before the
      American Institute of Electrical Engineers on the six years of practical
      experience had up to that time with the meter, then more generally in use
      than any other. It appears from the paper that twenty-three Edison
      stations were then equipped with 5187 meters, which were relied upon for
      billing the monthly current consumption of 87,856 lamps and 350 motors of
      1000 horse-power total. This represented about 75 per cent. of the entire
      lamp capacity of the stations. There was an average cost per lamp for
      meter operation of twenty-two cents a year, and each meter took care of an
      average of seventeen lamps. It is worthy of note, as to the promptness
      with which the Edison stations became paying properties, that four of the
      metered stations were earning upward of 15 per cent. on their capital
      stock; three others between 8 and 10 per cent.; eight between 5 and 8 per
      cent.; the others having been in operation too short a time to show
      definite results, although they also went quickly to a dividend basis.
      Reports made in the discussion at the meeting by engineers showed the
      simplicity and success of the meter. Mr. C. L. Edgar, of the Boston Edison
      system, stated that he had 800 of the meters in service cared for by two
      men and three boys, the latter employed in collecting the meter cells; the
      total cost being perhaps $2500 a year. Mr. J. W. Lieb wrote from Milan,
      Italy, that he had in use on the Edison system there 360 meters ranging
      from 350 ampere-hours per month up to 30,000.
    </p>
    <p>
      In this connection it should be mentioned that the Association of Edison
      Illuminating Companies in the same year adopted resolutions unanimously to
      the effect that the Edison meter was accurate, and that its use was not
      expensive for stations above one thousand lights; and that the best
      financial results were invariably secured in a station selling current by
      meter. Before the same association, at its meeting in September, 1898, at
      Sault Ste. Marie, Mr. C. S. Shepard read a paper on the meter practice of
      the New York Edison Company, giving data as to the large number of Edison
      meters in use and the transition to other types, of which to-day the
      company has several on its circuits: "Until October, 1896, the New York
      Edison Company metered its current in consumer's premises exclusively by
      the old-style chemical meters, of which there were connected on that date
      8109. It was then determined to purchase no more." Mr. Shepard went on to
      state that the chemical meters were gradually displaced, and that on
      September 1, 1898, there were on the system 5619 mechanical and 4874
      chemical. The meter continued in general service during 1899, and probably
      up to the close of the century.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Andrews relates a rather humorous meter story of those early days:
      "The meter man at Sunbury was a firm and enthusiastic believer in the
      correctness of the Edison meter, having personally verified its reading
      many times by actual comparison of lamp-hours. One day, on making out a
      customer's bill, his confidence received a severe shock, for the meter
      reading showed a consumption calling for a charge of over $200, whereas he
      knew that the light actually used should not cost more than one-quarter of
      that amount. He weighed and reweighed the meter plates, and pursued every
      line of investigation imaginable, but all in vain. He felt he was up
      against it, and that perhaps another kind of a job would suit him better.
      Once again he went to the customer's meter to look around, when a small
      piece of thick wire on the floor caught his eye. The problem was solved.
      He suddenly remembered that after weighing the plates he went and put them
      in the customer's meter; but the wire attached to one of the plates was
      too long to go in the meter, and he had cut it off. He picked up the piece
      of wire, took it to the station, weighed it carefully, and found that it
      accounted for about $150 worth of electricity, which was the amount of the
      difference."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison himself is, however, the best repertory of stories when it comes to
      the difficulties of that early period, in connection with metering the
      current and charging for it. He may be quoted at length as follows: "When
      we started the station at Pearl Street, in September, 1882, we were not
      very commercial. We put many customers on, but did not make out many
      bills. We were more interested in the technical condition of the station
      than in the commercial part. We had meters in which there were two bottles
      of liquid. To prevent these electrolytes from freezing we had in each
      meter a strip of metal. When it got very cold the metal would contract and
      close a circuit, and throw a lamp into circuit inside the meter. The heat
      from this lamp would prevent the liquid from freezing, so that the meter
      could go on doing its duty. The first cold day after starting the station,
      people began to come in from their offices, especially down in Front
      Street and Water Street, saying the meter was on fire. We received
      numerous telephone messages about it. Some had poured water on it, and
      others said: 'Send a man right up to put it out.'
    </p>
    <p>
      "After the station had been running several months and was technically a
      success, we began to look after the financial part. We started to collect
      some bills; but we found that our books were kept badly, and that the
      person in charge, who was no business man, had neglected that part of it.
      In fact, he did not know anything about the station, anyway. So I got the
      directors to permit me to hire a man to run the station. This was Mr.
      Chinnock, who was then superintendent of the Metropolitan Telephone
      Company of New York. I knew Chinnock to be square and of good business
      ability, and induced him to leave his job. I made him a personal
      guarantee, that if he would take hold of the station and put it on a
      commercial basis, and pay 5 per cent. on $600,000, I would give him
      $10,000 out of my own pocket. He took hold, performed the feat, and I paid
      him the $10,000. I might remark in this connection that years afterward I
      applied to the Edison Electric Light Company asking them if they would not
      like to pay me this money, as it was spent when I was very hard up and
      made the company a success, and was the foundation of their present
      prosperity. They said they 'were sorry'&mdash;that is, 'Wall Street sorry'&mdash;and
      refused to pay it. This shows what a nice, genial, generous lot of people
      they have over in Wall Street.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Chinnock had a great deal of trouble getting the customers straightened
      out. I remember one man who had a saloon on Nassau Street. He had had his
      lights burning for two or three months. It was in June, and Chinnock put
      in a bill for $20; July for $20; August about $28; September about $35. Of
      course the nights were getting longer. October about $40; November about
      $45. Then the man called Chinnock up. He said: 'I want to see you about my
      electric-light bill.' Chinnock went up to see him. He said: 'Are you the
      manager of this electric-light plant?' Chinnock said: 'I have the honor.'
      'Well,' he said, my bill has gone from $20 up to $28, $35, $45. I want you
      to understand, young fellow, that my limit is $60.'
    </p>
    <p>
      "After Chinnock had had all this trouble due to the incompetency of the
      previous superintendent, a man came in and said to him: 'Did Mr. Blank
      have charge of this station?' 'Yes.' 'Did he know anything about running a
      station like this?' Chinnock said: 'Does he KNOW anything about running a
      station like this? No, sir. He doesn't even suspect anything.'
    </p>
    <p>
      "One day Chinnock came to me and said: 'I have a new customer.' I said:
      'What is it?' He said: 'I have a fellow who is going to take two hundred
      and fifty lights.' I said: 'What for?' 'He has a place down here in a top
      loft, and has got two hundred and fifty barrels of "rotgut" whiskey. He
      puts a light down in the barrel and lights it up, and it ages the
      whiskey.' I met Chinnock several weeks after, and said: 'How is the
      whiskey man getting along?' 'It's all right; he is paying his bill. It
      fixes the whiskey and takes the shudder right out of it.' Somebody went
      and took out a patent on this idea later.
    </p>
    <p>
      "In the second year we put the Stock Exchange on the circuits of the
      station, but were very fearful that there would be a combination of heavy
      demand and a dark day, and that there would be an overloaded station. We
      had an index like a steam-gauge, called an ampere-meter, to indicate the
      amount of current going out. I was up at 65 Fifth Avenue one afternoon. A
      sudden black cloud came up, and I telephoned to Chinnock and asked him
      about the load. He said: 'We are up to the muzzle, and everything is
      running all right.' By-and-by it became so thick we could not see across
      the street. I telephoned again, and felt something would happen, but
      fortunately it did not. I said to Chinnock: 'How is it now?' He replied:
      'Everything is red-hot, and the ampere-meter has made seventeen
      revolutions.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      In 1883 no such fittings as "fixture insulators" were known. It was the
      common practice to twine the electric wires around the disused
      gas-fixtures, fasten them with tape or string, and connect them to
      lamp-sockets screwed into attachments under the gas-burners&mdash;elaborated
      later into what was known as the "combination fixture." As a result it was
      no uncommon thing to see bright sparks snapping between the chandelier and
      the lighting wires during a sharp thunder-storm. A startling manifestation
      of this kind happened at Sunbury, when the vivid display drove nervous
      guests of the hotel out into the street, and the providential storm led
      Mr. Luther Stieringer to invent the "insulating joint." This separated the
      two lighting systems thoroughly, went into immediate service, and is
      universally used to-day.
    </p>
    <p>
      Returning to the more specific subject of pioneer plants of importance,
      that at Brockton must be considered for a moment, chiefly for the reason
      that the city was the first in the world to possess an Edison station
      distributing current through an underground three-wire network of
      conductors&mdash;the essentially modern contemporaneous practice, standard
      twenty-five years later. It was proposed to employ pole-line construction
      with overhead wires, and a party of Edison engineers drove about the town
      in an open barouche with a blue-print of the circuits and streets spread
      out on their knees, to determine how much tree-trimming would be
      necessary. When they came to some heavily shaded spots, the fine trees
      were marked "T" to indicate that the work in getting through them would be
      "tough." Where the trees were sparse and the foliage was thin, the same
      cheerful band of vandals marked the spots "E" to indicate that there it
      would be "easy" to run the wires. In those days public opinion was not so
      alive as now to the desirability of preserving shade-trees, and of
      enhancing the beauty of a city instead of destroying it. Brockton had a
      good deal of pride in its fine trees, and a strong sentiment was very soon
      aroused against the mutilation proposed so thoughtlessly. The investors in
      the enterprise were ready and anxious to meet the extra cost of putting
      the wires underground. Edison's own wishes were altogether for the use of
      the methods he had so carefully devised; and hence that bustling home of
      shoe manufacture was spared this infliction of more overhead wires.
    </p>
    <p>
      The station equipment at Brockton consisted at first of three dynamos, one
      of which was so arranged as to supply both sides of the system during
      light loads by a breakdown switch connection. This arrangement interfered
      with correct meter registration, as the meters on one side of the system
      registered backward during the hours in which the combination was
      employed. Hence, after supplying an all-night customer whose lamps were on
      one side of the circuits, the company might be found to owe him some thing
      substantial in the morning. Soon after the station went into operation
      this ingenious plan was changed, and the third dynamo was replaced by two
      others. The Edison construction department took entire charge of the
      installation of the plant, and the formal opening was attended on October
      1, 1883, by Mr. Edison, who then remained a week in ceaseless study and
      consultation over the conditions developed by this initial three-wire
      underground plant. Some idea of the confidence inspired by the fame of
      Edison at this period is shown by the fact that the first theatre ever
      lighted from a central station by incandescent lamps was designed this
      year, and opened in 1884 at Brockton with an equipment of three hundred
      lamps. The theatre was never piped for gas! It was also from the Brockton
      central station that current was first supplied to a fire-engine house&mdash;another
      display of remarkably early belief in the trustworthiness of the service,
      under conditions where continuity of lighting was vital. The building was
      equipped in such a manner that the striking of the fire-alarm would light
      every lamp in the house automatically and liberate the horses. It was at
      this central station that Lieutenant Sprague began his historic work on
      the electric motor; and here that another distinguished engineer and
      inventor, Mr. H. Ward Leonard, installed the meters and became meter man,
      in order that he might study in every intimate detail the improvements and
      refinements necessary in that branch of the industry.
    </p>
    <p>
      The authors are indebted for these facts and some other data embodied in
      this book to Mr. W. J. Jenks, who as manager of this plant here made his
      debut in the Edison ranks. He had been connected with local telephone
      interests, but resigned to take active charge of this plant, imbibing
      quickly the traditional Edison spirit, working hard all day and sleeping
      in the station at night on a cot brought there for that purpose. It was a
      time of uninterrupted watchfulness. The difficulty of obtaining engineers
      in those days to run the high-speed engines (three hundred and fifty
      revolutions per minute) is well illustrated by an amusing incident in the
      very early history of the station. A locomotive engineer had been engaged,
      as it was supposed he would not be afraid of anything. One evening there
      came a sudden flash of fire and a spluttering, sizzling noise. There had
      been a short-circuit on the copper mains in the station. The fireman hid
      behind the boiler and the engineer jumped out of the window. Mr. Sprague
      realized the trouble, quickly threw off the current and stopped the
      engine.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Jenks relates another humorous incident in connection with this plant:
      "One night I heard a knock at the office door, and on opening it saw two
      well-dressed ladies, who asked if they might be shown through. I invited
      them in, taking them first to the boiler-room, where I showed them the
      coal-pile, explaining that this was used to generate steam in the boiler.
      We then went to the dynamo-room, where I pointed out the machines
      converting the steam-power into electricity, appearing later in the form
      of light in the lamps. After that they were shown the meters by which the
      consumption of current was measured. They appeared to be interested, and I
      proceeded to enter upon a comparison of coal made into gas or burned under
      a boiler to be converted into electricity. The ladies thanked me
      effusively and brought their visit to a close. As they were about to go
      through the door, one of them turned to me and said: 'We have enjoyed this
      visit very much, but there is one question we would like to ask: What is
      it that you make here?'"
    </p>
    <p>
      The Brockton station was for a long time a show plant of the Edison
      company, and had many distinguished visitors, among them being Prof. Elihu
      Thomson, who was present at the opening, and Sir W. H. Preece, of London.
      The engineering methods pursued formed the basis of similar installations
      in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in November, 1883; in Fall River,
      Massachusetts, in December, 1883; and in Newburgh, New York, the following
      spring.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another important plant of this period deserves special mention, as it was
      the pioneer in the lighting of large spaces by incandescent lamps. This
      installation of five thousand lamps on the three-wire system was made to
      illuminate the buildings at the Louisville, Kentucky, Exposition in 1883,
      and, owing to the careful surveys, calculations, and preparations of H. M.
      Byllesby and the late Luther Stieringer, was completed and in operation
      within six weeks after the placing of the order. The Jury of Awards, in
      presenting four medals to the Edison company, took occasion to pay a high
      compliment to the efficiency of the system. It has been thought by many
      that the magnificent success of this plant did more to stimulate the
      growth of the incandescent lighting business than any other event in the
      history of the Edison company. It was literally the beginning of the
      electrical illumination of American Expositions, carried later to such
      splendid displays as those of the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, Buffalo in
      1901, and St. Louis in 1904.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus the art was set going in the United States under many difficulties,
      but with every sign of coming triumph. Reference has already been made to
      the work abroad in Paris and London. The first permanent Edison station in
      Europe was that at Milan, Italy, for which the order was given as early as
      May, 1882, by an enterprising syndicate. Less than a year later, March 3,
      1883, the installation was ready and was put in operation, the Theatre
      Santa Radegonda having been pulled down and a new central-station building
      erected in its place&mdash;probably the first edifice constructed in
      Europe for the specific purpose of incandescent lighting. Here "Jumbos"
      were installed from time to time, until at last there were no fewer than
      ten of them; and current was furnished to customers with a total of nearly
      ten thousand lamps connected to the mains. This pioneer system was
      operated continuously until February 9, 1900, or for a period of about
      seventeen years, when the sturdy old machines, still in excellent
      condition, were put out of service, so that a larger plant could be
      installed to meet the demand. This new plant takes high-tension polyphase
      current from a water-power thirty or forty miles away at Paderno, on the
      river Adda, flowing from the Apennines; but delivers low-tension direct
      current for distribution to the regular Edison three-wire system
      throughout Milan.
    </p>
    <p>
      About the same time that southern Europe was thus opened up to the new
      system, South America came into line, and the first Edison central station
      there was installed at Santiago, Chile, in the summer of 1883, under the
      supervision of Mr. W. N. Stewart. This was the result of the success
      obtained with small isolated plants, leading to the formation of an Edison
      company. It can readily be conceived that at such an extreme distance from
      the source of supply of apparatus the plant was subject to many peculiar
      difficulties from the outset, of which Mr. Stewart speaks as follows: "I
      made an exhibition of the 'Jumbo' in the theatre at Santiago, and on the
      first evening, when it was filled with the aristocracy of the city, I
      discovered to my horror that the binding wire around the armature was
      slowly stripping off and going to pieces. We had no means of boring out
      the field magnets, and we cut grooves in them. I think the machine is
      still running (1907). The station went into operation soon after with an
      equipment of eight Edison 'K' dynamos with certain conditions inimical to
      efficiency, but which have not hindered the splendid expansion of the
      local system. With those eight dynamos we had four belts between each
      engine and the dynamo. The steam pressure was limited to seventy-five
      pounds per square inch. We had two-wire underground feeders, sent without
      any plans or specifications for their installation. The station had
      neither voltmeter nor ammeter. The current pressure was regulated by a
      galvanometer. We were using coal costing $12 a ton, and were paid for our
      light in currency worth fifty cents on the dollar. The only thing I can be
      proud of in connection with the plant is the fact that I did not design
      it, that once in a while we made out to pay its operating expenses, and
      that occasionally we could run it for three months without a total
      breakdown."
    </p>
    <p>
      It was not until 1885 that the first Edison station in Germany was
      established; but the art was still very young, and the plant represented
      pioneer lighting practice in the Empire. The station at Berlin comprised
      five boilers, and six vertical steam-engines driving by belts twelve
      Edison dynamos, each of about fifty-five horse-power capacity. A model of
      this station is preserved in the Deutschen Museum at Munich. In the
      bulletin of the Berlin Electricity Works for May, 1908, it is said with
      regard to the events that led up to the creation of the system, as noted
      already at the Rathenau celebration: "The year 1881 was a mile-stone in
      the history of the Allgemeine Elektricitaets Gesellschaft. The
      International Electrical Exposition at Paris was intended to place before
      the eyes of the civilized world the achievements of the century. Among the
      exhibits of that Exposition was the Edison system of incandescent
      lighting. IT BECAME THE BASIS OF MODERN HEAVY CURRENT TECHNICS." The last
      phrase is italicized as being a happy and authoritative description, as
      well as a tribute.
    </p>
    <p>
      This chapter would not be complete if it failed to include some reference
      to a few of the earlier isolated plants of a historic character. Note has
      already been made of the first Edison plants afloat on the Jeannette and
      Columbia, and the first commercial plant in the New York lithographic
      establishment. The first mill plant was placed in the woollen factory of
      James Harrison at Newburgh, New York, about September 15, 1881. A year
      later, Mr. Harrison wrote with some pride: "I believe my mill was the
      first lighted with your electric light, and therefore may be called No. 1.
      Besides being job No. 1 it is a No. 1 job, and a No. 1 light, being better
      and cheaper than gas and absolutely safe as to fire." The first
      steam-yacht lighted by incandescent lamps was James Gordon Bennett's
      Namouna, equipped early in 1882 with a plant for one hundred and twenty
      lamps of eight candlepower, which remained in use there many years
      afterward.
    </p>
    <p>
      The first Edison plant in a hotel was started in October, 1881, at the
      Blue Mountain House in the Adirondacks, and consisted of two "Z" dynamos
      with a complement of eight and sixteen candle lamps. The hotel is situated
      at an elevation of thirty-five hundred feet above the sea, and was at that
      time forty miles from the railroad. The machinery was taken up in pieces
      on the backs of mules from the foot of the mountain. The boilers were
      fired by wood, as the economical transportation of coal was a physical
      impossibility. For a six-hour run of the plant one-quarter of a cord of
      wood was required, at a cost of twenty-five cents per cord.
    </p>
    <p>
      The first theatre in the United States to be lighted by an Edison isolated
      plant was the Bijou Theatre, Boston. The installation of boilers, engines,
      dynamos, wiring, switches, fixtures, three stage regulators, and six
      hundred and fifty lamps, was completed in eleven days after receipt of the
      order, and the plant was successfully operated at the opening of the
      theatre, on December 12, 1882.
    </p>
    <p>
      The first plant to be placed on a United States steamship was the one
      consisting of an Edison "Z" dynamo and one hundred and twenty eight-candle
      lamps installed on the Fish Commission's steamer Albatross in 1883. The
      most interesting feature of this installation was the employment of
      special deep-sea lamps, supplied with current through a cable nine hundred
      and forty feet in length, for the purpose of alluring fish. By means of
      the brilliancy of the lamps marine animals in the lower depths were
      attracted and then easily ensnared.
    </p>
    <p>
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XVIII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE ELECTRIC RAILWAY
    </h3>
    <p>
      EDISON had no sooner designed his dynamo in 1879 than he adopted the same
      form of machine for use as a motor. The two are shown in the Scientific
      American of October 18, 1879, and are alike, except that the dynamo is
      vertical and the motor lies in a horizontal position, the article
      remarking: "Its construction differs but slightly from the electric
      generator." This was but an evidence of his early appreciation of the
      importance of electricity as a motive power; but it will probably surprise
      many people to know that he was the inventor of an electric motor before
      he perfected his incandescent lamp. His interest in the subject went back
      to his connection with General Lefferts in the days of the evolution of
      the stock ticker. While Edison was carrying on his shop at Newark, New
      Jersey, there was considerable excitement in electrical circles over the
      Payne motor, in regard to the alleged performance of which Governor
      Cornell of New York and other wealthy capitalists were quite enthusiastic.
      Payne had a shop in Newark, and in one small room was the motor, weighing
      perhaps six hundred pounds. It was of circular form, incased in iron, with
      the ends of several small magnets sticking through the floor. A pulley and
      belt, connected to a circular saw larger than the motor, permitted large
      logs of oak timber to be sawed with ease with the use of two small cells
      of battery. Edison's friend, General Lefferts, had become excited and was
      determined to invest a large sum of money in the motor company, but
      knowing Edison's intimate familiarity with all electrical subjects he was
      wise enough to ask his young expert to go and see the motor with him. At
      an appointed hour Edison went to the office of the motor company and found
      there the venerable Professor Morse, Governor Cornell, General Lefferts,
      and many others who had been invited to witness a performance of the
      motor. They all proceeded to the room where the motor was at work. Payne
      put a wire in the binding-post of the battery, the motor started, and an
      assistant began sawing a heavy oak log. It worked beautifully, and so
      great was the power developed, apparently, from the small battery, that
      Morse exclaimed: "I am thankful that I have lived to see this day." But
      Edison kept a close watch on the motor. The results were so foreign to his
      experience that he knew there was a trick in it. He soon discovered it.
      While holding his hand on the frame of the motor he noticed a tremble
      coincident with the exhaust of an engine across the alleyway, and he then
      knew that the power came from the engine by a belt under the floor,
      shifted on and off by a magnet, the other magnets being a blind. He
      whispered to the General to put his hand on the frame of the motor, watch
      the exhaust, and note the coincident tremor. The General did so, and in
      about fifteen seconds he said: "Well, Edison, I must go now. This thing is
      a fraud." And thus he saved his money, although others not so shrewdly
      advised were easily persuaded to invest by such a demonstration.
    </p>
    <p>
      A few years later, in 1878, Edison went to Wyoming with a group of
      astronomers, to test his tasimeter during an eclipse of the sun, and saw
      the land white to harvest. He noticed the long hauls to market or elevator
      that the farmers had to make with their loads of grain at great expense,
      and conceived the idea that as ordinary steam-railroad service was too
      costly, light electric railways might be constructed that could be
      operated automatically over simple tracks, the propelling motors being
      controlled at various points. Cheap to build and cheap to maintain, such
      roads would be a great boon to the newer farming regions of the West,
      where the highways were still of the crudest character, and where
      transportation was the gravest difficulty with which the settlers had to
      contend. The plan seems to have haunted him, and he had no sooner worked
      out a generator and motor that owing to their low internal resistance
      could be operated efficiently, than he turned his hand to the practical
      trial of such a railroad, applicable to both the haulage of freight and
      the transportation of passengers. Early in 1880, when the tremendous rush
      of work involved in the invention of the incandescent lamp intermitted a
      little, he began the construction of a stretch of track close to the Menlo
      Park laboratory, and at the same time built an electric locomotive to
      operate over it.
    </p>
    <p>
      This is a fitting stage at which to review briefly what had been done in
      electric traction up to that date. There was absolutely no art, but there
      had been a number of sporadic and very interesting experiments made. The
      honor of the first attempt of any kind appears to rest with this country
      and with Thomas Davenport, a self-trained blacksmith, of Brandon, Vermont,
      who made a small model of a circular electric railway and cars in 1834,
      and exhibited it the following year in Springfield, Boston, and other
      cities. Of course he depended upon batteries for current, but the
      fundamental idea was embodied of using the track for the circuit, one rail
      being positive and the other negative, and the motor being placed across
      or between them in multiple arc to receive the current. Such are also
      practically the methods of to-day. The little model was in good
      preservation up to the year 1900, when, being shipped to the Paris
      Exposition, it was lost, the steamer that carried it foundering in
      mid-ocean. The very broad patent taken out by this simple mechanic, so far
      ahead of his times, was the first one issued in America for an electric
      motor. Davenport was also the first man to apply electric power to the
      printing-press, in 1840. In his traction work he had a close second in
      Robert Davidson, of Aberdeen, Scotland, who in 1839 operated both a lathe
      and a small locomotive with the motor he had invented. His was the credit
      of first actually carrying passengers&mdash;two at a time, over a rough
      plank road&mdash;while it is said that his was the first motor to be tried
      on real tracks, those of the Edinburgh-Glasgow road, making a speed of
      four miles an hour.
    </p>
    <p>
      The curse of this work and of all that succeeded it for a score of years
      was the necessity of depending upon chemical batteries for current, the
      machine usually being self-contained and hauling the batteries along with
      itself, as in the case of the famous Page experiments in April, 1851, when
      a speed of nineteen miles an hour was attained on the line of the
      Washington &amp; Baltimore road. To this unfruitful period belonged,
      however, the crude idea of taking the current from a stationary source of
      power by means of an overhead contact, which has found its practical
      evolution in the modern ubiquitous trolley; although the patent for this,
      based on his caveat of 1879, was granted several years later than that to
      Stephen D. Field, for the combination of an electric motor operated by
      means of a current from a stationary dynamo or source of electricity
      conducted through the rails. As a matter of fact, in 1856 and again in
      1875, George F. Green, a jobbing machinist, of Kalamazoo, Michigan, built
      small cars and tracks to which current was fed from a distant battery,
      enough energy being utilized to haul one hundred pounds of freight or one
      passenger up and down a "road" two hundred feet long. All the work prior
      to the development of the dynamo as a source of current was sporadic and
      spasmodic, and cannot be said to have left any trace on the art, though it
      offered many suggestions as to operative methods.
    </p>
    <p>
      The close of the same decade of the nineteenth century that saw the
      electric light brought to perfection, saw also the realization in practice
      of all the hopes of fifty years as to electric traction. Both utilizations
      depended upon the supply of current now cheaply obtainable from the
      dynamo. These arts were indeed twins, feeding at inexhaustible breasts. In
      1879, at the Berlin Exhibition, the distinguished firm of Siemens, to
      whose ingenuity and enterprise electrical development owes so much,
      installed a road about one-third of a mile in length, over which the
      locomotive hauled a train of three small cars at a speed of about eight
      miles an hour, carrying some twenty persons every trip. Current was fed
      from a dynamo to the motor through a central third rail, the two outer
      rails being joined together as the negative or return circuit. Primitive
      but essentially successful, this little road made a profound impression on
      the minds of many inventors and engineers, and marked the real beginning
      of the great new era, which has already seen electricity applied to the
      operation of main lines of trunk railways. But it is not to be supposed
      that on the part of the public there was any great amount of faith then
      discernible; and for some years the pioneers had great difficulty,
      especially in this country, in raising money for their early modest
      experiments. Of the general conditions at this moment Frank J. Sprague
      says in an article in the Century Magazine of July, 1905, on the creation
      of the new art: "Edison was perhaps nearer the verge of great
      electric-railway possibilities than any other American. In the face of
      much adverse criticism he had developed the essentials of the
      low-internal-resistance dynamo with high-resistance field, and many of the
      essential features of multiple-arc distribution, and in 1880 he built a
      small road at his laboratory at Menlo Park."
    </p>
    <p>
      On May 13th of the year named this interesting road went into operation as
      the result of hard and hurried work of preparation during the spring
      months. The first track was about a third of a mile in length, starting
      from the shops, following a country road, passing around a hill at the
      rear and curving home, in the general form of the letter "U." The rails
      were very light. Charles T. Hughes, who went with Edison in 1879, and was
      in charge of much of the work, states that they were "second" street-car
      rails, insulated with tar canvas paper and things of that sort&mdash;"asphalt."
      They were spiked down on ordinary sleepers laid upon the natural grade,
      and the gauge was about three feet six inches. At one point the grade
      dropped some sixty feet in a distance of three hundred, and the curves
      were of recklessly short radius. The dynamos supplying current to the road
      were originally two of the standard size "Z" machines then being made at
      the laboratory, popularly known throughout the Edison ranks as
      "Longwaisted Mary Anns," and the circuits from these were carried out to
      the rails by underground conductors. They were not large&mdash;about
      twelve horse-power each&mdash;generating seventy-five amperes of current
      at one hundred and ten volts, so that not quite twenty-five horse-power of
      electrical energy was available for propulsion.
    </p>
    <p>
      The locomotive built while the roadbed was getting ready was a
      four-wheeled iron truck, an ordinary flat dump-car about six feet long and
      four feet wide, upon which was mounted a "Z" dynamo used as a motor, so
      that it had a capacity of about twelve horsepower. This machine was laid
      on its side, with the armature end coming out at the front of the
      locomotive, and the motive power was applied to the driving-axle by a
      cumbersome series of friction pulleys. Each wheel of the locomotive had a
      metal rim and a centre web of wood or papier-mache, and the current picked
      up by one set of wheels was carried through contact brushes and a brass
      hub to the motor; the circuit back to the track, or other rail, being
      closed through the other wheels in a similar manner. The motor had its
      field-magnet circuit in permanent connection as a shunt across the rails,
      protected by a crude bare copper-wire safety-catch. A switch in the
      armature circuit enabled the motorman to reverse the direction of travel
      by reversing the current flow through the armature coils.
    </p>
    <p>
      Things went fairly well for a time on that memorable Thursday afternoon,
      when all the laboratory force made high holiday and scrambled for foothold
      on the locomotive for a trip; but the friction gearing was not equal to
      the sudden strain put upon it during one run and went to pieces. Some
      years later, also, Daft again tried friction gear in his historical
      experiments on the Manhattan Elevated road, but the results were attended
      with no greater success. The next resort of Edison was to belts, the
      armature shafting belted to a countershaft on the locomotive frame, and
      the countershaft belted to a pulley on the car-axle. The lever which threw
      the former friction gear into adjustment was made to operate an idler
      pulley for tightening the axle-belt. When the motor was started, the
      armature was brought up to full revolution and then the belt was tightened
      on the car-axle, compelling motion of the locomotive. But the belts were
      liable to slip a great deal in the process, and the chafing of the belts
      charred them badly. If that did not happen, and if the belt was made taut
      suddenly, the armature burned out&mdash;which it did with disconcerting
      frequency. The next step was to use a number of resistance-boxes in series
      with the armature, so that the locomotive could start with those in
      circuit, and then the motorman could bring it up to speed gradually by
      cutting one box out after the other. To stop the locomotive, the armature
      circuit was opened by the main switch, stopping the flow of current, and
      then brakes were applied by long levers. Matters generally and the motors
      in particular went much better, even if the locomotive was so freely
      festooned with resistance-boxes all of perceptible weight and occupying
      much of the limited space. These details show forcibly and typically the
      painful steps of advance that every inventor in this new field had to make
      in the effort to reach not alone commercial practicability, but mechanical
      feasibility. It was all empirical enough; but that was the only way open
      even to the highest talent.
    </p>
    <p>
      Smugglers landing laces and silks have been known to wind them around
      their bodies, as being less ostentatious than carrying them in a trunk.
      Edison thought his resistance-boxes an equally superfluous display, and
      therefore ingeniously wound some copper resistance wire around one of the
      legs of the motor field magnet, where it was out of the way, served as a
      useful extra field coil in starting up the motor, and dismissed most of
      the boxes back to the laboratory&mdash;a few being retained under the seat
      for chance emergencies. Like the boxes, this coil was in series with the
      armature, and subject to plugging in and out at will by the motorman. Thus
      equipped, the locomotive was found quite satisfactory, and long did yeoman
      service. It was given three cars to pull, one an open awning-car with two
      park benches placed back to back; one a flat freight-car, and one box-car
      dubbed the "Pullman," with which Edison illustrated a system of electric
      braking. Although work had been begun so early in the year, and the road
      had been operating since May, it was not until July that Edison executed
      any application for patents on his "electromagnetic railway engine," or
      his ingenious braking system. Every inventor knows how largely his fate
      lies in the hands of a competent and alert patent attorney, in both the
      preparation and the prosecution of his case; and Mr. Sprague is justified
      in observing in his Century article: "The paucity of controlling claims
      obtained in these early patents is remarkable." It is notorious that
      Edison did not then enjoy the skilful aid in safeguarding his ideas that
      he commanded later.
    </p>
    <p>
      The daily newspapers and technical journals lost no time in bringing the
      road to public attention, and the New York Herald of June 25th was swift
      to suggest that here was the locomotive that would be "most pleasing to
      the average New Yorker, whose head has ached with noise, whose eyes have
      been filled with dust, or whose clothes have been ruined with oil." A
      couple of days later, the Daily Graphic illustrated and described the road
      and published a sketch of a one-hundred-horse-power electric locomotive
      for the use of the Pennsylvania Railroad between Perth Amboy and Rahway.
      Visitors, of course, were numerous, including many curious, sceptical
      railroad managers, few if any of whom except Villard could see the
      slightest use for the new motive power. There is, perhaps, some excuse for
      such indifference. No men in the world have more new inventions brought to
      them than railroad managers, and this was the rankest kind of novelty. It
      was not, indeed, until a year later, in May, 1881, that the first regular
      road collecting fares was put in operation&mdash;a little stretch of one
      and a half miles from Berlin to Lichterfelde, with one miniature motorcar.
      Edison was in reality doing some heavy electric-railway engineering, his
      apparatus full of ideas, suggestions, prophecies; but to the operators of
      long trunk lines it must have seemed utterly insignificant and "excellent
      fooling."
    </p>
    <p>
      Speaking of this situation, Mr. Edison says: "One day Frank Thomson, the
      President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, came out to see the electric light
      and the electric railway in operation. The latter was then about a mile
      long. He rode on it. At that time I was getting out plans to make an
      electric locomotive of three hundred horse-power with six-foot drivers,
      with the idea of showing people that they could dispense with their steam
      locomotives. Mr. Thomson made the objection that it was impracticable, and
      that it would be impossible to supplant steam. His great experience and
      standing threw a wet blanket on my hopes. But I thought he might perhaps
      be mistaken, as there had been many such instances on record. I continued
      to work on the plans, and about three years later I started to build the
      locomotive at the works at Goerck Street, and had it about finished when I
      was switched off on some other work. One of the reasons why I felt the
      electric railway to be eminently practical was that Henry Villard, the
      President of the Northern Pacific, said that one of the greatest things
      that could be done would be to build right-angle feeders into the
      wheat-fields of Dakota and bring in the wheat to the main lines, as the
      farmers then had to draw it from forty to eighty miles. There was a point
      where it would not pay to raise it at all; and large areas of the country
      were thus of no value. I conceived the idea of building a very light
      railroad of narrow gauge, and had got all the data as to the winds on the
      plains, and found that it would be possible with very large windmills to
      supply enough power to drive those wheat trains."
    </p>
    <p>
      Among others who visited the little road at this juncture were persons
      interested in the Manhattan Elevated system of New York, on which
      experiments were repeatedly tried later, but which was not destined to
      adopt a method so obviously well suited to all the conditions until after
      many successful demonstrations had been made on elevated roads elsewhere.
      It must be admitted that Mr. Edison was not very profoundly impressed with
      the desire entertained in that quarter to utilize any improvement, for he
      remarks: "When the Elevated Railroad in New York, up Sixth Avenue, was
      started there was a great clamor about the noise, and injunctions were
      threatened. The management engaged me to make a report on the cause of the
      noise. I constructed an instrument that would record the sound, and set
      out to make a preliminary report, but I found that they never intended to
      do anything but let the people complain."
    </p>
    <p>
      It was upon the co-operation of Villard that Edison fell back, and an
      agreement was entered into between them on September 14, 1881, which
      provided that the latter would "build two and a half miles of electric
      railway at Menlo Park, equipped with three cars, two locomotives, one for
      freight, and one for passengers, capacity of latter sixty miles an hour.
      Capacity freight engine, ten tons net freight; cost of handling a ton of
      freight per mile per horse-power to be less than ordinary locomotive....
      If experiments are successful, Villard to pay actual outlay in
      experiments, and to treat with the Light Company for the installation of
      at least fifty miles of electric railroad in the wheat regions." Mr.
      Edison is authority for the statement that Mr. Villard advanced between
      $35,000 and $40,000, and that the work done was very satisfactory; but it
      did not end at that time in any practical results, as the Northern Pacific
      went into the hands of a receiver, and Mr. Villard's ability to help was
      hopelessly crippled. The directors of the Edison Electric Light Company
      could not be induced to have anything to do with the electric railway, and
      Mr. Insull states that the money advanced was treated by Mr. Edison as a
      personal loan and repaid to Mr. Villard, for whom he had a high admiration
      and a strong feeling of attachment. Mr. Insull says: "Among the financial
      men whose close personal friendship Edison enjoyed, I would mention Henry
      Villard, who, I think, had a higher appreciation of the possibilities of
      the Edison system than probably any other man of his time in Wall Street.
      He dropped out of the business at the time of the consolidation of the
      Thomson-Houston Company with the Edison General Electric Company; but from
      the earliest days of the business, when it was in its experimental period,
      when the Edison light and power system was but an idea, down to the day of
      his death, Henry Villard continued a strong supporter not only with his
      influence, but with his money. He was the first capitalist to back
      individually Edison's experiments in electric railways."
    </p>
    <p>
      In speaking of his relationships with Mr. Villard at this time, Edison
      says: "When Villard was all broken down, and in a stupor caused by his
      disasters in connection with the Northern Pacific, Mrs. Villard sent for
      me to come and cheer him up. It was very difficult to rouse him from his
      despair and apathy, but I talked about the electric light to him, and its
      development, and told him that it would help him win it all back and put
      him in his former position. Villard made his great rally; he made money
      out of the electric light; and he got back control of the Northern
      Pacific. Under no circumstances can a hustler be kept down. If he is only
      square, he is bound to get back on his feet. Villard has often been blamed
      and severely criticised, but he was not the only one to blame. His
      engineers had spent $20,000,000 too much in building the road, and it was
      not his fault if he found himself short of money, and at that time unable
      to raise any more."
    </p>
    <p>
      Villard maintained his intelligent interest in electric-railway
      development, with regard to which Edison remarks: "At one time Mr. Villard
      got the idea that he would run the mountain division of the Northern
      Pacific Railroad by electricity. He asked me if it could be done. I said:
      'Certainly, it is too easy for me to undertake; let some one else do it.'
      He said: 'I want you to tackle the problem,' and he insisted on it. So I
      got up a scheme of a third rail and shoe and erected it in my yard here in
      Orange. When I got it all ready, he had all his division engineers come on
      to New York, and they came over here. I showed them my plans, and the
      unanimous decision of the engineers was that it was absolutely and utterly
      impracticable. That system is on the New York Central now, and was also
      used on the New Haven road in its first work with electricity."
    </p>
    <p>
      At this point it may be well to cite some other statements of Edison as to
      kindred work, with which he has not usually been associated in the public
      mind. "In the same manner I had worked out for the Manhattan Elevated
      Railroad a system of electric trains, and had the control of each car
      centred at one place&mdash;multiple control. This was afterward worked out
      and made practical by Frank Sprague. I got up a slot contact for street
      railways, and have a patent on it&mdash;a sliding contact in a slot.
      Edward Lauterbach was connected with the Third Avenue Railroad in New York&mdash;as
      counsel&mdash;and I told him he was making a horrible mistake putting in
      the cable. I told him to let the cable stand still and send electricity
      through it, and he would not have to move hundreds of tons of metal all
      the time. He would rue the day when he put the cable in." It cannot be
      denied that the prophecy was fulfilled, for the cable was the beginning of
      the frightful financial collapse of the system, and was torn out in a few
      years to make way for the triumphant "trolley in the slot."
    </p>
    <p>
      Incidental glimpses of this work are both amusing and interesting. Hughes,
      who was working on the experimental road with Mr. Edison, tells the
      following story: "Villard sent J. C. Henderson, one of his mechanical
      engineers, to see the road when it was in operation, and we went down one
      day&mdash;Edison, Henderson, and I&mdash;and went on the locomotive.
      Edison ran it, and just after we started there was a trestle sixty feet
      long and seven feet deep, and Edison put on all the power. When we went
      over it we must have been going forty miles an hour, and I could see the
      perspiration come out on Henderson. After we got over the trestle and
      started on down the track, Henderson said: 'When we go back I will walk.
      If there is any more of that kind of running I won't be in it myself.'" To
      the correspondence of Grosvenor P. Lowrey we are indebted for a similar
      reminiscence, under date of June 5, 1880: "Goddard and I have spent a part
      of the day at Menlo, and all is glorious. I have ridden at forty miles an
      hour on Mr. Edison's electric railway&mdash;and we ran off the track. I
      protested at the rate of speed over the sharp curves, designed to show the
      power of the engine, but Edison said they had done it often. Finally, when
      the last trip was to be taken, I said I did not like it, but would go
      along. The train jumped the track on a short curve, throwing Kruesi, who
      was driving the engine, with his face down in the dirt, and another man in
      a comical somersault through some underbrush. Edison was off in a minute,
      jumping and laughing, and declaring it a most beautiful accident. Kruesi
      got up, his face bleeding and a good deal shaken; and I shall never forget
      the expression of voice and face in which he said, with some foreign
      accent: 'Oh! yes, pairfeckly safe.' Fortunately no other hurts were
      suffered, and in a few minutes we had the train on the track and running
      again."
    </p>
    <p>
      All this rough-and-ready dealing with grades and curves was not mere
      horse-play, but had a serious purpose underlying it, every trip having its
      record as to some feature of defect or improvement. One particular set of
      experiments relating to such work was made on behalf of visitors from
      South America, and were doubtless the first tests of the kind made for
      that continent, where now many fine electric street and interurban railway
      systems are in operation. Mr. Edison himself supplies the following data:
      "During the electric-railway experiments at Menlo Park, we had a short
      spur of track up one of the steep gullies. The experiment came about in
      this way. Bogota, the capital of Columbia, is reached on muleback&mdash;or
      was&mdash;from Honda on the headwaters of the Magdalena River. There were
      parties who wanted to know if transportation over the mule route could not
      be done by electricity. They said the grades were excessive, and it would
      cost too much to do it with steam locomotives, even if they could climb
      the grades. I said: 'Well, it can't be much more than 45 per cent.; we
      will try that first. If it will do that it will do anything else.' I
      started at 45 per cent. I got up an electric locomotive with a grip on the
      rail by which it went up the 45 per cent. grade. Then they said the curves
      were very short. I put the curves in. We started the locomotive with
      nobody on it, and got up to twenty miles an hour, taking those curves of
      very short radius; but it was weeks before we could prevent it from
      running off. We had to bank the tracks up to an angle of thirty degrees
      before we could turn the curve and stay on. These Spanish parties were
      perfectly satisfied we could put in an electric railway from Honda to
      Bogota successfully, and then they disappeared. I have never seen them
      since. As usual, I paid for the experiment."
    </p>
    <p>
      In the spring of 1883 the Electric Railway Company of America was
      incorporated in the State of New York with a capital of $2,000,000 to
      develop the patents and inventions of Edison and Stephen D. Field, to the
      latter of whom the practical work of active development was confided, and
      in June of the same year an exhibit was made at the Chicago Railway
      Exposition, which attracted attention throughout the country, and did much
      to stimulate the growing interest in electric-railway work. With the aid
      of Messrs. F. B. Rae, C. L. Healy, and C. O. Mailloux a track and
      locomotive were constructed for the company by Mr. Field and put in
      service in the gallery of the main exhibition building. The track curved
      sharply at either end on a radius of fifty-six feet, and the length was
      about one-third of a mile. The locomotive named "The Judge," after Justice
      Field, an uncle of Stephen D. Field, took current from a central rail
      between the two outer rails, that were the return circuit, the contact
      being a rubbing wire brush on each side of the "third rail," answering the
      same purpose as the contact shoe of later date. The locomotive weighed
      three tons, was twelve feet long, five feet wide, and made a speed of nine
      miles an hour with a trailer car for passengers. Starting on June 5th,
      when the exhibition closed on June 23d this tiny but typical road had
      operated for over 118 hours, had made over 446 miles, and had carried
      26,805 passengers. After the exposition closed the outfit was taken during
      the same year to the exposition at Louisville, Kentucky, where it was also
      successful, carrying a large number of passengers. It deserves note that
      at Chicago regular railway tickets were issued to paying passengers, the
      first ever employed on American electric railways.
    </p>
    <p>
      With this modest but brilliant demonstration, to which the illustrious
      names of Edison and Field were attached, began the outburst of excitement
      over electric railways, very much like the eras of speculation and
      exploitation that attended only a few years earlier the introduction of
      the telephone and the electric light, but with such significant results
      that the capitalization of electric roads in America is now over
      $4,000,000,000, or twice as much as that of the other two arts combined.
      There was a tremendous rush into the electric-railway field after 1883,
      and an outburst of inventive activity that has rarely, if ever, been
      equalled. It is remarkable that, except Siemens, no European achieved fame
      in this early work, while from America the ideas and appliances of Edison,
      Van Depoele, Sprague, Field, Daft, and Short have been carried and adopted
      all over the world.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Edison was consulting electrician for the Electric Railway Company,
      but neither a director nor an executive officer. Just what the trouble was
      as to the internal management of the corporation it is hard to determine a
      quarter of a century later; but it was equipped with all essential
      elements to dominate an art in which after its first efforts it remained
      practically supine and useless, while other interests forged ahead and
      reaped both the profit and the glory. Dissensions arose between the
      representatives of the Field and Edison interests, and in April, 1890, the
      Railway Company assigned its rights to the Edison patents to the Edison
      General Electric Company, recently formed by the consolidation of all the
      branches of the Edison light, power, and manufacturing industry under one
      management. The only patent rights remaining to the Railway Company were
      those under three Field patents, one of which, with controlling claims,
      was put in suit June, 1890, against the Jamaica &amp; Brooklyn Road
      Company, a customer of the Edison General Electric Company. This was, to
      say the least, a curious and anomalous situation. Voluminous records were
      made by both parties to the suit, and in the spring of 1894 the case was
      argued before the late Judge Townsend, who wrote a long opinion dismissing
      the bill of complaint. [15] The student will find therein a very complete
      and careful study of the early electric-railway art. After this decision
      was rendered, the Electric Railway Company remained for several years in a
      moribund condition, and on the last day of 1896 its property was placed in
      the hands of a receiver. In February of 1897 the receiver sold the three
      Field patents to their original owner, and he in turn sold them to the
      Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. The Railway Company then
      went into voluntary dissolution, a sad example of failure to seize the
      opportunity at the psychological moment, and on the part of the inventor
      to secure any adequate return for years of effort and struggle in founding
      one of the great arts. Neither of these men was squelched by such a
      calamitous result, but if there were not something of bitterness in their
      feelings as they survey what has come of their work, they would not be
      human.
    </p>
    <p>
      As a matter of fact, Edison retained a very lively interest in
      electric-railway progress long after the pregnant days at Menlo Park, one
      of the best evidences of which is an article in the New York Electrical
      Engineer of November 18, 1891, which describes some important and original
      experiments in the direction of adapting electrical conditions to the
      larger cities. The overhead trolley had by that time begun its victorious
      career, but there was intense hostility displayed toward it in many places
      because of the inevitable increase in the number of overhead wires, which,
      carrying, as they did, a current of high voltage and large quantity, were
      regarded as a menace to life and property. Edison has always manifested a
      strong objection to overhead wires in cities, and urged placing them
      underground; and the outcry against the overhead "deadly" trolley met with
      his instant sympathy. His study of the problem brought him to the
      development of the modern "substation," although the twists that later
      evolutions have given the idea have left it scarcely recognizable.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 15: See 61 Fed. Rep. 655.]
</pre>
    <p>
      Mr. Villard, as President of the Edison General Electric Company,
      requested Mr. Edison, as electrician of the company, to devise a
      street-railway system which should be applicable to the largest cities
      where the use of the trolley would not be permitted, where the slot
      conduit system would not be used, and where, in general, the details of
      construction should be reduced to the simplest form. The limits imposed
      practically were such as to require that the system should not cost more
      than a cable road to install. Edison reverted to his ingenious lighting
      plan of years earlier, and thus settled on a method by which current
      should be conveyed from the power plant at high potential to
      motor-generators placed below the ground in close proximity to the rails.
      These substations would convert the current received at a pressure of,
      say, one thousand volts to one of twenty volts available between rail and
      rail, with a corresponding increase in the volume of the current. With the
      utilization of heavy currents at low voltage it became necessary, of
      course, to devise apparatus which should be able to pick up with absolute
      certainty one thousand amperes of current at this pressure through two
      inches of mud, if necessary. With his wonted activity and fertility Edison
      set about devising such a contact, and experimented with metal wheels
      under all conditions of speed and track conditions. It was several months
      before he could convey one hundred amperes by means of such contacts, but
      he worked out at last a satisfactory device which was equal to the task.
      The next point was to secure a joint between contiguous rails such as
      would permit of the passage of several thousand amperes without
      introducing undue resistance. This was also accomplished.
    </p>
    <p>
      Objections were naturally made to rails out in the open on the street
      surface carrying large currents at a potential of twenty volts. It was
      said that vehicles with iron wheels passing over the tracks and spanning
      the two rails would short-circuit the current, "chew" themselves up, and
      destroy the dynamos generating the current by choking all that tremendous
      amount of energy back into them. Edison tackled the objection squarely and
      short-circuited his track with such a vehicle, but succeeded in getting
      only about two hundred amperes through the wheels, the low voltage and the
      insulating properties of the axle-grease being sufficient to account for
      such a result. An iron bar was also used, polished, and with a man
      standing on it to insure solid contact; but only one thousand amperes
      passed through it&mdash;i.e., the amount required by a single car, and, of
      course, much less than the capacity of the generators able to operate a
      system of several hundred cars.
    </p>
    <p>
      Further interesting experiments showed that the expected large leakage of
      current from the rails in wet weather did not materialize. Edison found
      that under the worst conditions with a wet and salted track, at a
      potential difference of twenty volts between the two rails, the extreme
      loss was only two and one-half horse-power. In this respect the phenomenon
      followed the same rule as that to which telegraph wires are subject&mdash;namely,
      that the loss of insulation is greater in damp, murky weather when the
      insulators are covered with wet dust than during heavy rains when the
      insulators are thoroughly washed by the action of the water. In like
      manner a heavy rain-storm cleaned the tracks from the accumulations due
      chiefly to the droppings of the horses, which otherwise served largely to
      increase the conductivity. Of course, in dry weather the loss of current
      was practically nothing, and, under ordinary conditions, Edison held, his
      system was in respect to leakage and the problems of electrolytic attack
      of the current on adjacent pipes, etc., as fully insulated as the standard
      trolley network of the day. The cost of his system Mr. Edison placed at
      from $30,000 to $100,000 per mile of double track, in accordance with
      local conditions, and in this respect comparing very favorably with the
      cable systems then so much in favor for heavy traffic. All the arguments
      that could be urged in support of this ingenious system are tenable and
      logical at the present moment; but the trolley had its way except on a few
      lines where the conduit-and-shoe method was adopted; and in the
      intervening years the volume of traffic created and handled by electricity
      in centres of dense population has brought into existence the modern
      subway.
    </p>
    <p>
      But down to the moment of the preparation of this biography, Edison has
      retained an active interest in transportation problems, and his latest
      work has been that of reviving the use of the storage battery for
      street-car purposes. At one time there were a number of storage-battery
      lines and cars in operation in such cities as Washington, New York,
      Chicago, and Boston; but the costs of operation and maintenance were found
      to be inordinately high as compared with those of the direct-supply
      methods, and the battery cars all disappeared. The need for them under
      many conditions remained, as, for example, in places in Greater New York
      where the overhead trolley wires are forbidden as objectionable, and where
      the ground is too wet or too often submerged to permit of the conduit with
      the slot. Some of the roads in Greater New York have been anxious to
      secure such cars, and, as usual, the most resourceful electrical engineer
      and inventor of his times has made the effort. A special experimental
      track has been laid at the Orange laboratory, and a car equipped with the
      Edison storage battery and other devices has been put under severe and
      extended trial there and in New York.
    </p>
    <p>
      Menlo Park, in ruin and decay, affords no traces of the early Edison
      electric-railway work, but the crude little locomotive built by Charles T.
      Hughes was rescued from destruction, and has become the property of the
      Pratt Institute, of Brooklyn, to whose thousands of technical students it
      is a constant example and incentive. It was loaned in 1904 to the
      Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, and by it exhibited as part
      of the historical Edison collection at the St. Louis Exposition.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XIX
    </h2>
    <h3>
      MAGNETIC ORE MILLING WORK
    </h3>
    <p>
      DURING the Hudson-Fulton celebration of October, 1909, Burgomaster Van
      Leeuwen, of Amsterdam, member of the delegation sent officially from
      Holland to escort the Half Moon and participate in the functions of the
      anniversary, paid a visit to the Edison laboratory at Orange to see the
      inventor, who may be regarded as pre-eminent among those of Dutch descent
      in this country. Found, as usual, hard at work&mdash;this time on his
      cement house, of which he showed the iron molds&mdash;Edison took occasion
      to remark that if he had achieved anything worth while, it was due to the
      obstinacy and pertinacity he had inherited from his forefathers. To which
      it may be added that not less equally have the nature of inheritance and
      the quality of atavism been exhibited in his extraordinary predilection
      for the miller's art. While those Batavian ancestors on the low shores of
      the Zuyder Zee devoted their energies to grinding grain, he has been not
      less assiduous than they in reducing the rocks of the earth itself to
      flour.
    </p>
    <p>
      Although this phase of Mr. Edison's diverse activities is not as generally
      known to the world as many others of a more popular character, the milling
      of low-grade auriferous ores and the magnetic separation of iron ores have
      been subjects of engrossing interest and study to him for many years.
      Indeed, his comparatively unknown enterprise of separating magnetically
      and putting into commercial form low-grade iron ore, as carried on at
      Edison, New Jersey, proved to be the most colossal experiment that he has
      ever made.
    </p>
    <p>
      If a person qualified to judge were asked to answer categorically as to
      whether or not that enterprise was a failure, he could truthfully answer
      both yes and no. Yes, in that circumstances over which Mr. Edison had no
      control compelled the shutting down of the plant at the very moment of
      success; and no, in that the mechanically successful and commercially
      practical results obtained, after the exercise of stupendous efforts and
      the expenditure of a fortune, are so conclusive that they must inevitably
      be the reliance of many future iron-masters. In other words, Mr. Edison
      was at least a quarter of a century ahead of the times in the work now to
      be considered.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before proceeding to a specific description of this remarkable enterprise,
      however, let us glance at an early experiment in separating magnetic iron
      sands on the Atlantic sea-shore: "Some years ago I heard one day that down
      at Quogue, Long Island, there were immense deposits of black magnetic
      sand. This would be very valuable if the iron could be separated from the
      sand. So I went down to Quogue with one of my assistants and saw there for
      miles large beds of black sand on the beach in layers from one to six
      inches thick&mdash;hundreds of thousands of tons. My first thought was
      that it would be a very easy matter to concentrate this, and I found I
      could sell the stuff at a good price. I put up a small plant, but just as
      I got it started a tremendous storm came up, and every bit of that black
      sand went out to sea. During the twenty-eight years that have intervened
      it has never come back." This incident was really the prelude to the
      development set forth in this chapter.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the early eighties Edison became familiar with the fact that the
      Eastern steel trade was suffering a disastrous change, and that business
      was slowly drifting westward, chiefly by reason of the discovery and
      opening up of enormous deposits of high-grade iron ore in the upper
      peninsula of Michigan. This ore could be excavated very cheaply by means
      of improved mining facilities, and transported at low cost to lake ports.
      Hence the iron and steel mills east of the Alleghanies&mdash;compelled to
      rely on limited local deposits of Bessemer ore, and upon foreign ores
      which were constantly rising in value&mdash;began to sustain a serious
      competition with Western mills, even in Eastern markets.
    </p>
    <p>
      Long before this situation arose, it had been recognized by Eastern
      iron-masters that sooner or later the deposits of high-grade ore would be
      exhausted, and, in consequence, there would ensue a compelling necessity
      to fall back on the low-grade magnetic ores. For many years it had been a
      much-discussed question how to make these ores available for
      transportation to distant furnaces. To pay railroad charges on ores
      carrying perhaps 80 to 90 per cent. of useless material would be
      prohibitive. Hence the elimination of the worthless "gangue" by
      concentration of the iron particles associated with it, seemed to be the
      only solution of the problem.
    </p>
    <p>
      Many attempts had been made in by-gone days to concentrate the iron in
      such ores by water processes, but with only a partial degree of success.
      The impossibility of obtaining a uniform concentrate was a most serious
      objection, had there not indeed been other difficulties which rendered
      this method commercially impracticable. It is quite natural, therefore,
      that the idea of magnetic separation should have occurred to many
      inventors. Thus we find numerous instances throughout the last century of
      experiments along this line; and particularly in the last forty or fifty
      years, during which various attempts have been made by others than Edison
      to perfect magnetic separation and bring it up to something like
      commercial practice. At the time he took up the matter, however, no one
      seems to have realized the full meaning of the tremendous problems
      involved.
    </p>
    <p>
      From 1880 to 1885, while still very busy in the development of his
      electric-light system, Edison found opportunity to plan crushing and
      separating machinery. His first patent on the subject was applied for and
      issued early in 1880. He decided, after mature deliberation, that the
      magnetic separation of low-grade ores on a colossal scale at a low cost
      was the only practical way of supplying the furnace-man with a high
      quality of iron ore. It was his opinion that it was cheaper to quarry and
      concentrate lean ore in a big way than to attempt to mine, under adverse
      circumstances, limited bodies of high-grade ore. He appreciated fully the
      serious nature of the gigantic questions involved; and his plans were laid
      with a view to exercising the utmost economy in the design and operation
      of the plant in which he contemplated the automatic handling of many
      thousands of tons of material daily. It may be stated as broadly true that
      Edison engineered to handle immense masses of stuff automatically, while
      his predecessors aimed chiefly at close separation.
    </p>
    <p>
      Reduced to its barest, crudest terms, the proposition of magnetic
      separation is simplicity itself. A piece of the ore (magnetite) may be
      reduced to powder and the ore particles separated therefrom by the help of
      a simple hand magnet. To elucidate the basic principle of Edison's method,
      let the crushed ore fall in a thin stream past such a magnet. The magnetic
      particles are attracted out of the straight line of the falling stream,
      and being heavy, gravitate inwardly and fall to one side of a partition
      placed below. The non-magnetic gangue descends in a straight line to the
      other side of the partition. Thus a complete separation is effected.
    </p>
    <p>
      Simple though the principle appears, it was in its application to vast
      masses of material and in the solving of great engineering problems
      connected therewith that Edison's originality made itself manifest in the
      concentrating works that he established in New Jersey, early in the
      nineties. Not only did he develop thoroughly the refining of the crushed
      ore, so that after it had passed the four hundred and eighty magnets in
      the mill, the concentrates came out finally containing 91 to 93 per cent.
      of iron oxide, but he also devised collateral machinery, methods and
      processes all fundamental in their nature. These are too numerous to
      specify in detail, as they extended throughout the various ramifications
      of the plant, but the principal ones are worthy of mention, such as:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     The giant rolls (for crushing).
     Intermediate rolls.
     Three-high rolls.
     Giant cranes (215 feet long span).
     Vertical dryer.
     Belt conveyors.
     Air separation.
     Mechanical separation of phosphorus.
     Briquetting.
</pre>
    <p>
      That Mr. Edison's work was appreciated at the time is made evident by the
      following extract from an article describing the Edison plant, published
      in The Iron Age of October 28, 1897; in which, after mentioning his
      struggle with adverse conditions, it says: "There is very little that is
      showy, from the popular point of view, in the gigantic work which Mr.
      Edison has done during these years, but to those who are capable of
      grasping the difficulties encountered, Mr. Edison appears in the new light
      of a brilliant constructing engineer grappling with technical and
      commercial problems of the highest order. His genius as an inventor is
      revealed in many details of the great concentrating plant.... But to our
      mind, originality of the highest type as a constructor and designer
      appears in the bold way in which he sweeps aside accepted practice in this
      particular field and attains results not hitherto approached. He pursues
      methods in ore-dressing at which those who are trained in the usual
      practice may well stand aghast. But considering the special features of
      the problems to be solved, his methods will be accepted as those
      economically wise and expedient."
    </p>
    <p>
      A cursory glance at these problems will reveal their import. Mountains
      must be reduced to dust; all this dust must be handled in detail, so to
      speak, and from it must be separated the fine particles of iron
      constituting only one-fourth or one-fifth of its mass; and then this
      iron-ore dust must be put into such shape that it could be commercially
      shipped and used. One of the most interesting and striking investigations
      made by Edison in this connection is worthy of note, and may be related in
      his own words: "I felt certain that there must be large bodies of
      magnetite in the East, which if crushed and concentrated would satisfy the
      wants of the Eastern furnaces for steel-making. Having determined to
      investigate the mountain regions of New Jersey, I constructed a very
      sensitive magnetic needle, which would dip toward the earth if brought
      over any considerable body of magnetic iron ore. One of my laboratory
      assistants went out with me and we visited many of the mines of New
      Jersey, but did not find deposits of any magnitude. One day, however, as
      we drove over a mountain range, not known as iron-bearing land, I was
      astonished to find that the needle was strongly attracted and remained so;
      thus indicating that the whole mountain was underlaid with vast bodies of
      magnetic ore.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I knew it was a commercial problem to produce high-grade Bessemer ore
      from these deposits, and took steps to acquire a large amount of the
      property. I also planned a great magnetic survey of the East, and I
      believe it remains the most comprehensive of its kind yet performed. I had
      a number of men survey a strip reaching from Lower Canada to North
      Carolina. The only instrument we used was the special magnetic needle. We
      started in Lower Canada and travelled across the line of march twenty-five
      miles; then advanced south one thousand feet; then back across the line of
      march again twenty-five miles; then south another thousand feet, across
      again, and so on. Thus we advanced all the way to North Carolina, varying
      our cross-country march from two to twenty-five miles, according to
      geological formation. Our magnetic needle indicated the presence and
      richness of the invisible deposits of magnetic ore. We kept minute records
      of these indications, and when the survey was finished we had exact
      information of the deposits in every part of each State we had passed
      through. We also knew the width, length, and approximate depth of every
      one of these deposits, which were enormous.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The amount of ore disclosed by this survey was simply fabulous. How much
      so may be judged from the fact that in the three thousand acres
      immediately surrounding the mills that I afterward established at Edison
      there were over 200,000,000 tons of low-grade ore. I also secured sixteen
      thousand acres in which the deposit was proportionately as large. These
      few acres alone contained sufficient ore to supply the whole United States
      iron trade, including exports, for seventy years."
    </p>
    <p>
      Given a mountain of rock containing only one-fifth to one-fourth magnetic
      iron, the broad problem confronting Edison resolved itself into three
      distinct parts&mdash;first, to tear down the mountain bodily and grind it
      to powder; second, to extract from this powder the particles of iron
      mingled in its mass; and, third, to accomplish these results at a cost
      sufficiently low to give the product a commercial value.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison realized from the start that the true solution of this problem lay
      in the continuous treatment of the material, with the maximum employment
      of natural forces and the minimum of manual labor and generated power.
      Hence, all his conceptions followed this general principle so faithfully
      and completely that we find in the plant embodying his ideas the forces of
      momentum and gravity steadily in harness and keeping the traces taut;
      while there was no touch of the human hand upon the material from the
      beginning of the treatment to its finish&mdash;the staff being employed
      mainly to keep watch on the correct working of the various processes.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is hardly necessary to devote space to the beginnings of the
      enterprise, although they are full of interest. They served, however, to
      convince Edison that if he ever expected to carry out his scheme on the
      extensive scale planned, he could not depend upon the market to supply
      suitable machinery for important operations, but would be obliged to
      devise and build it himself. Thus, outside the steam-shovel and such
      staple items as engines, boilers, dynamos, and motors, all of the diverse
      and complex machinery of the entire concentrating plant, as subsequently
      completed, was devised by him especially for the purpose. The necessity
      for this was due to the many radical variations made from accepted
      methods.
    </p>
    <p>
      No such departure was as radical as that of the method of crushing the
      ore. Existing machinery for this purpose had been designed on the basis of
      mining methods then in vogue, by which the rock was thoroughly shattered
      by means of high explosives and reduced to pieces of one hundred pounds or
      less. These pieces were then crushed by power directly applied. If a
      concentrating mill, planned to treat five or six thousand tons per day,
      were to be operated on this basis the investment in crushers and the
      supply of power would be enormous, to say nothing of the risk of frequent
      breakdowns by reason of multiplicity of machinery and parts. From a
      consideration of these facts, and with his usual tendency to upset
      traditional observances, Edison conceived the bold idea of constructing
      gigantic rolls which, by the force of momentum, would be capable of
      crushing individual rocks of vastly greater size than ever before
      attempted. He reasoned that the advantages thus obtained would be
      fourfold: a minimum of machinery and parts; greater compactness; a saving
      of power; and greater economy in mining. As this last-named operation
      precedes the crushing, let us first consider it as it was projected and
      carried on by him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Perhaps quarrying would be a better term than mining in this case, as
      Edison's plan was to approach the rock and tear it down bodily. The faith
      that "moves mountains" had a new opportunity. In work of this nature it
      had been customary, as above stated, to depend upon a high explosive, such
      as dynamite, to shatter and break the ore to lumps of one hundred pounds
      or less. This, however, he deemed to be a most uneconomical process, for
      energy stored as heat units in dynamite at $260 per ton was much more
      expensive than that of calories in a ton of coal at $3 per ton. Hence, he
      believed that only the minimum of work should be done with the costly
      explosive; and, therefore, planned to use dynamite merely to dislodge
      great masses of rock, and depended upon the steam-shovel, operated by coal
      under the boiler, to displace, handle, and remove the rock in detail. This
      was the plan that was subsequently put into practice in the great works at
      Edison, New Jersey. A series of three-inch holes twenty feet deep were
      drilled eight feet apart, about twelve feet back of the ore-bank, and into
      these were inserted dynamite cartridges. The blast would dislodge thirty
      to thirty-five thousand tons of rock, which was scooped up by great
      steam-shovels and loaded on to skips carried by a line of cars on a
      narrow-gauge railroad running to and from the crushing mill. Here the
      material was automatically delivered to the giant rolls. The problem
      included handling and crushing the "run of the mine," without selection.
      The steam-shovel did not discriminate, but picked up handily single pieces
      weighing five or six tons and loaded them on the skips with quantities of
      smaller lumps. When the skips arrived at the giant rolls, their contents
      were dumped automatically into a superimposed hopper. The rolls were well
      named, for with ear-splitting noise they broke up in a few seconds the
      great pieces of rock tossed in from the skips.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not easy to appreciate to the full the daring exemplified in these
      great crushing rolls, or rather "rock-crackers," without having watched
      them in operation delivering their "solar-plexus" blows. It was only as
      one might stand in their vicinity and hear the thunderous roar
      accompanying the smashing and rending of the massive rocks as they
      disappeared from view that the mind was overwhelmed with a sense of the
      magnificent proportions of this operation. The enormous force exerted
      during this process may be illustrated from the fact that during its
      development, in running one of the early forms of rolls, pieces of rock
      weighing more than half a ton would be shot up in the air to a height of
      twenty or twenty-five feet.
    </p>
    <p>
      The giant rolls were two solid cylinders, six feet in diameter and five
      feet long, made of cast iron. To the faces of these rolls were bolted a
      series of heavy, chilled-iron plates containing a number of projecting
      knobs two inches high. Each roll had also two rows of four-inch knobs,
      intended to strike a series of hammer-like blows. The rolls were set face
      to face fourteen inches apart, in a heavy frame, and the total weight was
      one hundred and thirty tons, of which seventy tons were in moving parts.
      The space between these two rolls allowed pieces of rock measuring less
      than fourteen inches to descend to other smaller rolls placed below. The
      giant rolls were belt-driven, in opposite directions, through friction
      clutches, although the belt was not depended upon for the actual crushing.
      Previous to the dumping of a skip, the rolls were speeded up to a
      circumferential velocity of nearly a mile a minute, thus imparting to them
      the terrific momentum that would break up easily in a few seconds boulders
      weighing five or six tons each. It was as though a rock of this size had
      got in the way of two express trains travelling in opposite directions at
      nearly sixty miles an hour. In other words, it was the kinetic energy of
      the rolls that crumbled up the rocks with pile-driver effect. This sudden
      strain might have tended to stop the engine driving the rolls; but by an
      ingenious clutch arrangement the belt was released at the moment of
      resistance in the rolls by reason of the rocks falling between them. The
      act of breaking and crushing would naturally decrease the tremendous
      momentum, but after the rock was reduced and the pieces had passed
      through, the belt would again come into play, and once more speed up the
      rolls for a repetition of their regular prize-fighter duty.
    </p>
    <p>
      On leaving the giant rolls the rocks, having been reduced to pieces not
      larger than fourteen inches, passed into the series of "Intermediate
      Rolls" of similar construction and operation, by which they were still
      further reduced, and again passed on to three other sets of rolls of
      smaller dimensions. These latter rolls were also face-lined with
      chilled-iron plates; but, unlike the larger ones, were positively driven,
      reducing the rock to pieces of about one-half-inch size, or smaller. The
      whole crushing operation of reduction from massive boulders to small
      pebbly pieces having been done in less time than the telling has occupied,
      the product was conveyed to the "Dryer," a tower nine feet square and
      fifty feet high, heated from below by great open furnace fires. All down
      the inside walls of this tower were placed cast-iron plates, nine feet
      long and seven inches wide, arranged alternately in "fish-ladder" fashion.
      The crushed rock, being delivered at the top, would fall down from plate
      to plate, constantly exposing different surfaces to the heat, until it
      landed completely dried in the lower portion of the tower, where it fell
      into conveyors which took it up to the stock-house.
    </p>
    <p>
      This method of drying was original with Edison. At the time this adjunct
      to the plant was required, the best dryer on the market was of a rotary
      type, which had a capacity of only twenty tons per hour, with the
      expenditure of considerable power. As Edison had determined upon treating
      two hundred and fifty tons or more per hour, he decided to devise an
      entirely new type of great capacity, requiring a minimum of power (for
      elevating the material), and depending upon the force of gravity for
      handling it during the drying process. A long series of experiments
      resulted in the invention of the tower dryer with a capacity of three
      hundred tons per hour.
    </p>
    <p>
      The rock, broken up into pieces about the size of marbles, having been
      dried and conveyed to the stock-house, the surplusage was automatically
      carried out from the other end of the stock-house by conveyors, to pass
      through the next process, by which it was reduced to a powder. The
      machinery for accomplishing this result represents another interesting and
      radical departure of Edison from accepted usage. He had investigated all
      the crushing-machines on the market, and tried all he could get. He found
      them all greatly lacking in economy of operation; indeed, the highest
      results obtainable from the best were 18 per cent. of actual work,
      involving a loss of 82 per cent. by friction. His nature revolted at such
      an immense loss of power, especially as he proposed the crushing of vast
      quantities of ore. Thus, he was obliged to begin again at the foundation,
      and he devised a crushing-machine which was subsequently named the
      "Three-High Rolls," and which practically reversed the above figures, as
      it developed 84 per cent. of work done with only 16 per cent. loss in
      friction.
    </p>
    <p>
      A brief description of this remarkable machine will probably interest the
      reader. In the two end pieces of a heavy iron frame were set three rolls,
      or cylinders&mdash;one in the centre, another below, and the other above&mdash;all
      three being in a vertical line. These rolls were of cast iron three feet
      in diameter, having chilled-iron smooth face-plates of considerable
      thickness. The lowest roll was set in a fixed bearing at the bottom of the
      frame, and, therefore, could only turn around on its axis. The middle and
      top rolls were free to move up or down from and toward the lower roll, and
      the shafts of the middle and upper rolls were set in a loose bearing which
      could slip up and down in the iron frame. It will be apparent, therefore,
      that any material which passed in between the top and the middle rolls,
      and the middle and bottom rolls, could be ground as fine as might be
      desired, depending entirely upon the amount of pressure applied to the
      loose rolls. In operation the material passed first through the upper and
      middle rolls, and then between the middle and lowest rolls.
    </p>
    <p>
      This pressure was applied in a most ingenious manner. On the ends of the
      shafts of the bottom and top rolls there were cylindrical sleeves, or
      bearings, having seven sheaves, in which was run a half-inch endless wire
      rope. This rope was wound seven times over the sheaves as above, and led
      upward and over a single-groove sheave which was operated by the piston of
      an air cylinder, and in this manner the pressure was applied to the rolls.
      It will be seen, therefore, that the system consisted in a single rope
      passed over sheaves and so arranged that it could be varied in length,
      thus providing for elasticity in exerting pressure and regulating it as
      desired. The efficiency of this system was incomparably greater than that
      of any other known crusher or grinder, for while a pressure of one hundred
      and twenty-five thousand pounds could be exerted by these rolls, friction
      was almost entirely eliminated because the upper and lower roll bearings
      turned with the rolls and revolved in the wire rope, which constituted the
      bearing proper.
    </p>
    <p>
      The same cautious foresight exercised by Edison in providing a safety
      device&mdash;the fuse&mdash;to prevent fires in his electric-light system,
      was again displayed in this concentrating plant, where, to save possible
      injury to its expensive operating parts, he devised an analogous factor,
      providing all the crushing machinery with closely calculated "safety
      pins," which, on being overloaded, would shear off and thus stop the
      machine at once.
    </p>
    <p>
      The rocks having thus been reduced to fine powder, the mass was ready for
      screening on its way to the magnetic separators. Here again Edison
      reversed prior practice by discarding rotary screens and devising a form
      of tower screen, which, besides having a very large working capacity by
      gravity, eliminated all power except that required to elevate the
      material. The screening process allowed the finest part of the crushed
      rock to pass on, by conveyor belts, to the magnetic separators, while the
      coarser particles were in like manner automatically returned to the rolls
      for further reduction.
    </p>
    <p>
      In a narrative not intended to be strictly technical, it would probably
      tire the reader to follow this material in detail through the numerous
      steps attending the magnetic separation. These may be seen in a diagram
      reproduced from the above-named article in the Iron Age, and supplemented
      by the following extract from the Electrical Engineer, New York, October
      28, 1897: "At the start the weakest magnet at the top frees the purest
      particles, and the second takes care of others; but the third catches
      those to which rock adheres, and will extract particles of which only
      one-eighth is iron. This batch of material goes back for another crushing,
      so that everything is subjected to an equality of refining. We are now in
      sight of the real 'concentrates,' which are conveyed to dryer No. 2 for
      drying again, and are then delivered to the fifty-mesh screens. Whatever
      is fine enough goes through to the eight-inch magnets, and the remainder
      goes back for recrushing. Below the eight-inch magnets the dust is blown
      out of the particles mechanically, and they then go to the four-inch
      magnets for final cleansing and separation.... Obviously, at each step the
      percentage of felspar and phosphorus is less and less until in the final
      concentrates the percentage of iron oxide is 91 to 93 per cent. As
      intimated at the outset, the tailings will be 75 per cent. of the rock
      taken from the veins of ore, so that every four tons of crude, raw,
      low-grade ore will have yielded roughly one ton of high-grade concentrate
      and three tons of sand, the latter also having its value in various ways."
    </p>
    <p>
      This sand was transported automatically by belt conveyors to the rear of
      the works to be stored and sold. Being sharp, crystalline, and even in
      quality, it was a valuable by-product, finding a ready sale for building
      purposes, railway sand-boxes, and various industrial uses. The
      concentrate, in fine powdery form, was delivered in similar manner to a
      stock-house.
    </p>
    <p>
      As to the next step in the process, we may now quote again from the
      article in the Iron Age: "While Mr. Edison and his associates were working
      on the problem of cheap concentration of iron ore, an added difficulty
      faced them in the preparation of the concentrates for the market.
      Furnacemen object to more than a very small proportion of fine ore in
      their mixtures, particularly when the ore is magnetic, not easily reduced.
      The problem to be solved was to market an agglomerated material so as to
      avoid the drawbacks of fine ore. The agglomerated product must be porous
      so as to afford access of the furnace-reducing gases to the ore. It must
      be hard enough to bear transportation, and to carry the furnace burden
      without crumbling to pieces. It must be waterproof, to a certain extent,
      because considerations connected with securing low rates of freight make
      it necessary to be able to ship the concentrates to market in open coal
      cars, exposed to snow and rain. In many respects the attainment of these
      somewhat conflicting ends was the most perplexing of the problems which
      confronted Mr. Edison. The agglomeration of the concentrates having been
      decided upon, two other considerations, not mentioned above, were of
      primary importance&mdash;first, to find a suitable cheap binding material;
      and, second, its nature must be such that very little would be necessary
      per ton of concentrates. These severe requirements were staggering, but
      Mr. Edison's courage did not falter. Although it seemed a well-nigh
      hopeless task, he entered upon the investigation with his usual optimism
      and vim. After many months of unremitting toil and research, and the trial
      of thousands of experiments, the goal was reached in the completion of a
      successful formula for agglomerating the fine ore and pressing it into
      briquettes by special machinery."
    </p>
    <p>
      This was the final process requisite for the making of a completed
      commercial product. Its practice, of course, necessitated the addition of
      an entirely new department of the works, which was carried into effect by
      the construction and installation of the novel mixing and briquetting
      machinery, together with extensions of the conveyors, with which the plant
      had already been liberally provided.
    </p>
    <p>
      Briefly described, the process consisted in mixing the concentrates with
      the special binding material in machines of an entirely new type, and in
      passing the resultant pasty mass into the briquetting machines, where it
      was pressed into cylindrical cakes three inches in diameter and one and a
      half inches thick, under successive pressures of 7800, 14,000, and 60,000
      pounds. Each machine made these briquettes at the rate of sixty per
      minute, and dropped them into bucket conveyors by which they were carried
      into drying furnaces, through which they made five loops, and were then
      delivered to cross-conveyors which carried them into the stock-house. At
      the end of this process the briquettes were so hard that they would not
      break or crumble in loading on the cars or in transportation by rail,
      while they were so porous as to be capable of absorbing 26 per cent. of
      their own volume in alcohol, but repelling water absolutely&mdash;perfect
      "old soaks."
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus, with never-failing persistence and patience, coupled with intense
      thought and hard work, Edison met and conquered, one by one, the complex
      difficulties that confronted him. He succeeded in what he had set out to
      do, and it is now to be noted that the product he had striven so
      sedulously to obtain was a highly commercial one, for not only did the
      briquettes of concentrated ore fulfil the purpose of their creation, but
      in use actually tended to increase the working capacity of the furnace, as
      the following test, quoted from the Iron Age, October 28, 1897, will
      attest: "The only trial of any magnitude of the briquettes in the
      blast-furnace was carried through early this year at the Crane Iron Works,
      Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, by Leonard Peckitt.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The furnace at which the test was made produces from one hundred to one
      hundred and ten tons per day when running on the ordinary mixture. The
      charging of briquettes was begun with a percentage of 25 per cent., and
      was carried up to 100 per cent. The following is the record of the
      results:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  RESULTS OF WORKING BRIQUETTES AT THE CRANE FURNACE
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
                  Quantity of                       Phos-             ManDate
  Briquette      Tons     Silica   phorus   Sulphur  ganese
                    Working
                   Per Cent.
  January 5th          25        104        2.770    0.830    0.018    0.500
  January 6th          37 1/2  4 1/2        2.620    0 740    0.018    0.350
  January 7th          50        138 1/2    2.572    0.580    0.015    0.200
  January 8th          75        119        1.844    0.264    0.022    0.200
  January 9th         100        138 1/2    1.712    0.147    0.038    0.185
</pre>
    <p>
      "On the 9th, at 5 P.M., the briquettes having been nearly exhausted, the
      percentage was dropped to 25 per cent., and on the 10th the output dropped
      to 120 tons, and on the 11th the furnace had resumed the usual work on the
      regular standard ores.
    </p>
    <p>
      "These figures prove that the yield of the furnace is considerably
      increased. The Crane trial was too short to settle the question to what
      extent the increase in product may be carried. This increase in output, of
      course, means a reduction in the cost of labor and of general expenses.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The richness of the ore and its purity of course affect the limestone
      consumption. In the case of the Crane trial there was a reduction from 30
      per cent. to 12 per cent. of the ore charge.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Finally, the fuel consumption is reduced, which in the case of the
      Eastern plants, with their relatively costly coke, is a very important
      consideration. It is regarded as possible that Eastern furnaces will be
      able to use a smaller proportion of the costlier coke and correspondingly
      increase in anthracite coal, which is a cheaper fuel in that section. So
      far as foundry iron is concerned, the experience at Catasauqua,
      Pennsylvania, brief as it has been, shows that a stronger and tougher
      metal is made."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison himself tells an interesting little story in this connection, when
      he enjoyed the active help of that noble character, John Fritz, the
      distinguished inventor and pioneer of the modern steel industry in
      America. He says: "When I was struggling along with the iron-ore
      concentration, I went to see several blast-furnace men to sell the ore at
      the market price. They saw I was very anxious to sell it, and they would
      take advantage of my necessity. But I happened to go to Mr. John Fritz, of
      the Bethlehem Steel Company, and told him what I was doing. 'Well,' he
      said to me, 'Edison, you are doing a good thing for the Eastern furnaces.
      They ought to help you, for it will help us out. I am willing to help you.
      I mix a little sentiment with business, and I will give you an order for
      one hundred thousand tons.' And he sat right down and gave me the order."
    </p>
    <p>
      The Edison concentrating plant has been sketched in the briefest outline
      with a view of affording merely a bare idea of the great work of its
      projector. To tell the whole story in detail and show its logical
      sequence, step by step, would take little less than a volume in itself,
      for Edison's methods, always iconoclastic when progress is in sight, were
      particularly so at the period in question. It has been said that "Edison's
      scrap-heap contains the elements of a liberal education," and this was
      essentially true of the "discard" during the ore-milling experience.
      Interesting as it might be to follow at length the numerous phases of
      ingenious and resourceful development that took place during those busy
      years, the limit of present space forbids their relation. It would,
      however, be denying the justice that is Edison's due to omit all mention
      of two hitherto unnamed items in particular that have added to the world's
      store of useful devices. We refer first to the great travelling
      hoisting-crane having a span of two hundred and fifteen feet, and used for
      hoisting loads equal to ten tons, this being the largest of the kind made
      up to that time, and afterward used as a model by many others. The second
      item was the ingenious and varied forms of conveyor belt, devised and used
      by Edison at the concentrating works, and subsequently developed into a
      separate and extensive business by an engineer to whom he gave permission
      to use his plans and patterns.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's native shrewdness and knowledge of human nature was put to
      practical use in the busy days of plant construction. It was found
      impossible to keep mechanics on account of indifferent residential
      accommodations afforded by the tiny village, remote from civilization,
      among the central mountains of New Jersey. This puzzling question was much
      discussed between him and his associate, Mr. W. S. Mallory, until finally
      he said to the latter: "If we want to keep the men here we must make it
      attractive for the women&mdash;so let us build some houses that will have
      running water and electric lights, and rent at a low rate." He set to
      work, and in a day finished a design for a type of house. Fifty were
      quickly built and fully described in advertising for mechanics. Three
      days' advertisements brought in over six hundred and fifty applications,
      and afterward Edison had no trouble in obtaining all the first-class men
      he required, as settlers in the artificial Yosemite he was creating.
    </p>
    <p>
      We owe to Mr. Mallory a characteristic story of this period as to an
      incidental unbending from toil, which in itself illustrates the
      ever-present determination to conquer what is undertaken: "Along in the
      latter part of the nineties, when the work on the problem of concentrating
      iron ore was in progress, it became necessary when leaving the plant at
      Edison to wait over at Lake Hopatcong one hour for a connecting train.
      During some of these waits Mr. Edison had seen me play billiards. At the
      particular time this incident happened, Mrs. Edison and her family were
      away for the summer, and I was staying at the Glenmont home on the Orange
      Mountains.
    </p>
    <p>
      "One hot Saturday night, after Mr. Edison had looked over the evening
      papers, he said to me: 'Do you want to play a game of billiards?'
      Naturally this astonished me very much, as he is a man who cares little or
      nothing for the ordinary games, with the single exception of parcheesi, of
      which he is very fond. I said I would like to play, so we went up into the
      billiard-room of the house. I took off the cloth, got out the balls,
      picked out a cue for Mr. Edison, and when we banked for the first shot I
      won and started the game. After making two or three shots I missed, and a
      long carom shot was left for Mr. Edison, the cue ball and object ball
      being within about twelve inches of each other, and the other ball a
      distance of nearly the length of the table. Mr. Edison attempted to make
      the shot, but missed it and said 'Put the balls back.' So I put them back
      in the same position and he missed it the second time. I continued at his
      request to put the balls back in the same position for the next fifteen
      minutes, until he could make the shot every time&mdash;then he said: 'I
      don't want to play any more.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      Having taken a somewhat superficial survey of the great enterprise under
      consideration; having had a cursory glance at the technical development of
      the plant up to the point of its successful culmination in the making of a
      marketable, commercial product as exemplified in the test at the Crane
      Furnace, let us revert to that demonstration and note the events that
      followed. The facts of this actual test are far more eloquent than volumes
      of argument would be as a justification of Edison's assiduous labors for
      over eight years, and of the expenditure of a fortune in bringing his
      broad conception to a concrete possibility. In the patient solving of
      tremendous problems he had toiled up the mountain-side of success&mdash;scaling
      its topmost peak and obtaining a view of the boundless prospect. But,
      alas! "The best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft agley." The discovery
      of great deposits of rich Bessemer ore in the Mesaba range of mountains in
      Minnesota a year or two previous to the completion of his work had been
      followed by the opening up of those deposits and the marketing of the ore.
      It was of such rich character that, being cheaply mined by greatly
      improved and inexpensive methods, the market price of crude ore of like
      iron units fell from about $6.50 to $3.50 per ton at the time when Edison
      was ready to supply his concentrated product. At the former price he could
      have supplied the market and earned a liberal profit on his investment,
      but at $3.50 per ton he was left without a reasonable chance of
      competition. Thus was swept away the possibility of reaping the reward so
      richly earned by years of incessant thought, labor, and care. This great
      and notable plant, representing a very large outlay of money, brought to
      completion, ready for business, and embracing some of the most brilliant
      and remarkable of Edison's inventions and methods, must be abandoned by
      force of circumstances over which he had no control, and with it must die
      the high hopes that his progressive, conquering march to success had
      legitimately engendered.
    </p>
    <p>
      The financial aspect of these enterprises is often overlooked and
      forgotten. In this instance it was of more than usual import and
      seriousness, as Edison was virtually his own "backer," putting into the
      company almost the whole of all the fortune his inventions had brought
      him. There is a tendency to deny to the capital that thus takes desperate
      chances its full reward if things go right, and to insist that it shall
      have barely the legal rate of interest and far less than the return of
      over-the-counter retail trade. It is an absolute fact that the great
      electrical inventors and the men who stood behind them have had little
      return for their foresight and courage. In this instance, when the
      inventor was largely his own financier, the difficulties and perils were
      redoubled. Let Mr. Mallory give an instance: "During the latter part of
      the panic of 1893 there came a period when we were very hard up for ready
      cash, due largely to the panicky conditions; and a large pay-roll had been
      raised with considerable difficulty. A short time before pay-day our
      treasurer called me up by telephone, and said: 'I have just received the
      paid checks from the bank, and I am fearful that my assistant, who has
      forged my name to some of the checks, has absconded with about $3000.' I
      went immediately to Mr. Edison and told him of the forgery and the amount
      of money taken, and in what an embarrassing position we were for the next
      pay-roll. When I had finished he said: 'It is too bad the money is gone,
      but I will tell you what to do. Go and see the president of the bank which
      paid the forged checks. Get him to admit the bank's liability, and then
      say to him that Mr. Edison does not think the bank should suffer because
      he happened to have a dishonest clerk in his employ. Also say to him that
      I shall not ask them to make the amount good.' This was done; the bank
      admitting its liability and being much pleased with this action. When I
      reported to Mr. Edison he said: 'That's all right. We have made a friend
      of the bank, and we may need friends later on.' And so it happened that
      some time afterward, when we greatly needed help in the way of loans, the
      bank willingly gave us the accommodations we required to tide us over a
      critical period."
    </p>
    <p>
      This iron-ore concentrating project had lain close to Edison's heart and
      ambition&mdash;indeed, it had permeated his whole being to the exclusion
      of almost all other investigations or inventions for a while. For five
      years he had lived and worked steadily at Edison, leaving there only on
      Saturday night to spend Sunday at his home in Orange, and returning to the
      plant by an early train on Monday morning. Life at Edison was of the
      simple kind&mdash;work, meals, and a few hours' sleep&mdash;day by day.
      The little village, called into existence by the concentrating works, was
      of the most primitive nature and offered nothing in the way of frivolity
      or amusement. Even the scenery is austere. Hence Edison was enabled to
      follow his natural bent in being surrounded day and night by his
      responsible chosen associates, with whom he worked uninterrupted by
      outsiders from early morning away into the late hours of the evening.
      Those who were laboring with him, inspired by his unflagging enthusiasm,
      followed his example and devoted all their long waking hours to the
      furtherance of his plans with a zeal that ultimately bore fruit in the
      practical success here recorded.
    </p>
    <p>
      In view of its present status, this colossal enterprise at Edison may well
      be likened to the prologue of a play that is to be subsequently enacted
      for the benefit of future generations, but before ringing down the curtain
      it is desirable to preserve the unities by quoting the words of one of the
      principal actors, Mr. Mallory, who says: "The Concentrating Works had been
      in operation, and we had produced a considerable quantity of the
      briquettes, and had been able to sell only a portion of them, the iron
      market being in such condition that blast-furnaces were not making any new
      purchases of iron ore, and were having difficulty to receive and consume
      the ores which had been previously contracted for, so what sales we were
      able to make were at extremely low prices, my recollection being that they
      were between $3.50 and $3.80 per ton, whereas when the works had started
      we had hoped to obtain $6.00 to $6.50 per ton for the briquettes. We had
      also thoroughly investigated the wonderful deposit at Mesaba, and it was
      with the greatest possible reluctance that Mr. Edison was able to come
      finally to the conclusion that, under existing conditions, the
      concentrating plant could not then be made a commercial success. This
      decision was reached only after the most careful investigations and
      calculations, as Mr. Edison was just as full of fight and ambition to make
      it a success as when he first started.
    </p>
    <p>
      "When this decision was reached Mr. Edison and I took the Jersey Central
      train from Edison, bound for Orange, and I did not look forward to the
      immediate future with any degree of confidence, as the concentrating plant
      was heavily in debt, without any early prospect of being able to pay off
      its indebtedness. On the train the matter of the future was discussed, and
      Mr. Edison said that, inasmuch as we had the knowledge gained from our
      experience in the concentrating problem, we must, if possible, apply it to
      some practical use, and at the same time we must work out some other plans
      by which we could make enough money to pay off the Concentrating Company's
      indebtedness, Mr. Edison stating most positively that no company with
      which he had personally been actively connected had ever failed to pay its
      debts, and he did not propose to have the Concentrating Company any
      exception.
    </p>
    <p>
      "In the discussion that followed he suggested several kinds of work which
      he had in his mind, and which might prove profitable. We figured carefully
      over the probabilities of financial returns from the Phonograph Works and
      other enterprises, and after discussing many plans, it was finally decided
      that we would apply the knowledge we had gained in the concentrating plant
      by building a plant for manufacturing Portland cement, and that Mr. Edison
      would devote his attention to the developing of a storage battery which
      did not use lead and sulphuric acid. So these two lines of work were taken
      up by Mr. Edison with just as much enthusiasm and energy as is usual with
      him, the commercial failure of the concentrating plant seeming not to
      affect his spirits in any way. In fact, I have often been impressed
      strongly with the fact that, during the dark days of the concentrating
      problem, Mr. Edison's desire was very strong that the creditors of the
      Concentrating Works should be paid in full; and only once did I hear him
      make any reference to the financial loss which he himself made, and he
      then said: 'As far as I am concerned, I can any time get a job at $75 per
      month as a telegrapher, and that will amply take care of all my personal
      requirements.' As already stated, however, he started in with the maximum
      amount of enthusiasm and ambition, and in the course of about three years
      we succeeded in paying off all the indebtedness of the Concentrating
      Works, which amounted to several hundred thousand dollars.
    </p>
    <p>
      "As to the state of Mr. Edison's mind when the final decision was reached
      to close down, if he was specially disappointed, there was nothing in his
      manner to indicate it, his every thought being for the future, and as to
      what could be done to pull us out of the financial situation in which we
      found ourselves, and to take advantage of the knowledge which we had
      acquired at so great a cost."
    </p>
    <p>
      It will have been gathered that the funds for this great experiment were
      furnished largely by Edison. In fact, over two million dollars were spent
      in the attempt. Edison's philosophic view of affairs is given in the
      following anecdote from Mr. Mallory: "During the boom times of 1902, when
      the old General Electric stock sold at its high-water mark of about $330,
      Mr. Edison and I were on our way from the cement plant at New Village, New
      Jersey, to his home at Orange. When we arrived at Dover, New Jersey, we
      got a New York newspaper, and I called his attention to the quotation of
      that day on General Electric. Mr. Edison then asked: 'If I hadn't sold any
      of mine, what would it be worth to-day?' and after some figuring I
      replied: 'Over four million dollars.' When Mr. Edison is thinking
      seriously over a problem he is in the habit of pulling his right eyebrow,
      which he did now for fifteen or twenty seconds. Then his face lighted up,
      and he said: 'Well, it's all gone, but we had a hell of a good time
      spending it.'" With which revelation of an attitude worthy of Mark Tapley
      himself, this chapter may well conclude.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XX
    </h2>
    <h3>
      EDISON PORTLAND CEMENT
    </h3>
    <p>
      NEW developments in recent years have been more striking than the general
      adoption of cement for structural purposes of all kinds in the United
      States; or than the increase in its manufacture here. As a material for
      the construction of office buildings, factories, and dwellings, it has
      lately enjoyed an extraordinary vogue; yet every indication is
      confirmatory of the belief that such use has barely begun. Various reasons
      may be cited, such as the growing scarcity of wood, once the favorite
      building material in many parts of the country, and the increasing
      dearness of brick and stone. The fact remains, indisputable, and
      demonstrated flatly by the statistics of production. In 1902 the American
      output of cement was placed at about 21,000,000 barrels, valued at over
      $17,000,000. In 1907 the production is given as nearly 49,000,000 barrels.
      Here then is an industry that doubled in five years. The average rate of
      industrial growth in the United States is 10 per cent. a year, or doubling
      every ten years. It is a singular fact that electricity also so far
      exceeds the normal rate as to double in value and quantity of output and
      investment every five years. There is perhaps more than ordinary
      coincidence in the association of Edison with two such active departments
      of progress.
    </p>
    <p>
      As a purely manufacturing business the general cement industry is one of
      even remote antiquity, and if Edison had entered into it merely as a
      commercial enterprise by following paths already so well trodden, the fact
      would hardly have been worthy of even passing notice. It is not in his
      nature, however, to follow a beaten track except in regard to the
      recognition of basic principles; so that while the manufacture of Edison
      Portland cement embraces the main essentials and familiar processes of
      cement-making, such as crushing, drying, mixing, roasting, and grinding,
      his versatility and originality, as exemplified in the conception and
      introduction of some bold and revolutionary methods and devices, have
      resulted in raising his plant from the position of an outsider to the rank
      of the fifth largest producer in the United States, in the short space of
      five years after starting to manufacture.
    </p>
    <p>
      Long before his advent in cement production, Edison had held very
      pronounced views on the value of that material as the one which would
      obtain largely for future building purposes on account of its stability.
      More than twenty-five years ago one of the writers of this narrative heard
      him remark during a discussion on ancient buildings: "Wood will rot, stone
      will chip and crumble, bricks disintegrate, but a cement and iron
      structure is apparently indestructible. Look at some of the old Roman
      baths. They are as solid as when they were built." With such convictions,
      and the vast fund of practical knowledge and experience he had gained at
      Edison in the crushing and manipulation of large masses of magnetic iron
      ore during the preceding nine years, it is not surprising that on that
      homeward railway journey, mentioned at the close of the preceding chapter,
      he should have decided to go into the manufacture of cement, especially in
      view of the enormous growth of its use for structural purposes during
      recent times.
    </p>
    <p>
      The field being a new one to him, Edison followed his usual course of
      reading up every page of authoritative literature on the subject, and
      seeking information from all quarters. In the mean time, while he was busy
      also with his new storage battery, Mr. Mallory, who had been hard at work
      on the cement plan, announced that he had completed arrangements for
      organizing a company with sufficient financial backing to carry on the
      business; concluding with the remark that it was now time to engage
      engineers to lay out the plant. Edison replied that he intended to do that
      himself, and invited Mr. Mallory to go with him to one of the
      draughting-rooms on an upper floor of the laboratory.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here he placed a large sheet of paper on a draughting-table, and
      immediately began to draw out a plan of the proposed works, continuing all
      day and away into the evening, when he finished; thus completing within
      the twenty-four hours the full lay-out of the entire plant as it was
      subsequently installed, and as it has substantially remained in practical
      use to this time. It will be granted that this was a remarkable
      engineering feat, especially in view of the fact that Edison was then a
      new-comer in the cement business, and also that if the plant were to be
      rebuilt to-day, no vital change would be desirable or necessary. In that
      one day's planning every part was considered and provided for, from the
      crusher to the packing-house. From one end to the other, the distance over
      which the plant stretches in length is about half a mile, and through the
      various buildings spread over this space there passes, automatically, in
      course of treatment, a vast quantity of material resulting in the
      production of upward of two and a quarter million pounds of finished
      cement every twenty-four hours, seven days in the week.
    </p>
    <p>
      In that one day's designing provision was made not only for all important
      parts, but minor details, such, for instance, as the carrying of all
      steam, water, and air pipes, and electrical conductors in a large subway
      running from one end of the plant to the other; and, an oiling system for
      the entire works. This latter deserves special mention, not only because
      of its arrangement for thorough lubrication, but also on account of the
      resultant economy affecting the cost of manufacture.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison has strong convictions on the liberal use of lubricants, but argued
      that in the ordinary oiling of machinery there is great waste, while much
      dirt is conveyed into the bearings. He therefore planned a system by which
      the ten thousand bearings in the plant are oiled automatically; requiring
      the services of only two men for the entire work. This is accomplished by
      a central pumping and filtering plant and the return of the oil from all
      parts of the works by gravity. Every bearing is made dust-proof, and is
      provided with two interior pipes. One is above and the other below the
      bearing. The oil flows in through the upper pipe, and, after lubricating
      the shaft, flows out through the lower pipe back to the pumping station,
      where any dirt is filtered out and the oil returned to circulation. While
      this system of oiling is not unique, it was the first instance of its
      adaptation on so large and complete a scale, and illustrates the
      far-sightedness of his plans.
    </p>
    <p>
      In connection with the adoption of this lubricating system there occurred
      another instance of his knowledge of materials and intuitive insight into
      the nature of things. He thought that too frequent circulation of a
      comparatively small quantity of oil would, to some extent, impair its
      lubricating qualities, and requested his assistants to verify this opinion
      by consultation with competent authorities. On making inquiry of the
      engineers of the Standard Oil Company, his theory was fully sustained.
      Hence, provision was made for carrying a large stock of oil, and for
      giving a certain period of rest to that already used.
    </p>
    <p>
      A keen appreciation of ultimate success in the production of a fine
      quality of cement led Edison to provide very carefully in his original
      scheme for those details that he foresaw would become requisite&mdash;such,
      for instance, as ample stock capacity for raw materials and their
      automatic delivery in the various stages of manufacture, as well as
      mixing, weighing, and frequent sampling and analyzing during the progress
      through the mills. This provision even included the details of the
      packing-house, and his perspicacity in this case is well sustained from
      the fact that nine years afterward, in anticipation of building an
      additional packing-house, the company sent a representative to different
      parts of the country to examine the systems used by manufacturers in the
      packing of large quantities of various staple commodities involving
      somewhat similar problems, and found that there was none better than that
      devised before the cement plant was started. Hence, the order was given to
      build the new packing-house on lines similar to those of the old one.
    </p>
    <p>
      Among the many innovations appearing in this plant are two that stand out
      in bold relief as indicating the large scale by which Edison measures his
      ideas. One of these consists of the crushing and grinding machinery, and
      the other of the long kilns. In the preceding chapter there has been given
      a description of the giant rolls, by means of which great masses of rock,
      of which individual pieces may weigh eight or more tons, are broken and
      reduced to about a fourteen-inch size. The economy of this is apparent
      when it is considered that in other cement plants the limit of crushing
      ability is "one-man size"&mdash;that is, pieces not too large for one man
      to lift.
    </p>
    <p>
      The story of the kiln, as told by Mr. Mallory, is illustrative of Edison's
      tendency to upset tradition and make a radical departure from generally
      accepted ideas. "When Mr. Edison first decided to go into the cement
      business, it was on the basis of his crushing-rolls and air separation,
      and he had every expectation of installing duplicates of the kilns which
      were then in common use for burning cement. These kilns were usually made
      of boiler iron, riveted, and were about sixty feet long and six feet in
      diameter, and had a capacity of about two hundred barrels of cement
      clinker in twenty-four hours.
    </p>
    <p>
      "When the detail plans for our plant were being drawn, Mr. Edison and I
      figured over the coal capacity and coal economy of the sixty-foot kiln,
      and each time thought that both could he materially bettered. After having
      gone over this matter several times, he said: 'I believe I can make a kiln
      which will give an output of one thousand barrels in twenty-four hours.'
      Although I had then been closely associated with him for ten years and was
      accustomed to see him accomplish great things, I could not help feeling
      the improbability of his being able to jump into an old-established
      industry&mdash;as a novice&mdash;and start by improving the 'heart' of the
      production so as to increase its capacity 400 per cent. When I pressed him
      for an explanation, he was unable to give any definite reasons, except
      that he felt positive it could be done. In this connection let me say that
      very many times I have heard Mr. Edison make predictions as to what a
      certain mechanical device ought to do in the way of output and costs, when
      his statements did not seem to be even among the possibilities.
      Subsequently, after more or less experience, these predictions have been
      verified, and I cannot help coming to the conclusion that he has a
      faculty, not possessed by the average mortal, of intuitively and correctly
      sizing up mechanical and commercial possibilities.
    </p>
    <p>
      "But, returning to the kiln, Mr. Edison went to work immediately and very
      soon completed the design of a new type which was to be one hundred and
      fifty feet long and nine feet in diameter, made up in ten-foot sections of
      cast iron bolted together and arranged to be revolved on fifteen bearings.
      He had a wooden model made and studied it very carefully, through a series
      of experiments. These resulted so satisfactorily that this form was
      finally decided upon, and ultimately installed as part of the plant.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, for a year or so the kiln problem was a nightmare to me. When we
      started up the plant experimentally, and the long kiln was first put in
      operation, an output of about four hundred barrels in twenty-four hours
      was obtained. Mr. Edison was more than disappointed at this result. His
      terse comment on my report was: 'Rotten. Try it again.' When we became a
      little more familiar with the operation of the kiln we were able to get
      the output up to about five hundred and fifty barrels, and a little later
      to six hundred and fifty barrels per day. I would go down to Orange and
      report with a great deal of satisfaction the increase in output, but Mr.
      Edison would apparently be very much disappointed, and often said to me
      that the trouble was not with the kiln, but with our method of operating
      it; and he would reiterate his first statement that it would make one
      thousand barrels in twenty-four hours.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Each time I would return to the plant with the determination to increase
      the output if possible, and we did increase it to seven hundred and fifty,
      then to eight hundred and fifty barrels. Every time I reported these
      increases Mr. Edison would still be disappointed. I said to him several
      times that if he was so sure the kiln could turn out one thousand barrels
      in twenty-four hours we would be very glad to have him tell us how to do
      it, and that we would run it in any way he directed. He replied that he
      did not know what it was that kept the output down, but he was just as
      confident as ever that the kiln would make one thousand barrels per day,
      and that if he had time to work with and watch the kiln it would not take
      him long to find out the reasons why. He had made a number of suggestions
      throughout these various trials, however, and, as we continued to operate,
      we learned additional points in handling, and were able to get the output
      up to nine hundred barrels, then one thousand, and finally to over eleven
      hundred barrels per day, thus more than realizing the prediction made by
      Mr. Edison before even the plans were drawn. It is only fair to say,
      however, that prolonged experience has led us to the conclusion that the
      maximum economy in continuous operation of these kilns is obtained by
      working them at a little less than their maximum capacity.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is interesting to note, in connection with the Edison type of kiln,
      that when the older cement manufacturers first learned of it, they
      ridiculed the idea universally, and were not slow to predict our early
      'finish' as cement manufacturers. The ultimate success of the kiln,
      however, proved their criticisms to be unwarranted. Once aware of its
      possibility, some of the cement manufacturers proceeded to avail
      themselves of the innovation (at first without Mr. Edison's consent), and
      to-day more than one-half of the Portland cement produced in this country
      is made in kilns of the Edison type. Old plants are lengthening their
      kilns wherever practicable, and no wide-awake manufacturer building a
      modern plant could afford to install other than these long kilns. This
      invention of Mr. Edison has been recognized by the larger cement
      manufacturers, and there is every prospect now that the entire trade will
      take licenses under his kiln patents."
    </p>
    <p>
      When he decided to go into the cement business, Edison was thoroughly
      awake to the fact that he was proposing to "butt into" an old-established
      industry, in which the principal manufacturers were concerns of long
      standing. He appreciated fully its inherent difficulties, not only in
      manufacture, but also in the marketing of the product. These
      considerations, together with his long-settled principle of striving
      always to make the best, induced him at the outset to study methods of
      producing the highest quality of product. Thus he was led to originate
      innovations in processes, some of which have been preserved as trade
      secrets; but of the others there are two deserving special notice&mdash;namely,
      the accuracy of mixing and the fineness of grinding.
    </p>
    <p>
      In cement-making, generally speaking, cement rock and limestone in the
      rough are mixed together in such relative quantities as may be determined
      upon in advance by chemical analysis. In many plants this mixture is made
      by barrow or load units, and may be more or less accurate. Rule-of-thumb
      methods are never acceptable to Edison, and he devised therefore a system
      of weighing each part of the mixture, so that it would be correct to a
      pound, and, even at that, made the device "fool-proof," for as he observed
      to one of his associates: "The man at the scales might get to thinking of
      the other fellow's best girl, so fifty or a hundred pounds of rock, more
      or less, wouldn't make much difference to him." The Edison checking plan
      embraces two hoppers suspended above two platform scales whose beams are
      electrically connected with a hopper-closing device by means of needles
      dipping into mercury cups. The scales are set according to the chemist's
      weighing orders, and the material is fed into the scales from the hoppers.
      The instant the beam tips, the connection is broken and the feed stops
      instantly, thus rendering it impossible to introduce any more material
      until the charge has been unloaded.
    </p>
    <p>
      The fine grinding of cement clinker is distinctively Edisonian in both
      origin and application. As has been already intimated, its author followed
      a thorough course of reading on the subject long before reaching the
      actual projection or installation of a plant, and he had found all
      authorities to agree on one important point&mdash;namely, that the value
      of cement depends upon the fineness to which it is ground. [16] He also
      ascertained that in the trade the standard of fineness was that 75 per
      cent. of the whole mass would pass through a 200-mesh screen. Having made
      some improvements in his grinding and screening apparatus, and believing
      that in the future engineers, builders, and contractors would eventually
      require a higher degree of fineness, he determined, in advance of
      manufacturing, to raise the standard ten points, so that at least 85 per
      cent. of his product should pass through a 200-mesh screen. This was a
      bold step to be taken by a new-comer, but his judgment, backed by a full
      confidence in ability to live up to this standard, has been fully
      justified in its continued maintenance, despite the early incredulity of
      older manufacturers as to the possibility of attaining such a high degree
      of fineness.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 16: For a proper understanding and full
     appreciation of the importance of fine grinding, it may be
     explained that Portland cement (as manufactured in the
     Lehigh Valley) is made from what is commonly spoken of as
     "cement rock," with the addition of sufficient limestone to
     give the necessary amount of lime. The rock is broken down
     and then ground to a fineness of 80 to 90 per cent. through
     a 200-mesh screen. This ground material passes through kilns
     and comes out in "clinker." This is ground and that part of
     this finely ground clinker that will pass a 200-mesh screen
     is cement; the residue is still clinker. These coarse
     particles, or clinkers, absorb water very slowly, are
     practically inert, and have very feeble cementing
     properties. The residue on a 200-mesh screen is useless.]
</pre>
    <p>
      If Edison measured his happiness, as men often do, by merely commercial or
      pecuniary rewards of success, it would seem almost redundant to state that
      he has continued to manifest an intense interest in the cement plant.
      Ordinarily, his interest as an inventor wanes in proportion to the
      approach to mere commercialism&mdash;in other words, the keenness of his
      pleasure is in overcoming difficulties rather than the mere piling up of a
      bank account. He is entirely sensible of the advantages arising from a
      good balance at the banker's, but that has not been the goal of his
      ambition. Hence, although his cement enterprise reached the commercial
      stage a long time ago, he has been firmly convinced of his own ability to
      devise still further improvements and economical processes of greater or
      less fundamental importance, and has, therefore, made a constant study of
      the problem as a whole and in all its parts. By means of frequent reports,
      aided by his remarkable memory, he keeps in as close touch with the plant
      as if he were there in person every day, and is thus enabled to suggest
      improvement in any particular detail. The engineering force has a great
      respect for the accuracy of his knowledge of every part of the plant, for
      he remembers the dimensions and details of each item of machinery,
      sometimes to the discomfiture of those who are around it every day.
    </p>
    <p>
      A noteworthy instance of Edison's memory occurred in connection with this
      cement plant. Some years ago, as its installation was nearing completion,
      he went up to look it over and satisfy himself as to what needed to be
      done. On the arrival of the train at 10.40 in the morning, he went to the
      mill, and, with Mr. Mason, the general superintendent, started at the
      crusher at one end, and examined every detail all the way through to the
      packing-house at the other end. He made neither notes nor memoranda, but
      the examination required all the day, which happened to be a Saturday. He
      took a train for home at 5.30 in the afternoon, and on arriving at his
      residence at Orange, got out some note-books and began to write entirely
      from memory each item consecutively. He continued at this task all through
      Saturday night, and worked steadily on until Sunday afternoon, when he
      completed a list of nearly six hundred items. The nature of this feat is
      more appreciable from the fact that a large number of changes included all
      the figures of new dimensions he had decided upon for some of the
      machinery throughout the plant.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the reader may have a natural curiosity to learn whether or not the
      list so made was practical, it may be stated that it was copied and sent
      up to the general superintendent with instructions to make the
      modifications suggested, and report by numbers as they were attended to.
      This was faithfully done, all the changes being made before the plant was
      put into operation. Subsequent experience has amply proven the value of
      Edison's prescience at this time.
    </p>
    <p>
      Although Edison's achievements in the way of improved processes and
      machinery have already made a deep impression in the cement industry, it
      is probable that this impression will become still more profoundly stamped
      upon it in the near future with the exploitation of his "Poured Cement
      House." The broad problem which he set himself was to provide handsome and
      practically indestructible detached houses, which could be taken by
      wage-earners at very moderate monthly rentals. He turned this question
      over in his mind for several years, and arrived at the conclusion that a
      house cast in one piece would be the answer. To produce such a house
      involved the overcoming of many engineering and other technical
      difficulties. These he attacked vigorously and disposed of patiently one
      by one.
    </p>
    <p>
      In this connection a short anecdote may be quoted from Edison as
      indicative of one of the influences turning his thoughts in this
      direction. In the story of the ore-milling work, it has been noted that
      the plant was shut down owing to the competition of the cheap ore from the
      Mesaba Range. Edison says: "When I shut down, the insurance companies
      cancelled my insurance. I asked the reason why. 'Oh,' they said, 'this
      thing is a failure. The moral risk is too great.' 'All right; I am glad to
      hear it. I will now construct buildings that won't have any moral risk.' I
      determined to go into the Portland cement business. I organized a company
      and started cement-works which have now been running successfully for
      several years. I had so perfected the machinery in trying to get my ore
      costs down that the making of cheap cement was an easy matter to me. I
      built these works entirely of concrete and steel, so that there is not a
      wagon-load of lumber in them; and so that the insurance companies would
      not have any possibility of having any 'moral risk.' Since that time I
      have put up numerous factory buildings all of steel and concrete, without
      any combustible whatever about them&mdash;to avoid this 'moral risk.' I am
      carrying further the application of this idea in building private houses
      for poor people, in which there will be no 'moral risk' at all&mdash;nothing
      whatever to burn, not even by lightning."
    </p>
    <p>
      As a casting necessitates a mold, together with a mixture sufficiently
      fluid in its nature to fill all the interstices completely, Edison devoted
      much attention to an extensive series of experiments for producing a
      free-flowing combination of necessary materials. His proposition was
      against all precedent. All expert testimony pointed to the fact that a
      mixture of concrete (cement, sand, crushed stone, and water) could not be
      made to flow freely to the smallest parts of an intricate set of molds;
      that the heavy parts of the mixture could not be held in suspension, but
      would separate out by gravity and make an unevenly balanced structure;
      that the surface would be full of imperfections, etc.
    </p>
    <p>
      Undeterred by the unanimity of adverse opinions, however, he pursued his
      investigations with the thorough minuteness that characterizes all his
      laboratory work, and in due time produced a mixture which on elaborate
      test overcame all objections and answered the complex requirements
      perfectly, including the making of a surface smooth, even, and entirely
      waterproof. All the other engineering problems have received study in like
      manner, and have been overcome, until at the present writing the whole
      question is practically solved and has been reduced to actual practice.
      The Edison poured or cast cement house may be reckoned as a reality.
    </p>
    <p>
      The general scheme, briefly outlined, is to prepare a model and plans of
      the house to be cast, and then to design a set of molds in sections of
      convenient size. When all is ready, these molds, which are of cast iron
      with smooth interior surfaces, are taken to the place where the house is
      to be erected. Here there has been provided a solid concrete cellar floor,
      technically called "footing." The molds are then locked together so that
      they rest on this footing. Hundreds of pieces are necessary for the
      complete set. When they have been completely assembled, there will be a
      hollow space in the interior, representing the shape of the house.
      Reinforcing rods are also placed in the molds, to be left behind in the
      finished house.
    </p>
    <p>
      Next comes the pouring of the concrete mixture into this form. Large
      mechanical mixers are used, and, as it is made, the mixture is dumped into
      tanks, from which it is conveyed to a distributing tank on the top, or
      roof, of the form. From this tank a large number of open troughs or pipes
      lead the mixture to various openings in the roof, whence it flows down and
      fills all parts of the mold from the footing in the basement until it
      overflows at the tip of the roof.
    </p>
    <p>
      The pouring of the entire house is accomplished in about six hours, and
      then the molds are left undisturbed for six days, in order that the
      concrete may set and harden. After that time the work of taking away the
      molds is begun. This requires three or four days. When the molds are taken
      away an entire house is disclosed, cast in one piece, from cellar to tip
      of roof, complete with floors, interior walls, stairways, bath and laundry
      tubs, electric-wire conduits, gas, water, and heating pipes. No plaster is
      used anywhere; but the exterior and interior walls are smooth and may be
      painted or tinted, if desired. All that is now necessary is to put in the
      windows, doors, heater, and lighting fixtures, and to connect up the
      plumbing and heating arrangements, thus making the house ready for
      occupancy.
    </p>
    <p>
      As these iron molds are not ephemeral like the wooden framing now used in
      cement construction, but of practically illimitable life, it is obvious
      that they can be used a great number of times. A complete set of molds
      will cost approximately $25,000, while the necessary plant will cost about
      $15,000 more. It is proposed to work as a unit plant for successful
      operation at least six sets of molds, to keep the men busy and the
      machinery going. Any one, with a sheet of paper, can ascertain the yearly
      interest on the investment as a fixed charge to be assessed against each
      house, on the basis that one hundred and forty-four houses can be built in
      a year with the battery of six sets of molds. Putting the sum at $175,000,
      and the interest at 6 per cent. on the cost of the molds and 4 per cent.
      for breakage, together with 6 per cent. interest and 15 per cent.
      depreciation on machinery, the plant charge is approximately $140 per
      house. It does not require a particularly acute prophetic vision to see
      "Flower Towns" of "Poured Houses" going up in whole suburbs outside all
      our chief centres of population.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's conception of the workingman's ideal house has been a broad one
      from the very start. He was not content merely to provide a roomy,
      moderately priced house that should be fireproof, waterproof, and
      vermin-proof, and practically indestructible, but has been solicitous to
      get away from the idea of a plain "packing-box" type. He has also provided
      for ornamentation of a high class in designing the details of the
      structure. As he expressed it: "We will give the workingman and his family
      ornamentation in their house. They deserve it, and besides, it costs no
      more after the pattern is made to give decorative effects than it would to
      make everything plain." The plans have provided for a type of house that
      would cost not far from $30,000 if built of cut stone. He gave to Messrs.
      Mann &amp; McNaillie, architects, New York, his idea of the type of house
      he wanted. On receiving these plans he changed them considerably, and
      built a model. After making many more changes in this while in the pattern
      shop, he produced a house satisfactory to himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      This one-family house has a floor plan twenty-five by thirty feet, and is
      three stories high. The first floor is divided off into two large rooms&mdash;parlor
      and living-room&mdash;and the upper floors contain four large bedrooms, a
      roomy bath-room, and wide halls. The front porch extends eight feet, and
      the back porch three feet. A cellar seven and a half feet high extends
      under the whole house, and will contain the boiler, wash-tubs, and
      coal-bunker. It is intended that the house shall be built on lots forty by
      sixty feet, giving a lawn and a small garden.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is contemplated that these houses shall be built in industrial
      communities, where they can be put up in groups of several hundred. If
      erected in this manner, and by an operator buying his materials in large
      quantities, Edison believes that these houses can be erected complete,
      including heating apparatus and plumbing, for $1200 each. This figure
      would also rest on the basis of using in the mixture the gravel excavated
      on the site. Comment has been made by persons of artistic taste on the
      monotony of a cluster of houses exactly alike in appearance, but this
      criticism has been anticipated, and the molds are so made as to be capable
      of permutations of arrangement. Thus it will be possible to introduce
      almost endless changes in the style of house by variation of the same set
      of molds.
    </p>
    <p>
      For more than forty years Edison was avowedly an inventor for purely
      commercial purposes; but within the last two years he decided to retire
      from that field so far as new inventions were concerned, and to devote
      himself to scientific research and experiment in the leisure hours that
      might remain after continuing to improve his existing devices. But
      although the poured cement house was planned during the commercial period,
      the spirit in which it was conceived arose out of an earnest desire to
      place within the reach of the wage-earner an opportunity to better his
      physical, pecuniary, and mental conditions in so far as that could be done
      through the medium of hygienic and beautiful homes at moderate rentals.
      From the first Edison has declared that it was not his intention to
      benefit pecuniarily through the exploitation of this project. Having
      actually demonstrated the practicability and feasibility of his plans, he
      will allow responsible concerns to carry them into practice under such
      limitations as may be necessary to sustain the basic object, but without
      any payment to him except for the actual expense incurred. The
      hypercritical may cavil and say that, as a manufacturer of cement, Edison
      will be benefited. True, but as ANY good Portland cement can be used, and
      no restrictions as to source of supply are enforced, he, or rather his
      company, will be merely one of many possible purveyors.
    </p>
    <p>
      This invention is practically a gift to the workingmen of the world and
      their families. The net result will be that those who care to avail
      themselves of the privilege may, sooner or later, forsake the crowded
      apartment or tenement and be comfortably housed in sanitary, substantial,
      and roomy homes fitted with modern conveniences, and beautified by
      artistic decorations, with no outlay for insurance or repairs; no dread of
      fire, and all at a rental which Edison believes will be not more, but
      probably less than, $10 per month in any city of the United States. While
      his achievement in its present status will bring about substantial and
      immediate benefits to wage-earners, his thoughts have already travelled
      some years ahead in the formulation of a still further beneficial project
      looking toward the individual ownership of these houses on a basis
      startling in its practical possibilities.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXI
    </h2>
    <h3>
      MOTION PICTURES
    </h3>
    <p>
      THE preceding chapters have treated of Edison in various aspects as an
      inventor, some of which are familiar to the public, others of which are
      believed to be in the nature of a novel revelation, simply because no one
      had taken the trouble before to put the facts together. To those who have
      perhaps grown weary of seeing Edison's name in articles of a sensational
      character, it may sound strange to say that, after all, justice has not
      been done to his versatile and many-sided nature; and that the mere
      prosaic facts of his actual achievement outrun the wildest flights of
      irrelevant journalistic imagination. Edison hates nothing more than to be
      dubbed a genius or played up as a "wizard"; but this fate has dogged him
      until he has come at last to resign himself to it with a resentful
      indignation only to be appreciated when watching him read the latest
      full-page Sunday "spread" that develops a casual conversation into
      oracular verbosity, and gives to his shrewd surmise the cast of inspired
      prophecy.
    </p>
    <p>
      In other words, Edison's real work has seldom been seriously discussed.
      Rather has it been taken as a point of departure into a realm of fancy and
      romance, where as a relief from drudgery he is sometimes quite willing to
      play the pipe if some one will dance to it. Indeed, the stories woven
      around his casual suggestions are tame and vapid alongside his own essays
      in fiction, probably never to be published, but which show what a real
      inventor can do when he cuts loose to create a new heaven and a new earth,
      unrestrained by any formal respect for existing conditions of servitude to
      three dimensions and the standard elements.
    </p>
    <p>
      The present chapter, essentially technical in its subject-matter, is
      perhaps as significant as any in this biography, because it presents
      Edison as the Master Impresario of his age, and maybe of many following
      ages also. His phonographs and his motion pictures have more audiences in
      a week than all the theatres in America in a year. The "Nickelodeon" is
      the central fact in modern amusement, and Edison founded it. All that
      millions know of music and drama he furnishes; and the whole study of the
      theatrical managers thus reaching the masses is not to ascertain the
      limitations of the new art, but to discover its boundless possibilities.
      None of the exuberant versions of things Edison has not done could endure
      for a moment with the simple narrative of what he has really done as the
      world's new Purveyor of Pleasure. And yet it all depends on the toilful
      conquest of a subtle and intricate art. The story of the invention of the
      phonograph has been told. That of the evolution of motion pictures
      follows. It is all one piece of sober, careful analysis, and stubborn,
      successful attack on the problem.
    </p>
    <p>
      The possibility of making a record of animate movement, and subsequently
      reproducing it, was predicted long before the actual accomplishment. This,
      as we have seen, was also the case with the phonograph, the telephone, and
      the electric light. As to the phonograph, the prediction went only so far
      as the RESULT; the apparent intricacy of the problem being so great that
      the MEANS for accomplishing the desired end were seemingly beyond the
      grasp of the imagination or the mastery of invention.
    </p>
    <p>
      With the electric light and the telephone the prediction included not only
      the result to be accomplished, but, in a rough and general way, the
      mechanism itself; that is to say, long before a single sound was
      intelligibly transmitted it was recognized that such a thing might be done
      by causing a diaphragm, vibrated by original sounds, to communicate its
      movements to a distant diaphragm by a suitably controlled electric
      current. In the case of the electric light, the heating of a conductor to
      incandescence in a highly rarefied atmosphere was suggested as a scheme of
      illumination long before its actual accomplishment, and in fact before the
      production of a suitable generator for delivering electric current in a
      satisfactory and economical manner.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is a curious fact that while the modern art of motion pictures depends
      essentially on the development of instantaneous photography, the
      suggestion of the possibility of securing a reproduction of animate
      motion, as well as, in a general way, of the mechanism for accomplishing
      the result, was made many years before the instantaneous photograph became
      possible. While the first motion picture was not actually produced until
      the summer of 1889, its real birth was almost a century earlier, when
      Plateau, in France, constructed an optical toy, to which the impressive
      name of "Phenakistoscope" was applied, for producing an illusion of
      motion. This toy in turn was the forerunner of the Zoetrope, or so-called
      "Wheel of Life," which was introduced into this country about the year
      1845. These devices were essentially toys, depending for their successful
      operation (as is the case with motion pictures) upon a physiological
      phenomenon known as persistence of vision. If, for instance, a bright
      light is moved rapidly in front of the eye in a dark room, it appears not
      as an illuminated spark, but as a line of fire; a so-called shooting star,
      or a flash of lightning produces the same effect. This result is purely
      physiological, and is due to the fact that the retina of the eye may be
      considered as practically a sensitized plate of relatively slow speed, and
      an image impressed upon it remains, before being effaced, for a period of
      from one-tenth to one-seventh of a second, varying according to the
      idiosyncrasies of the individual and the intensity of the light. When,
      therefore, it is said that we should only believe things we actually see,
      we ought to remember that in almost every instance we never see things as
      they are.
    </p>
    <p>
      Bearing in mind the fact that when an image is impressed on the human
      retina it persists for an appreciable period, varying as stated, with the
      individual, and depending also upon the intensity of the illumination, it
      will be seen that, if a number of pictures or photographs are successively
      presented to the eye, they will appear as a single, continuous photograph,
      provided the periods between them are short enough to prevent one of the
      photographs from being effaced before its successor is presented. If, for
      instance, a series of identical portraits were rapidly presented to the
      eye, a single picture would apparently be viewed, or if we presented to
      the eye the series of photographs of a moving object, each one
      representing a minute successive phase of the movement, the movements
      themselves would apparently again take place.
    </p>
    <p>
      With the Zoetrope and similar toys rough drawings were used for depicting
      a few broadly outlined successive phases of movement, because in their day
      instantaneous photography was unknown, and in addition there were certain
      crudities of construction that seriously interfered with the illumination
      of the pictures, rendering it necessary to make them practically as
      silhouettes on a very conspicuous background. Hence it will be obvious
      that these toys produced merely an ILLUSION of THEORETICAL motion.
    </p>
    <p>
      But with the knowledge of even an illusion of motion, and with the
      philosophy of persistence of vision fully understood, it would seem that,
      upon the development of instantaneous photography, the reproduction of
      ACTUAL motion by means of pictures would have followed, almost as a
      necessary consequence. Yet such was not the case, and success was
      ultimately accomplished by Edison only after persistent experimenting
      along lines that could not have been predicted, including the construction
      of apparatus for the purpose, which, if it had not been made, would
      undoubtedly be considered impossible. In fact, if it were not for Edison's
      peculiar mentality, that refuses to recognize anything as impossible until
      indubitably demonstrated to be so, the production of motion pictures would
      certainly have been delayed for years, if not for all time.
    </p>
    <p>
      One of the earliest suggestions of the possibility of utilizing
      photography for exhibiting the illusion of actual movement was made by
      Ducos, who, as early as 1864, obtained a patent in France, in which he
      said: "My invention consists in substituting rapidly and without confusion
      to the eye not only of an individual, but when so desired of a whole
      assemblage, the enlarged images of a great number of pictures when taken
      instantaneously and successively at very short intervals.... The observer
      will believe that he sees only one image, which changes gradually by
      reason of the successive changes of form and position of the objects which
      occur from one picture to the other. Even supposing that there be a slight
      interval of time during which the same object was not shown, the
      persistence of the luminous impression upon the eye will fill this gap.
      There will be as it were a living representation of nature and . . . the
      same scene will be reproduced upon the screen with the same degree of
      animation.... By means of my apparatus I am enabled especially to
      reproduce the passing of a procession, a review of military manoeuvres,
      the movements of a battle, a public fete, a theatrical scene, the
      evolution or the dances of one or of several persons, the changing
      expression of countenance, or, if one desires, the grimaces of a human
      face; a marine view, the motion of waves, the passage of clouds in a
      stormy sky, particularly in a mountainous country, the eruption of a
      volcano," etc.
    </p>
    <p>
      Other dreamers, contemporaries of Ducos, made similar suggestions; they
      recognized the scientific possibility of the problem, but they were
      irretrievably handicapped by the shortcomings of photography. Even when
      substantially instantaneous photographs were evolved at a somewhat later
      date they were limited to the use of wet plates, which have to be prepared
      by the photographer and used immediately, and were therefore quite out of
      the question for any practical commercial scheme. Besides this, the use of
      plates would have been impracticable, because the limitations of their
      weight and size would have prevented the taking of a large number of
      pictures at a high rate of speed, even if the sensitized surface had been
      sufficiently rapid.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nothing ever came of Ducos' suggestions and those of the early dreamers in
      this essentially practical and commercial art, and their ideas have made
      no greater impress upon the final result than Jules Verne's Nautilus of
      our boyhood days has developed the modern submarine. From time to time
      further suggestions were made, some in patents, and others in photographic
      and scientific publications, all dealing with the fascinating thought of
      preserving and representing actual scenes and events. The first serious
      attempt to secure an illusion of motion by photography was made in 1878 by
      Edward Muybridge as a result of a wager with the late Senator Leland
      Stanford, the California pioneer and horse-lover, who had asserted,
      contrary to the usual belief, that a trotting-horse at one point in its
      gait left the ground entirely. At this time wet plates of very great
      rapidity were known, and by arranging a series of cameras along the line
      of a track and causing the horse in trotting past them, by striking wires
      or strings attached to the shutters, to actuate the cameras at the right
      instant, a series of very clear instantaneous photographs was obtained.
      From these negatives, when developed, positive prints were made, which
      were later mounted on a modified form of Zoetrope and projected upon a
      screen.
    </p>
    <p>
      One of these early exhibitions is described in the Scientific American of
      June 5, 1880: "While the separate photographs had shown the successive
      positions of a trotting or running horse in making a single stride, the
      Zoogyroscope threw upon the screen apparently the living animal. Nothing
      was wanting but the clatter of hoofs upon the turf, and an occasional
      breath of steam from the nostrils, to make the spectator believe that he
      had before him genuine flesh-and-blood steeds. In the views of
      hurdle-leaping, the simulation was still more admirable, even to the
      motion of the tail as the animal gathered for the jump, the raising of his
      head, all were there. Views of an ox trotting, a wild bull on the charge,
      greyhounds and deer running and birds flying in mid-air were shown, also
      athletes in various positions." It must not be assumed from this statement
      that even as late as the work of Muybridge anything like a true illusion
      of movement had been obtained, because such was not the case. Muybridge
      secured only one cycle of movement, because a separate camera had to be
      used for each photograph and consequently each cycle was reproduced over
      and over again. To have made photographs of a trotting-horse for one
      minute at the moderate rate of twelve per second would have required,
      under the Muybridge scheme, seven hundred and twenty separate cameras,
      whereas with the modern art only a single camera is used. A further defect
      with the Muybridge pictures was that since each photograph was secured
      when the moving object was in the centre of the plate, the reproduction
      showed the object always centrally on the screen with its arms or legs in
      violent movement, but not making any progress, and with the scenery
      rushing wildly across the field of view!
    </p>
    <p>
      In the early 80's the dry plate was first introduced into general use, and
      from that time onward its rapidity and quality were gradually improved; so
      much so that after 1882 Prof. E. J. Marey, of the French Academy, who in
      1874 had published a well-known treatise on "Animal Movement," was able by
      the use of dry plates to carry forward the experiments of Muybridge on a
      greatly refined scale. Marey was, however, handicapped by reason of the
      fact that glass plates were still used, although he was able with a single
      camera to obtain twelve photographs on successive plates in the space of
      one second. Marey, like Muybridge, photographed only one cycle of the
      movements of a single object, which was subsequently reproduced over and
      over again, and the camera was in the form of a gun, which could follow
      the object so that the successive pictures would be always located in the
      centre of the plates.
    </p>
    <p>
      The review above given, as briefly as possible, comprises substantially
      the sum of the world's knowledge at the time the problem of recording and
      reproducing animate movement was first undertaken by Edison. The most that
      could be said of the condition of the art when Edison entered the field
      was that it had been recognized that if a series of instantaneous
      photographs of a moving object could be secured at an enormously high rate
      many times per second&mdash;they might be passed before the eye either
      directly or by projection upon a screen, and thereby result in a
      reproduction of the movements. Two very serious difficulties lay in the
      way of actual accomplishment, however&mdash;first, the production of a
      sensitive surface in such form and weight as to be capable of being
      successively brought into position and exposed, at the necessarily high
      rate; and, second, the production of a camera capable of so taking the
      pictures. There were numerous other workers in the field, but they added
      nothing to what had already been proposed. Edison himself knew nothing of
      Ducos, or that the suggestions had advanced beyond the single centrally
      located photographs of Muybridge and Marey. As a matter of public policy,
      the law presumes that an inventor must be familiar with all that has gone
      before in the field within which he is working, and if a suggestion is
      limited to a patent granted in New South Wales, or is described in a
      single publication in Brazil, an inventor in America, engaged in the same
      field of thought, is by legal fiction presumed to have knowledge not only
      of the existence of that patent or publication, but of its contents. We
      say this not in the way of an apology for the extent of Edison's
      contribution to the motion-picture art, because there can be no question
      that he was as much the creator of that art as he was of the phonographic
      art; but to show that in a practical sense the suggestion of the art
      itself was original with him. He himself says: "In the year 1887 the idea
      occurred to me that it was possible to devise an instrument which should
      do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear, and that by a
      combination of the two, all motion and sound could be recorded and
      reproduced simultaneously. This idea, the germ of which came from the
      little toy called the Zoetrope and the work of Muybridge, Marey, and
      others, has now been accomplished, so that every change of facial
      expression can be recorded and reproduced life-size. The kinetoscope is
      only a small model illustrating the present stage of the progress, but
      with each succeeding month new possibilities are brought into view. I
      believe that in coming years, by my own work and that of Dickson,
      Muybridge, Marey, and others who will doubtless enter the field, grand
      opera can be given at the Metropolitan Opera House at New York without any
      material change from the original, and with artists and musicians long
      since dead."
    </p>
    <p>
      In the earliest experiments attempts were made to secure the photographs,
      reduced microscopically, arranged spirally on a cylinder about the size of
      a phonograph record, and coated with a highly sensitized surface, the
      cylinder being given an intermittent movement, so as to be at rest during
      each exposure. Reproductions were obtained in the same way, positive
      prints being observed through a magnifying glass. Various forms of
      apparatus following this general type were made, but they were all open to
      the serious objection that the very rapid emulsions employed were
      relatively coarse-grained and prevented the securing of sharp pictures of
      microscopic size. On the other hand, the enlarging of the apparatus to
      permit larger pictures to be obtained would present too much weight to be
      stopped and started with the requisite rapidity. In these early
      experiments, however, it was recognized that, to secure proper results, a
      single camera should be used, so that the objects might move across its
      field just as they move across the field of the human eye; and the
      important fact was also observed that the rate at which persistence of
      vision took place represented the minimum speed at which the pictures
      should be obtained. If, for instance, five pictures per second were taken
      (half of the time being occupied in exposure and the other half in moving
      the exposed portion of the film out of the field of the lens and bringing
      a new portion into its place), and the same ratio is observed in
      exhibiting the pictures, the interval of time between successive pictures
      would be one-tenth of a second; and for a normal eye such an exhibition
      would present a substantially continuous photograph. If the angular
      movement of the object across the field is very slow, as, for instance, a
      distant vessel, the successive positions of the object are so nearly
      coincident that when reproduced before the eye an impression of smooth,
      continuous movement is secured. If, however, the object is moving rapidly
      across the field of view, one picture will be separated from its successor
      to a marked extent, and the resulting impression will be jerky and
      unnatural. Recognizing this fact, Edison always sought for a very high
      speed, so as to give smooth and natural reproductions, and even with his
      experimental apparatus obtained upward of forty-eight pictures per second,
      whereas, in practice, at the present time, the accepted rate varies
      between twenty and thirty per second. In the efforts of the present day to
      economize space by using a minimum length of film, pictures are frequently
      taken at too slow a rate, and the reproductions are therefore often
      objectionable, by reason of more or less jerkiness.
    </p>
    <p>
      During the experimental period and up to the early part of 1889, the kodak
      film was being slowly developed by the Eastman Kodak Company. Edison
      perceived in this product the solution of the problem on which he had been
      working, because the film presented a very light body of tough material on
      which relatively large photographs could be taken at rapid intervals. The
      surface, however, was not at first sufficiently sensitive to admit of
      sharply defined pictures being secured at the necessarily high rates. It
      seemed apparent, therefore, that in order to obtain the desired speed
      there would have to be sacrificed that fineness of emulsion necessary for
      the securing of sharp pictures. But as was subsequently seen, this
      sacrifice was in time rendered unnecessary. Much credit is due the Eastman
      experts&mdash;stimulated and encouraged by Edison, but independently of
      him&mdash;for the production at last of a highly sensitized, fine-grained
      emulsion presenting the highly sensitized surface that Edison sought.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having at last obtained apparently the proper material upon which to
      secure the photographs, the problem then remained to devise an apparatus
      by means of which from twenty to forty pictures per second could be taken;
      the film being stationary during the exposure and, upon the closing of the
      shutter, being moved to present a fresh surface. In connection with this
      problem it is interesting to note that this question of high speed was
      apparently regarded by all Edison's predecessors as the crucial point.
      Ducos, for example, expended a great deal of useless ingenuity in devising
      a camera by means of which a tape-line film could receive the photographs
      while being in continuous movement, necessitating the use of a series of
      moving lenses. Another experimenter, Dumont, made use of a single large
      plate and a great number of lenses which were successively exposed.
      Muybridge, as we have seen, used a series of cameras, one for each plate.
      Marey was limited to a very few photographs, because the entire surface
      had to be stopped and started in connection with each exposure.
    </p>
    <p>
      After the accomplishment of the fact, it would seem to be the obvious
      thing to use a single lens and move the sensitized film with respect to
      it, intermittently bringing the surface to rest, then exposing it, then
      cutting off the light and moving the surface to a fresh position; but who,
      other than Edison, would assume that such a device could be made to repeat
      these movements over and over again at the rate of twenty to forty per
      second? Users of kodaks and other forms of film cameras will appreciate
      perhaps better than others the difficulties of the problem, because in
      their work, after an exposure, they have to advance the film forward
      painfully to the extent of the next picture before another exposure can
      take place, these operations permitting of speeds of but a few pictures
      per minute at best. Edison's solution of the problem involved the
      production of a kodak in which from twenty to forty pictures should be
      taken IN EACH SECOND, and with such fineness of adjustment that each
      should exactly coincide with its predecessors even when subjected to the
      test of enlargement by projection. This, however, was finally
      accomplished, and in the summer of 1889 the first modern motion-picture
      camera was made. More than this, the mechanism for operating the film was
      so constructed that the movement of the film took place in one-tenth of
      the time required for the exposure, giving the film an opportunity to come
      to rest prior to the opening of the shutter. From that day to this the
      Edison camera has been the accepted standard for securing pictures of
      objects in motion, and such changes as have been made in it have been
      purely in the nature of detail mechanical refinements.
    </p>
    <p>
      The earliest form of exhibiting apparatus, known as the Kinetoscope, was a
      machine in which a positive print from the negative obtained in the camera
      was exhibited directly to the eye through a peep-hole; but in 1895 the
      films were applied to modified forms of magic lanterns, by which the
      images are projected upon a screen. Since that date the industry has
      developed very rapidly, and at the present time (1910) all of the
      principal American manufacturers of motion pictures are paying a royalty
      to Edison under his basic patents.
    </p>
    <p>
      From the early days of pictures representing simple movements, such as a
      man sneezing, or a skirt-dance, there has been a gradual evolution, until
      now the pictures represent not only actual events in all their palpitating
      instantaneity, but highly developed dramas and scenarios enacted in large,
      well-equipped glass studios, and the result of infinite pains and expense
      of production. These pictures are exhibited in upward of eight thousand
      places of amusement in the United States, and are witnessed by millions of
      people each year. They constitute a cheap, clean form of amusement for
      many persons who cannot spare the money to go to the ordinary theatres, or
      they may be exhibited in towns that are too small to support a theatre.
      More than this, they offer to the poor man an effective substitute for the
      saloon. Probably no invention ever made has afforded more pleasure and
      entertainment than the motion picture.
    </p>
    <p>
      Aside from the development of the motion picture as a spectacle, there has
      gone on an evolution in its use for educational purposes of wide range,
      which must not be overlooked. In fact, this form of utilization has been
      carried further in Europe than in this country as a means of demonstration
      in the arts and sciences. One may study animal life, watch a surgical
      operation, follow the movement of machinery, take lessons in facial
      expression or in calisthenics. It seems a pity that in motion pictures
      should at last have been found the only competition that the ancient
      marionettes cannot withstand. But aside from the disappearance of those
      entertaining puppets, all else is gain in the creation of this new art.
    </p>
    <p>
      The work at the Edison laboratory in the development of the motion picture
      was as usual intense and concentrated, and, as might be expected, many of
      the early experiments were quite primitive in their character until
      command had been secured of relatively perfect apparatus. The subjects
      registered jerkily by the films were crude and amusing, such as of Fred
      Ott's sneeze, Carmencita dancing, Italians and their performing bears,
      fencing, trapeze stunts, horsemanship, blacksmithing&mdash;just simple
      movements without any attempt to portray the silent drama. One curious
      incident of this early study occurred when "Jim" Corbett was asked to box
      a few rounds in front of the camera, with a "dark un" to be selected
      locally. This was agreed to, and a celebrated bruiser was brought over
      from Newark. When this "sparring partner" came to face Corbett in the
      imitation ring he was so paralyzed with terror he could hardly move. It
      was just after Corbett had won one of his big battles as a prize-fighter,
      and the dismay of his opponent was excusable. The "boys" at the laboratory
      still laugh consumedly when they tell about it.
    </p>
    <p>
      The first motion-picture studio was dubbed by the staff the "Black Maria."
      It was an unpretentious oblong wooden structure erected in the laboratory
      yard, and had a movable roof in the central part. This roof could be
      raised or lowered at will. The building was covered with black roofing
      paper, and was also painted black inside. There was no scenery to render
      gay this lugubrious environment, but the black interior served as the
      common background for the performers, throwing all their actions into high
      relief. The whole structure was set on a pivot so that it could be swung
      around with the sun; and the movable roof was opened so that the
      accentuating sunlight could stream in upon the actor whose gesticulations
      were being caught by the camera. These beginnings and crudities are very
      remote from the elaborate and expensive paraphernalia and machinery with
      which the art is furnished to-day.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the present time the studios in which motion pictures are taken are
      expensive and pretentious affairs. An immense building of glass, with all
      the properties and stage-settings of a regular theatre, is required. The
      Bronx Park studio of the Edison company cost at least one hundred thousand
      dollars, while the well-known house of Pathe Freres in France&mdash;one of
      Edison's licensees&mdash;makes use of no fewer than seven of these glass
      theatres. All of the larger producers of pictures in this country and
      abroad employ regular stock companies of actors, men and women selected
      especially for their skill in pantomime, although, as most observers have
      perhaps suspected, in the actual taking of the pictures the performers are
      required to carry on an animated and prepared dialogue with the same
      spirit and animation as on the regular stage. Before setting out on the
      preparation of a picture, the book is first written&mdash;known in the
      business as a scenario&mdash;giving a complete statement as to the
      scenery, drops and background, and the sequence of events, divided into
      scenes as in an ordinary play. These are placed in the hands of a
      "producer," corresponding to a stage-director, generally an actor or
      theatrical man of experience, with a highly developed dramatic instinct.
      The various actors are selected, parts are assigned, and the
      scene-painters are set to work on the production of the desired scenery.
      Before the photographing of a scene, a long series of rehearsals takes
      place, the incidents being gone over and over again until the actors are
      "letter perfect." So persistent are the producers in the matter of
      rehearsals and the refining and elaboration of details, that frequently a
      picture that may be actually photographed and reproduced in fifteen
      minutes, may require two or three weeks for its production. After the
      rehearsal of a scene has advanced sufficiently to suit the critical
      requirements of the producer, the camera man is in requisition, and he is
      consulted as to lighting so as to produce the required photographic
      effect. Preferably, of course, sunlight is used whenever possible, hence
      the glass studios; but on dark days, and when night-work is necessary,
      artificial light of enormous candle-power is used, either mercury arcs or
      ordinary arc lights of great size and number.
    </p>
    <p>
      Under all conditions the light is properly screened and diffused to suit
      the critical eye of the camera man. All being in readiness, the actual
      picture is taken, the actors going through their rehearsed parts, the
      producer standing out of the range of the camera, and with a megaphone to
      his lips yelling out his instructions, imprecations, and approval, and the
      camera man grinding at the crank of the camera and securing the pictures
      at the rate of twenty or more per second, making a faithful and permanent
      record of every movement and every change of facial expression. At the end
      of the scene the negative is developed in the ordinary way, and is then
      ready for use in the printing of the positives for sale. When a further
      scene in the play takes place in the same setting, and without regard to
      its position in the plot, it is taken up, rehearsed, and photographed in
      the same way, and afterward all the scenes are cemented together in the
      proper sequence, and form the complete negative. Frequently, therefore, in
      the production of a motion-picture play, the first and the last scene may
      be taken successively, the only thing necessary being, of course, that
      after all is done the various scenes should be arranged in their proper
      order. The frames, having served their purpose, now go back to the
      scene-painter for further use. All pictures are not taken in studios,
      because when light and weather permit and proper surroundings can be
      secured outside, scenes can best be obtained with natural scenery&mdash;city
      streets, woods, and fields. The great drawback to the taking of pictures
      out-of-doors, however, is the inevitable crowd, attracted by the novelty
      of the proceedings, which makes the camera man's life a torment by getting
      into the field of his instrument. The crowds are patient, however, and in
      one Edison picture involving the blowing up of a bridge by the villain of
      the piece and the substitution of a pontoon bridge by a company of
      engineers just in time to allow the heroine to pass over in her
      automobile, more than a thousand people stood around for almost an entire
      day waiting for the tedious rehearsals to end and the actual performance
      to begin. Frequently large bodies of men are used in pictures, such as
      troops of soldiers, and it is an open secret that for weeks during the
      Boer War regularly equipped British and Boer armies confronted each other
      on the peaceful hills of Orange, New Jersey, ready to enact before the
      camera the stirring events told by the cable from the seat of hostilities.
      These conflicts were essentially harmless, except in one case during the
      battle of Spion Kopje, when "General Cronje," in his efforts to fire a
      wooden cannon, inadvertently dropped his fuse into a large glass bottle
      containing gunpowder. The effect was certainly most dramatic, and created
      great enthusiasm among the many audiences which viewed the completed
      production; but the unfortunate general, who is still an employee, was
      taken to the hospital, and even now, twelve years afterward, he says with
      a grin that whenever he has a moment of leisure he takes the time to pick
      a few pieces of glass from his person!
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's great contribution to the regular stage was the incandescent
      electric lamp, which enabled the production of scenic effects never before
      even dreamed of, but which we accept now with so much complacency. Yet
      with the motion picture, effects are secured that could not be reproduced
      to the slightest extent on the real stage. The villain, overcome by a
      remorseful conscience, sees on the wall of the room the very crime which
      he committed, with HIMSELF as the principal actor; one of the easy effects
      of double exposure. The substantial and ofttimes corpulent ghost or spirit
      of the real stage has been succeeded by an intangible wraith, as
      transparent and unsubstantial as may be demanded in the best book of fairy
      tales&mdash;more double exposure. A man emerges from the water with a
      splash, ascends feet foremost ten yards or more, makes a graceful curve
      and lands on a spring-board, runs down it to the bank, and his clothes fly
      gently up from the ground and enclose his person&mdash;all unthinkable in
      real life, but readily possible by running the motion-picture film
      backward! The fairy prince commands the princess to appear, consigns the
      bad brothers to instant annihilation, turns the witch into a cat, confers
      life on inanimate things; and many more startling and apparently
      incomprehensible effects are carried out with actual reality, by stop-work
      photography. In one case, when the command for the heroine to come forth
      is given, the camera is stopped, the young woman walks to the desired
      spot, and the camera is again started; the effect to the eye&mdash;not
      knowing of this little by-play&mdash;is as if she had instantly appeared
      from space. The other effects are perhaps obvious, and the field and
      opportunities are absolutely unlimited. Other curious effects are secured
      by taking the pictures at a different speed from that at which they are
      exhibited. If, for example, a scene occupying thirty seconds is reproduced
      in ten seconds, the movements will be three times as fast, and vice versa.
      Many scenes familiar to the reader, showing automobiles tearing along the
      road and rounding corners at an apparently reckless speed, are really
      pictures of slow and dignified movements reproduced at a high speed.
    </p>
    <p>
      Brief reference has been made to motion pictures of educational subjects,
      and in this field there are very great opportunities for development. The
      study of geography, scenes and incidents in foreign countries, showing the
      lives and customs and surroundings of other peoples, is obviously more
      entertaining to the child when actively depicted on the screen than when
      merely described in words. The lives of great men, the enacting of
      important historical events, the reproduction of great works of
      literature, if visually presented to the child must necessarily impress
      his mind with greater force than if shown by mere words. We predict that
      the time is not far distant when, in many of our public schools, two or
      three hours a week will be devoted to this rational and effective form of
      education.
    </p>
    <p>
      By applying microphotography to motion pictures an additional field is
      opened up, one phase of which may be the study of germ life and bacteria,
      so that our future medical students may become as familiar with the habits
      and customs of the Anthrax bacillus, for example, as of the domestic cat.
    </p>
    <p>
      From whatever point of view the subject is approached, the fact remains
      that in the motion picture, perhaps more than with any other invention,
      Edison has created an art that must always make a special appeal to the
      mind and emotions of men, and although so far it has not advanced much
      beyond the field of amusement, it contains enormous possibilities for
      serious development in the future. Let us not think too lightly of the
      humble five-cent theatre with its gaping crowd following with breathless
      interest the vicissitudes of the beautiful heroine. Before us lies an
      undeveloped land of opportunity which is destined to play an important
      part in the growth and welfare of the human race.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EDISON STORAGE BATTERY
    </h3>
    <p>
      IT is more than a hundred years since the elementary principle of the
      storage battery or "accumulator" was detected by a Frenchman named
      Gautherot; it is just fifty years since another Frenchman, named Plante,
      discovered that on taking two thin plates of sheet lead, immersing them in
      dilute sulphuric acid, and passing an electric current through the cell,
      the combination exhibited the ability to give back part of the original
      charging current, owing to the chemical changes and reactions set up.
      Plante coiled up his sheets into a very handy cell like a little roll of
      carpet or pastry; but the trouble was that the battery took a long time to
      "form." One sheet becoming coated with lead peroxide and the other with
      finely divided or spongy metallic lead, they would receive current, and
      then, even after a long period of inaction, furnish or return an
      electromotive force of from 1.85 to 2.2 volts. This ability to store up
      electrical energy produced by dynamos in hours otherwise idle, whether
      driven by steam, wind, or water, was a distinct advance in the art; but
      the sensational step was taken about 1880, when Faure in France and Brush
      in America broke away from the slow and weary process of "forming" the
      plates, and hit on clever methods of furnishing them "ready made," so to
      speak, by dabbing red lead onto lead-grid plates, just as butter is spread
      on a slice of home-made bread. This brought the storage battery at once
      into use as a practical, manufactured piece of apparatus; and the world
      was captivated with the idea. The great English scientist, Sir William
      Thomson, went wild with enthusiasm when a Faure "box of electricity" was
      brought over from Paris to him in 1881 containing a million foot-pounds of
      stored energy. His biographer, Dr. Sylvanus P. Thompson, describes him as
      lying ill in bed with a wounded leg, and watching results with an
      incandescent lamp fastened to his bed curtain by a safety-pin, and lit up
      by current from the little Faure cell. Said Sir William: "It is going to
      be a most valuable, practical affair&mdash;as valuable as water-cisterns
      to people whether they had or had not systems of water-pipes and
      water-supply." Indeed, in one outburst of panegyric the shrewd physicist
      remarked that he saw in it "a realization of the most ardently and
      increasingly felt scientific aspiration of his life&mdash;an aspiration
      which he hardly dared to expect or to see realized." A little later,
      however, Sir William, always cautious and canny, began to discover the
      inherent defects of the primitive battery, as to disintegration,
      inefficiency, costliness, etc., and though offered tempting inducements,
      declined to lend his name to its financial introduction. Nevertheless, he
      accepted the principle as valuable, and put the battery to actual use.
    </p>
    <p>
      For many years after this episode, the modern lead-lead type of battery
      thus brought forward with so great a flourish of trumpets had a hard time
      of it. Edison's attitude toward it, even as a useful supplement to his
      lighting system, was always one of scepticism, and he remarked
      contemptuously that the best storage battery he knew was a ton of coal.
      The financial fortunes of the battery, on both sides of the Atlantic, were
      as varied and as disastrous as its industrial; but it did at last emerge,
      and "made good." By 1905, the production of lead-lead storage batteries in
      the United States alone had reached a value for the year of nearly
      $3,000,000, and it has increased greatly since that time. The storage
      battery is now regarded as an important and indispensable adjunct in
      nearly all modern electric-lighting and electric-railway systems of any
      magnitude; and in 1909, in spite of its weight, it had found adoption in
      over ten thousand automobiles of the truck, delivery wagon, pleasure
      carriage, and runabout types in America.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison watched closely all this earlier development for about fifteen
      years, not changing his mind as to what he regarded as the incurable
      defects of the lead-lead type, but coming gradually to the conclusion that
      if a storage battery of some other and better type could be brought
      forward, it would fulfil all the early hopes, however extravagant, of such
      men as Kelvin (Sir William Thomson), and would become as necessary and as
      universal as the incandescent lamp or the electric motor. The beginning of
      the present century found him at his point of new departure.
    </p>
    <p>
      Generally speaking, non-technical and uninitiated persons have a tendency
      to regard an invention as being more or less the ultimate result of some
      happy inspiration. And, indeed, there is no doubt that such may be the
      fact in some instances; but in most cases the inventor has intentionally
      set out to accomplish a definite and desired result&mdash;mostly through
      the application of the known laws of the art in which he happens to be
      working. It is rarely, however, that a man will start out deliberately, as
      Edison did, to evolve a radically new type of such an intricate device as
      the storage battery, with only a meagre clew and a vague starting-point.
    </p>
    <p>
      In view of the successful outcome of the problem which, in 1900, he
      undertook to solve, it will be interesting to review his mental attitude
      at that period. It has already been noted at the end of a previous chapter
      that on closing the magnetic iron-ore concentrating plant at Edison, New
      Jersey, he resolved to work on a new type of storage battery. It was about
      this time that, in the course of a conversation with Mr. R. H. Beach, then
      of the street-railway department of the General Electric Company, he said:
      "Beach, I don't think Nature would be so unkind as to withhold the secret
      of a GOOD storage battery if a real earnest hunt for it is made. I'm going
      to hunt."
    </p>
    <p>
      Frequently Edison has been asked what he considers the secret of
      achievement. To this query he has invariably replied: "Hard work, based on
      hard thinking." The laboratory records bear the fullest witness that he
      has consistently followed out this prescription to the utmost. The
      perfection of all his great inventions has been signalized by patient,
      persistent, and incessant effort which, recognizing nothing short of
      success, has resulted in the ultimate accomplishment of his ideas.
      Optimistic and hopeful to a high degree, Edison has the happy faculty of
      beginning the day as open-minded as a child&mdash;yesterday's
      disappointments and failures discarded and discounted by the alluring
      possibilities of to-morrow.
    </p>
    <p>
      Of all his inventions, it is doubtful whether any one of them has called
      forth more original thought, work, perseverance, ingenuity, and monumental
      patience than the one we are now dealing with. One of his associates who
      has been through the many years of the storage-battery drudgery with him
      said: "If Edison's experiments, investigations, and work on this storage
      battery were all that he had ever done, I should say that he was not only
      a notable inventor, but also a great man. It is almost impossible to
      appreciate the enormous difficulties that have been overcome."
    </p>
    <p>
      From a beginning which was made practically in the dark, it was not until
      he had completed more than ten thousand experiments that he obtained any
      positive preliminary results whatever. Through all this vast amount of
      research there had been no previous signs of the electrical action he was
      looking for. These experiments had extended over many months of constant
      work by day and night, but there was no breakdown of Edison's faith in
      ultimate success&mdash;no diminution of his sanguine and confident
      expectations. The failure of an experiment simply meant to him that he had
      found something else that would not work, thus bringing the possible goal
      a little nearer by a process of painstaking elimination.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now, however, after these many months of arduous toil, in which he had
      examined and tested practically all the known elements in numerous
      chemical combinations, the electric action he sought for had been
      obtained, thus affording him the first inkling of the secret that he had
      industriously tried to wrest from Nature. It should be borne in mind that
      from the very outset Edison had disdained any intention of following in
      the only tracks then known by employing lead and sulphuric acid as the
      components of a successful storage battery. Impressed with what he
      considered the serious inherent defects of batteries made of these
      materials, and the tremendously complex nature of the chemical reactions
      taking place in all types of such cells, he determined boldly at the start
      that he would devise a battery without lead, and one in which an alkaline
      solution could be used&mdash;a form which would, he firmly believed, be
      inherently less subject to decay and dissolution than the standard type,
      which after many setbacks had finally won its way to an annual production
      of many thousands of cells, worth millions of dollars.
    </p>
    <p>
      Two or three thousand of the first experiments followed the line of his
      well-known primary battery in the attempted employment of copper oxide as
      an element in a new type of storage cell; but its use offered no
      advantages, and the hunt was continued in other directions and pursued
      until Edison satisfied himself by a vast number of experiments that nickel
      and iron possessed the desirable qualifications he was in search of.
    </p>
    <p>
      This immense amount of investigation which had consumed so many months of
      time, and which had culminated in the discovery of a series of reactions
      between nickel and iron that bore great promise, brought Edison merely
      within sight of a strange and hitherto unexplored country. Slowly but
      surely the results of the last few thousands of his preliminary
      experiments had pointed inevitably to a new and fruitful region ahead. He
      had discovered the hidden passage and held the clew which he had so
      industriously sought. And now, having outlined a definite path, Edison was
      all afire to push ahead vigorously in order that he might enter in and
      possess the land.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is a trite saying that "history repeats itself," and certainly no axiom
      carries more truth than this when applied to the history of each of
      Edison's important inventions. The development of the storage battery has
      been no exception; indeed, far from otherwise, for in the ten years that
      have elapsed since the time he set himself and his mechanics, chemists,
      machinists, and experimenters at work to develop a practical commercial
      cell, the old story of incessant and persistent efforts so manifest in the
      working out of other inventions was fully repeated.
    </p>
    <p>
      Very soon after he had decided upon the use of nickel and iron as the
      elemental metals for his storage battery, Edison established a chemical
      plant at Silver Lake, New Jersey, a few miles from the Orange laboratory,
      on land purchased some time previously. This place was the scene of the
      further experiments to develop the various chemical forms of nickel and
      iron, and to determine by tests what would be best adapted for use in
      cells manufactured on a commercial scale. With a little handful of
      selected experimenters gathered about him, Edison settled down to one of
      his characteristic struggles for supremacy. To some extent it was a
      revival of the old Menlo Park days (or, rather, nights). Some of these who
      had worked on the preliminary experiments, with the addition of a few
      new-comers, toiled together regardless of passing time and often under
      most discouraging circumstances, but with that remarkable esprit de corps
      that has ever marked Edison's relations with his co-workers, and that has
      contributed so largely to the successful carrying out of his ideas.
    </p>
    <p>
      The group that took part in these early years of Edison's arduous labors
      included his old-time assistant, Fred Ott, together with his chemist, J.
      W. Aylsworth, as well as E. J. Ross, Jr., W. E. Holland, and Ralph
      Arbogast, and a little later W. G. Bee, all of whom have grown up with the
      battery and still devote their energies to its commercial development. One
      of these workers, relating the strenuous experiences of these few years,
      says: "It was hard work and long hours, but still there were some things
      that made life pleasant. One of them was the supper-hour we enjoyed when
      we worked nights. Mr. Edison would have supper sent in about midnight, and
      we all sat down together, including himself. Work was forgotten for the
      time, and all hands were ready for fun. I have very pleasant recollections
      of Mr. Edison at these times. He would always relax and help to make a
      good time, and on some occasions I have seen him fairly overflow with
      animal spirits, just like a boy let out from school. After the supper-hour
      was over, however, he again became the serious, energetic inventor, deeply
      immersed in the work at hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      "He was very fond of telling and hearing stories, and always appreciated a
      joke. I remember one that he liked to get off on us once in a while. Our
      lighting plant was in duplicate, and about 12.30 or 1 o'clock in the
      morning, at the close of the supper-hour, a change would be made from one
      plant to the other, involving the gradual extinction of the electric
      lights and their slowly coming up to candle-power again, the whole change
      requiring probably about thirty seconds. Sometimes, as this was taking
      place, Edison would fold his hands, compose himself as if he were in sound
      sleep, and when the lights were full again would apparently wake up, with
      the remark, 'Well, boys, we've had a fine rest; now let's pitch into work
      again.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      Another interesting and amusing reminiscence of this period of activity
      has been gathered from another of the family of experimenters: "Sometimes,
      when Mr. Edison had been working long hours, he would want to have a short
      sleep. It was one of the funniest things I ever witnessed to see him crawl
      into an ordinary roll-top desk and curl up and take a nap. If there was a
      sight that was still more funny, it was to see him turn over on his other
      side, all the time remaining in the desk. He would use several volumes of
      Watts's Dictionary of Chemistry for a pillow, and we fellows used to say
      that he absorbed the contents during his sleep, judging from the flow of
      new ideas he had on waking."
    </p>
    <p>
      Such incidents as these serve merely to illustrate the lighter moments
      that stand out in relief against the more sombre background of the
      strenuous years, for, of all the absorbingly busy periods of Edison's
      inventive life, the first five years of the storage-battery era was one of
      the very busiest of them all. It was not that there remained any basic
      principle to be discovered or simplified, for that had already been done;
      but it was in the effort to carry these principles into practice that
      there arose the numerous difficulties that at times seemed insurmountable.
      But, according to another co-worker, "Edison seemed pleased when he used
      to run up against a serious difficulty. It would seem to stiffen his
      backbone and make him more prolific of new ideas. For a time I thought I
      was foolish to imagine such a thing, but I could never get away from the
      impression that he really appeared happy when he ran up against a serious
      snag. That was in my green days, and I soon learned that the failure of an
      experiment never discourages him unless it is by reason of the
      carelessness of the man making it. Then Edison gets disgusted. If it fails
      on its merits, he doesn't worry or fret about it, but, on the contrary,
      regards it as a useful fact learned; remains cheerful and tries something
      else. I have known him to reverse an unsuccessful experiment and come out
      all right."
    </p>
    <p>
      To follow Edison's trail in detail through the innumerable twists and
      turns of his experimentation and research on the storage battery, during
      the past ten years, would not be in keeping with the scope of this
      narrative, nor would it serve any useful purpose. Besides, such details
      would fill a big volume. The narrative, however, would not be complete
      without some mention of the general outline of his work, and reference may
      be made briefly to a few of the chief items. And lest the reader think
      that the word "innumerable" may have been carelessly or hastily used
      above, we would quote the reply of one of the laboratory assistants when
      asked how many experiments had been made on the Edison storage battery
      since the year 1900: "Goodness only knows! We used to number our
      experiments consecutively from 1 to 10,000, and when we got up to 10,000
      we turned back to 1 and ran up to 10,000 again, and so on. We ran through
      several series&mdash;I don't know how many, and have lost track of them
      now, but it was not far from fifty thousand."
    </p>
    <p>
      From the very first, Edison's broad idea of his storage battery was to
      make perforated metallic containers having the active materials packed
      therein; nickel hydrate for the positive and iron oxide for the negative
      plate. This plan has been adhered to throughout, and has found its
      consummation in the present form of the completed commercial cell, but in
      the middle ground which stands between the early crude beginnings and the
      perfected type of to-day there lies a world of original thought, patient
      plodding, and achievement.
    </p>
    <p>
      The first necessity was naturally to obtain the best and purest compounds
      for active materials. Edison found that comparatively little was known by
      manufacturing chemists about nickel and iron oxides of the high grade and
      purity he required. Hence it became necessary for him to establish his own
      chemical works and put them in charge of men specially trained by himself,
      with whom he worked. This was the plant at Silver Lake, above referred to.
      Here, for several years, there was ceaseless activity in the preparation
      of these chemical compounds by every imaginable process and subsequent
      testing. Edison's chief chemist says: "We left no stone unturned to find a
      way of making those chemicals so that they would give the highest results.
      We carried on the experiments with the two chemicals together. Sometimes
      the nickel would be ahead in the tests, and then again it would fall
      behind. To stimulate us to greater improvement, Edison hung up a card
      which showed the results of tests in milliampere-hours given by the
      experimental elements as we tried them with the various grades of nickel
      and iron we had made. This stirred up a great deal of ambition among the
      boys to push the figures up. Some of our earliest tests showed around 300,
      but as we improved the material, they gradually crept up to over 500. Just
      about that time Edison made a trip to Canada, and when he came back we had
      made such good progress that the figures had crept up to about 1000. I
      well remember how greatly he was pleased."
    </p>
    <p>
      In speaking of the development of the negative element of the battery, Mr.
      Aylsworth said: "In like manner the iron element had to be developed and
      improved; and finally the iron, which had generally enjoyed superiority in
      capacity over its companion, the nickel element, had to go in training in
      order to retain its lead, which was imperative, in order to produce a
      uniform and constant voltage curve. In talking with me one day about the
      difficulties under which we were working and contrasting them with the
      phonograph experimentation, Edison said: 'In phonographic work we can use
      our ears and our eyes, aided with powerful microscopes; but in the battery
      our difficulties cannot be seen or heard, but must be observed by our
      mind's eye!' And by reason of the employment of such vision in the past,
      Edison is now able to see quite clearly through the forest of difficulties
      after eliminating them one by one."
    </p>
    <p>
      The size and shape of the containing pockets in the battery plates or
      elements and the degree of their perforation were matters that received
      many years of close study and experiment; indeed, there is still to-day
      constant work expended on their perfection, although their present general
      form was decided upon several years ago. The mechanical construction of
      the battery, as a whole, in its present form, compels instant admiration
      on account of its beauty and completeness. Mr. Edison has spared neither
      thought, ingenuity, labor, nor money in the effort to make it the most
      complete and efficient storage cell obtainable, and the results show that
      his skill, judgment, and foresight have lost nothing of the power that
      laid the foundation of, and built up, other great arts at each earlier
      stage of his career.
    </p>
    <p>
      Among the complex and numerous problems that presented themselves in the
      evolution of the battery was the one concerning the internal conductivity
      of the positive unit. The nickel hydrate was a poor electrical conductor,
      and although a metallic nickel pocket might be filled with it, there would
      not be the desired electrical action unless a conducting substance were
      mixed with it, and so incorporated and packed that there would be good
      electrical contact throughout. This proved to be a most knotty and
      intricate puzzle&mdash;tricky and evasive&mdash;always leading on and
      promising something, and at the last slipping away leaving the work
      undone. Edison's remarkable patience and persistence in dealing with this
      trying problem and in finally solving it successfully won for him more
      than ordinary admiration from his associates. One of them, in speaking of
      the seemingly interminable experiments to overcome this trouble, said: "I
      guess that question of conductivity of the positive pocket brought lots of
      gray hairs to his head. I never dreamed a man could have such patience and
      perseverance. Any other man than Edison would have given the whole thing
      up a thousand times, but not he! Things looked awfully blue to the whole
      bunch of us many a time, but he was always hopeful. I remember one time
      things looked so dark to me that I had just about made up my mind to throw
      up my job, but some good turn came just then and I didn't. Now I'm glad I
      held on, for we've got a great future."
    </p>
    <p>
      The difficulty of obtaining good electrical contact in the positive
      element was indeed Edison's chief trouble for many years. After a great
      amount of work and experimentation he decided upon a certain form of
      graphite, which seemed to be suitable for the purpose, and then proceeded
      to the commercial manufacture of the battery at a special factory in Glen
      Ridge, New Jersey, installed for the purpose. There was no lack of buyers,
      but, on the contrary, the factory was unable to turn out batteries enough.
      The newspapers had previously published articles showing the unusual
      capacity and performance of the battery, and public interest had thus been
      greatly awakened.
    </p>
    <p>
      Notwithstanding the establishment of a regular routine of manufacture and
      sale, Edison did not cease to experiment for improvement. Although the
      graphite apparently did the work desired of it, he was not altogether
      satisfied with its performance and made extended trials of other
      substances, but at that time found nothing that on the whole served the
      purpose better. Continuous tests of the commercial cells were carried on
      at the laboratory, as well as more practical and heavy tests in
      automobiles, which were constantly kept running around the adjoining
      country over all kinds of roads. All these tests were very closely watched
      by Edison, who demanded rigorously that the various trials of the battery
      should be carried on with all strenuousness so as to get the utmost
      results and develop any possible weakness. So insistent was he on this,
      that if any automobile should run several days without bursting a tire or
      breaking some part of the machine, he would accuse the chauffeur of
      picking out easy roads.
    </p>
    <p>
      After these tests had been going on for some time, and some thousands of
      cells had been sold and were giving satisfactory results to the
      purchasers, the test sheets and experience gathered from various sources
      pointed to the fact that occasionally a cell here and there would show up
      as being short in capacity. Inasmuch as the factory processes were very
      exact and carefully guarded, and every cell was made as uniform as human
      skill and care could provide, there thus arose a serious problem. Edison
      concentrated his powers on the investigation of this trouble, and found
      that the chief cause lay in the graphite. Some other minor matters also
      attracted his attention. What to do, was the important question that
      confronted him. To shut down the factory meant great loss and apparent
      failure. He realized this fully, but he also knew that to go on would
      simply be to increase the number of defective batteries in circulation,
      which would ultimately result in a permanent closure and real failure.
      Hence he took the course which one would expect of Edison's common sense
      and directness of action. He was not satisfied that the battery was a
      complete success, so he shut down and went to experimenting once more.
    </p>
    <p>
      "And then," says one of the laboratory men, "we started on another series
      of record-breaking experiments that lasted over five years. I might almost
      say heart-breaking, too, for of all the elusive, disappointing things one
      ever hunted for that was the worst. But secrets have to be long-winded and
      roost high if they want to get away when the 'Old Man' goes hunting for
      them. He doesn't get mad when he misses them, but just keeps on smiling
      and firing, and usually brings them into camp. That's what he did on the
      battery, for after a whole lot of work he perfected the nickel-flake idea
      and process, besides making the great improvement of using tubes instead
      of flat pockets for the positive. He also added a minor improvement here
      and there, and now we have a finer battery than we ever expected."
    </p>
    <p>
      In the interim, while the experimentation of these last five years was in
      progress, many customers who had purchased batteries of the original type
      came knocking at the door with orders in their hands for additional
      outfits wherewith to equip more wagons and trucks. Edison expressed his
      regrets, but said he was not satisfied with the old cells and was engaged
      in improving them. To which the customers replied that THEY were entirely
      satisfied and ready and willing to pay for more batteries of the same
      kind; but Edison could not be moved from his determination, although
      considerable pressure was at times brought to bear to sway his decision.
    </p>
    <p>
      Experiment was continued beyond the point of peradventure, and after some
      new machinery had been built, the manufacture of the new type of cell was
      begun in the early summer of 1909, and at the present writing is being
      extended as fast as the necessary additional machinery can be made. The
      product is shipped out as soon as it is completed.
    </p>
    <p>
      The nickel flake, which is Edison's ingenious solution of the conductivity
      problem, is of itself a most interesting product, intensely practical in
      its application and fascinating in its manufacture. The flake of nickel is
      obtained by electroplating upon a metallic cylinder alternate layers of
      copper and nickel, one hundred of each, after which the combined sheet is
      stripped from the cylinder. So thin are the layers that this sheet is only
      about the thickness of a visiting-card, and yet it is composed of two
      hundred layers of metal. The sheet is cut into tiny squares, each about
      one-sixteenth of an inch, and these squares are put into a bath where the
      copper is dissolved out. This releases the layers of nickel, so that each
      of these small squares becomes one hundred tiny sheets, or flakes, of pure
      metallic nickel, so thin that when they are dried they will float in the
      air, like thistle-down.
    </p>
    <p>
      In their application to the manufacture of batteries, the flakes are used
      through the medium of a special machine, so arranged that small charges of
      nickel hydrate and nickel flake are alternately fed into the pockets
      intended for positives, and tamped down with a pressure equal to about
      four tons per square inch. This insures complete and perfect contact and
      consequent electrical conductivity throughout the entire unit.
    </p>
    <p>
      The development of the nickel flake contains in itself a history of
      patient investigation, labor, and achievement, but we have not space for
      it, nor for tracing the great work that has been done in developing and
      perfecting the numerous other parts and adjuncts of this remarkable
      battery. Suffice it to say that when Edison went boldly out into new
      territory, after something entirely unknown, he was quite prepared for
      hard work and exploration. He encountered both in unstinted measure, but
      kept on going forward until, after long travel, he had found all that he
      expected and accomplished something more beside. Nature DID respond to his
      whole-hearted appeal, and, by the time the hunt was ended, revealed a good
      storage battery of entirely new type. Edison not only recognized and took
      advantage of the principles he had discovered, but in adapting them for
      commercial use developed most ingenious processes and mechanical
      appliances for carrying his discoveries into practical effect. Indeed, it
      may be said that the invention of an enormous variety of new machines and
      mechanical appliances rendered necessary by each change during the various
      stages of development of the battery, from first to last, stands as a
      lasting tribute to the range and versatility of his powers.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not within the scope of this narrative to enter into any description
      of the relative merits of the Edison storage battery, that being the
      province of a commercial catalogue. It does, however, seem entirely
      allowable to say that while at the present writing the tests that have
      been made extend over a few years only, their results and the intrinsic
      value of this characteristic Edison invention are of such a substantial
      nature as to point to the inevitable growth of another great industry
      arising from its manufacture, and to its wide-spread application to many
      uses.
    </p>
    <p>
      The principal use that Edison has had in mind for his battery is
      transportation of freight and passengers by truck, automobile, and
      street-car. The greatly increased capacity in proportion to weight of the
      Edison cell makes it particularly adaptable for this class of work on
      account of the much greater radius of travel that is possible by its use.
      The latter point of advantage is the one that appeals most to the
      automobilist, as he is thus enabled to travel, it is asserted, more than
      three times farther than ever before on a single charge of the battery.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison believes that there are important advantages possible in the
      employment of his storage battery for street-car propulsion. Under the
      present system of operation, a plant furnishing the electric power for
      street railways must be large enough to supply current for the maximum
      load during "rush hours," although much of the machinery may be lying idle
      and unproductive in the hours of minimum load. By the use of
      storage-battery cars, this immense and uneconomical maximum investment in
      plant can be cut down to proportions of true commercial economy, as the
      charging of the batteries can be conducted at a uniform rate with a
      reasonable expenditure for generating machinery. Not only this, but each
      car becomes an independently moving unit, not subject to delay by reason
      of a general breakdown of the power plant or of the line. In addition to
      these advantages, the streets would be freed from their burden of trolley
      wires or conduits. To put his ideas into practice, Edison built a short
      railway line at the Orange works in the winter of 1909-10, and, in
      co-operation with Mr. R. H. Beach, constructed a special type of
      street-car, and equipped it with motor, storage battery, and other
      necessary operating devices. This car was subsequently put upon the
      street-car lines in New York City, and demonstrated its efficiency so
      completely that it was purchased by one of the street-car companies, which
      has since ordered additional cars for its lines. The demonstration of this
      initial car has been watched with interest by many railroad officials, and
      its performance has been of so successful a nature that at the present
      writing (the summer of 1910) it has been necessary to organize and equip a
      preliminary factory in which to construct many other cars of a similar
      type that have been ordered by other street-railway companies. This
      enterprise will be conducted by a corporation which has been specially
      organized for the purpose. Thus, there has been initiated the development
      of a new and important industry whose possible ultimate proportions are
      beyond the range of present calculation. Extensive as this industry may
      become, however, Edison is firmly convinced that the greatest field for
      his storage battery lies in its adaptation to commercial trucking and
      hauling, and to pleasure vehicles, in comparison with which the street-car
      business even with its great possibilities&mdash;will not amount to more
      than 1 per cent.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison has pithily summed up his work and his views in an article on "The
      To-Morrows of Electricity and Invention" in Popular Electricity for June,
      1910, in which he says: "For years past I have been trying to perfect a
      storage battery, and have now rendered it entirely suitable to automobile
      and other work. There is absolutely no reason why horses should be allowed
      within city limits; for between the gasoline and the electric car, no room
      is left for them. They are not needed. The cow and the pig have gone, and
      the horse is still more undesirable. A higher public ideal of health and
      cleanliness is working toward such banishment very swiftly; and then we
      shall have decent streets, instead of stables made out of strips of
      cobblestones bordered by sidewalks. The worst use of money is to make a
      fine thoroughfare, and then turn it over to horses. Besides that, the
      change will put the humane societies out of business. Many people now
      charge their own batteries because of lack of facilities; but I believe
      central stations will find in this work very soon the largest part of
      their load. The New York Edison Company, or the Chicago Edison Company,
      should have as much current going out for storage batteries as for power
      motors; and it will be so some near day."
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXIII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      MISCELLANEOUS INVENTIONS
    </h3>
    <p>
      IT has been the endeavor in this narrative to group Edison's inventions
      and patents so that his work in the different fields can be studied
      independently and separately. The history of his career has therefore
      fallen naturally into a series of chapters, each aiming to describe some
      particular development or art; and, in a way, the plan has been helpful to
      the writers while probably useful to the readers. It happens, however,
      that the process has left a vast mass of discovery and invention wholly
      untouched, and relegates to a concluding brief chapter some of the most
      interesting episodes of a fruitful life. Any one who will turn to the list
      of Edison patents at the end of the book will find a large number of
      things of which not even casual mention has been made, but which at the
      time occupied no small amount of the inventor's time and attention, and
      many of which are now part and parcel of modern civilization. Edison has,
      indeed, touched nothing that he did not in some way improve. As Thoreau
      said: "The laws of the Universe are not indifferent, but are forever on
      the side of the most sensitive," and there never was any one more
      sensitive to the defects of every art and appliance, nor any one more
      active in applying the law of evolution. It is perhaps this many-sidedness
      of Edison that has impressed the multitude, and that in the "popular vote"
      taken a couple of years ago by the New York Herald placed his name at the
      head of the list of ten greatest living Americans. It is curious and
      pertinent to note that a similar plebiscite taken by a technical journal
      among its expert readers had exactly the same result. Evidently the public
      does not agree with the opinion expressed by the eccentric artist Blake in
      his "Marriage of Heaven and Hell," when he said: "Improvement makes
      strange roads; but the crooked roads without improvements are roads of
      Genius."
    </p>
    <p>
      The product of Edison's brain may be divided into three classes. The first
      embraces such arts and industries, or such apparatus, as have already been
      treated. The second includes devices like the tasimeter, phonomotor,
      odoroscope, etc., and others now to be noted. The third embraces a number
      of projected inventions, partially completed investigations, inventions in
      use but not patented, and a great many caveats filed in the Patent Office
      at various times during the last forty years for the purpose of protecting
      his ideas pending their contemplated realization in practice. These
      caveats served their purpose thoroughly in many instances, but there have
      remained a great variety of projects upon which no definite action was
      ever taken. One ought to add the contents of an unfinished piece of
      extraordinary fiction based wholly on new inventions and devices utterly
      unknown to mankind. Some day the novel may be finished, but Edison has no
      inclination to go back to it, and says he cannot understand how any man is
      able to make a speech or write a book, for he simply can't do it.
    </p>
    <p>
      After what has been said in previous chapters, it will not seem so strange
      that Edison should have hundreds of dormant inventions on his hands. There
      are human limitations even for such a tireless worker as he is. While the
      preparation of data for this chapter was going on, one of the writers in
      discussing with him the vast array of unexploited things said: "Don't you
      feel a sense of regret in being obliged to leave so many things
      uncompleted?" To which he replied: "What's the use? One lifetime is too
      short, and I am busy every day improving essential parts of my established
      industries." It must suffice to speak briefly of a few leading inventions
      that have been worked out, and to dismiss with scant mention all the rest,
      taking just a few items, as typical and suggestive, especially when Edison
      can himself be quoted as to them. Incidentally it may be noted that
      things, not words, are referred to; for Edison, in addition to inventing
      the apparatus, has often had to coin the word to describe it. A large
      number of the words and phrases in modern electrical parlance owe their
      origin to him. Even the "call-word" of the telephone, "Hello!" sent
      tingling over the wire a few million times daily was taken from Menlo Park
      by men installing telephones in different parts of the world, men who had
      just learned it at the laboratory, and thus made it a universal sesame for
      telephonic conversation.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is hard to determine where to begin with Edison's miscellaneous
      inventions, but perhaps telegraphy has the "right of line," and Edison's
      work in that field puts him abreast of the latest wireless developments
      that fill the world with wonder. "I perfected a system of train telegraphy
      between stations and trains in motion whereby messages could be sent from
      the moving train to the central office; and this was the forerunner of
      wireless telegraphy. This system was used for a number of years on the
      Lehigh Valley Railroad on their construction trains. The electric wave
      passed from a piece of metal on top of the car across the air to the
      telegraph wires; and then proceeded to the despatcher's office. In my
      first experiments with this system I tried it on the Staten Island
      Railroad, and employed an operator named King to do the experimenting. He
      reported results every day, and received instructions by mail; but for
      some reason he could send messages all right when the train went in one
      direction, but could not make it go in the contrary direction. I made
      suggestions of every kind to get around this phenomenon. Finally I
      telegraphed King to find out if he had any suggestions himself; and I
      received a reply that the only way he could propose to get around the
      difficulty was to put the island on a pivot so it could be turned around!
      I found the trouble finally, and the practical introduction on the Lehigh
      Valley road was the result. The system was sold to a very wealthy man, and
      he would never sell any rights or answer letters. He became a spiritualist
      subsequently, which probably explains it." It is interesting to note that
      Edison became greatly interested in the later developments by Marconi, and
      is an admiring friend and adviser of that well-known inventor.
    </p>
    <p>
      The earlier experiments with wireless telegraphy at Menlo Park were made
      at a time when Edison was greatly occupied with his electric-light
      interests, and it was not until the beginning of 1886 that he was able to
      spare the time to make a public demonstration of the system as applied to
      moving trains. Ezra T. Gilliland, of Boston, had become associated with
      him in his experiments, and they took out several joint patents
      subsequently. The first practical use of the system took place on a
      thirteen-mile stretch of the Staten Island Railroad with the results
      mentioned by Edison above.
    </p>
    <p>
      A little later, Edison and Gilliland joined forces with Lucius J. Phelps,
      another investigator, who had been experimenting along the same lines and
      had taken out several patents. The various interests were combined in a
      corporation under whose auspices the system was installed on the Lehigh
      Valley Railroad, where it was used for several years. The official
      demonstration trip on this road took place on October 6, 1887, on a
      six-car train running to Easton, Pennsylvania, a distance of fifty-four
      miles. A great many telegrams were sent and received while the train was
      at full speed, including a despatch to the "cable king," John Pender.
      London, England, and a reply from him. [17]
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 17: Broadly described in outline, the system
     consisted of an induction circuit obtained by laying strips
     of tin along the top or roof of a railway car, and the
     installation of a special telegraph line running parallel
     with the track and strung on poles of only medium height.
     The train and also each signalling station were equipped
     with regulation telegraphic apparatus, such as battery, key,
     relay, and sounder, together with induction-coil and
     condenser. In addition, there was a transmitting device in
     the shape of a musical reed, or buzzer. In practice, this
     buzzer was continuously operated at high speed by a battery.
     Its vibrations were broken by means of a key into long and
     short periods, representing Morse characters, which were
     transmitted inductively from the train circuit to the pole
     line, or vice versa, and received by the operator at the
     other end through a high-resistance telephone receiver
     inserted in the secondary circuit of the induction-coil.]
</pre>
    <p>
      Although the space between the cars and the pole line was probably not
      more than about fifty feet, it is interesting to note that in Edison's
      early experiments at Menlo Park he succeeded in transmitting messages
      through the air at a distance of 580 feet. Speaking of this and of his
      other experiments with induction telegraphy by means of kites,
      communicating from one to the other and thus from the kites to instruments
      on the earth, Edison said recently: "We only transmitted about two and
      one-half miles through the kites. What has always puzzled me since is that
      I did not think of using the results of my experiments on 'etheric force'
      that I made in 1875. I have never been able to understand how I came to
      overlook them. If I had made use of my own work I should have had
      long-distance wireless telegraphy."
    </p>
    <p>
      In one of the appendices to this book is given a brief technical account
      of Edison's investigations of the phenomena which lie at the root of
      modern wireless or "space" telegraphy, and the attention of the reader is
      directed particularly to the description and quotations there from the
      famous note-books of Edison's experiments in regard to what he called
      "etheric force." It will be seen that as early as 1875 Edison detected and
      studied certain phenomena&mdash;i.e., the production of electrical effects
      in non-closed circuits, which for a time made him think he was on the
      trail of a new force, as there was no plausible explanation for them by
      the then known laws of electricity and magnetism. Later came the
      magnificent work of Hertz identifying the phenomena as "electromagnetic
      waves" in the ether, and developing a new world of theory and science
      based upon them and their production by disruptive discharges.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's assertions were treated with scepticism by the scientific world,
      which was not then ready for the discovery and not sufficiently furnished
      with corroborative data. It is singular, to say the least, to note how
      Edison's experiments paralleled and proved in advance those that came
      later; and even his apparatus such as the "dark box" for making the tiny
      sparks visible (as the waves impinged on the receiver) bears close analogy
      with similar apparatus employed by Hertz. Indeed, as Edison sent the
      dark-box apparatus to the Paris Exposition in 1881, and let Batchelor
      repeat there the puzzling experiments, it seems by no means unlikely that,
      either directly or on the report of some friend, Hertz may thus have
      received from Edison a most valuable suggestion, the inventor aiding the
      physicist in opening up a wonderful new realm. In this connection, indeed,
      it is very interesting to quote two great authorities. In May, 1889, at a
      meeting of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in London, Dr. (now
      Sir) Oliver Lodge remarked in a discussion on a paper of his own on
      lightning conductors, embracing the Hertzian waves in its treatment: "Many
      of the effects I have shown&mdash;sparks in unsuspected places and other
      things&mdash;have been observed before. Henry observed things of the kind
      and Edison noticed some curious phenomena, and said it was not electricity
      but 'etheric force' that caused these sparks; and the matter was rather
      pooh-poohed. It was a small part of THIS VERY THING; only the time was not
      ripe; theoretical knowledge was not ready for it." Again in his
      "Signalling without Wires," in giving the history of the coherer
      principle, Lodge remarks: "Sparks identical in all respects with those
      discovered by Hertz had been seen in recent times both by Edison and by
      Sylvanus Thompson, being styled 'etheric force' by the former; but their
      theoretic significance had not been perceived, and they were somewhat
      sceptically regarded." During the same discussion in London, in 1889, Sir
      William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), after citing some experiments by Faraday
      with his insulated cage at the Royal Institution, said: "His (Faraday's)
      attention was not directed to look for Hertz sparks, or probably he might
      have found them in the interior. Edison seems to have noticed something of
      the kind in what he called 'etheric force.' His name 'etheric' may
      thirteen years ago have seemed to many people absurd. But now we are all
      beginning to call these inductive phenomena 'etheric.'" With which
      testimony from the great Kelvin as to his priority in determining the
      vital fact, and with the evidence that as early as 1875 he built apparatus
      that demonstrated the fact, Edison is probably quite content.
    </p>
    <p>
      It should perhaps be noted at this point that a curious effect observed at
      the laboratory was shown in connection with Edison lamps at the
      Philadelphia Exhibition of 1884. It became known in scientific parlance as
      the "Edison effect," showing a curious current condition or discharge in
      the vacuum of the bulb. It has since been employed by Fleming in England
      and De Forest in this country, and others, as the basis for
      wireless-telegraph apparatus. It is in reality a minute rectifier of
      alternating current, and analogous to those which have since been made on
      a large scale.
    </p>
    <p>
      When Roentgen came forward with his discovery of the new "X"-ray in 1895,
      Edison was ready for it, and took up experimentation with it on a large
      scale; some of his work being recorded in an article in the Century
      Magazine of May, 1896, where a great deal of data may be found. Edison
      says with regard to this work: "When the X-ray came up, I made the first
      fluoroscope, using tungstate of calcium. I also found that this tungstate
      could be put into a vacuum chamber of glass and fused to the inner walls
      of the chamber; and if the X-ray electrodes were let into the glass
      chamber and a proper vacuum was attained, you could get a fluorescent lamp
      of several candle-power. I started in to make a number of these lamps, but
      I soon found that the X-ray had affected poisonously my assistant, Mr.
      Dally, so that his hair came out and his flesh commenced to ulcerate. I
      then concluded it would not do, and that it would not be a very popular
      kind of light; so I dropped it.
    </p>
    <p>
      "At the time I selected tungstate of calcium because it was so
      fluorescent, I set four men to making all kinds of chemical combinations,
      and thus collected upward of 8000 different crystals of various chemical
      combinations, discovering several hundred different substances which would
      fluoresce to the X-ray. So far little had come of X-ray work, but it added
      another letter to the scientific alphabet. I don't know any thing about
      radium, and I have lots of company." The Electrical Engineer of June 3,
      1896, contains a photograph of Mr. Edison taken by the light of one of his
      fluorescent lamps. The same journal in its issue of April 1, 1896, shows
      an Edison fluoroscope in use by an observer, in the now familiar and
      universal form somewhat like a stereoscope. This apparatus as invented by
      Edison consists of a flaring box, curved at one end to fit closely over
      the forehead and eyes, while the other end of the box is closed by a
      paste-board cover. On the inside of this is spread a layer of tungstate of
      calcium. By placing the object to be observed, such as the hand, between
      the vacuum-tube and the fluorescent screen, the "shadow" is formed on the
      screen and can be observed at leisure. The apparatus has proved invaluable
      in surgery and has become an accepted part of the equipment of modern
      surgery. In 1896, at the Electrical Exhibition in the Grand Central
      Palace, New York City, given under the auspices of the National Electric
      Light Association, thousands and thousands of persons with the use of this
      apparatus in Edison's personal exhibit were enabled to see their own
      bones; and the resultant public sensation was great. Mr. Mallory tells a
      characteristic story of Edison's own share in the memorable exhibit: "The
      exhibit was announced for opening on Monday. On the preceding Friday all
      the apparatus, which included a large induction-coil, was shipped from
      Orange to New York, and on Saturday afternoon Edison, accompanied by Fred
      Ott, one of his assistants, and myself, went over to install it so as to
      have it ready for Monday morning. Had everything been normal, a few hours
      would have sufficed for completion of the work, but on coming to test the
      big coil, it was found to be absolutely out of commission, having been so
      seriously injured as to necessitate its entire rewinding. It being
      summer-time, all the machine shops were closed until Monday morning, and
      there were several miles of wire to be wound on the coil. Edison would not
      consider a postponement of the exhibition, so there was nothing to do but
      go to work and wind it by hand. We managed to find a lathe, but there was
      no power; so each of us, including Edison, took turns revolving the lathe
      by pulling on the belt, while the other two attended to the winding of the
      wire. We worked continuously all through that Saturday night and all day
      Sunday until evening, when we finished the job. I don't remember ever
      being conscious of more muscles in my life. I guess Edison was tired also,
      but he took it very philosophically." This was apparently the first public
      demonstration of the X-ray to the American public.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's ore-separation work has been already fully described, but the
      story would hardly be complete without a reference to similar work in gold
      extraction, dating back to the Menlo Park days: "I got up a method," says
      Edison, "of separating placer gold by a dry process, in which I could work
      economically ore as lean as five cents of gold to the cubic yard. I had
      several car-loads of different placer sands sent to me and proved I could
      do it. Some parties hearing I had succeeded in doing such a thing went to
      work and got hold of what was known as the Ortiz mine grant, twelve miles
      from Santa Fe, New Mexico. This mine, according to the reports of several
      mining engineers made in the last forty years, was considered one of the
      richest placer deposits in the United States, and various schemes had been
      put forward to bring water from the mountains forty miles away to work
      those immense beds. The reports stated that the Mexicans had been panning
      gold for a hundred years out of these deposits.
    </p>
    <p>
      "These parties now made arrangements with the stockholders or owners of
      the grant, and with me, to work the deposits by my process. As I had had
      some previous experience with the statements of mining men, I concluded I
      would just send down a small plant and prospect the field before putting
      up a large one. This I did, and I sent two of my assistants, whom I could
      trust, down to this place to erect the plant; and started to sink shafts
      fifty feet deep all over the area. We soon learned that the rich gravel,
      instead of being spread over an area of three by seven miles, and rich
      from the grass roots down, was spread over a space of about twenty-five
      acres, and that even this did not average more than ten cents to the cubic
      yard. The whole placer would not give more than one and one-quarter cents
      per cubic yard. As my business arrangements had not been very perfectly
      made, I lost the usual amount."
    </p>
    <p>
      Going to another extreme, we find Edison grappling with one of the biggest
      problems known to the authorities of New York&mdash;the disposal of its
      heavy snows. It is needless to say that witnessing the ordinary slow and
      costly procedure would put Edison on his mettle. "One time when they had a
      snow blockade in New York I started to build a machine with Batchelor&mdash;a
      big truck with a steam-engine and compressor on it. We would run along the
      street, gather all the snow up in front of us, pass it into the
      compressor, and deliver little blocks of ice behind us in the gutter,
      taking one-tenth the room of the snow, and not inconveniencing anybody. We
      could thus take care of a snow-storm by diminishing the bulk of material
      to be handled. The preliminary experiment we made was dropped because we
      went into other things. The machine would go as fast as a horse could
      walk."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison has always taken a keen interest in aerial flight, and has also
      experimented with aeroplanes, his preference inclining to the helicopter
      type, as noted in the newspapers and periodicals from time to time. The
      following statement from him refers to a type of aeroplane of great
      novelty and ingenuity: "James Gordon Bennett came to me and asked that I
      try some primary experiments to see if aerial navigation was feasible with
      'heavier-than-air' machines. I got up a motor and put it on the scales and
      tried a large number of different things and contrivances connected to the
      motor, to see how it would lighten itself on the scales. I got some data
      and made up my mind that what was needed was a very powerful engine for
      its weight, in small compass. So I conceived of an engine employing
      guncotton. I took a lot of ticker paper tape, turned it into guncotton and
      got up an engine with an arrangement whereby I could feed this gun-cotton
      strip into the cylinder and explode it inside electrically. The feed took
      place between two copper rolls. The copper kept the temperature down, so
      that it could only explode up to the point where it was in contact with
      the feed rolls. It worked pretty well; but once the feed roll didn't save
      it, and the flame went through and exploded the whole roll and kicked up
      such a bad explosion I abandoned it. But the idea might be made to work."
    </p>
    <p>
      Turning from the air to the earth, it is interesting to note that the
      introduction of the underground Edison system in New York made an appeal
      to inventive ingenuity and that one of the difficulties was met as
      follows: "When we first put the Pearl Street station in operation, in New
      York, we had cast-iron junction-boxes at the intersections of all the
      streets. One night, or about two o'clock in the morning, a policeman came
      in and said that something had exploded at the corner of William and
      Nassau streets. I happened to be in the station, and went out to see what
      it was. I found that the cover of the manhole, weighing about 200 pounds,
      had entirely disappeared, but everything inside was intact. It had even
      stripped some of the threads of the bolts, and we could never find that
      cover. I concluded it was either leakage of gas into the manhole, or else
      the acid used in pickling the casting had given off hydrogen, and air had
      leaked in, making an explosive mixture. As this was a pretty serious
      problem, and as we had a good many of the manholes, it worried me very
      much for fear that it would be repeated and the company might have to pay
      a lot of damages, especially in districts like that around William and
      Nassau, where there are a good many people about. If an explosion took
      place in the daytime it might lift a few of them up. However, I got around
      the difficulty by putting a little bottle of chloroform in each box,
      corked up, with a slight hole in the cork. The chloroform being volatile
      and very heavy, settled in the box and displaced all the air. I have never
      heard of an explosion in a manhole where this chloroform had been used.
      Carbon tetrachloride, now made electrically at Niagara Falls, is very
      cheap and would be ideal for the purpose."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison has never paid much attention to warfare, and has in general
      disdained to develop inventions for the destruction of life and property.
      Some years ago, however, he became the joint inventor of the Edison-Sims
      torpedo, with Mr. W. Scott Sims, who sought his co-operation. This is a
      dirigible submarine torpedo operated by electricity. In the torpedo
      proper, which is suspended from a long float so as to be submerged a few
      feet under water, are placed the small electric motor for propulsion and
      steering, and the explosive charge. The torpedo is controlled from the
      shore or ship through an electric cable which it pays out as it goes
      along, and all operations of varying the speed, reversing, and steering
      are performed at the will of the distant operator by means of currents
      sent through the cable. During the Spanish-American War of 1898 Edison
      suggested to the Navy Department the adoption of a compound of calcium
      carbide and calcium phosphite, which when placed in a shell and fired from
      a gun would explode as soon as it struck water and ignite, producing a
      blaze that would continue several minutes and make the ships of the enemy
      visible for four or five miles at sea. Moreover, the blaze could not be
      extinguished.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison has always been deeply interested in "conservation," and much of
      his work has been directed toward the economy of fuel in obtaining
      electrical energy directly from the consumption of coal. Indeed, it will
      be noted that the example of his handwriting shown in these volumes deals
      with the importance of obtaining available energy direct from the
      combustible without the enormous loss in the intervening stages that makes
      our best modern methods of steam generation and utilization so barbarously
      extravagant and wasteful. Several years ago, experimenting in this field,
      Edison devised and operated some ingenious pyromagnetic motors and
      generators, based, as the name implies, on the direct application of heat
      to the machines. The motor is founded upon the principle discovered by the
      famous Dr. William Gilbert&mdash;court physician to Queen Elizabeth, and
      the Father of modern electricity&mdash;that the magnetic properties of
      iron diminish with heat. At a light-red heat, iron becomes non-magnetic,
      so that a strong magnet exerts no influence over it. Edison employed this
      peculiar property by constructing a small machine in which a pivoted bar
      is alternately heated and cooled. It is thus attracted toward an adjacent
      electromagnet when cold and is uninfluenced when hot, and as the result
      motion is produced.
    </p>
    <p>
      The pyromagnetic generator is based on the same phenomenon; its aim being
      of course to generate electrical energy directly from the heat of the
      combustible. The armature, or moving part of the machine, consists in
      reality of eight separate armatures all constructed of corrugated sheet
      iron covered with asbestos and wound with wire. These armatures are held
      in place by two circular iron plates, through the centre of which runs a
      shaft, carrying at its lower extremity a semicircular shield of fire-clay,
      which covers the ends of four of the armatures. The heat, of whatever
      origin, is applied from below, and the shaft being revolved, four of the
      armatures lose their magnetism constantly, while the other four gain it,
      so to speak. As the moving part revolves, therefore, currents of
      electricity are set up in the wires of the armatures and are collected by
      a commutator, as in an ordinary dynamo, placed on the upper end of the
      central shaft.
    </p>
    <p>
      A great variety of electrical instruments are included in Edison's
      inventions, many of these in fundamental or earlier forms being devised
      for his systems of light and power, as noted already. There are numerous
      others, and it might be said with truth that Edison is hardly ever without
      some new device of this kind in hand, as he is by no means satisfied with
      the present status of electrical measurements. He holds in general that
      the meters of to-day, whether for heavy or for feeble currents, are too
      expensive, and that cheaper instruments are a necessity of the times.
      These remarks apply more particularly to what may be termed, in general,
      circuit meters. In other classes Edison has devised an excellent form of
      magnetic bridge, being an ingenious application of the principles of the
      familiar Wheatstone bridge, used so extensively for measuring the
      electrical resistance of wires; the testing of iron for magnetic qualities
      being determined by it in the same way. Another special instrument is a
      "dead beat" galvanometer which differs from the ordinary form of
      galvanometer in having no coils or magnetic needle. It depends for its
      action upon the heating effect of the current, which causes a fine
      platinum-iridium wire enclosed in a glass tube to expand; thus allowing a
      coiled spring to act on a pivoted shaft carrying a tiny mirror. The mirror
      as it moves throws a beam of light upon a scale and the indications are
      read by the spot of light. Most novel of all the apparatus of this
      measuring kind is the odoroscope, which is like the tasimeter described in
      an earlier chapter, except that a strip of gelatine takes the place of
      hard rubber, as the sensitive member. Besides being affected by heat, this
      device is exceedingly sensitive to moisture. A few drops of water or
      perfume thrown on the floor of a room are sufficient to give a very
      decided indication on the galvanometer in circuit with the instrument.
      Barometers, hygrometers, and similar instruments of great delicacy can be
      constructed on the principle of the odoroscope; and it may also be used in
      determining the character or pressure of gases and vapors in which it has
      been placed.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the list of Edison's patents at the end of this work may be noted many
      other of his miscellaneous inventions, covering items such as preserving
      fruit in vacuo, making plate-glass, drawing wire, and metallurgical
      processes for treatment of nickel, gold, and copper ores; but to mention
      these inventions separately would trespass too much on our limited space
      here. Hence, we shall leave the interested reader to examine that list for
      himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      From first to last Edison has filed in the United States Patent Office&mdash;in
      addition to more than 1400 applications for patents&mdash;some 120 caveats
      embracing not less than 1500 inventions. A "caveat" is essentially a
      notice filed by an inventor, entitling him to receive warning from the
      Office of any application for a patent for an invention that would
      "interfere" with his own, during the year, while he is supposed to be
      perfecting his device. The old caveat system has now been abolished, but
      it served to elicit from Edison a most astounding record of ideas and
      possible inventions upon which he was working, and many of which he of
      course reduced to practice. As an example of Edison's fertility and the
      endless variety of subjects engaging his thoughts, the following list of
      matters covered by ONE caveat is given. It is needless to say that all the
      caveats are not quite so full of "plums," but this is certainly a wonder.
    </p>
    <p>
      Forty-one distinct inventions relating to the phonograph, covering various
      forms of recorders, arrangement of parts, making of records, shaving tool,
      adjustments, etc.
    </p>
    <p>
      Eight forms of electric lamps using infusible earthy oxides and brought to
      high incandescence in vacuo by high potential current of several thousand
      volts; same character as impingement of X-rays on object in bulb.
    </p>
    <p>
      A loud-speaking telephone with quartz cylinder and beam of ultra-violet
      light.
    </p>
    <p>
      Four forms of arc light with special carbons.
    </p>
    <p>
      A thermostatic motor.
    </p>
    <p>
      A device for sealing together the inside part and bulb of an incandescent
      lamp mechanically.
    </p>
    <p>
      Regulators for dynamos and motors.
    </p>
    <p>
      Three devices for utilizing vibrations beyond the ultra violet.
    </p>
    <p>
      A great variety of methods for coating incandescent lamp filaments with
      silicon, titanium, chromium, osmium, boron, etc.
    </p>
    <p>
      Several methods of making porous filaments.
    </p>
    <p>
      Several methods of making squirted filaments of a variety of materials, of
      which about thirty are specified.
    </p>
    <p>
      Seventeen different methods and devices for separating magnetic ores.
    </p>
    <p>
      A continuously operative primary battery.
    </p>
    <p>
      A musical instrument operating one of Helmholtz's artificial larynxes.
    </p>
    <p>
      A siren worked by explosion of small quantities of oxygen and hydrogen
      mixed.
    </p>
    <p>
      Three other sirens made to give vocal sounds or articulate speech.
    </p>
    <p>
      A device for projecting sound-waves to a distance without spreading and in
      a straight line, on the principle of smoke rings.
    </p>
    <p>
      A device for continuously indicating on a galvanometer the depths of the
      ocean.
    </p>
    <p>
      A method of preventing in a great measure friction of water against the
      hull of a ship and incidentally preventing fouling by barnacles.
    </p>
    <p>
      A telephone receiver whereby the vibrations of the diaphragm are
      considerably amplified.
    </p>
    <p>
      Two methods of "space" telegraphy at sea.
    </p>
    <p>
      An improved and extended string telephone.
    </p>
    <p>
      Devices and method of talking through water for considerable distances.
    </p>
    <p>
      An audiphone for deaf people.
    </p>
    <p>
      Sound-bridge for measuring resistance of tubes and other materials for
      conveying sound.
    </p>
    <p>
      A method of testing a magnet to ascertain the existence of flaws in the
      iron or steel composing the same.
    </p>
    <p>
      Method of distilling liquids by incandescent conductor immersed in the
      liquid.
    </p>
    <p>
      Method of obtaining electricity direct from coal.
    </p>
    <p>
      An engine operated by steam produced by the hydration and dehydration of
      metallic salts.
    </p>
    <p>
      Device and method for telegraphing photographically.
    </p>
    <p>
      Carbon crucible kept brilliantly incandescent by current in vacuo, for
      obtaining reaction with refractory metals.
    </p>
    <p>
      Device for examining combinations of odors and their changes by rotation
      at different speeds.
    </p>
    <p>
      From one of the preceding items it will be noted that even in the eighties
      Edison perceived much advantage to be gained in the line of economy by the
      use of lamp filaments employing refractory metals in their construction.
      From another caveat, filed in 1889, we extract the following, which shows
      that he realized the value of tungsten also for this purpose. "Filaments
      of carbon placed in a combustion tube with a little chloride ammonium.
      Chloride tungsten or titanium passed through hot tube, depositing a film
      of metal on the carbon; or filaments of zirconia oxide, or alumina or
      magnesia, thoria or other infusible oxides mixed or separate, and obtained
      by moistening and squirting through a die, are thus coated with above
      metals and used for incandescent lamps. Osmium from a volatile compound of
      same thus deposited makes a filament as good as carbon when in vacuo."
    </p>
    <p>
      In 1888, long before there arose the actual necessity of duplicating
      phonograph records so as to produce replicas in great numbers, Edison
      described in one of his caveats a method and process much similar to the
      one which was put into practice by him in later years. In the same caveat
      he describes an invention whereby the power to indent on a phonograph
      cylinder, instead of coming directly from the voice, is caused by power
      derived from the rotation or movement of the phonogram surface itself. He
      did not, however, follow up this invention and put it into practice. Some
      twenty years later it was independently invented and patented by another
      inventor. A further instance of this kind is a method of telegraphy at sea
      by means of a diaphragm in a closed port-hole flush with the side of the
      vessel, and actuated by a steam-whistle which is controlled by a lever,
      similarly to a Morse key. A receiving diaphragm is placed in another and
      near-by chamber, which is provided with very sensitive stethoscopic
      ear-pieces, by which the Morse characters sent from another vessel may be
      received. This was also invented later by another inventor, and is in use
      to-day, but will naturally be rivalled by wireless telegraphy. Still
      another instance is seen in one of Edison's caveats, where he describes a
      method of distilling liquids by means of internally applied heat through
      electric conductors. Although Edison did not follow up the idea and take
      out a patent, this system of distillation was later hit upon by others and
      is in use at the present time.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the foregoing pages of this chapter the authors have endeavored to
      present very briefly a sketchy notion of the astounding range of Edison's
      practical ideas, but they feel a sense of impotence in being unable to
      deal adequately with the subject in the space that can be devoted to it.
      To those who, like the authors, have had the privilege of examining the
      voluminous records which show the flights of his imagination, there comes
      a feeling of utter inadequacy to convey to others the full extent of the
      story they reveal.
    </p>
    <p>
      The few specific instances above related, although not representing a
      tithe of Edison's work, will probably be sufficient to enable the reader
      to appreciate to some extent his great wealth of ideas and fertility of
      imagination, and also to realize that this imagination is not only
      intensely practical, but that it works prophetically along lines of
      natural progress.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXIV
    </h2>
    <h3>
      EDISON'S METHOD IN INVENTING
    </h3>
    <p>
      WHILE the world's progress depends largely upon their ingenuity, inventors
      are not usually persons who have adopted invention as a distinct
      profession, but, generally speaking, are otherwise engaged in various
      walks of life. By reason of more or less inherent native genius they
      either make improvements along lines of present occupation, or else evolve
      new methods and means of accomplishing results in fields for which they
      may have personal predilections.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now and then, however, there arises a man so greatly endowed with natural
      powers and originality that the creative faculty within him is too strong
      to endure the humdrum routine of affairs, and manifests itself in a life
      devoted entirely to the evolution of methods and devices calculated to
      further the world's welfare. In other words, he becomes an inventor by
      profession. Such a man is Edison. Notwithstanding the fact that nearly
      forty years ago (not a great while after he had emerged from the ranks of
      peripatetic telegraph operators) he was the owner of a large and
      profitable business as a manufacturer of the telegraphic apparatus
      invented by him, the call of his nature was too strong to allow of profits
      being laid away in the bank to accumulate. As he himself has said, he has
      "too sanguine a temperament to allow money to stay in solitary
      confinement." Hence, all superfluous cash was devoted to experimentation.
      In the course of years he grew more and more impatient of the shackles
      that bound him to business routine, and, realizing the powers within him,
      he drew away gradually from purely manufacturing occupations, determining
      deliberately to devote his life to inventive work, and to depend upon its
      results as a means of subsistence.
    </p>
    <p>
      All persons who make inventions will necessarily be more or less original
      in character, but to the man who chooses to become an inventor by
      profession must be conceded a mind more than ordinarily replete with
      virility and originality. That these qualities in Edison are superabundant
      is well known to all who have worked with him, and, indeed, are apparent
      to every one from his multiplied achievements within the period of one
      generation.
    </p>
    <p>
      If one were allowed only two words with which to describe Edison, it is
      doubtful whether a close examination of the entire dictionary would
      disclose any others more suitable than "experimenter&mdash;inventor."
      These would express the overruling characteristics of his eventful career.
      It is as an "inventor" that he sets himself down in the membership list of
      the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. To attempt the strict
      placing of these words in relation to each other (except alphabetically)
      would be equal to an endeavor to solve the old problem as to which came
      first, the egg or the chicken; for although all his inventions have been
      evolved through experiment, many of his notable experiments have called
      forth the exercise of highly inventive faculties in their very inception.
      Investigation and experiment have been a consuming passion, an impelling
      force from within, as it were, from his petticoat days when he collected
      goose-eggs and tried to hatch them out by sitting over them himself. One
      might be inclined to dismiss this trivial incident smilingly, as a mere
      childish, thoughtless prank, had not subsequent development as a child,
      boy, and man revealed a born investigator with original reasoning powers
      that, disdaining crooks and bends, always aimed at the centre, and, like
      the flight of the bee, were accurate and direct.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not surprising, therefore, that a man of this kind should exhibit a
      ceaseless, absorbing desire for knowledge, and an apparently
      uncontrollable tendency to experiment on every possible occasion, even
      though his last cent were spent in thus satisfying the insatiate cravings
      of an inquiring mind.
    </p>
    <p>
      During Edison's immature years, when he was flitting about from place to
      place as a telegraph operator, his experimentation was of a desultory,
      hand-to-mouth character, although it was always notable for originality,
      as expressed in a number of minor useful devices produced during this
      period. Small wonder, then, that at the end of these wanderings, when he
      had found a place to "rest the sole of his foot," he established a
      laboratory in which to carry on his researches in a more methodical and
      practical manner. In this was the beginning of the work which has since
      made such a profound impression on contemporary life.
    </p>
    <p>
      There is nothing of the helter-skelter, slap-dash style in Edison's
      experiments. Although all the laboratory experimenters agree in the
      opinion that he "tries everything," it is not merely the mixing of a
      little of this, some of that, and a few drops of the other, in the HOPE
      that SOMETHING will come of it. Nor is the spirit of the laboratory work
      represented in the following dialogue overheard between two alleged
      carpenters picked up at random to help on a hurry job.
    </p>
    <p>
      "How near does she fit, Mike?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "About an inch."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nail her!"
    </p>
    <p>
      A most casual examination of any of the laboratory records will reveal
      evidence of the minutest exactitude insisted on in the conduct of
      experiments, irrespective of the length of time they occupied. Edison's
      instructions, always clear cut and direct, followed by his keen oversight,
      admit of nothing less than implicit observance in all details, no matter
      where they may lead, and impel to the utmost minuteness and accuracy.
    </p>
    <p>
      To some extent there has been a popular notion that many of Edison's
      successes have been due to mere dumb fool luck&mdash;to blind, fortuitous
      "happenings." Nothing could be further from the truth, for, on the
      contrary, it is owing almost entirely to the comprehensive scope of his
      knowledge, the breadth of his conception, the daring originality of his
      methods, and minuteness and extent of experiment, combined with unwavering
      pertinacity, that new arts have been created and additions made to others
      already in existence. Indeed, without this tireless minutiae, and
      methodical, searching spirit, it would have been practically impossible to
      have produced many of the most important of these inventions.
    </p>
    <p>
      Needless to say, mastery of its literature is regarded by him as a most
      important preliminary in taking up any line of investigation. What others
      may have done, bearing directly or collaterally on the subject, in print,
      is carefully considered and sifted to the point of exhaustion. Not that he
      takes it for granted that the conclusions are correct, for he frequently
      obtains vastly different results by repeating in his own way experiments
      made by others as detailed in books.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Edison can travel along a well-used road and still find virgin soil,"
      remarked recently one of his most practical experimenters, who had been
      working along a certain line without attaining the desired result. "He
      wanted to get a particular compound having definite qualities, and I had
      tried in all sorts of ways to produce it but with only partial success. He
      was confident that it could be done, and said he would try it himself. In
      doing so he followed the same path in which I had travelled, but, by
      making an undreamed-of change in one of the operations, succeeded in
      producing a compound that virtually came up to his specifications. It is
      not the only time I have known this sort of thing to happen."
    </p>
    <p>
      In speaking of Edison's method of experimenting, another of his laboratory
      staff says: "He is never hindered by theory, but resorts to actual
      experiment for proof. For instance, when he conceived the idea of pouring
      a complete concrete house it was universally held that it would be
      impossible because the pieces of stone in the mixture would not rise to
      the level of the pouring-point, but would gravitate to a lower plane in
      the soft cement. This, however, did not hinder him from making a series of
      experiments which resulted in an invention that proved conclusively the
      contrary."
    </p>
    <p>
      Having conceived some new idea and read everything obtainable relating to
      the subject in general, Edison's fertility of resource and originality
      come into play. Taking one of the laboratory note-books, he will write in
      it a memorandum of the experiments to be tried, illustrated, if necessary,
      by sketches. This book is then passed on to that member of the
      experimental staff whose special training and experience are best adapted
      to the work. Here strenuousness is expected; and an immediate commencement
      of investigation and prompt report are required. Sometimes the subject may
      be such as to call for a long line of frequent tests which necessitate
      patient and accurate attention to minute details. Results must be reported
      often&mdash;daily, or possibly with still greater frequency. Edison does
      not forget what is going on; but in his daily tours through the laboratory
      keeps in touch with all the work that is under the hands of his various
      assistants, showing by an instant grasp of the present conditions of any
      experiment that he has a full consciousness of its meaning and its
      reference to his original conception.
    </p>
    <p>
      The year 1869 saw the beginning of Edison's career as an acknowledged
      inventor of commercial devices. From the outset, an innate recognition of
      system dictated the desirability and wisdom of preserving records of his
      experiments and inventions. The primitive records, covering the earliest
      years, were mainly jotted down on loose sheets of paper covered with
      sketches, notes, and data, pasted into large scrap-books, or preserved in
      packages; but with the passing of years and enlargement of his interests,
      it became the practice to make all original laboratory notes in large,
      uniform books. This course was pursued until the Menlo Park period, when
      he instituted a new regime that has been continued down to the present
      day. A standard form of note-book, about eight and a half by six inches,
      containing about two hundred pages, was adopted. A number of these books
      were (and are now) always to be found scattered around in the different
      sections of the laboratory, and in them have been noted by Edison all his
      ideas, sketches, and memoranda. Details of the various experiments
      concerning them have been set down by his assistants from time to time.
    </p>
    <p>
      These later laboratory note-books, of which there are now over one
      thousand in the series, are eloquent in the history they reveal of the
      strenuous labors of Edison and his assistants and the vast fields of
      research he has covered during the last thirty years. They are
      overwhelmingly rich in biographic material, but analysis would be a
      prohibitive task for one person, and perhaps interesting only to technical
      readers. Their pages cover practically every department of science. The
      countless thousands of separate experiments recorded exhibit the
      operations of a master mind seeking to surprise Nature into a betrayal of
      her secrets by asking her the same question in a hundred different ways.
      For instance, when Edison was investigating a certain problem of
      importance many years ago, the note-books show that on this point alone
      about fifteen thousand experiments and tests were made by one of his
      assistants.
    </p>
    <p>
      A most casual glance over these note-books will illustrate the following
      remark, which was made to one of the writers not long ago by a member of
      the laboratory staff who has been experimenting there for twenty years:
      "Edison can think of more ways of doing a thing than any man I ever saw or
      heard of. He tries everything and never lets up, even though failure is
      apparently staring him in the face. He only stops when he simply can't go
      any further on that particular line. When he decides on any mode of
      procedure he gives his notes to the experimenter and lets him alone, only
      stepping in from time to time to look at the operations and receive
      reports of progress."
    </p>
    <p>
      The history of the development of the telephone transmitter, phonograph,
      incandescent lamp, dynamo, electrical distributing systems from central
      stations, electric railway, ore-milling, cement, motion pictures, and a
      host of minor inventions may be found embedded in the laboratory
      note-books. A passing glance at a few pages of these written records will
      serve to illustrate, though only to a limited extent, the thoroughness of
      Edison's method. It is to be observed that these references can be but of
      the most meagre kind, and must be regarded as merely throwing a side-light
      on the subject itself. For instance, the complex problem of a practical
      telephone transmitter gave rise to a series of most exhaustive
      experiments. Combinations in almost infinite variety, including gums,
      chemical compounds, oils, minerals, and metals were suggested by Edison;
      and his assistants were given long lists of materials to try with
      reference to predetermined standards of articulation, degrees of loudness,
      and perfection of hissing sounds. The note-books contain hundreds of pages
      showing that a great many thousands of experiments were tried and passed
      upon. Such remarks as "N. G."; "Pretty good"; "Whistling good, but no
      articulation"; "Rattly"; "Articulation, whispering, and whistling good";
      "Best to-night so far"; and others are noted opposite the various
      combinations as they were tried. Thus, one may follow the investigation
      through a maze of experiments which led up to the successful invention of
      the carbon button transmitter, the vital device to give the telephone its
      needed articulation and perfection.
    </p>
    <p>
      The two hundred and odd note-books, covering the strenuous period during
      which Edison was carrying on his electric-light experiments, tell on their
      forty thousand pages or more a fascinating story of the evolution of a new
      art in its entirety. From the crude beginnings, through all the varied
      phases of this evolution, the operations of a master mind are apparent
      from the contents of these pages, in which are recorded the innumerable
      experiments, calculations, and tests that ultimately brought light out of
      darkness.
    </p>
    <p>
      The early work on a metallic conductor for lamps gave rise to some very
      thorough research on melting and alloying metals, the preparation of
      metallic oxides, the coating of fine wires by immersing them in a great
      variety of chemical solutions. Following his usual custom, Edison would
      indicate the lines of experiment to be followed, which were carried out
      and recorded in the note-books. He himself, in January, 1879, made
      personally a most minute and searching investigation into the properties
      and behavior of plating-iridium, boron, rutile, zircon, chromium,
      molybdenum, and nickel, under varying degrees of current strength, on
      which there may be found in the notes about forty pages of detailed
      experiments and deductions in his own handwriting, concluding with the
      remark (about nickel): "This is a great discovery for electric light in
      the way of economy."
    </p>
    <p>
      This period of research on nickel, etc., was evidently a trying one, for
      after nearly a month's close application he writes, on January 27, 1879:
      "Owing to the enormous power of the light my eyes commenced to pain after
      seven hours' work, and I had to quit." On the next day appears the
      following entry: "Suffered the pains of hell with my eyes last night from
      10 P.M. till 4 A.M., when got to sleep with a big dose of morphine. Eyes
      getting better, and do not pain much at 4 P.M.; but I lose to-day."
    </p>
    <p>
      The "try everything" spirit of Edison's method is well illustrated in this
      early period by a series of about sixteen hundred resistance tests of
      various ores, minerals, earths, etc., occupying over fifty pages of one of
      the note-books relating to the metallic filament for his lamps.
    </p>
    <p>
      But, as the reader has already learned, the metallic filament was soon
      laid aside in favor of carbon, and we find in the laboratory notes an
      amazing record of research and experiment conducted in the minute and
      searching manner peculiar to Edison's method. His inquiries were directed
      along all the various roads leading to the desired goal, for long before
      he had completed the invention of a practical lamp he realized broadly the
      fundamental requirements of a successful system of electrical
      distribution, and had given instructions for the making of a great variety
      of calculations which, although far in advance of the time, were clearly
      foreseen by him to be vitally important in the ultimate solution of the
      complicated problem. Thus we find many hundreds of pages of the note-books
      covered with computations and calculations by Mr. Upton, not only on the
      numerous ramifications of the projected system and comparisons with gas,
      but also on proposed forms of dynamos and the proposed station in New
      York. A mere recital by titles of the vast number of experiments and tests
      on carbons, lamps, dynamos, armatures, commutators, windings, systems,
      regulators, sockets, vacuum-pumps, and the thousand and one details
      relating to the subject in general, originated by Edison, and methodically
      and systematically carried on under his general direction, would fill a
      great many pages here, and even then would serve only to convey a confused
      impression of ceaseless probing.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is possible only to a broad, comprehensive mind well stored with
      knowledge, and backed with resistless, boundless energy, that such a
      diversified series of experiments and investigations could be carried on
      simultaneously and assimilated, even though they should relate to a class
      of phenomena already understood and well defined. But if we pause to
      consider that the commercial subdivision of the electric current (which
      was virtually an invention made to order) involved the solution of
      problems so unprecedented that even they themselves had to be created, we
      cannot but conclude that the afflatus of innate genius played an important
      part in the unique methods of investigation instituted by Edison at that
      and other times.
    </p>
    <p>
      The idea of attributing great successes to "genius" has always been
      repudiated by Edison, as evidenced by his historic remark that "Genius is
      1 per cent. inspiration and 99 per cent. perspiration." Again, in a
      conversation many years ago at the laboratory between Edison, Batchelor,
      and E. H. Johnson, the latter made allusion to Edison's genius as
      evidenced by some of his achievements, when Edison replied:
    </p>
    <p>
      "Stuff! I tell you genius is hard work, stick-to-it-iveness, and common
      sense."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes," said Johnson, "I admit there is all that to it, but there's still
      more. Batch and I have those qualifications, but although we knew quite a
      lot about telephones, and worked hard, we couldn't invent a brand-new
      non-infringing telephone receiver as you did when Gouraud cabled for one.
      Then, how about the subdivision of the electric light?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Electric current," corrected Edison.
    </p>
    <p>
      "True," continued Johnson; "you were the one to make that very
      distinction. The scientific world had been working hard on subdivision for
      years, using what appeared to be common sense. Results worse than nil.
      Then you come along, and about the first thing you do, after looking the
      ground over, is to start off in the opposite direction, which subsequently
      proves to be the only possible way to reach the goal. It seems to me that
      this is pretty close to the dictionary definition of genius."
    </p>
    <p>
      It is said that Edison replied rather incoherently and changed the topic
      of conversation.
    </p>
    <p>
      This innate modesty, however, does not prevent Edison from recognizing and
      classifying his own methods of investigation. In a conversation with two
      old associates recently (April, 1909), he remarked: "It has been said of
      me that my methods are empirical. That is true only so far as chemistry is
      concerned. Did you ever realize that practically all industrial chemistry
      is colloidal in its nature? Hard rubber, celluloid, glass, soap, paper,
      and lots of others, all have to deal with amorphous substances, as to
      which comparatively little has been really settled. My methods are similar
      to those followed by Luther Burbank. He plants an acre, and when this is
      in bloom he inspects it. He has a sharp eye, and can pick out of thousands
      a single plant that has promise of what he wants. From this he gets the
      seed, and uses his skill and knowledge in producing from it a number of
      new plants which, on development, furnish the means of propagating an
      improved variety in large quantity. So, when I am after a chemical result
      that I have in mind, I may make hundreds or thousands of experiments out
      of which there may be one that promises results in the right direction.
      This I follow up to its legitimate conclusion, discarding the others, and
      usually get what I am after. There is no doubt about this being empirical;
      but when it comes to problems of a mechanical nature, I want to tell you
      that all I've ever tackled and solved have been done by hard, logical
      thinking." The intense earnestness and emphasis with which this was said
      were very impressive to the auditors. This empirical method may perhaps be
      better illustrated by a specific example. During the latter part of the
      storage battery investigations, after the form of positive element had
      been determined upon, it became necessary to ascertain what definite
      proportions and what quality of nickel hydrate and nickel flake would give
      the best results. A series of positive tubes were filled with the two
      materials in different proportions&mdash;say, nine parts hydrate to one of
      flake; eight parts hydrate to two of flake; seven parts hydrate to three
      of flake, and so on through varying proportions. Three sets of each of
      these positives were made, and all put into separate test tubes with a
      uniform type of negative element. These were carried through a long series
      of charges and discharges under strict test conditions. From the tabulated
      results of hundreds of tests there were selected three that showed the
      best results. These, however, showed only the superiority of certain
      PROPORTIONS of the materials. The next step would be to find out the best
      QUALITY. Now, as there are several hundred variations in the quality of
      nickel flake, and perhaps a thousand ways to make the hydrate, it will be
      realized that Edison's methods led to stupendous detail, for these tests
      embraced a trial of all the qualities of both materials in the three
      proportions found to be most suitable. Among these many thousands of
      experiments any that showed extraordinary results were again elaborated by
      still further series of tests, until Edison was satisfied that he had
      obtained the best result in that particular line.
    </p>
    <p>
      The laboratory note-books do not always tell the whole story or meaning of
      an experiment that may be briefly outlined on one of their pages. For
      example, the early filament made of a mixture of lampblack and tar is
      merely a suggestion in the notes, but its making afforded an example of
      Edison's pertinacity. These materials, when mixed, became a friable mass,
      which he had found could be brought into such a cohesive, putty-like state
      by manipulation, as to be capable of being rolled out into filaments as
      fine as seven-thousandths of an inch in cross-section. One of the
      laboratory assistants was told to make some of this mixture, knead it, and
      roll some filaments. After a time he brought the mass to Edison, and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      "There's something wrong about this, for it crumbles even after
      manipulating it with my fingers."
    </p>
    <p>
      "How long did you knead it?" said Edison.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh! more than an hour," replied the assistant.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, just keep on for a few hours more and it will come out all right,"
      was the rejoinder. And this proved to be correct, for, after a prolonged
      kneading and rolling, the mass changed into a cohesive, stringy,
      homogeneous putty. It was from a mixture of this kind that spiral
      filaments were made and used in some of the earliest forms of successful
      incandescent lamps; indeed, they are described and illustrated in Edison's
      fundamental lamp patent (No. 223,898).
    </p>
    <p>
      The present narrative would assume the proportions of a history of the
      incandescent lamp, should the authors attempt to follow Edison's
      investigations through the thousands of pages of note-books away back in
      the eighties and early nineties. Improvement of the lamp was constantly in
      his mind all those years, and besides the vast amount of detail
      experimental work he laid out for his assistants, he carried on a great
      deal of research personally. Sometimes whole books are filled in his own
      handwriting with records of experiments showing every conceivable
      variation of some particular line of inquiry; each trial bearing some
      terse comment expressive of results. In one book appear the details of one
      of these experiments on September 3, 1891, at 4.30 A.M., with the comment:
      "Brought up lamp higher than a 16-c.p. 240 was ever brought before&mdash;Hurrah!"
      Notwithstanding the late hour, he turns over to the next page and goes on
      to write his deductions from this result as compared with those previously
      obtained. Proceeding day by day, as appears by this same book, he follows
      up another line of investigation on lamps, apparently full of difficulty,
      for after one hundred and thirty-two other recorded experiments we find
      this note: "Saturday 3.30 went home disgusted with incandescent lamps."
      This feeling was evidently evanescent, for on the succeeding Monday the
      work was continued and carried on by him as keenly as before, as shown by
      the next batch of notes.
    </p>
    <p>
      This is the only instance showing any indication of impatience that the
      authors have found in looking through the enormous mass of laboratory
      notes. All his assistants agree that Edison is the most patient, tireless
      experimenter that could be conceived of. Failures do not distress him;
      indeed, he regards them as always useful, as may be gathered from the
      following, related by Dr. E. G. Acheson, formerly one of his staff: "I
      once made an experiment in Edison's laboratory at Menlo Park during the
      latter part of 1880, and the results were not as looked for. I considered
      the experiment a perfect failure, and while bemoaning the results of this
      apparent failure Mr. Edison entered, and, after learning the facts of the
      case, cheerfully remarked that I should not look upon it as a failure, for
      he considered every experiment a success, as in all cases it cleared up
      the atmosphere, and even though it failed to accomplish the results sought
      for, it should prove a valuable lesson for guidance in future work. I
      believe that Mr. Edison's success as an experimenter was, to a large
      extent, due to this happy view of all experiments."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison has frequently remarked that out of a hundred experiments he does
      not expect more than one to be successful, and as to that one he is always
      suspicious until frequent repetition has verified the original results.
    </p>
    <p>
      This patient, optimistic view of the outcome of experiments has remained
      part of his character down to this day, just as his painstaking, minute,
      incisive methods are still unchanged. But to the careless, stupid, or lazy
      person he is a terror for the short time they remain around him. Honest
      mistakes may be tolerated, but not carelessness, incompetence, or lack of
      attention to business. In such cases Edison is apt to express himself
      freely and forcibly, as when he was asked why he had parted with a certain
      man, he said: "Oh, he was so slow that it would take him half an hour to
      get out of the field of a microscope." Another instance will be
      illustrative. Soon after the Brockton (Massachusetts) central station was
      started in operation many years ago, he wrote a note to Mr. W. S. Andrews,
      containing suggestions as to future stations, part of which related to the
      various employees and their duties. After outlining the duties of the
      meter man, Edison says: "I should not take too young a man for this, say,
      a man from twenty-three to thirty years old, bright and businesslike.
      Don't want any one who yearns to enter a laboratory and experiment. We
      have a bad case of that at Brockton; he neglects business to potter. What
      we want is a good lamp average and no unprofitable customer. You should
      have these men on probation and subject to passing an examination by me.
      This will wake them up."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's examinations are no joke, according to Mr. J. H. Vail, formerly
      one of the Menlo Park staff. "I wanted a job," he said, "and was ambitious
      to take charge of the dynamo-room. Mr. Edison led me to a heap of junk in
      a corner and said: 'Put that together and let me know when it's running.'
      I didn't know what it was, but received a liberal education in finding
      out. It proved to be a dynamo, which I finally succeeded in assembling and
      running. I got the job." Another man who succeeded in winning a place as
      assistant was Mr. John F. Ott, who has remained in his employ for over
      forty years. In 1869, when Edison was occupying his first manufacturing
      shop (the third floor of a small building in Newark), he wanted a
      first-class mechanician, and Mr. Ott was sent to him. "He was then an
      ordinary-looking young fellow," says Mr. Ott, "dirty as any of the other
      workmen, unkempt, and not much better dressed than a tramp, but I
      immediately felt that there was a great deal in him." This is the
      conversation that ensued, led by Mr. Edison's question:
    </p>
    <p>
      "What do you want?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Work."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Can you make this machine work?" (exhibiting it and explaining its
      details).
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Are you sure?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, you needn't pay me if I don't."
    </p>
    <p>
      And thus Mr. Ott went to work and succeeded in accomplishing the results
      desired. Two weeks afterward Mr. Edison put him in charge of the shop.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's life fairly teems with instances of unruffled patience in the
      pursuit of experiments. When he feels thoroughly impressed with the
      possibility of accomplishing a certain thing, he will settle down
      composedly to investigate it to the end.
    </p>
    <p>
      This is well illustrated in a story relating to his invention of the type
      of storage battery bearing his name. Mr. W. S. Mallory, one of his closest
      associates for many years, is the authority for the following: "When Mr.
      Edison decided to shut down the ore-milling plant at Edison, New Jersey,
      in which I had been associated with him, it became a problem as to what he
      could profitably take up next, and we had several discussions about it. He
      finally thought that a good storage battery was a great requisite, and
      decided to try and devise a new type, for he declared emphatically he
      would make no battery requiring sulphuric acid. After a little thought he
      conceived the nickel-iron idea, and started to work at once with
      characteristic energy. About 7 or 7.30 A.M. he would go down to the
      laboratory and experiment, only stopping for a short time at noon to eat a
      lunch sent down from the house. About 6 o'clock the carriage would call to
      take him to dinner, from which he would return by 7.30 or 8 o'clock to
      resume work. The carriage came again at midnight to take him home, but
      frequently had to wait until 2 or 3 o'clock, and sometimes return without
      him, as he had decided to continue all night.
    </p>
    <p>
      "This had been going on more than five months, seven days a week, when I
      was called down to the laboratory to see him. I found him at a bench about
      three feet wide and twelve to fifteen feet long, on which there were
      hundreds of little test cells that had been made up by his corps of
      chemists and experimenters. He was seated at this bench testing, figuring,
      and planning. I then learned that he had thus made over nine thousand
      experiments in trying to devise this new type of storage battery, but had
      not produced a single thing that promised to solve the question. In view
      of this immense amount of thought and labor, my sympathy got the better of
      my judgment, and I said: 'Isn't it a shame that with the tremendous amount
      of work you have done you haven't been able to get any results?' Edison
      turned on me like a flash, and with a smile replied: 'Results! Why, man, I
      have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won't
      work.'
    </p>
    <p>
      "At that time he sent me out West on a special mission. On my return, a
      few weeks later, his experiments had run up to over ten thousand, but he
      had discovered the missing link in the combination sought for. Of course,
      we all remember how the battery was completed and put on the market. Then,
      because he was dissatisfied with it, he stopped the sales and commenced a
      new line of investigation, which has recently culminated successfully. I
      shouldn't wonder if his experiments on the battery ran up pretty near to
      fifty thousand, for they fill more than one hundred and fifty of the
      note-books, to say nothing of some thousands of tests in curve sheets."
    </p>
    <p>
      Although Edison has an absolute disregard for the total outlay of money in
      investigation, he is particular to keep down the cost of individual
      experiments to a minimum, for, as he observed to one of his assistants: "A
      good many inventors try to develop things life-size, and thus spend all
      their money, instead of first experimenting more freely on a small scale."
      To Edison life is not only a grand opportunity to find out things by
      experiment, but, when found, to improve them by further experiment. One
      night, after receiving a satisfactory report of progress from Mr. Mason,
      superintendent of the cement plant, he said: "The only way to keep ahead
      of the procession is to experiment. If you don't, the other fellow will.
      When there's no experimenting there's no progress. Stop experimenting and
      you go backward. If anything goes wrong, experiment until you get to the
      very bottom of the trouble."
    </p>
    <p>
      It is easy to realize, therefore, that a character so thoroughly permeated
      with these ideas is not apt to stop and figure out expense when in hot
      pursuit of some desired object. When that object has been attained,
      however, and it passes from the experimental to the commercial stage,
      Edison's monetary views again come into strong play, but they take a
      diametrically opposite position, for he then begins immediately to plan
      the extreme of economy in the production of the article. A thousand and
      one instances could be quoted in illustration; but as they would tend to
      change the form of this narrative into a history of economy in
      manufacture, it will suffice to mention but one, and that a recent
      occurrence, which serves to illustrate how closely he keeps in touch with
      everything, and also how the inventive faculty and instinct of commercial
      economy run close together. It was during Edison's winter stay in Florida,
      in March, 1909. He had reports sent to him daily from various places, and
      studied them carefully, for he would write frequently with comments,
      instructions, and suggestions; and in one case, commenting on the oiling
      system at the cement plant, he wrote: "Your oil losses are now getting
      lower, I see." Then, after suggesting some changes to reduce them still
      further, he went on to say: "Here is a chance to save a mill per barrel
      based on your regular daily output."
    </p>
    <p>
      This thorough consideration of the smallest detail is essentially
      characteristic of Edison, not only in economy of manufacture, but in all
      his work, no matter of what kind, whether it be experimenting,
      investigating, testing, or engineering. To follow him through the
      labyrinthine paths of investigation contained in the great array of
      laboratory note-books is to become involved in a mass of minutely detailed
      searches which seek to penetrate the inmost recesses of nature by an
      ultimate analysis of an infinite variety of parts. As the reader will
      obtain a fuller comprehension of this idea, and of Edison's methods, by
      concrete illustration rather than by generalization, the authors have
      thought it well to select at random two typical instances of specific
      investigations out of the thousands that are scattered through the
      notebooks. These will be found in the following extracts from one of the
      note-books, and consist of Edison's instructions to be carried out in
      detail by his experimenters:
    </p>
    <p>
      "Take, say, 25 lbs. hard Cuban asphalt and separate all the different
      hydrocarbons, etc., as far as possible by means of solvents. It will be
      necessary first to dissolve everything out by, say, hot turpentine, then
      successively treat the residue with bisulphide carbon, benzol, ether,
      chloroform, naphtha, toluol, alcohol, and other probable solvents. After
      you can go no further, distil off all the solvents so the asphalt material
      has a tar-like consistency. Be sure all the ash is out of the turpentine
      portion; now, after distilling the turpentine off, act on the residue with
      all the solvents that were used on the residue, using for the first the
      solvent which is least likely to dissolve a great part of it. By thus
      manipulating the various solvents you will be enabled probably to separate
      the crude asphalt into several distinct hydrocarbons. Put each in a bottle
      after it has been dried, and label the bottle with the process, etc., so
      we may be able to duplicate it; also give bottle a number and describe
      everything fully in note-book."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Destructively distil the following substances down to a point just short
      of carbonization, so that the residuum can be taken out of the retort,
      powdered, and acted on by all the solvents just as the asphalt in previous
      page. The distillation should be carried to, say, 600 degrees or 700
      degrees Fahr., but not continued long enough to wholly reduce mass to
      charcoal, but always run to blackness. Separate the residuum in as many
      definite parts as possible, bottle and label, and keep accurate records as
      to process, weights, etc., so a reproduction of the experiment can at any
      time be made: Gelatine, 4 lbs.; asphalt, hard Cuban, 10 lbs.; coal-tar or
      pitch, 10 lbs.; wood-pitch, 10 lbs.; Syrian asphalt, 10 lbs.; bituminous
      coal, 10 lbs.; cane-sugar, 10 lbs.; glucose, 10 lbs.; dextrine, 10 lbs.;
      glycerine, 10 lbs.; tartaric acid, 5 lbs.; gum guiac, 5 lbs.; gum amber, 3
      lbs.; gum tragacanth, 3 Lbs.; aniline red, 1 lb.; aniline oil, 1 lb.;
      crude anthracene, 5 lbs.; petroleum pitch, 10 lbs.; albumen from eggs, 2
      lbs.; tar from passing chlorine through aniline oil, 2 lbs.; citric acid,
      5 lbs.; sawdust of boxwood, 3 lbs.; starch, 5 lbs.; shellac, 3 lbs.; gum
      Arabic, 5 lbs.; castor oil, 5 lbs."
    </p>
    <p>
      The empirical nature of his method will be apparent from an examination of
      the above items; but in pursuing it he leaves all uncertainty behind and,
      trusting nothing to theory, he acquires absolute knowledge. Whatever may
      be the mental processes by which he arrives at the starting-point of any
      specific line of research, the final results almost invariably prove that
      he does not plunge in at random; indeed, as an old associate remarked:
      "When Edison takes up any proposition in natural science, his perceptions
      seem to be elementally broad and analytical, that is to say, in addition
      to the knowledge he has acquired from books and observation, he appears to
      have an intuitive apprehension of the general order of things, as they
      might be supposed to exist in natural relation to each other. It has
      always seemed to me that he goes to the core of things at once."
    </p>
    <p>
      Although nothing less than results from actual experiments are acceptable
      to him as established facts, this view of Edison may also account for his
      peculiar and somewhat weird ability to "guess" correctly, a faculty which
      has frequently enabled him to take short cuts to lines of investigation
      whose outcome has verified in a most remarkable degree statements
      apparently made offhand and without calculation. Mr. Upton says: "One of
      the main impressions left upon me, after knowing Mr. Edison for many
      years, is the marvellous accuracy of his guesses. He will see the general
      nature of a result long before it can be reached by mathematical
      calculation." This was supplemented by one of his engineering staff, who
      remarked: "Mr. Edison can guess better than a good many men can figure,
      and so far as my experience goes, I have found that he is almost
      invariably correct. His guess is more than a mere starting-point, and
      often turns out to be the final solution of a problem. I can only account
      for it by his remarkable insight and wonderful natural sense of the
      proportion of things, in addition to which he seems to carry in his head
      determining factors of all kinds, and has the ability to apply them
      instantly in considering any mechanical problem."
    </p>
    <p>
      While this mysterious intuitive power has been of the greatest advantage
      in connection with the vast number of technical problems that have entered
      into his life-work, there have been many remarkable instances in which it
      has seemed little less than prophecy, and it is deemed worth while to
      digress to the extent of relating two of them. One day in the summer of
      1881, when the incandescent lamp-industry was still in swaddling clothes,
      Edison was seated in the room of Major Eaton, vice-president of the Edison
      Electric Light Company, talking over business matters, when Mr. Upton came
      in from the lamp factory at Menlo Park, and said: "Well, Mr. Edison, we
      completed a thousand lamps to-day." Edison looked up and said "Good," then
      relapsed into a thoughtful mood. In about two minutes he raised his head,
      and said: "Upton, in fifteen years you will be making forty thousand lamps
      a day." None of those present ventured to make any remark on this
      assertion, although all felt that it was merely a random guess, based on
      the sanguine dream of an inventor. The business had not then really made a
      start, and being entirely new was without precedent upon which to base any
      such statement, but, as a matter of fact, the records of the lamp factory
      show that in 1896 its daily output of lamps was actually about forty
      thousand.
    </p>
    <p>
      The other instance referred to occurred shortly after the Edison Machine
      Works was moved up to Schenectady, in 1886. One day, when he was at the
      works, Edison sat down and wrote on a sheet of paper fifteen separate
      predictions of the growth and future of the electrical business.
      Notwithstanding the fact that the industry was then in an immature state,
      and that the great boom did not set in until a few years afterward, twelve
      of these predictions have been fully verified by the enormous growth and
      development in all branches of the art.
    </p>
    <p>
      What the explanation of this gift, power, or intuition may be, is perhaps
      better left to the psychologist to speculate upon. If one were to ask
      Edison, he would probably say, "Hard work, not too much sleep, and free
      use of the imagination." Whether or not it would be possible for the
      average mortal to arrive at such perfection of "guessing" by faithfully
      following this formula, even reinforced by the Edison recipe for
      stimulating a slow imagination with pastry, is open for demonstration.
    </p>
    <p>
      Somewhat allied to this curious faculty is another no less remarkable, and
      that is, the ability to point out instantly an error in a mass of reported
      experimental results. While many instances could be definitely named, a
      typical one, related by Mr. J. D. Flack, formerly master mechanic at the
      lamp factory, may be quoted: "During the many years of lamp
      experimentation, batches of lamps were sent to the photometer department
      for test, and Edison would examine the tabulated test sheets. He ran over
      every item of the tabulations rapidly, and, apparently without any
      calculation whatever, would check off errors as fast as he came to them,
      saying: 'You have made a mistake; try this one over.' In every case the
      second test proved that he was right. This wonderful aptitude for
      infallibly locating an error without an instant's hesitation for mental
      calculation, has always appealed to me very forcibly."
    </p>
    <p>
      The ability to detect errors quickly in a series of experiments is one of
      the things that has enabled Edison to accomplish such a vast amount of
      work as the records show. Examples of the minuteness of detail into which
      his researches extend have already been mentioned, and as there are always
      a number of such investigations in progress at the laboratory, this
      ability stands Edison in good stead, for he is thus enabled to follow,
      and, if necessary, correct each one step by step. In this he is aided by
      the great powers of a mind that is able to free itself from absorbed
      concentration on the details of one problem, and instantly to shift over
      and become deeply and intelligently concentrated in another and entirely
      different one. For instance, he may have been busy for hours on chemical
      experiments, and be called upon suddenly to determine some mechanical
      questions. The complete and easy transition is the constant wonder of his
      associates, for there is no confusion of ideas resulting from these quick
      changes, no hesitation or apparent effort, but a plunge into the midst of
      the new subject, and an instant acquaintance with all its details, as if
      he had been studying it for hours.
    </p>
    <p>
      A good stiff difficulty&mdash;one which may, perhaps, appear to be an
      unsurmountable obstacle&mdash;only serves to make Edison cheerful, and
      brings out variations of his methods in experimenting. Such an occurrence
      will start him thinking, which soon gives rise to a line of suggestions
      for approaching the trouble from various sides; or he will sit down and
      write out a series of eliminations, additions, or changes to be worked out
      and reported upon, with such variations as may suggest themselves during
      their progress. It is at such times as these that his unfailing patience
      and tremendous resourcefulness are in evidence. Ideas and expedients are
      poured forth in a torrent, and although some of them have temporarily
      appeared to the staff to be ridiculous or irrelevant, they have frequently
      turned out to be the ones leading to a correct solution of the trouble.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's inexhaustible resourcefulness and fertility of ideas have
      contributed largely to his great success, and have ever been a cause of
      amazement to those around him. Frequently, when it would seem to others
      that the extreme end of an apparently blind alley had been reached, and
      that it was impossible to proceed further, he has shown that there were
      several ways out of it. Examples without number could be quoted, but one
      must suffice by way of illustration. During the progress of the
      ore-milling work at Edison, it became desirable to carry on a certain
      operation by some special machinery. He requested the proper person on his
      engineering staff to think this matter up and submit a few sketches of
      what he would propose to do. He brought three drawings to Edison, who
      examined them and said none of them would answer. The engineer remarked
      that it was too bad, for there was no other way to do it. Mr. Edison
      turned to him quickly, and said: "Do you mean to say that these drawings
      represent the only way to do this work?" To which he received the reply:
      "I certainly do." Edison said nothing. This happened on a Saturday. He
      followed his usual custom of spending Sunday at home in Orange. When he
      returned to the works on Monday morning, he took with him sketches he had
      made, showing FORTY-EIGHT other ways of accomplishing the desired
      operation, and laid them on the engineer's desk without a word.
      Subsequently one of these ideas, with modifications suggested by some of
      the others, was put into successful practice.
    </p>
    <p>
      Difficulties seem to have a peculiar charm for Edison, whether they relate
      to large or small things; and although the larger matters have contributed
      most to the history of the arts, the same carefulness of thought has often
      been the means of leading to improvements of permanent advantage even in
      minor details. For instance, in the very earliest days of electric
      lighting, the safe insulation of two bare wires fastened together was a
      serious problem that was solved by him. An iron pot over a fire, some
      insulating material melted therein, and narrow strips of linen drawn
      through it by means of a wooden clamp, furnished a readily applied and
      adhesive insulation, which was just as perfect for the purpose as the
      regular and now well-known insulating tape, of which it was the
      forerunner.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dubious results are not tolerated for a moment in Edison's experimental
      work. Rather than pass upon an uncertainty, the experiment will be
      dissected and checked minutely in order to obtain absolute knowledge, pro
      and con. This searching method is followed not only in chemical or other
      investigations, into which complexities might naturally enter, but also in
      more mechanical questions, where simplicity of construction might
      naturally seem to preclude possibilities of uncertainty. For instance, at
      the time when he was making strenuous endeavors to obtain copper wire of
      high conductivity, strict laboratory tests were made of samples sent by
      manufacturers. One of these samples tested out poorer than a previous lot
      furnished from the same factory. A report of this to Edison brought the
      following note: "Perhaps the &mdash;&mdash; wire had a bad spot in it.
      Please cut it up into lengths and test each one and send results to me
      immediately." Possibly the electrical fraternity does not realize that
      this earnest work of Edison, twenty-eight years ago, resulted in the
      establishment of the high quality of copper wire that has been the
      recognized standard since that time. Says Edison on this point: "I
      furnished the expert and apparatus to the Ansonia Brass and Copper Company
      in 1883, and he is there yet. It was this expert and this company who
      pioneered high-conductivity copper for the electrical trade."
    </p>
    <p>
      Nor is it generally appreciated in the industry that the adoption of what
      is now regarded as a most obvious proposition&mdash;the high-economy
      incandescent lamp&mdash;was the result of that characteristic foresight
      which there has been occasion to mention frequently in the course of this
      narrative, together with the courage and "horse-sense" which have always
      been displayed by the inventor in his persistent pushing out with
      far-reaching ideas, in the face of pessimistic opinions. As is well known,
      the lamps of the first ten or twelve years of incandescent lighting were
      of low economy, but had long life. Edison's study of the subject had led
      him to the conviction that the greatest growth of the electric-lighting
      industry would be favored by a lamp taking less current, but having
      shorter, though commercially economical life; and after gradually making
      improvements along this line he developed, finally, a type of high-economy
      lamp which would introduce a most radical change in existing conditions,
      and lead ultimately to highly advantageous results. His start on this
      lamp, and an expressed desire to have it manufactured for regular use,
      filled even some of his business associates with dismay, for they could
      see nothing but disaster ahead in forcing such a lamp on the market. His
      persistence and profound conviction of the ultimate results were so strong
      and his arguments so sound, however, that the campaign was entered upon.
      Although it took two or three years to convince the public of the
      correctness of his views, the idea gradually took strong root, and has now
      become an integral principle of the business.
    </p>
    <p>
      In this connection it may be noted that with remarkable prescience Edison
      saw the coming of the modern lamps of to-day, which, by reason of their
      small consumption of energy to produce a given candle-power, have dismayed
      central-station managers. A few years ago a consumption of 3.1 watts per
      candle-power might safely be assumed as an excellent average, and many
      stations fixed their rates and business on such a basis. The results on
      income when the consumption, as in the new metallic-filament lamps, drops
      to 1.25 watts per candle can readily be imagined. Edison has insisted that
      central stations are selling light and not current; and he points to the
      predicament now confronting them as truth of his assertion that when
      selling light they share in all the benefits of improvement, but that when
      they sell current the consumer gets all those benefits without division.
      The dilemma is encountered by central stations in a bewildered way, as a
      novel and unexpected experience; but Edison foresaw the situation and
      warned against it long ago. It is one of the greatest gifts of
      statesmanship to see new social problems years before they arise and solve
      them in advance. It is one of the greatest attributes of invention to
      foresee and meet its own problems in exactly the same way.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXV
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE LABORATORY AT ORANGE AND THE STAFF
    </h3>
    <p>
      A LIVING interrogation-point and a born investigator from childhood,
      Edison has never been without a laboratory of some kind for upward of half
      a century.
    </p>
    <p>
      In youthful years, as already described in this book, he became ardently
      interested in chemistry, and even at the early age of twelve felt the
      necessity for a special nook of his own, where he could satisfy his
      unconvinced mind of the correctness or inaccuracy of statements and
      experiments contained in the few technical books then at his command.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ordinarily he was like other normal lads of his age&mdash;full of boyish,
      hearty enjoyments&mdash;but withal possessed of an unquenchable spirit of
      inquiry and an insatiable desire for knowledge. Being blessed with a wise
      and discerning mother, his aspirations were encouraged; and he was allowed
      a corner in her cellar. It is fair to offer tribute here to her bravery as
      well as to her wisdom, for at times she was in mortal terror lest the
      precocious experimenter below should, in his inexperience, make some awful
      combination that would explode and bring down the house in ruins on
      himself and the rest of the family.
    </p>
    <p>
      Fortunately no such catastrophe happened, but young Edison worked away in
      his embryonic laboratory, satisfying his soul and incidentally depleting
      his limited pocket-money to the vanishing-point. It was, indeed, owing to
      this latter circumstance that in a year or two his aspirations
      necessitated an increase of revenue; and a consequent determination to
      earn some money for himself led to his first real commercial enterprise as
      "candy butcher" on the Grand Trunk Railroad, already mentioned in a
      previous chapter. It has also been related how his precious laboratory was
      transferred to the train; how he and it were subsequently expelled; and
      how it was re-established in his home, where he continued studies and
      experiments until the beginning of his career as a telegraph operator.
    </p>
    <p>
      The nomadic life of the next few years did not lessen his devotion to
      study; but it stood seriously in the way of satisfying the ever-present
      craving for a laboratory. The lack of such a place never prevented
      experimentation, however, as long as he had a dollar in his pocket and
      some available "hole in the wall." With the turning of the tide of fortune
      that suddenly carried him, in New York in 1869, from poverty to the
      opulence of $300 a month, he drew nearer to a realization of his cherished
      ambition in having money, place, and some time (stolen from sleep) for
      more serious experimenting. Thus matters continued until, at about the age
      of twenty-two, Edison's inventions had brought him a relatively large sum
      of money, and he became a very busy manufacturer, and lessee of a large
      shop in Newark, New Jersey.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now, for the first time since leaving that boyish laboratory in the old
      home at Port Huron, Edison had a place of his own to work in, to think in;
      but no one in any way acquainted with Newark as a swarming centre of
      miscellaneous and multitudinous industries would recommend it as a
      cloistered retreat for brooding reverie and introspection, favorable to
      creative effort. Some people revel in surroundings of hustle and bustle,
      and find therein no hindrance to great accomplishment. The electrical
      genius of Newark is Edward Weston, who has thriven amid its turmoil and
      there has developed his beautiful instruments of precision; just as Brush
      worked out his arc-lighting system in Cleveland; or even as Faraday,
      surrounded by the din and roar of London, laid the intellectual
      foundations of the whole modern science of dynamic electricity. But
      Edison, though deaf, could not make too hurried a retreat from Newark to
      Menlo Park, where, as if to justify his change of base, vital inventions
      soon came thick and fast, year after year. The story of Menlo has been
      told in another chapter, but the point was not emphasized that Edison
      then, as later, tried hard to drop manufacturing. He would infinitely
      rather be philosopher than producer; but somehow the necessity of
      manufacturing is constantly thrust back upon him by a profound&mdash;perhaps
      finical&mdash;sense of dissatisfaction with what other people make for
      him. The world never saw a man more deeply and desperately convinced that
      nothing in it approaches perfection. Edison is the doctrine of evolution
      incarnate, applied to mechanics. As to the removal from Newark, he may be
      allowed to tell his own story: "I had a shop at Newark in which I
      manufactured stock tickers and such things. When I moved to Menlo Park I
      took out only the machinery that would be necessary for experimental
      purposes and left the manufacturing machinery in the place. It consisted
      of many milling machines and other tools for duplicating. I rented this to
      a man who had formerly been my bookkeeper, and who thought he could make
      money out of manufacturing. There was about $10,000 worth of machinery. He
      was to pay me $2000 a year for the rent of the machinery and keep it in
      good order. After I moved to Menlo Park, I was very busy with the
      telephone and phonograph, and I paid no attention to this little
      arrangement. About three years afterward, it occurred to me that I had not
      heard at all from the man who had rented this machinery, so I thought I
      would go over to Newark and see how things were going. When I got there, I
      found that instead of being a machine shop it was a hotel! I have since
      been utterly unable to find out what became of the man or the machinery."
      Such incidents tend to justify Edison in his rather cynical remark that he
      has always been able to improve machinery much quicker than men. All the
      way up he has had discouraging experiences. "One day while I was carrying
      on my work in Newark, a Wall Street broker came from the city and said he
      was tired of the 'Street,' and wanted to go into something real. He said
      he had plenty of money. He wanted some kind of a job to keep his mind off
      Wall Street. So we gave him a job as a 'mucker' in chemical experiments.
      The second night he was there he could not stand the long hours and fell
      asleep on a sofa. One of the boys took a bottle of bromine and opened it
      under the sofa. It floated up and produced a violent effect on the mucous
      membrane. The broker was taken with such a fit of coughing he burst a
      blood-vessel, and the man who let the bromine out got away and never came
      back. I suppose he thought there was going to be a death. But the broker
      lived, and left the next day; and I have never seen him since, either."
      Edison tells also of another foolhardy laboratory trick of the same kind:
      "Some of my assistants in those days were very green in the business, as I
      did not care whether they had had any experience or not. I generally tried
      to turn them loose. One day I got a new man, and told him to conduct a
      certain experiment. He got a quart of ether and started to boil it over a
      naked flame. Of course it caught fire. The flame was about four feet in
      diameter and eleven feet high. We had to call out the fire department; and
      they came down and put a stream through the window. That let all the fumes
      and chemicals out and overcame the firemen; and there was the devil to
      pay. Another time we experimented with a tub full of soapy water, and put
      hydrogen into it to make large bubbles. One of the boys, who was washing
      bottles in the place, had read in some book that hydrogen was explosive,
      so he proceeded to blow the tub up. There was about four inches of soap in
      the bottom of the tub, fourteen inches high; and he filled it with soap
      bubbles up to the brim. Then he took a bamboo fish-pole, put a piece of
      paper at the end, and touched it off. It blew every window out of the
      place."
    </p>
    <p>
      Always a shrewd, observant, and kindly critic of character, Edison tells
      many anecdotes of the men who gathered around him in various capacities at
      that quiet corner of New Jersey&mdash;Menlo Park&mdash;and later at
      Orange, in the Llewellyn Park laboratory; and these serve to supplement
      the main narrative by throwing vivid side-lights on the whole scene. Here,
      for example, is a picture drawn by Edison of a laboratory interlude&mdash;just
      a bit Rabelaisian: "When experimenting at Menlo Park we had all the way
      from forty to fifty men. They worked all the time. Each man was allowed
      from four to six hours' sleep. We had a man who kept tally, and when the
      time came for one to sleep, he was notified. At midnight we had lunch
      brought in and served at a long table at which the experimenters sat down.
      I also had an organ which I procured from Hilbourne Roosevelt&mdash;uncle
      of the ex-President&mdash;and we had a man play this organ while we ate
      our lunch. During the summertime, after we had made something which was
      successful, I used to engage a brick-sloop at Perth Amboy and take the
      whole crowd down to the fishing-banks on the Atlantic for two days. On one
      occasion we got outside Sandy Hook on the banks and anchored. A breeze
      came up, the sea became rough, and a large number of the men were sick.
      There was straw in the bottom of the boat, which we all slept on. Most of
      the men adjourned to this straw very sick. Those who were not got a piece
      of rancid salt pork from the skipper, and cut a large, thick slice out of
      it. This was put on the end of a fish-hook and drawn across the men's
      faces. The smell was terrific, and the effect added to the hilarity of the
      excursion.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I went down once with my father and two assistants for a little fishing
      inside Sandy Hook. For some reason or other the fishing was very poor. We
      anchored, and I started in to fish. After fishing for several hours there
      was not a single bite. The others wanted to pull up anchor, but I fished
      two days and two nights without a bite, until they pulled up anchor and
      went away. I would not give up. I was going to catch that fish if it took
      a week."
    </p>
    <p>
      This is general. Let us quote one or two piquant personal observations of
      a more specific nature as to the odd characters Edison drew around him in
      his experimenting. "Down at Menlo Park a man came in one day and wanted a
      job. He was a sailor. I hadn't any particular work to give him, but I had
      a number of small induction coils, and to give him something to do I told
      him to fix them up and sell them among his sailor friends. They were fixed
      up, and he went over to New York and sold them all. He was an
      extraordinary fellow. His name was Adams. One day I asked him how long it
      was since he had been to sea, and he replied two or three years. I asked
      him how he had made a living in the mean time, before he came to Menlo
      Park. He said he made a pretty good living by going around to different
      clinics and getting $10 at each clinic, because of having the worst case
      of heart-disease on record. I told him if that was the case he would have
      to be very careful around the laboratory. I had him there to help in
      experimenting, and the heart-disease did not seem to bother him at all.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It appeared that he had once been a slaver; and altogether he was a tough
      character. Having no other man I could spare at that time, I sent him over
      with my carbon transmitter telephone to exhibit it in England. It was
      exhibited before the Post-Office authorities. Professor Hughes spent an
      afternoon in examining the apparatus, and in about a month came out with
      his microphone, which was absolutely nothing more nor less than my exact
      invention. But no mention was made of the fact that, just previously, he
      had seen the whole of my apparatus. Adams stayed over in Europe connected
      with the telephone for several years, and finally died of too much whiskey&mdash;but
      not of heart-disease. This shows how whiskey is the more dangerous of the
      two.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Adams said that at one time he was aboard a coffee-ship in the harbor of
      Santos, Brazil. He fell down a hatchway and broke his arm. They took him
      up to the hospital&mdash;a Portuguese one&mdash;where he could not speak
      the language, and they did not understand English. They treated him for
      two weeks for yellow fever! He was certainly the most profane man we ever
      had around the laboratory. He stood high in his class."
    </p>
    <p>
      And there were others of a different stripe. "We had a man with us at
      Menlo called Segredor. He was a queer kind of fellow. The men got in the
      habit of plaguing him; and, finally, one day he said to the assembled
      experimenters in the top room of the laboratory: 'The next man that does
      it, I will kill him.' They paid no attention to this, and next day one of
      them made some sarcastic remark to him. Segredor made a start for his
      boarding-house, and when they saw him coming back up the hill with a gun,
      they knew there would be trouble, so they all made for the woods. One of
      the men went back and mollified him. He returned to his work; but he was
      not teased any more. At last, when I sent men out hunting for bamboo, I
      dispatched Segredor to Cuba. He arrived in Havana on Tuesday, and on the
      Friday following he was buried, having died of the black vomit. On the
      receipt of the news of his death, half a dozen of the men wanted his job,
      but my searcher in the Astor Library reported that the chances of finding
      the right kind of bamboo for lamps in Cuba were very small; so I did not
      send a substitute."
    </p>
    <p>
      Another thumb-nail sketch made of one of his associates is this: "When
      experimenting with vacuum-pumps to exhaust the incandescent lamps, I
      required some very delicate and close manipulation of glass, and hired a
      German glass-blower who was said to be the most expert man of his kind in
      the United States. He was the only one who could make clinical
      thermometers. He was the most extraordinarily conceited man I have ever
      come across. His conceit was so enormous, life was made a burden to him by
      all the boys around the laboratory. He once said that he was educated in a
      university where all the students belonged to families of the aristocracy;
      and the highest class in the university all wore little red caps. He said
      HE wore one."
    </p>
    <p>
      Of somewhat different caliber was "honest" John Kruesi, who first made his
      mark at Menlo Park, and of whom Edison says: "One of the workmen I had at
      Menlo Park was John Kruesi, who afterward became, from his experience,
      engineer of the lighting station, and subsequently engineer of the Edison
      General Electric Works at Schenectady. Kruesi was very exact in his
      expressions. At the time we were promoting and putting up electric-light
      stations in Pennsylvania, New York, and New England, there would be
      delegations of different people who proposed to pay for these stations.
      They would come to our office in New York, at '65,' to talk over the
      specifications, the cost, and other things. At first, Mr. Kruesi was
      brought in, but whenever a statement was made which he could not
      understand or did not believe could be substantiated, he would blurt right
      out among these prospects that he didn't believe it. Finally it disturbed
      these committees so much, and raised so many doubts in their minds, that
      one of my chief associates said: 'Here, Kruesi, we don't want you to come
      to these meetings any longer. You are too painfully honest.' I said to
      him: 'We always tell the truth. It may be deferred truth, but it is the
      truth.' He could not understand that."
    </p>
    <p>
      Various reasons conspired to cause the departure from Menlo Park midway in
      the eighties. For Edison, in spite of the achievement with which its name
      will forever be connected, it had lost all its attractions and all its
      possibilities. It had been outgrown in many ways, and strange as the
      remark may seem, it was not until he had left it behind and had settled in
      Orange, New Jersey, that he can be said to have given definite shape to
      his life. He was only forty in 1887, and all that he had done up to that
      time, tremendous as much of it was, had worn a haphazard, Bohemian air,
      with all the inconsequential freedom and crudeness somehow attaching to
      pioneer life. The development of the new laboratory in West Orange, just
      at the foot of Llewellyn Park, on the Orange Mountains, not only marked
      the happy beginning of a period of perfect domestic and family life, but
      saw in the planning and equipment of a model laboratory plant the
      consummation of youthful dreams, and of the keen desire to enjoy resources
      adequate at any moment to whatever strain the fierce fervor of research
      might put upon them. Curiously enough, while hitherto Edison had sought to
      dissociate his experimenting from his manufacturing, here he determined to
      develop a large industry to which a thoroughly practical laboratory would
      be a central feature, and ever a source of suggestion and inspiration.
      Edison's standpoint to-day is that an evil to be dreaded in manufacture is
      that of over-standardization, and that as soon as an article is perfect
      that is the time to begin improving it. But he who would improve must
      experiment.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Orange laboratory, as originally planned, consisted of a main building
      two hundred and fifty feet long and three stories in height, together with
      four other structures, each one hundred by twenty-five feet, and only one
      story in height. All these were substantially built of brick. The main
      building was divided into five chief divisions&mdash;the library, office,
      machine shops, experimental and chemical rooms, and stock-room. The use of
      the smaller buildings will be presently indicated.
    </p>
    <p>
      Surrounding the whole was erected a high picket fence with a gate placed
      on Valley Road. At this point a gate-house was provided and put in charge
      of a keeper, for then, as at the present time, Edison was greatly sought
      after; and, in order to accomplish any work at all, he was obliged to deny
      himself to all but the most important callers. The keeper of the gate was
      usually chosen with reference to his capacity for stony-hearted
      implacability and adherence to instructions; and this choice was admirably
      made in one instance when a new gateman, not yet thoroughly initiated,
      refused admittance to Edison himself. It was of no use to try and explain.
      To the gateman EVERY ONE was persona non grata without proper credentials,
      and Edison had to wait outside until he could get some one to identify
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      On entering the main building the first doorway from the ample passage
      leads the visitor into a handsome library finished throughout in yellow
      pine, occupying the entire width of the building, and almost as broad as
      long. The centre of this spacious room is an open rectangular space about
      forty by twenty-five feet, rising clear about forty feet from the main
      floor to a panelled ceiling. Around the sides of the room, bounding this
      open space, run two tiers of gallery, divided, as is the main floor
      beneath them; into alcoves of liberal dimensions. These alcoves are formed
      by racks extending from floor to ceiling, fitted with shelves, except on
      two sides of both galleries, where they are formed by a series of
      glass-fronted cabinets containing extensive collections of curious and
      beautiful mineralogical and geological specimens, among which is the
      notable Tiffany-Kunz collection of minerals acquired by Edison some years
      ago. Here and there in these cabinets may also be found a few models which
      he has used at times in his studies of anatomy and physiology.
    </p>
    <p>
      The shelves on the remainder of the upper gallery and part of those on the
      first gallery are filled with countless thousands of specimens of ores and
      minerals of every conceivable kind gathered from all parts of the world,
      and all tagged and numbered. The remaining shelves of the first gallery
      are filled with current numbers (and some back numbers) of the numerous
      periodicals to which Edison subscribes. Here may be found the popular
      magazines, together with those of a technical nature relating to
      electricity, chemistry, engineering, mechanics, building, cement, building
      materials, drugs, water and gas, power, automobiles, railroads,
      aeronautics, philosophy, hygiene, physics, telegraphy, mining, metallurgy,
      metals, music, and others; also theatrical weeklies, as well as the
      proceedings and transactions of various learned and technical societies.
    </p>
    <p>
      The first impression received as one enters on the main floor of the
      library and looks around is that of noble proportions and symmetry as a
      whole. The open central space of liberal dimensions and height, flanked by
      the galleries and relieved by four handsome electric-lighting fixtures
      suspended from the ceiling by long chains, conveys an idea of lofty
      spaciousness; while the huge open fireplace, surmounted by a great clock
      built into the wall, at one end of the room, the large rugs, the
      arm-chairs scattered around, the tables and chairs in the alcoves, give a
      general air of comfort combined with utility. In one of the larger
      alcoves, at the sunny end of the main hall, is Edison's own desk, where he
      may usually be seen for a while in the early morning hours looking over
      his mail or otherwise busily working on matters requiring his attention.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the opposite end of the room, not far from the open fireplace, is a
      long table surrounded by swivel desk-chairs. It is here that directors'
      meetings are sometimes held, and also where weighty matters are often
      discussed by Edison at conference with his closer associates. It has been
      the privilege of the writers to be present at some of these conferences,
      not only as participants, but in some cases as lookers-on while awaiting
      their turn. On such occasions an interesting opportunity is offered to
      study Edison in his intense and constructive moods. Apparently oblivious
      to everything else, he will listen with concentrated mind and close
      attention, and then pour forth a perfect torrent of ideas and plans, and,
      if the occasion calls for it, will turn around to the table, seize a
      writing-pad and make sketch after sketch with lightning-like rapidity,
      tearing off each sheet as filled and tossing it aside to the floor. It is
      an ordinary indication that there has been an interesting meeting when the
      caretaker about fills a waste-basket with these discarded sketches.
    </p>
    <p>
      Directly opposite the main door is a beautiful marble statue purchased by
      Edison at the Paris Exposition in 1889, on the occasion of his visit
      there. The statue, mounted on a base three feet high, is an allegorical
      representation of the supremacy of electric light over all other forms of
      illumination, carried out by the life-size figure of a youth with
      half-spread wings seated upon the ruins of a street gas-lamp, holding
      triumphantly high above his head an electric incandescent lamp. Grouped
      about his feet are a gear-wheel, voltaic pile, telegraph key, and
      telephone. This work of art was executed by A. Bordiga, of Rome, held a
      prominent place in the department devoted to Italian art at the Paris
      Exposition, and naturally appealed to Edison as soon as he saw it.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the middle distance, between the entrance door and this statue, has
      long stood a magnificent palm, but at the present writing it has been set
      aside to give place to a fine model of the first type of the Edison poured
      cement house, which stands in a miniature artificial lawn upon a special
      table prepared for it; while on the floor at the foot of the table are
      specimens of the full-size molds in which the house will be cast.
    </p>
    <p>
      The balustrades of the galleries and all other available places are filled
      with portraits of great scientists and men of achievement, as well as with
      pictures of historic and scientific interest. Over the fireplace hangs a
      large photograph showing the Edison cement plant in its entire length,
      flanked on one end of the mantel by a bust of Humboldt, and on the other
      by a statuette of Sandow, the latter having been presented to Edison by
      the celebrated athlete after the visit he made to Orange to pose for the
      motion pictures in the earliest days of their development. On looking up
      under the second gallery at this end is seen a great roll resting in
      sockets placed on each side of the room. This is a huge screen or curtain
      which may be drawn down to the floor to provide a means of projection for
      lantern slides or motion pictures, for the entertainment or instruction of
      Edison and his guests. In one of the larger alcoves is a large terrestrial
      globe pivoted in its special stand, together with a relief map of the
      United States; and here and there are handsomely mounted specimens of
      underground conductors and electric welds that were made at the Edison
      Machine Works at Schenectady before it was merged into the General
      Electric Company. On two pedestals stand, respectively, two other
      mementoes of the works, one a fifteen-light dynamo of the Edison type, and
      the other an elaborate electric fan&mdash;both of them gifts from
      associates or employees.
    </p>
    <p>
      In noting these various objects of interest one must not lose sight of the
      fact that this part of the building is primarily a library, if indeed that
      fact did not at once impress itself by a glance at the well-filled
      unglazed book-shelves in the alcoves of the main floor. Here Edison's
      catholic taste in reading becomes apparent as one scans the titles of
      thousands of volumes ranged upon the shelves, for they include astronomy,
      botany, chemistry, dynamics, electricity, engineering, forestry, geology,
      geography, mechanics, mining, medicine, metallurgy, magnetism, philosophy,
      psychology, physics, steam, steam-engines, telegraphy, telephony, and many
      others. Besides these there are the journals and proceedings of numerous
      technical societies; encyclopaedias of various kinds; bound series of
      important technical magazines; a collection of United States and foreign
      patents, embracing some hundreds of volumes, together with an extensive
      assortment of miscellaneous books of special and general interest. There
      is another big library up in the house on the hill&mdash;in fact, there
      are books upon books all over the home. And wherever they are, those books
      are read.
    </p>
    <p>
      As one is about to pass out of the library attention is arrested by an
      incongruity in the form of a cot, which stands in an alcove near the door.
      Here Edison, throwing himself down, sometimes seeks a short rest during
      specially long working tours. Sleep is practically instantaneous and
      profound, and he awakes in immediate and full possession of his faculties,
      arising from the cot and going directly "back to the job" without a
      moment's hesitation, just as a person wide awake would arise from a chair
      and proceed to attend to something previously determined upon.
    </p>
    <p>
      Immediately outside the library is the famous stock-room, about which much
      has been written and invented. Its fame arose from the fact that Edison
      planned it to be a repository of some quantity, great or small, of every
      known and possibly useful substance not readily perishable, together with
      the most complete assortment of chemicals and drugs that experience and
      knowledge could suggest. Always strenuous in his experimentation, and the
      living embodiment of the spirit of the song, I Want What I Want When I
      Want It, Edison had known for years what it was to be obliged to wait, and
      sometimes lack, for some substance or chemical that he thought necessary
      to the success of an experiment. Naturally impatient at any delay which
      interposed in his insistent and searching methods, and realizing the
      necessity of maintaining the inspiration attending his work at any time,
      he determined to have within his immediate reach the natural resources of
      the world.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hence it is not surprising to find the stock-room not only a museum, but a
      sample-room of nature, as well as a supply department. To a casual visitor
      the first view of this heterogeneous collection is quite bewildering, but
      on more mature examination it resolves itself into a natural
      classification&mdash;as, for instance, objects pertaining to various
      animals, birds, and fishes, such as skins, hides, hair, fur, feathers,
      wool, quills, down, bristles, teeth, bones, hoofs, horns, tusks, shells;
      natural products, such as woods, barks, roots, leaves, nuts, seeds, herbs,
      gums, grains, flours, meals, bran; also minerals in great assortment;
      mineral and vegetable oils, clay, mica, ozokerite, etc. In the line of
      textiles, cotton and silk threads in great variety, with woven goods of
      all kinds from cheese-cloth to silk plush. As for paper, there is
      everything in white and colored, from thinnest tissue up to the heaviest
      asbestos, even a few newspapers being always on hand. Twines of all sizes,
      inks, waxes, cork, tar, resin, pitch, turpentine, asphalt, plumbago, glass
      in sheets and tubes; and a host of miscellaneous articles revealed on
      looking around the shelves, as well as an interminable collection of
      chemicals, including acids, alkalies, salts, reagents, every conceivable
      essential oil and all the thinkable extracts. It may be remarked that this
      collection includes the eighteen hundred or more fluorescent salts made by
      Edison during his experimental search for the best material for a
      fluoroscope in the initial X-ray period. All known metals in form of
      sheet, rod and tube, and of great variety in thickness, are here found
      also, together with a most complete assortment of tools and accessories
      for machine shop and laboratory work.
    </p>
    <p>
      The list is confined to the merest general mention of the scope of this
      remarkable and interesting collection, as specific details would stretch
      out into a catalogue of no small proportions. When it is stated, however,
      that a stock clerk is kept exceedingly busy all day answering the numerous
      and various demands upon him, the reader will appreciate that this
      comprehensive assortment is not merely a fad of Edison's, but stands
      rather as a substantial tribute to his wide-angled view of possible
      requirements as his various investigations take him far afield. It has no
      counterpart in the world!
    </p>
    <p>
      Beyond the stock-room, and occupying about half the building on the same
      floor, lie a machine shop, engine-room, and boiler-room. This machine shop
      is well equipped, and in it is constantly employed a large force of
      mechanics whose time is occupied in constructing the heavier class of
      models and mechanical devices called for by the varied experiments and
      inventions always going on.
    </p>
    <p>
      Immediately above, on the second floor, is found another machine shop in
      which is maintained a corps of expert mechanics who are called upon to do
      work of greater precision and fineness, in the construction of tools and
      experimental models. This is the realm presided over lovingly by John F.
      Ott, who has been Edison's designer of mechanical devices for over forty
      years. He still continues to ply his craft with unabated skill and
      oversees the work of the mechanics as his productions are wrought into
      concrete shape.
    </p>
    <p>
      In one of the many experimental-rooms lining the sides of the second floor
      may usually be seen his younger brother, Fred Ott, whose skill as a
      dexterous manipulator and ingenious mechanic has found ample scope for
      exercise during the thirty-two years of his service with Edison, not only
      at the regular laboratories, but also at that connected with the
      inventor's winter home in Florida. Still another of the Ott family, the
      son of John F., for some years past has been on the experimental staff of
      the Orange laboratory. Although possessing in no small degree the
      mechanical and manipulative skill of the family, he has chosen chemistry
      as his special domain, and may be found with the other chemists in one of
      the chemical-rooms.
    </p>
    <p>
      On this same floor is the vacuum-pump room with a glass-blowers' room
      adjoining, both of them historic by reason of the strenuous work done on
      incandescent lamps and X-ray tubes within their walls. The tools and
      appliances are kept intact, for Edison calls occasionally for their use in
      some of his later experiments, and there is a suspicion among the
      laboratory staff that some day he may resume work on incandescent lamps.
      Adjacent to these rooms are several others devoted to physical and
      mechanical experiments, together with a draughting-room.
    </p>
    <p>
      Last to be mentioned, but the first in order as one leaves the head of the
      stairs leading up to this floor, is No. 12, Edison's favorite room, where
      he will frequently be found. Plain of aspect, being merely a space boarded
      off with tongued-and-grooved planks&mdash;as all the other rooms are&mdash;without
      ornament or floor covering, and containing only a few articles of cheap
      furniture, this room seems to exercise a nameless charm for him. The door
      is always open, and often he can be seen seated at a plain table in the
      centre of the room, deeply intent on some of the numerous problems in
      which he is interested. The table is usually pretty well filled with
      specimens or data of experimental results which have been put there for
      his examination. At the time of this writing these specimens consist
      largely of sections of positive elements of the storage battery, together
      with many samples of nickel hydrate, to which Edison devotes deep study.
      Close at hand is a microscope which is in frequent use by him in these
      investigations. Around the room, on shelves, are hundreds of bottles each
      containing a small quantity of nickel hydrate made in as many different
      ways, each labelled correspondingly. Always at hand will be found one or
      two of the laboratory note-books, with frequent entries or comments in the
      handwriting which once seen is never forgotten.
    </p>
    <p>
      No. 12 is at times a chemical, a physical, or a mechanical room&mdash;occasionally
      a combination of all, while sometimes it might be called a
      consultation-room or clinic&mdash;for often Edison may be seen there in
      animated conference with a group of his assistants; but its chief
      distinction lies in its being one of his favorite haunts, and in the fact
      that within its walls have been settled many of the perplexing problems
      and momentous questions that have brought about great changes in
      electrical and engineering arts during the twenty-odd years that have
      elapsed since the Orange laboratory was built.
    </p>
    <p>
      Passing now to the top floor the visitor finds himself at the head of a
      broad hall running almost the entire length of the building, and lined
      mostly with glass-fronted cabinets containing a multitude of experimental
      incandescent lamps and an immense variety of models of phonographs,
      motors, telegraph and telephone apparatus, meters, and a host of other
      inventions upon which Edison's energies have at one time and another been
      bent. Here also are other cabinets containing old papers and records,
      while further along the wall are piled up boxes of historical models and
      instruments. In fact, this hallway, with its conglomerate contents, may
      well be considered a scientific attic. It is to be hoped that at no
      distant day these Edisoniana will be assembled and arranged in a fireproof
      museum for the benefit of posterity.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the front end of the building, and extending over the library, is a
      large room intended originally and used for a time as the phonograph
      music-hall for record-making, but now used only as an experimental-room
      for phonograph work, as the growth of the industry has necessitated a very
      much larger and more central place where records can be made on a
      commercial scale. Even the experimental work imposes no slight burden on
      it. On each side of the hallway above mentioned, rooms are partitioned off
      and used for experimental work of various kinds, mostly phonographic,
      although on this floor are also located the storage-battery testing-room,
      a chemical and physical room and Edison's private office, where all his
      personal correspondence and business affairs are conducted by his personal
      secretary, Mr. H. F. Miller. A visitor to this upper floor of the
      laboratory building cannot but be impressed with a consciousness of the
      incessant efforts that are being made to improve the reproducing qualities
      of the phonograph, as he hears from all sides the sounds of vocal and
      instrumental music constantly varying in volume and timbre, due to changes
      in the experimental devices under trial.
    </p>
    <p>
      The traditions of the laboratory include cots placed in many of the rooms
      of these upper floors, but that was in the earlier years when the
      strenuous scenes of Menlo Park were repeated in the new quarters. Edison
      and his closest associates were accustomed to carry their labors far into
      the wee sma' hours, and when physical nature demanded a respite from work,
      a short rest would be obtained by going to bed on a cot. One would
      naturally think that the wear and tear of this intense application, day
      after day and night after night, would have tended to induce a heaviness
      and gravity of demeanor in these busy men; but on the contrary, the old
      spirit of good-humor and prankishness was ever present, as its frequent
      outbursts manifested from time to time. One instance will serve as an
      illustration. One morning, about 2.30, the late Charles Batchelor
      announced that he was tired and would go to bed. Leaving Edison and the
      others busily working, he went out and returned quietly in slippered feet,
      with his nightgown on, the handle of a feather duster stuck down his back
      with the feathers waving over his head, and his face marked. With
      unearthly howls and shrieks, a l'Indien, he pranced about the room,
      incidentally giving Edison a scare that made him jump up from his work. He
      saw the joke quickly, however, and joined in the general merriment caused
      by this prank.
    </p>
    <p>
      Leaving the main building with its corps of busy experimenters, and coming
      out into the spacious yard, one notes the four long single-story brick
      structures mentioned above. The one nearest the Valley Road is called the
      galvanometer-room, and was originally intended by Edison to be used for
      the most delicate and minute electrical measurements. In order to provide
      rigid resting-places for the numerous and elaborate instruments he had
      purchased for this purpose, the building was equipped along three-quarters
      of its length with solid pillars, or tables, of brick set deep in the
      earth. These were built up to a height of about two and a half feet, and
      each was surmounted with a single heavy slab of black marble. A cement
      floor was laid, and every precaution was taken to render the building free
      from all magnetic influences, so that it would be suitable for electrical
      work of the utmost accuracy and precision. Hence, iron and steel were
      entirely eliminated in its construction, copper being used for fixtures
      for steam and water piping, and, indeed, for all other purposes where
      metal was employed.
    </p>
    <p>
      This room was for many years the headquarters of Edison's able assistant,
      Dr. A. E. Kennelly, now professor of electrical engineering in Harvard
      University to whose energetic and capable management were intrusted many
      scientific investigations during his long sojourn at the laboratory.
      Unfortunately, however, for the continued success of Edison's elaborate
      plans, he had not been many years established in the laboratory before a
      trolley road through West Orange was projected and built, the line passing
      in front of the plant and within seventy-five feet of the
      galvanometer-room, thus making it practically impossible to use it for the
      delicate purposes for which it was originally intended.
    </p>
    <p>
      For some time past it has been used for photography and some special
      experiments on motion pictures as well as for demonstrations connected
      with physical research; but some reminders of its old-time glory still
      remain in evidence. In lofty and capacious glass-enclosed cabinets, in
      company with numerous models of Edison's inventions, repose many of the
      costly and elaborate instruments rendered useless by the ubiquitous
      trolley. Instruments are all about, on walls, tables, and shelves, the
      photometer is covered up; induction coils of various capacities, with
      other electrical paraphernalia, lie around, almost as if the experimenter
      were absent for a few days but would soon return and resume his work.
    </p>
    <p>
      In numbering the group of buildings, the galvanometer-room is No. 1, while
      the other single-story structures are numbered respectively 2, 3, and 4.
      On passing out of No. 1 and proceeding to the succeeding building is
      noticed, between the two, a garage of ample dimensions and a smaller
      structure, at the door of which stands a concrete-mixer. In this small
      building Edison has made some of his most important experiments in the
      process of working out his plans for the poured house. It is in this
      little place that there was developed the remarkable mixture which is to
      play so vital a part in the successful construction of these everlasting
      homes for living millions.
    </p>
    <p>
      Drawing near to building No. 2, olfactory evidence presents itself of the
      immediate vicinity of a chemical laboratory. This is confirmed as one
      enters the door and finds that the entire building is devoted to
      chemistry. Long rows of shelves and cabinets filled with chemicals line
      the room; a profusion of retorts, alembics, filters, and other chemical
      apparatus on numerous tables and stands, greet the eye, while a corps of
      experimenters may be seen busy in the preparation of various combinations,
      some of which are boiling or otherwise cooking under their dexterous
      manipulation.
    </p>
    <p>
      It would not require many visits to discover that in this room, also,
      Edison has a favorite nook. Down at the far end in a corner are a plain
      little table and chair, and here he is often to be found deeply immersed
      in a study of the many experiments that are being conducted. Not
      infrequently he is actively engaged in the manipulation of some compound
      of special intricacy, whose results might be illuminative of obscure facts
      not patent to others than himself. Here, too, is a select little library
      of chemical literature.
    </p>
    <p>
      The next building, No. 3, has a double mission&mdash;the farther half
      being partitioned off for a pattern-making shop, while the other half is
      used as a store-room for chemicals in quantity and for chemical apparatus
      and utensils. A grimly humorous incident, as related by one of the
      laboratory staff, attaches to No. 3. It seems that some time ago one of
      the helpers in the chemical department, an excitable foreigner, became
      dissatisfied with his wages, and after making an unsuccessful application
      for an increase, rushed in desperation to Edison, and said "Eef I not get
      more money I go to take ze cyanide potassia." Edison gave him one quick,
      searching glance and, detecting a bluff, replied in an offhand manner:
      "There's a five-pound bottle in No. 3," and turned to his work again. The
      foreigner did not go to get the cyanide, but gave up his job.
    </p>
    <p>
      The last of these original buildings, No. 4, was used for many years in
      Edison's ore-concentrating experiments, and also for rough-and-ready
      operations of other kinds, such as furnace work and the like. At the
      present writing it is used as a general stock-room.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the foregoing details, the reader has been afforded but a passing
      glance at the great practical working equipment which constitutes the
      theatre of Edison's activities, for, in taking a general view of such a
      unique and comprehensive laboratory plant, its salient features only can
      be touched upon to advantage. It would be but repetition to enumerate here
      the practical results of the laboratory work during the past two decades,
      as they appear on other pages of this work. Nor can one assume for a
      moment that the history of Edison's laboratory is a closed book. On the
      contrary, its territorial boundaries have been increasing step by step
      with the enlargement of its labors, until now it has been obliged to go
      outside its own proper domains to occupy some space in and about the great
      Edison industrial buildings and space immediately adjacent. It must be
      borne in mind that the laboratory is only the core of a group of buildings
      devoted to production on a huge scale by hundreds of artisans.
    </p>
    <p>
      Incidental mention has already been made of the laboratory at Edison's
      winter residence in Florida, where he goes annually to spend a month or
      six weeks. This is a miniature copy of the Orange laboratory, with its
      machine shop, chemical-room, and general experimental department. While it
      is only in use during his sojourn there, and carries no extensive corps of
      assistants, the work done in it is not of a perfunctory nature, but is a
      continuation of his regular activities, and serves to keep him in touch
      with the progress of experiments at Orange, and enables him to give
      instructions for their variation and continuance as their scope is
      expanded by his own investigations made while enjoying what he calls
      "vacation." What Edison in Florida speaks of as "loafing" would be for
      most of us extreme and healthy activity in the cooler Far North.
    </p>
    <p>
      A word or two may be devoted to the visitors received at the laboratory,
      and to the correspondence. It might be injudicious to gauge the greatness
      of a man by the number of his callers or his letters; but they are at
      least an indication of the degree to which he interests the world. In both
      respects, for these forty years, Edison has been a striking example of the
      manner in which the sentiment of hero-worship can manifest itself, and of
      the deep desire of curiosity to get satisfaction by personal observation
      or contact. Edison's mail, like that of most well-known men, is extremely
      large, but composed in no small degree of letters&mdash;thousands of them
      yearly&mdash;that concern only the writers, and might well go to the
      waste-paper basket without prolonged consideration. The serious and
      important part of the mail, some personal and some business, occupies the
      attention of several men; all such letters finding their way promptly into
      the proper channels, often with a pithy endorsement by Edison scribbled on
      the margin. What to do with a host of others it is often difficult to
      decide, even when written by "cranks," who imagine themselves subject to
      strange electrical ailments from which Edison alone can relieve them. Many
      people write asking his opinion as to a certain invention, or offering him
      an interest in it if he will work it out. Other people abroad ask help in
      locating lost relatives; and many want advice as to what they shall do
      with their sons, frequently budding geniuses whose ability to wire a bell
      has demonstrated unusual qualities. A great many persons want autographs,
      and some would like photographs. The amazing thing about it all is that
      this flood of miscellaneous letters flows on in one steady, uninterrupted
      stream, year in and year out; always a curious psychological study in its
      variety and volume; and ever a proof of the fact that once a man has
      become established as a personality in the public eye and mind, nothing
      can stop the tide of correspondence that will deluge him.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is generally, in the nature of things, easier to write a letter than to
      make a call; and the semi-retirement of Edison at a distance of an hour by
      train from New York stands as a means of protection to him against those
      who would certainly present their respects in person, if he could be got
      at without trouble. But it may be seriously questioned whether in the
      aggregate Edison's visitors are less numerous or less time-consuming than
      his epistolary besiegers. It is the common experience of any visitor to
      the laboratory that there are usually several persons ahead of him, no
      matter what the hour of the day, and some whose business has been
      sufficiently vital to get them inside the porter's gate, or even into the
      big library and lounging-room. Celebrities of all kinds and distinguished
      foreigners are numerous&mdash;princes, noblemen, ambassadors, artists,
      litterateurs, scientists, financiers, women. A very large part of the
      visiting is done by scientific bodies and societies; and then the whole
      place will be turned over to hundreds of eager, well-dressed men and
      women, anxious to see everything and to be photographed in the big
      courtyard around the central hero. Nor are these groups and delegations
      limited to this country, for even large parties of English, Dutch,
      Italian, or Japanese visitors come from time to time, and are greeted with
      the same ready hospitality, although Edison, it is easy to see, is torn
      between the conflicting emotions of a desire to be courteous, and an
      anxiety to guard the precious hours of work, or watch the critical stage
      of a new experiment.
    </p>
    <p>
      One distinct group of visitors has always been constituted by the
      "newspaper men." Hardly a day goes by that the journals do not contain
      some reference to Edison's work or remarks; and the items are generally
      based on an interview. The reporters are never away from the laboratory
      very long; for if they have no actual mission of inquiry, there is always
      the chance of a good story being secured offhand; and the easy, inveterate
      good-nature of Edison toward reporters is proverbial in the craft. Indeed,
      it must be stated here that once in a while this confidence has been
      abused; that stories have been published utterly without foundation; that
      interviews have been printed which never took place; that articles with
      Edison's name as author have been widely circulated, although he never saw
      them; and that in such ways he has suffered directly. But such occasional
      incidents tend in no wise to lessen Edison's warm admiration of the press
      or his readiness to avail himself of it whenever a representative goes
      over to Orange to get the truth or the real facts in regard to any matter
      of public importance. As for the newspaper clippings containing such
      articles, or others in which Edison's name appears&mdash;they are
      literally like sands of the sea-shore for number; and the archives of the
      laboratory that preserve only a very minute percentage of them are a
      further demonstration of what publicity means, where a figure like Edison
      is concerned.
    </p>
    <p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXVI
    </h2>
    <h3>
      EDISON IN COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURE
    </h3>
    <p>
      AN applicant for membership in the Engineers' Club of Philadelphia is
      required to give a brief statement of the professional work he has done.
      Some years ago a certain application was made, and contained the following
      terse and modest sentence:
    </p>
    <p>
      "I have designed a concentrating plant and built a machine shop, etc.,
      etc. THOMAS A. EDISON."
    </p>
    <p>
      Although in the foregoing pages the reader has been made acquainted with
      the tremendous import of the actualities lying behind those "etc., etc.,"
      the narrative up to this point has revealed Edison chiefly in the light of
      inventor, experimenter, and investigator. There have been some side
      glimpses of the industries he has set on foot, and of their financial
      aspects, and a later chapter will endeavor to sum up the intrinsic value
      of Edison's work to the world. But there are some other interesting points
      that may be touched on now in regard to a few of Edison's financial and
      commercial ventures not generally known or appreciated.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is a popular idea founded on experience that an inventor is not usually
      a business man. One of the exceptions proving the rule may perhaps be met
      in Edison, though all depends on the point of view. All his life he has
      had a great deal to do with finance and commerce, and as one looks at the
      magnitude of the vast industries he has helped to create, it would not be
      at all unreasonable to expect him to be among the multi-millionaires. That
      he is not is due to the absence of certain qualities, the lack of which
      Edison is himself the first to admit. Those qualities may not be amiable,
      but great wealth is hardly ever accumulated without them. If he had not
      been so intent on inventing he would have made more of his great
      opportunities for getting rich. If this utter detachment from any love of
      money for its own sake has not already been illustrated in some of the
      incidents narrated, one or two stories are available to emphasize the
      point. They do not involve any want of the higher business acumen that
      goes to the proper conduct of affairs. It was said of Gladstone that he
      was the greatest Chancellor of the Exchequer England ever saw, but that as
      a retail merchant he would soon have ruined himself by his bookkeeping.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison confesses that he has never made a cent out of his patents in
      electric light and power&mdash;in fact, that they have been an expense to
      him, and thus a free gift to the world. [18] This was true of the European
      patents as well as the American. "I endeavored to sell my lighting patents
      in different countries of Europe, and made a contract with a couple of
      men. On account of their poor business capacity and lack of practicality,
      they conveyed under the patents all rights to different corporations but
      in such a way and with such confused wording of the contracts that I never
      got a cent. One of the companies started was the German Edison, now the
      great Allgemeine Elektricitaets Gesellschaft. The English company I never
      got anything for, because a lawyer had originally advised Drexel, Morgan
      &amp; Co. as to the signing of a certain document, and said it was all
      right for me to sign. I signed, and I never got a cent because there was a
      clause in it which prevented me from ever getting anything." A certain
      easy-going belief in human nature, and even a certain carelessness of
      attitude toward business affairs, are here revealed. We have already
      pointed out two instances where in his dealings with the Western Union
      Company he stipulated that payments of $6000 per year for seventeen years
      were to be made instead of $100,000 in cash, evidently forgetful of the
      fact that the annual sum so received was nothing more than legal interest,
      which could have been earned indefinitely if the capital had been only
      insisted upon. In later life Edison has been more circumspect, but
      throughout his early career he was constantly getting into some kind of
      scrape. Of one experience he says:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 18: Edison received some stock from the parent
     lighting company, but as the capital stock of that company
     was increased from time to time, his proportion grew
     smaller, and he ultimately used it to obtain ready money
     with which to create and finance the various "shops" in
     which were manufactured the various items of electric-
     lighting apparatus necessary to exploit his system. Besides,
     he was obliged to raise additional large sums of money from
     other sources for this purpose. He thus became a
     manufacturer with capital raised by himself, and the stock
     that he received later, on the formation of the General
     Electric Company, was not for his electric-light patents,
     but was in payment for his manufacturing establishments,
     which had then grown to be of great commercial importance.]
</pre>
    <p>
      "In the early days I was experimenting with metallic filaments for the
      incandescent light, and sent a certain man out to California in search of
      platinum. He found a considerable quantity in the sluice-boxes of the
      Cherokee Valley Mining Company; but just then he found also that
      fruit-gardening was the thing, and dropped the subject. He then came to me
      and said that if he could raise $4000 he could go into some kind of
      orchard arrangement out there, and would give me half the profits. I was
      unwilling to do it, not having very much money just then, but his
      persistence was such that I raised the money and gave it to him. He went
      back to California, and got into mining claims and into fruit-growing, and
      became one of the politicians of the Coast, and, I believe, was on the
      staff of the Governor of the State. A couple of years ago he wounded his
      daughter and shot himself because he had become ruined financially. I
      never heard from him after he got the money."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison tells of another similar episode. "I had two men working for me&mdash;one
      a German, the other a Jew. They wanted me to put up a little money and
      start them in a shop in New York to make repairs, etc. I put up $800, and
      was to get half of the profits, and each of them one-quarter. I never got
      anything for it. A few years afterward I went to see them, and asked what
      they were doing, and said I would like to sell my interest. They said:
      'Sell out what?' 'Why,' I said, 'my interest in the machinery.' They said:
      'You don't own this machinery. This is our machinery. You have no papers
      to show anything. You had better get out.' I am inclined to think that the
      percentage of crooked people was smaller when I was young. It has been
      steadily rising, and has got up to a very respectable figure now. I hope
      it will never reach par." To which lugubrious episode so provocative of
      cynicism, Edison adds: "When I was a young fellow the first thing I did
      when I went to a town was to put something into the savings-bank and start
      an account. When I came to New York I put $30 into a savings-bank under
      the New York Sun office. After the money had been in about two weeks the
      bank busted. That was in 1870. In 1909 I got back $6.40, with a charge for
      $1.75 for law expenses. That shows the beauty of New York receiverships."
    </p>
    <p>
      It is hardly to be wondered at that Edison is rather frank and unsparing
      in some of his criticisms of shady modern business methods, and the
      mention of the following incident always provokes him to a fine scorn. "I
      had an interview with one of the wealthiest men in New York. He wanted me
      to sell out my associates in the electric lighting business, and offered
      me all I was going to get and $100,000 besides. Of course I would not do
      it. I found out that the reason for this offer was that he had had trouble
      with Mr. Morgan, and wanted to get even with him." Wall Street is, in
      fact, a frequent object of rather sarcastic reference, applying even to
      its regular and probably correct methods of banking. "When I was running
      my ore-mine," he says, "and got up to the point of making shipments to
      John Fritz, I didn't have capital enough to carry the ore, so I went to J.
      P. Morgan &amp; Co. and said I wanted them to give me a letter to the City
      Bank. I wanted to raise some money. I got a letter to Mr. Stillman; and
      went over and told him I wanted to open an account and get some loans and
      discounts. He turned me down, and would not do it. 'Well,' I said, 'isn't
      it banking to help a man in this way?' He said: 'What you want is a
      partner.' I felt very much crestfallen. I went over to a bank in Newark&mdash;the
      Merchants'&mdash;and told them what I wanted. They said: 'Certainly, you
      can have the money.' I made my deposit, and they pulled me through all
      right. My idea of Wall Street banking has been very poor since that time.
      Merchant banking seems to be different."
    </p>
    <p>
      As a general thing, Edison has had no trouble in raising money when he
      needed it, the reason being that people have faith in him as soon as they
      come to know him. A little incident bears on this point. "In operating the
      Schenectady works Mr. Insull and I had a terrible burden. We had enormous
      orders and little money, and had great difficulty to meet our payrolls and
      buy supplies. At one time we had so many orders on hand we wanted $200,000
      worth of copper, and didn't have a cent to buy it. We went down to the
      Ansonia Brass and Copper Company, and told Mr. Cowles just how we stood.
      He said: 'I will see what I can do. Will you let my bookkeeper look at
      your books?' We said: 'Come right up and look them over.' He sent his man
      up and found we had the orders and were all right, although we didn't have
      the money. He said: 'I will let you have the copper.' And for years he
      trusted us for all the copper we wanted, even if we didn't have the money
      to pay for it."
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not generally known that Edison, in addition to being a newsboy and
      a contributor to the technical press, has also been a backer and an
      "angel" for various publications. This is perhaps the right place at which
      to refer to the matter, as it belongs in the list of his financial or
      commercial enterprises. Edison sums up this chapter of his life very
      pithily. "I was interested, as a telegrapher, in journalism, and started
      the Telegraph Journal, and got out about a dozen numbers when it was taken
      over by W. J. Johnston, who afterward founded the Electrical World on it
      as an offshoot from the Operator. I also started Science, and ran it for a
      year and a half. It cost me too much money to maintain, and I sold it to
      Gardiner Hubbard, the father-in-law of Alexander Graham Bell. He carried
      it along for years." Both these papers are still in prosperous existence,
      particularly the Electrical World, as the recognized exponent of
      electrical development in America, where now the public spends as much
      annually for electricity as it does for daily bread.
    </p>
    <p>
      From all that has been said above it will be understood that Edison's real
      and remarkable capacity for business does not lie in ability to "take care
      of himself," nor in the direction of routine office practice, nor even in
      ordinary administrative affairs. In short, he would and does regard it as
      a foolish waste of his time to give attention to the mere occupancy of a
      desk.
    </p>
    <p>
      His commercial strength manifests itself rather in the outlining of
      matters relating to organization and broad policy with a sagacity arising
      from a shrewd perception and appreciation of general business requirements
      and conditions, to which should be added his intensely comprehensive grasp
      of manufacturing possibilities and details, and an unceasing vigilance in
      devising means of improving the quality of products and increasing the
      economy of their manufacture.
    </p>
    <p>
      Like other successful commanders, Edison also possesses the happy faculty
      of choosing suitable lieutenants to carry out his policies and to manage
      the industries he has created, such, for instance, as those with which
      this chapter has to deal&mdash;namely, the phonograph, motion picture,
      primary battery, and storage battery enterprises.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Portland cement business has already been dealt with separately, and
      although the above remarks are appropriate to it also, Edison being its
      head and informing spirit, the following pages are intended to be devoted
      to those industries that are grouped around the laboratory at Orange, and
      that may be taken as typical of Edison's methods on the manufacturing
      side.
    </p>
    <p>
      Within a few months after establishing himself at the present laboratory,
      in 1887, Edison entered upon one of those intensely active periods of work
      that have been so characteristic of his methods in commercializing his
      other inventions. In this case his labors were directed toward improving
      the phonograph so as to put it into thoroughly practicable form, capable
      of ordinary use by the public at large. The net result of this work was
      the general type of machine of which the well-known phonograph of today is
      a refinement evolved through many years of sustained experiment and
      improvement.
    </p>
    <p>
      After a considerable period of strenuous activity in the eighties, the
      phonograph and its wax records were developed to a sufficient degree of
      perfection to warrant him in making arrangements for their manufacture and
      commercial introduction. At this time the surroundings of the Orange
      laboratory were distinctly rural in character. Immediately adjacent to the
      main building and the four smaller structures, constituting the laboratory
      plant, were grass meadows that stretched away for some considerable
      distance in all directions, and at its back door, so to speak, ducks
      paddled around and quacked in a pond undisturbed. Being now ready for
      manufacturing, but requiring more facilities, Edison increased his
      real-estate holdings by purchasing a large tract of land lying contiguous
      to what he already owned. At one end of the newly acquired land two
      unpretentious brick structures were erected, equipped with first-class
      machinery, and put into commission as shops for manufacturing phonographs
      and their record blanks; while the capacious hall forming the third story
      of the laboratory, over the library, was fitted up and used as a
      music-room where records were made.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus the modern Edison phonograph made its modest debut in 1888, in what
      was then called the "Improved" form to distinguish it from the original
      style of machine he invented in 1877, in which the record was made on a
      sheet of tin-foil held in place upon a metallic cylinder. The "Improved"
      form is the general type so well known for many years and sold at the
      present day&mdash;viz., the spring or electric motor-driven machine with
      the cylindrical wax record&mdash;in fact, the regulation Edison
      phonograph.
    </p>
    <p>
      It did not take a long time to find a market for the products of the newly
      established factory, for a world-wide public interest in the machine had
      been created by the appearance of newspaper articles from time to time,
      announcing the approaching completion by Edison of his improved
      phonograph. The original (tin-foil) machine had been sufficient to
      illustrate the fact that the human voice and other sounds could be
      recorded and reproduced, but such a type of machine had sharp limitations
      in general use; hence the coming into being of a type that any ordinary
      person could handle was sufficient of itself to insure a market. Thus the
      demand for the new machines and wax records grew apace as the corporations
      organized to handle the business extended their lines. An examination of
      the newspaper files of the years 1888, 1889, and 1890 will reveal the
      great excitement caused by the bringing out of the new phonograph, and how
      frequently and successfully it was employed in public entertainments,
      either for the whole or part of an evening. In this and other ways it
      became popularized to a still further extent. This led to the demand for a
      nickel-in-the-slot machine, which, when established, became immensely
      popular over the whole country. In its earlier forms the "Improved"
      phonograph was not capable of such general non-expert handling as is the
      machine of the present day, and consequently there was a constant endeavor
      on Edison's part to simplify the construction of the machine and its
      manner of operation. Experimentation was incessantly going on with this in
      view, and in the processes of evolution changes were made here and there
      that resulted in a still greater measure of perfection.
    </p>
    <p>
      In various ways there was a continual slow and steady growth of the
      industry thus created, necessitating the erection of many additional
      buildings as the years passed by. During part of the last decade there was
      a lull, caused mostly from the failure of corporate interests to carry out
      their contract relations with Edison, and he was thereby compelled to
      resort to legal proceedings, at the end of which he bought in the
      outstanding contracts and assumed command of the business personally.
    </p>
    <p>
      Being thus freed from many irksome restrictions that had hung heavily upon
      him, Edison now proceeded to push the phonograph business under a broader
      policy than that which obtained under his previous contractual relations.
      With the ever-increasing simplification and efficiency of the machine and
      a broadening of its application, the results of this policy were
      manifested in a still more rapid growth of the business that necessitated
      further additions to the manufacturing plant. And thus matters went on
      until the early part of the present decade, when the factory facilities
      were becoming so rapidly outgrown as to render radical changes necessary.
      It was in these circumstances that Edison's sagacity and breadth of
      business capacity came to the front. With characteristic boldness and
      foresight he planned the erection of the series of magnificent concrete
      buildings that now stand adjacent to and around the laboratory, and in
      which the manufacturing plant is at present housed.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was no narrowness in his views in designing these buildings, but, on
      the contrary, great faith in the future, for his plans included not only
      the phonograph industry, but provided also for the coming development of
      motion pictures and of the primary and storage battery enterprises.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the aggregate there are twelve structures (including the administration
      building), of which six are of imposing dimensions, running from 200 feet
      long by 50 feet wide to 440 feet in length by 115 feet in width, all these
      larger buildings, except one, being five stories in height. They are
      constructed entirely of reinforced concrete with Edison cement, including
      walls, floors, and stairways, thus eliminating fire hazard to the utmost
      extent, and insuring a high degree of protection, cleanliness, and
      sanitation. As fully three-fourths of the area of their exterior framework
      consists of windows, an abundance of daylight is secured. These many
      advantages, combined with lofty ceilings on every floor, provide ideal
      conditions for the thousands of working people engaged in this immense
      plant.
    </p>
    <p>
      In addition to these twelve concrete structures there are a few smaller
      brick and wooden buildings on the grounds, in which some special
      operations are conducted. These, however, are few in number, and at some
      future time will be concentrated in one or more additional concrete
      buildings. It will afford a clearer idea of the extent of the industries
      clustered immediately around the laboratory when it is stated that the
      combined floor space which is occupied by them in all these buildings is
      equivalent in the aggregate to over fourteen acres.
    </p>
    <p>
      It would be instructive, but scarcely within the scope of the narrative,
      to conduct the reader through this extensive plant and see its many
      interesting operations in detail. It must suffice, however, to note its
      complete and ample equipment with modern machinery of every kind
      applicable to the work; its numerous (and some of them wonderfully
      ingenious) methods, processes, machines, and tools specially designed or
      invented for the manufacture of special parts and supplemental appliances
      for the phonograph or other Edison products; and also to note the
      interesting variety of trades represented in the different departments, in
      which are included chemists, electricians, electrical mechanicians,
      machinists, mechanics, pattern-makers, carpenters, cabinet-makers,
      varnishers, japanners, tool-makers, lapidaries, wax experts, photographic
      developers and printers, opticians, electroplaters, furnacemen, and
      others, together with factory experimenters and a host of general
      employees, who by careful training have become specialists and experts in
      numerous branches of these industries.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's plans for this manufacturing plant were sufficiently well
      outlined to provide ample capacity for the natural growth of the business;
      and although that capacity (so far as phonographs is concerned) has
      actually reached an output of over 6000 complete phonographs PER WEEK, and
      upward of 130,000 molded records PER DAY&mdash;with a pay-roll embracing
      over 3500 employees, including office force&mdash;and amounting to about
      $45,000 per week&mdash;the limits of production have not yet been reached.
    </p>
    <p>
      The constant outpouring of products in such large quantities bespeaks the
      unremitting activities of an extensive and busy selling organization to
      provide for their marketing and distribution. This important department
      (the National Phonograph Company), in all its branches, from president to
      office-boy, includes about two hundred employees on its office pay-roll,
      and makes its headquarters in the administration building, which is one of
      the large concrete structures above referred to. The policy of the company
      is to dispose of its wares through regular trade channels rather than to
      deal direct with the public, trusting to local activity as stimulated by a
      liberal policy of national advertising. Thus, there has been gradually
      built up a very extensive business until at the present time an enormous
      output of phonographs and records is distributed to retail customers in
      the United States and Canada through the medium of about one hundred and
      fifty jobbers and over thirteen thousand dealers. The Edison phonograph
      industry thus organized is helped by frequent conventions of this large
      commercial force.
    </p>
    <p>
      Besides this, the National Phonograph Company maintains a special staff
      for carrying on the business with foreign countries. While the aggregate
      transactions of this department are not as extensive as those for the
      United States and Canada, they are of considerable volume, as the foreign
      office distributes in bulk a very large number of phonographs and records
      to selling companies and agencies in Europe, Asia, Australia, Japan, and,
      indeed, to all the countries of the civilized world. [19] Like England's
      drumbeat, the voice of the Edison phonograph is heard around the world in
      undying strains throughout the twenty-four hours.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 19: It may be of interest to the reader to note
     some parts of the globe to which shipments of phonographs
     and records are made:

     Samoan Islands Falkland Islands Siam Corea Crete Island
     Paraguay Chile Canary Islands Egypt British East Africa Cape
     Colony Portuguese East Africa Liberia Java Straits
     Settlements Madagascar Fanning Islands New Zealand French
     Indo-China Morocco Ecuador Brazil Madeira South Africa
     Azores Manchuria Ceylon Sierra Leone]
</pre>
    <p>
      In addition to the main manufacturing plant at Orange, another important
      adjunct must not be forgotten, and that is, the Recording Department in
      New York City, where the master records are made under the superintendence
      of experts who have studied the intricacies of the art with Edison
      himself. This department occupies an upper story in a lofty building, and
      in its various rooms may be seen and heard many prominent musicians,
      vocalists, speakers, and vaudeville artists studiously and busily engaged
      in making the original records, which are afterward sent to Orange, and
      which, if approved by the expert committee, are passed on to the proper
      department for reproduction in large quantities.
    </p>
    <p>
      When we consider the subject of motion pictures we find a similarity in
      general business methods, for while the projecting machines and copies of
      picture films are made in quantity at the Orange works (just as
      phonographs and duplicate records are so made), the original picture, or
      film, like the master record, is made elsewhere. There is this difference,
      however: that, from the particular nature of the work, practically ALL
      master records are made at one convenient place, while the essential
      interest in SOME motion pictures lies in the fact that they are taken in
      various parts of the world, often under exceptional circumstances. The
      "silent drama," however, calls also for many representations which employ
      conventional acting, staging, and the varied appliances of stagecraft.
      Hence, Edison saw early the necessity of providing a place especially
      devised and arranged for the production of dramatic performances in
      pantomime.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is a far cry from the crude structure of early days&mdash;the "Black
      Maria" of 1891, swung around on its pivot in the Orange laboratory yard&mdash;to
      the well-appointed Edison theatres, or pantomime studios, in New York
      City. The largest of these is located in the suburban Borough of the
      Bronx, and consists of a three-story-and-basement building of reinforced
      concrete, in which are the offices, dressing-rooms, wardrobe and
      property-rooms, library and developing department. Contiguous to this
      building, and connected with it, is the theatre proper, a large and lofty
      structure whose sides and roof are of glass, and whose floor space is
      sufficiently ample for six different sets of scenery at one time, with
      plenty of room left for a profusion of accessories, such as tables,
      chairs, pianos, bunch-lights, search-lights, cameras, and a host of varied
      paraphernalia pertaining to stage effects.
    </p>
    <p>
      The second Edison theatre, or studio, is located not far from the shopping
      district in New York City. In all essential features, except size and
      capacity, it is a duplicate of the one in the Bronx, of which it is a
      supplement.
    </p>
    <p>
      To a visitor coming on the floor of such a theatre for the first time
      there is a sense of confusion in beholding the heterogeneous "sets" of
      scenery and the motley assemblage of characters represented in the various
      plays in the process of "taking," or rehearsal. While each set constitutes
      virtually a separate stage, they are all on the same floor, without wings
      or proscenium-arches, and separated only by a few feet. Thus, for
      instance, a Japanese house interior may be seen cheek by jowl with an
      ordinary prison cell, flanked by a mining-camp, which in turn stands next
      to a drawing-room set, and in each a set of appropriate characters in
      pantomimic motion. The action is incessant, for in any dramatic
      representation intended for the motion-picture film every second counts.
    </p>
    <p>
      The production of several completed plays per week necessitates the
      employment of a considerable staff of people of miscellaneous trades and
      abilities. At each of these two studios there is employed a number of
      stage-directors, scene-painters, carpenters, property-men, photographers,
      costumers, electricians, clerks, and general assistants, besides a capable
      stock company of actors and actresses, whose generous numbers are
      frequently augmented by the addition of a special star, or by a number of
      extra performers, such as Rough Riders or other specialists. It may be,
      occasionally, that the exigencies of the occasion require the work of a
      performing horse, dog, or other animal. No matter what the object required
      may be, whether animate or inanimate, if it is necessary for the play it
      is found and pressed into service.
    </p>
    <p>
      These two studios, while separated from the main plant, are under the same
      general management, and their original negative films are forwarded as
      made to the Orange works, where the large copying department is located in
      one of the concrete buildings. Here, after the film has been passed upon
      by a committee, a considerable number of positive copies are made by
      ingenious processes, and after each one is separately tested, or "run
      off," in one or other of the three motion-picture theatres in the
      building, they are shipped out to film exchanges in every part of the
      country. How extensive this business has become may be appreciated when it
      is stated that at the Orange plant there are produced at this time over
      eight million feet of motion-picture film per year. And Edison's company
      is only one of many producers.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another of the industries at the Orange works is the manufacture of
      projecting kinetoscopes, by means of which the motion pictures are shown.
      While this of itself is also a business of considerable magnitude in its
      aggregate yearly transactions, it calls for no special comment in regard
      to commercial production, except to note that a corps of experimenters is
      constantly employed refining and perfecting details of the machine. Its
      basic features of operation as conceived by Edison remain unchanged.
    </p>
    <p>
      On coming to consider the Edison battery enterprises, we must perforce
      extend the territorial view to include a special chemical-manufacturing
      plant, which is in reality a branch of the laboratory and the Orange
      works, although actually situated about three miles away.
    </p>
    <p>
      Both the primary and the storage battery employ certain chemical products
      as essential parts of their elements, and indeed owe their very existence
      to the peculiar preparation and quality of such products, as exemplified
      by Edison's years of experimentation and research. Hence the establishment
      of his own chemical works at Silver Lake, where, under his personal
      supervision, the manufacture of these products is carried on in charge of
      specially trained experts. At the present writing the plant covers about
      seven acres of ground; but there is ample room for expansion, as Edison,
      with wise forethought, secured over forty acres of land, so as to be
      prepared for developments.
    </p>
    <p>
      Not only is the Silver Lake works used for the manufacture of the chemical
      substances employed in the batteries, but it is the plant at which the
      Edison primary battery is wholly assembled and made up for distribution to
      customers. This in itself is a business of no small magnitude, having
      grown steadily on its merits year by year until it has now arrived at a
      point where its sales run into the hundreds of thousands of cells per
      annum, furnished largely to the steam railroads of the country for their
      signal service.
    </p>
    <p>
      As to the storage battery, the plant at Silver Lake is responsible only
      for the production of the chemical compounds, nickel-hydrate and iron
      oxide, which enter into its construction. All the mechanical parts, the
      nickel plating, the manufacture of nickel flake, the assembling and
      testing, are carried on at the Orange works in two of the large concrete
      buildings above referred to. A visit to this part of the plant reveals an
      amazing fertility of resourcefulness and ingenuity in the devising of the
      special machines and appliances employed in constructing the mechanical
      parts of these cells, for it is practically impossible to fashion them by
      means of machinery and tools to be found in the open market,
      notwithstanding the immense variety that may be there obtained.
    </p>
    <p>
      Since Edison completed his final series of investigations on his storage
      battery and brought it to its present state of perfection, the commercial
      values have increased by leaps and bounds. The battery, as it was
      originally put out some years ago, made for itself an enviable reputation;
      but with its improved form there has come a vast increase of business.
      Although the largest of the concrete buildings where its manufacture is
      carried on is over four hundred feet long and four stories in height, it
      has already become necessary to plan extensions and enlargements of the
      plant in order to provide for the production of batteries to fill the
      present demands. It was not until the summer of 1909 that Edison was
      willing to pronounce the final verdict of satisfaction with regard to this
      improved form of storage battery; but subsequent commercial results have
      justified his judgment, and it is not too much to predict that in all
      probability the business will assume gigantic proportions within a very
      few years. At the present time (1910) the Edison storage-battery
      enterprise is in its early stages of growth, and its status may be
      compared with that of the electric-light system about the year 1881.
    </p>
    <p>
      There is one more industry, though of comparatively small extent, that is
      included in the activities of the Orange works, namely, the manufacture
      and sale of the Bates numbering machine. This is a well-known article of
      commerce, used in mercantile establishments for the stamping of
      consecutive, duplicate, and manifold numbers on checks and other
      documents. It is not an invention of Edison, but the organization owning
      it, together with the patent rights, were acquired by him some years ago,
      and he has since continued and enlarged the business both in scope and
      volume, besides, of course, improving and perfecting the apparatus itself.
      These machines are known everywhere throughout the country, and while the
      annual sales are of comparatively moderate amount in comparison with the
      totals of the other Edison industries at Orange, they represent in the
      aggregate a comfortable and encouraging business.
    </p>
    <p>
      In this brief outline review of the flourishing and extensive commercial
      enterprises centred around the Orange laboratory, the facts, it is
      believed, contain a complete refutation of the idea that an inventor
      cannot be a business man. They also bear abundant evidence of the
      compatibility of these two widely divergent gifts existing, even to a high
      degree, in the same person. A striking example of the correctness of this
      proposition is afforded in the present case, when it is borne in mind that
      these various industries above described (whose annual sales run into many
      millions of dollars) owe not only their very creation (except the Bates
      machine) and existence to Edison's inventive originality and commercial
      initiative, but also their continued growth and prosperity to his
      incessant activities in dealing with their multifarious business problems.
      In publishing a portrait of Edison this year, one of the popular magazines
      placed under it this caption: "Were the Age called upon to pay Thomas A.
      Edison all it owes to him, the Age would have to make an assignment." The
      present chapter will have thrown some light on the idiosyncrasies of
      Edison as financier and as manufacturer, and will have shown that while
      the claim thus suggested may be quite good, it will certainly never be
      pressed or collected.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXVII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE VALUE OF EDISON'S INVENTIONS TO THE WORLD
    </h3>
    <p>
      IF the world were to take an account of stock, so to speak, and proceed in
      orderly fashion to marshal its tangible assets in relation to dollars and
      cents, the natural resources of our globe, from centre to circumference,
      would head the list. Next would come inventors, whose value to the world
      as an asset could be readily estimated from an increase of its wealth
      resulting from the actual transformations of these resources into items of
      convenience and comfort through the exercise of their inventive ingenuity.
    </p>
    <p>
      Inventors of practical devices may be broadly divided into two classes&mdash;first,
      those who may be said to have made two blades of grass grow where only one
      grew before; and, second, great inventors, who have made grass grow
      plentifully on hitherto unproductive ground. The vast majority of
      practical inventors belong to and remain in the first of these divisions,
      but there have been, and probably always will be, a less number who, by
      reason of their greater achievements, are entitled to be included in both
      classes. Of these latter, Thomas Alva Edison is one, but in the pages of
      history he stands conspicuously pre-eminent&mdash;a commanding towering
      figure, even among giants.
    </p>
    <p>
      The activities of Edison have been of such great range, and his conquests
      in the domains of practical arts so extensive and varied, that it is
      somewhat difficult to estimate with any satisfactory degree of accuracy
      the money value of his inventions to the world of to-day, even after
      making due allowance for the work of other great inventors and the
      propulsive effect of large amounts of capital thrown into the enterprises
      which took root, wholly or in part, through the productions of his genius
      and energies. This difficulty will be apparent, for instance, when we
      consider his telegraph and telephone inventions. These were absorbed in
      enterprises already existing, and were the means of assisting their rapid
      growth and expansion, particularly the telephone industry. Again, in
      considering the fact that Edison was one of the first in the field to
      design and perfect a practical and operative electric railway, the main
      features of which are used in all electric roads of to-day, we are
      confronted with the problem as to what proportion of their colossal
      investment and earnings should be ascribed to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Difficulties are multiplied when we pause for a moment to think of
      Edison's influence on collateral branches of business. In the public mind
      he is credited with the invention of the incandescent electric light, the
      phonograph, and other widely known devices; but how few realize his actual
      influence on other trades that are not generally thought of in connection
      with these things. For instance, let us note what a prominent engine
      builder, the late Gardiner C. Sims, has said: "Watt, Corliss, and Porter
      brought forward steam-engines to a high state of proficiency, yet it
      remained for Mr. Edison to force better proportions, workmanship, designs,
      use of metals, regulation, the solving of the complex problems of high
      speed and endurance, and the successful development of the shaft governor.
      Mr. Edison is preeminent in the realm of engineering."
    </p>
    <p>
      The phenomenal growth of the copper industry was due to a rapid and
      ever-increasing demand, owing to the exploitation of the telephone,
      electric light, electric motor, and electric railway industries. Without
      these there might never have been the romance of "Coppers" and the rise
      and fall of countless fortunes. And although one cannot estimate in
      definite figures the extent of Edison's influence in the enormous increase
      of copper production, it is to be remembered that his basic inventions
      constitute a most important factor in the demand for the metal. Besides,
      one must also give him the credit, as already noted, for having recognized
      the necessity for a pure quality of copper for electric conductors, and
      for his persistence in having compelled the manufacturers of that period
      to introduce new and additional methods of refinement so as to bring about
      that result, which is now a sine qua non.
    </p>
    <p>
      Still considering his influence on other staples and collateral trades,
      let us enumerate briefly and in a general manner some of the more
      important and additional ones that have been not merely stimulated, but in
      many cases the business and sales have been directly increased and new
      arts established through the inventions of this one man&mdash;namely,
      iron, steel, brass, zinc, nickel, platinum ($5 per ounce in 1878, now $26
      an ounce), rubber, oils, wax, bitumen, various chemical compounds,
      belting, boilers, injectors, structural steel, iron tubing, glass, silk,
      cotton, porcelain, fine woods, slate, marble, electrical measuring
      instruments, miscellaneous machinery, coal, wire, paper, building
      materials, sapphires, and many others.
    </p>
    <p>
      The question before us is, To what extent has Edison added to the wealth
      of the world by his inventions and his energy and perseverance? It will be
      noted from the foregoing that no categorical answer can be offered to such
      a question, but sufficient material can be gathered from a statistical
      review of the commercial arts directly influenced to afford an approximate
      idea of the increase in national wealth that has been affected by or has
      come into being through the practical application of his ideas.
    </p>
    <p>
      First of all, as to inventions capable of fairly definite estimate, let us
      mention the incandescent electric light and systems of distribution of
      electric light, heat, and power, which may justly be considered as the
      crowning inventions of Edison's life. Until October 21, 1879, there was
      nothing in existence resembling our modern incandescent lamp. On that
      date, as we have seen in a previous chapter, Edison's labors culminated in
      his invention of a practical incandescent electric lamp embodying
      absolutely all the essentials of the lamp of to-day, thus opening to the
      world the doors of a new art and industry. To-day there are in the United
      States more than 41,000,000 of these lamps, connected to existing
      central-station circuits in active operation.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such circuits necessarily imply the existence of central stations with
      their equipment. Until the beginning of 1882 there were only a few
      arc-lighting stations in existence for the limited distribution of
      current. At the present time there are over 6000 central stations in this
      country for the distribution of electric current for light, heat, and
      power, with capital obligations amounting to not less than $1,000,000,000.
      Besides the above-named 41,000,000 incandescent lamps connected to their
      mains, there are about 500,000 arc lamps and 150,000 motors, using 750,000
      horse-power, besides countless fan motors and electric heating and cooking
      appliances.
    </p>
    <p>
      When it is stated that the gross earnings of these central stations
      approximate the sum of $225,000,000 yearly, the significant import of
      these statistics of an art that came so largely from Edison's laboratory
      about thirty years ago will undoubtedly be apparent.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the above are not by any means all the facts relating to incandescent
      electric lighting in the United States, for in addition to central
      stations there are upward of 100,000 isolated or private plants in mills,
      factories, steamships, hotels, theatres, etc., owned by the persons or
      concerns who operate them. These plants represent an approximate
      investment of $500,000,000, and the connection of not less than 25,000,000
      incandescent lamps or their equivalent.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then there are the factories where these incandescent lamps are made,
      about forty in number, representing a total investment that may be
      approximated at $25,000,000. It is true that many of these factories are
      operated by other than the interests which came into control of the Edison
      patents (General Electric Company), but the 150,000,000 incandescent
      electric lamps now annually made are broadly covered in principle by
      Edison's fundamental ideas and patents.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will be noted that these figures are all in round numbers, but they are
      believed to be well within the mark, being primarily founded upon the
      special reports of the Census Bureau issued in 1902 and 1907, with the
      natural increase from that time computed by experts who are in position to
      obtain the facts. It would be manifestly impossible to give exact figures
      of such a gigantic and swiftly moving industry, whose totals increase from
      week to week.
    </p>
    <p>
      The reader will naturally be disposed to ask whether it is intended to
      claim that Edison has brought about all this magnificent growth of the
      electric-lighting art. The answer to this is decidedly in the negative,
      for the fact is that he laid some of the foundation and erected a building
      thereon, and in the natural progressive order of things other inventors of
      more or less fame have laid substructures or added a wing here and a story
      there until the resultant great structure has attained such proportions as
      to evoke the admiration of the beholder; but the old foundation and the
      fundamental building still remain to support other parts. In other words,
      Edison created the incandescent electric lamp, and invented certain broad
      and fundamental systems of distribution of current, with all the essential
      devices of detail necessary for successful operation. These formed a
      foundation. He also spent great sums of money and devoted several years of
      patient labor in the early practical exploitation of the dynamo and
      central station and isolated plants, often under, adverse and depressing
      circumstances, with a dogged determination that outlived an opposition
      steadily threatening defeat. These efforts resulted in the firm commercial
      establishment of modern electric lighting. It is true that many important
      inventions of others have a distinguished place in the art as it is
      exploited today, but the fact remains that the broad essentials, such as
      the incandescent lamp, systems of distribution, and some important
      details, are not only universally used, but are as necessary to-day for
      successful commercial practice as they were when Edison invented them many
      years ago.
    </p>
    <p>
      The electric railway next claims our consideration, but we are immediately
      confronted by a difficulty which seems insurmountable when we attempt to
      formulate any definite estimate of the value and influence of Edison's
      pioneer work and inventions. There is one incontrovertible fact&mdash;namely,
      that he was the first man to devise, construct, and operate from a central
      station a practicable, life-size electric railroad, which was capable of
      transporting and did transport passengers and freight at variable speeds
      over varying grades, and under complete control of the operator. These are
      the essential elements in all electric railroading of the present day; but
      while Edison's original broad ideas are embodied in present practice, the
      perfection of the modern electric railway is greatly due to the labors and
      inventions of a large number of other well-known inventors. There was no
      reason why Edison could not have continued the commercial development of
      the electric railway after he had helped to show its practicability in
      1880, 1881, and 1882, just as he had completed his lighting system, had it
      not been that his financial allies of the period lacked faith in the
      possibilities of electric railroads, and therefore declined to furnish the
      money necessary for the purpose of carrying on the work.
    </p>
    <p>
      With these facts in mind, we shall ask the reader to assign to Edison a
      due proportion of credit for his pioneer and basic work in relation to the
      prodigious development of electric railroading that has since taken place.
      The statistics of 1908 for American street and elevated railways show that
      within twenty-five years the electric-railway industry has grown to
      embrace 38,812 miles of track on streets and for elevated railways,
      operated under the ownership of 1238 separate companies, whose total
      capitalization amounted to the enormous sum of $4,123,834,598. In the
      equipments owned by such companies there are included 68,636 electric cars
      and 17,568 trailers and others, making a total of 86,204 of such vehicles.
      These cars and equipments earned over $425,000,000 in 1907, in giving the
      public transportation, at a cost, including transfers, of a little over
      three cents per passenger, for whom a fifteen-mile ride would be possible.
      It is the cheapest transportation in the world.
    </p>
    <p>
      Some mention should also be made of the great electrical works of the
      country, in which the dynamos, motors, and other varied paraphernalia are
      made for electric lighting, electric railway, and other purposes. The
      largest of these works is undoubtedly that of the General Electric Company
      at Schenectady, New York, a continuation and enormous enlargement of the
      shops which Edison established there in 1886. This plant at the present
      time embraces over 275 acres, of which sixty acres are covered by fifty
      large and over one hundred small buildings; besides which the company also
      owns other large plants elsewhere, representing a total investment
      approximating the sum of $34,850,000 up to 1908. The productions of the
      General Electric Company alone average annual sales of nearly $75,000,000,
      but they do not comprise the total of the country's manufactures in these
      lines.
    </p>
    <p>
      Turning our attention now to the telephone, we again meet a condition that
      calls for thoughtful consideration before we can properly appreciate how
      much the growth of this industry owes to Edison's inventive genius. In
      another place there has already been told the story of the telephone, from
      which we have seen that to Alexander Graham Bell is due the broad idea of
      transmission of speech by means of an electrical circuit; also that he
      invented appropriate instruments and devices through which he accomplished
      this result, although not to that extent which gave promise of any great
      commercial practicability for the telephone as it then existed. While the
      art was in this inefficient condition, Edison went to work on the subject,
      and in due time, as we have already learned, invented and brought out the
      carbon transmitter, which is universally acknowledged to have been the
      needed device that gave to the telephone the element of commercial
      practicability, and has since led to its phenomenally rapid adoption and
      world-wide use. It matters not that others were working in the same
      direction, Edison was legally adjudicated to have been the first to
      succeed in point of time, and his inventions were put into actual use, and
      may be found in principle in every one of the 7,000,000 telephones which
      are estimated to be employed in the country at the present day. Basing the
      statements upon facts shown by the Census reports of 1902 and 1907, and
      adding thereto the growth of the industry since that time, we find on a
      conservative estimate that at this writing the investment has been not
      less than $800,000,000 in now existing telephone systems, while no fewer
      than 10,500,000,000 talks went over the lines during the year 1908. These
      figures relate only to telephone systems, and do not include any details
      regarding the great manufacturing establishments engaged in the
      construction of telephone apparatus, of which there is a production
      amounting to at least $15,000,000 per annum.
    </p>
    <p>
      Leaving the telephone, let us now turn our attention to the telegraph, and
      endeavor to show as best we can some idea of the measure to which it has
      been affected by Edison's inventions. Although, as we have seen in a
      previous part of this book, his earliest fame arose from his great
      practical work in telegraphic inventions and improvements, there is no way
      in which any definite computation can be made of the value of his
      contributions in the art except, perhaps, in the case of his quadruplex,
      through which alone it is estimated that there has been saved from
      $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 in the cost of line construction in this
      country. If this were the only thing that he had ever accomplished, it
      would entitle him to consideration as an inventor of note. The quadruplex,
      however, has other material advantages, but how far they and the natural
      growth of the business have contributed to the investment and earnings of
      the telegraph companies, is beyond practicable computation.
    </p>
    <p>
      It would, perhaps, be interesting to speculate upon what might have been
      the growth of the telegraph and the resultant benefit to the community had
      Edison's automatic telegraph inventions been allowed to take their
      legitimate place in the art, but we shall not allow ourselves to indulge
      in flights of fancy, as the value of this chapter rests not upon
      conjecture, but only upon actual fact. Nor shall we attempt to offer any
      statistics regarding Edison's numerous inventions relating to telegraphs
      and kindred devices, such as stock tickers, relays, magnets, rheotomes,
      repeaters, printing telegraphs, messenger calls, etc., on which he was so
      busily occupied as an inventor and manufacturer during the ten years that
      began with January, 1869. The principles of many of these devices are
      still used in the arts, but have become so incorporated in other devices
      as to be inseparable, and cannot now be dealt with separately. To show
      what they mean, however, it might be noted that New York City alone has
      3000 stock "tickers," consuming 50,000 miles of record tape every year.
    </p>
    <p>
      Turning now to other important arts and industries which have been created
      by Edison's inventions, and in which he is at this time taking an active
      personal interest, let us visit Orange, New Jersey. When his present
      laboratory was nearing completion in 1887, he wrote to Mr. J. Hood Wright,
      a partner in the firm of Drexel, Morgan &amp; Co.: "My ambition is to
      build up a great industrial works in the Orange Valley, starting in a
      small way and gradually working up."
    </p>
    <p>
      In this plant, which represents an investment approximating the sum of
      $4,000,000, are grouped a number of industrial enterprises of which Edison
      is either the sole or controlling owner and the guiding spirit. These
      enterprises are the National Phonograph Company, the Edison Business
      Phonograph Company, the Edison Phonograph Works, the Edison Manufacturing
      Company, the Edison Storage Battery Company, and the Bates Manufacturing
      Company. The importance of these industries will be apparent when it is
      stated that at this plant the maximum pay-roll shows the employment of
      over 4200 persons, with annual earnings in salaries and wages of more than
      $2,750,000.
    </p>
    <p>
      In considering the phonograph in its commercial aspect, and endeavoring to
      arrive at some idea of the world's estimate of the value of this
      invention, we feel the ground more firm under our feet, for Edison has in
      later years controlled its manufacture and sale. It will be remembered
      that the phonograph lay dormant, commercially speaking, for about ten
      years after it came into being, and then later invention reduced it to a
      device capable of more popular utility. A few years of rather
      unsatisfactory commercial experience brought about a reorganization,
      through which Edison resumed possession of the business. It has since been
      continued under his general direction and ownership, and he has made a
      great many additional inventions tending to improve the machine in all its
      parts.
    </p>
    <p>
      The uses made of the phonograph up to this time have been of four kinds,
      generally speaking&mdash;first, and principally, for amusement; second,
      for instruction in languages; third, for business, in the dictation of
      correspondence; and fourth, for sentimental reasons in preserving the
      voices of friends. No separate figures are available to show the extent of
      its employment in the second and fourth classes, as they are probably
      included in machines coming under the first subdivision. Under this head
      we find that there have been upward of 1,310,000 phonographs sold during
      the last twenty years, with and for which there have been made and sold no
      fewer than 97,845,000 records of a musical or other character.
      Phonographic records are now being manufactured at Orange at the rate of
      75,000 a day, the annual sale of phonographs and records being
      approximately $7,000,000, including business phonographs. This does not
      include blank records, of which large numbers have also been supplied to
      the public.
    </p>
    <p>
      The adoption of the business phonograph has not been characterized by the
      unanimity that obtained in the case of the one used merely for amusement,
      as its use involves some changes in methods that business men are slow to
      adopt until they realize the resulting convenience and economy. Although
      it is only a few years since the business phonograph has begun to make
      some headway, it is not difficult to appreciate that Edison's prediction
      in 1878 as to the value of such an appliance is being realized, when we
      find that up to this time the sales run up to 12,695 in number. At the
      present time the annual sales of the business phonographs and supplies,
      cylinders, etc., are not less than $350,000.
    </p>
    <p>
      We must not forget that the basic patent of Edison on the phonograph has
      long since expired, thus throwing open to the world the wonderful art of
      reproducing human speech and other sounds. The world was not slow to take
      advantage of the fact, hence there are in the field numerous other
      concerns in the same business. It is conservatively estimated by those who
      know the trade and are in position to form an opinion, that the figures
      above given represent only about one-half of the entire business of the
      country in phonographs, records, cylinders, and supplies.
    </p>
    <p>
      Taking next his inventions that pertain to a more recently established but
      rapidly expanding branch of business that provides for the amusement of
      the public, popularly known as "motion pictures," we also find a general
      recognition of value created. Referring the reader to a previous chapter
      for a discussion of Edison's standing as a pioneer inventor in this art,
      let us glance at the commercial proportions of this young but lusty
      business, whose ramifications extend to all but the most remote and
      primitive hamlets of our country.
    </p>
    <p>
      The manufacture of the projecting machines and accessories, together with
      the reproduction of films, is carried on at the Orange Valley plant, and
      from the inception of the motion-picture business to the present time
      there have been made upward of 16,000 projecting machines and many million
      feet of films carrying small photographs of moving objects. Although the
      motion-picture business, as a commercial enterprise, is still in its
      youth, it is of sufficient moment to call for the annual production of
      thousands of machines and many million feet of films in Edison's shops,
      having a sale value of not less than $750,000. To produce the originals
      from which these Edison films are made, there have been established two
      "studios," the largest of which is in the Bronx, New York City.
    </p>
    <p>
      In this, as well as in the phonograph business, there are many other
      manufacturers in the field. Indeed, the annual product of the Edison
      Manufacturing Company in this line is only a fractional part of the total
      that is absorbed by the 8000 or more motion-picture theatres and
      exhibitions that are in operation in the United States at the present
      time, and which represent an investment of some $45,000,000. Licensees
      under Edison patents in this country alone produce upward of 60,000,000
      feet of films annually, containing more than a billion and a half separate
      photographs. To what extent the motion-picture business may grow in the
      not remote future it is impossible to conjecture, for it has taken a place
      in the front rank of rapidly increasing enterprises.
    </p>
    <p>
      The manufacture and sale of the Edison-Lalande primary battery, conducted
      by the Edison Manufacturing Company at the Orange Valley plant, is a
      business of no mean importance. Beginning about twenty years ago with a
      battery that, without polarizing, would furnish large currents specially
      adapted for gas-engine ignition and other important purposes, the business
      has steadily grown in magnitude until the present output amounts to about
      125,000 cells annually; the total number of cells put into the hands of
      the public up to date being approximately 1,500,000. It will be readily
      conceded that to most men this alone would be an enterprise of a lifetime,
      and sufficient in itself to satisfy a moderate ambition. But, although it
      has yielded a considerable profit to Edison and gives employment to many
      people, it is only one of the many smaller enterprises that owe an
      existence to his inventive ability and commercial activity.
    </p>
    <p>
      So it also is in regard to the mimeograph, whose forerunner, the electric
      pen, was born of Edison's brain in 1877. He had been long impressed by the
      desirability of the rapid production of copies of written documents, and,
      as we have seen by a previous chapter, he invented the electric pen for
      this purpose, only to improve upon it later with a more desirable device
      which he called the mimeograph, that is in use, in various forms, at this
      time. Although the electric pen had a large sale and use in its time, the
      statistics relating to it are not available. The mimeograph, however, is,
      and has been for many years, a standard office appliance, and is entitled
      to consideration, as the total number put into use up to this time is
      approximately 180,000, valued at $3,500,000, while the annual output is in
      the neighborhood of 9000 machines, sold for about $150,000, besides the
      vast quantity of special paper and supplies which its use entails in the
      production of the many millions of facsimile letters and documents. The
      extent of production and sale of supplies for the mimeograph may be
      appreciated when it is stated that they bring annually an equivalent of
      three times the amount realized from sales of machines. The manufacture
      and sale of the mimeograph does not come within the enterprises conducted
      under Edison's personal direction, as he sold out the whole thing some
      years ago to Mr. A. B. Dick, of Chicago.
    </p>
    <p>
      In making a somewhat radical change of subject, from duplicating machines
      to cement, we find ourselves in a field in which Edison has made a most
      decided impression. The reader has already learned that his entry into
      this field was, in a manner, accidental, although logically in line with
      pronounced convictions of many years' standing, and following up the fund
      of knowledge gained in the magnetic ore-milling business. From being a
      new-comer in the cement business, his corporation in five years has grown
      to be the fifth largest producer in the United States, with a still
      increasing capacity. From the inception of this business there has been a
      steady and rapid development, resulting in the production of a grand total
      of over 7,300,000 barrels of cement up to the present date, having a value
      of about $6,000,000, exclusive of package. At the time of this writing,
      the rate of production is over 8000 barrels of cement per day, or, say,
      2,500,000 barrels per year, having an approximate selling value of a
      little less than $2,000,000, with prospects of increasing in the near
      future to a daily output of 10,000 barrels. This enterprise is carried on
      by a corporation called the Edison Portland Cement Company, in which he is
      very largely interested, and of which he is the active head and guiding
      spirit.
    </p>
    <p>
      Had not Edison suspended the manufacture and sale of his storage battery a
      few years ago because he was not satisfied with it, there might have been
      given here some noteworthy figures of an extensive business, for the
      company's books show an astonishing number of orders that were received
      during the time of the shut-down. He was implored for batteries, but in
      spite of the fact that good results had been obtained from the 18,000 or
      20,000 cells sold some years ago, he adhered firmly to his determination
      to perfect them to a still higher standard before resuming and continuing
      their manufacture as a regular commodity. As we have noted in a previous
      chapter, however, deliveries of the perfected type were begun in the
      summer of 1909, and since that time the business has continued to grow in
      the measure indicated by the earlier experience.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus far we have concerned ourselves chiefly with those figures which
      exhibit the extent of investment and production, but there is another and
      humanly important side that presents itself for consideration namely, the
      employment of a vast industrial army of men and women, who earn a living
      through their connection with some of the arts and industries to which our
      narrative has direct reference. To this the reader's attention will now be
      drawn.
    </p>
    <p>
      The following figures are based upon the Special Reports of the Census
      Bureau, 1902 and 1907, with additions computed upon the increase that has
      subsequently taken place. In the totals following is included the
      compensation paid to salaried officials and clerks. Details relating to
      telegraph systems are omitted.
    </p>
    <p>
      Taking the electric light into consideration first, we find that in the
      central stations of the United States there are not less than an average
      of 50,000 persons employed, requiring an aggregate yearly payroll of over
      $40,000,000. This does not include the 100,000 or more isolated
      electric-light plants scattered throughout the land. Many of these are
      quite large, and at least one-third of them require one additional helper,
      thus adding, say, 33,000 employees to the number already mentioned. If we
      assume as low a wage as $10 per week for each of these helpers, we must
      add to the foregoing an additional sum of over $17,000,000 paid annually
      for wages, almost entirely in the isolated incandescent electric lighting
      field.
    </p>
    <p>
      Central stations and isolated plants consume over 100,000,000 incandescent
      electric lamps annually, and in the production of these there are engaged
      about forty factories, on whose pay-rolls appear an average of 14,000
      employees, earning an aggregate yearly sum of $8,000,000.
    </p>
    <p>
      Following the incandescent lamp we must not forget an industry exclusively
      arising from it and absolutely dependent upon it&mdash;namely, that of
      making fixtures for such lamps, the manufacture of which gives employment
      to upward of 6000 persons, who annually receive at least $3,750,000 in
      compensation.
    </p>
    <p>
      The detail devices of the incandescent electric lighting system also
      contribute a large quota to the country's wealth in the millions of
      dollars paid out in salaries and wages to many thousands of persons who
      are engaged in their manufacture.
    </p>
    <p>
      The electric railways of our country show even larger figures than the
      lighting stations and plants, as they employ on the average over 250,000
      persons, whose annual compensation amounts to not less than $155,000,000.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the manufacture of about $50,000,000 worth of dynamos and motors
      annually, for central-station equipment, isolated plants, electric
      railways, and other purposes, the manufacturers of the country employ an
      average of not less than 30,000 people, whose yearly pay-roll amounts to
      no less a sum than $20,000,000.
    </p>
    <p>
      The growth of the telephone systems of the United States also furnishes us
      with statistics of an analogous nature, for we find that the average
      number of employees engaged in this industry is at least 140,000, whose
      annual earnings aggregate a minimum of $75,000,000; besides which the
      manufacturers of telephone apparatus employ over 12,000 persons, to whom
      is paid annually about $5,500,000.
    </p>
    <p>
      No attempt is made to include figures of collateral industries, such, for
      instance, as copper, which is very closely allied with the electrical
      arts, and the great bulk of which is refined electrically.
    </p>
    <p>
      The 8000 or so motion-picture theatres of the country employ no fewer than
      40,000 people, whose aggregate annual income amounts to not less than
      $37,000,000.
    </p>
    <p>
      Coming now to the Orange Valley plant, we take a drop from these figures
      to the comparatively modest ones which give us an average of 3600
      employees and calling for an annual pay-roll of about $2,250,000. It must
      be remembered, however, that the sums mentioned above represent industries
      operated by great aggregations of capital, while the Orange Valley plant,
      as well as the Edison Portland Cement Company, with an average daily
      number of 530 employees and over $400,000 annual pay-roll, represent in a
      large measure industries that are more in the nature of closely held
      enterprises and practically under the direction of one mind.
    </p>
    <p>
      The table herewith given summarizes the figures that have just been
      presented, and affords an idea of the totals affected by the genius of
      this one man. It is well known that many other men and many other
      inventions have been needed for the perfection of these arts; but it is
      equally true that, as already noted, some of these industries are directly
      the creation of Edison, while in every one of the rest his impress has
      been deep and significant. Before he began inventing, only two of them
      were known at all as arts&mdash;telegraphy and the manufacture of cement.
      Moreover, these figures deal only with the United States, and take no
      account of the development of many of the Edison inventions in Europe or
      of their adoption throughout the world at large. Let it suffice
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  STATISTICAL RESUME (APPROXIMATE) OF SOME OF THE INDUSTRIES
  IN THE UNITED STATES DIRECTLY FOUNDED UPON OR
  AFFECTED BY INVENTIONS OF THOMAS A. EDISON
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
                                              Annual
                                            Gross Rev-     Number     Annual
  Class of Industry           Investment     enue or      of Em-     Pay-Rolls
                                              sales
  Central station lighting
   and power              $1,000,000,000    $125,000,000   50,000   $40,000,000
  Isolated incandescent
   lighting                  500,000,000         &mdash;        33,000    17,000 000
  Incandescent lamps          25,000,000      20,000,000   14,000     8,000 000
  Electric fixtures            8,000,000       5,000,000    6,000     3,750,000
  Dynamos and motors          60,000,000      50,000,000   30,000    20,000,000
  Electric railways        4,000,000,000     430,000,000  250,000   155,000,000
  Telephone systems          800,000,000     175,000,000  140,000    75,000,000
  Telephone apparatus         30,000,000      15,000,000   12,000     5,500,000
  Phonograph and motion
   pictures                   10,000,000      15,000,000    5,000     6,000,000
  Motion picture theatres     40,000,000      80,000,000   40,000    37,000,000
  Edison Portland cement       4,000,000       2,000,000      530       400,000
  Telegraphy                 250,000,000      60,000,000   100,000   30,000,000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------Totals
                           6,727,000,000   1,077,000,000   680,530   397,650,000
</pre>
    <p>
      that in America alone the work of Edison has been one of the most potent
      factors in bringing into existence new industries now capitalized at
      nearly $ 7,000,000,000, earning annually over $1,000,000,000, and giving
      employment to an army of more than six hundred thousand people.
    </p>
    <p>
      A single diamond, prismatically flashing from its many facets the beauties
      of reflected light, comes well within the limits of comprehension of the
      human mind and appeals to appreciation by the finer sensibilities; but in
      viewing an exhibition of thousands of these beautiful gems, the eye and
      brain are simply bewildered with the richness of a display which tends to
      confuse the intellect until the function of analysis comes into play and
      leads to more adequate apprehension.
    </p>
    <p>
      So, in presenting the mass of statistics contained in this chapter, we
      fear that the result may have been the bewilderment of the reader to some
      extent. Nevertheless, in writing a biography of Edison, the main object is
      to present the facts as they are, and leave it to the intelligent reader
      to classify, apply, and analyze them in such manner as appeals most
      forcibly to his intellectual processes. If in the foregoing pages there
      has appeared to be a tendency to attribute to Edison the entire credit for
      the growth to which many of the above-named great enterprises have in
      these latter days attained, we must especially disclaim any intention of
      giving rise to such a deduction. No one who has carefully followed the
      course of this narrative can deny, however, that Edison is the father of
      some of the arts and industries that have been mentioned, and that as to
      some of the others it was the magic of his touch that helped make them
      practicable. Not only to his work and ingenuity is due the present
      magnitude of these arts and industries, but it is attributable also to the
      splendid work and numerous contributions of other great inventors, such as
      Brush, Bell, Elihu Thomson, Weston, Sprague, and many others, as well as
      to the financiers and investors who in the past thirty years have
      furnished the vast sums of money that were necessary to exploit and push
      forward these enterprises.
    </p>
    <p>
      The reader may have noticed in a perusal of this chapter the lack of
      autobiographical quotations, such as have appeared in other parts of this
      narrative. Edison's modesty has allowed us but one remark on the subject.
      This was made by him to one of the writers a short time ago, when, after
      an interesting indulgence in reminiscences of old times and early
      inventions, he leaned back in his chair, and with a broad smile on his
      face, said, reflectively: "Say, I HAVE been mixed up in a whole lot of
      things, haven't I?"
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXVIII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE BLACK FLAG
    </h3>
    <p>
      THROUGHOUT the forty-odd years of his creative life, Edison has realized
      by costly experience the truth of the cynical proverb that "A patent is
      merely a title to a lawsuit." It is not intended, however, by this
      statement to lead to any inference on the part of the reader that HE
      stands peculiarly alone in any such experience, for it has been and still
      is the common lot of every successful inventor, sooner or later.
    </p>
    <p>
      To attribute dishonesty or cupidity as the root of the defence in all
      patent litigation would be aiming very wide of the mark, for in no class
      of suits that come before the courts are there any that present a greater
      variety of complex, finely shaded questions, or that require more delicacy
      of interpretation, than those that involve the construction of patents,
      particularly those relating to electrical devices. Indeed, a careful study
      of legal procedure of this character could not be carried far without
      discovery of the fact that in numerous instances the differences of
      opinion between litigants were marked by the utmost bona fides.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the other hand, such study would reveal many cases of undoubted
      fraudulent intent, as well as many bold attempts to deprive the inventor
      of the fruits of his endeavors by those who have sought to evade, through
      subtle technicalities of the law, the penalty justly due them for
      trickery, evasion, or open contempt of the rights of others.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the history of science and of the arts to which the world has owed its
      continued progress from year to year there is disclosed one remarkable
      fact, and that is, that whenever any important discovery or invention has
      been made and announced by one man, it has almost always been disclosed
      later that other men&mdash;possibly widely separated and knowing nothing
      of the other's work&mdash;have been following up the same general lines of
      investigation, independently, with the same object in mind. Their
      respective methods might be dissimilar while tending to the same end, but
      it does not necessarily follow that any one of these other experimenters
      might ever have achieved the result aimed at, although, after the
      proclamation of success by one, it is easy to believe that each of the
      other independent investigators might readily persuade himself that he
      would ultimately have reached the goal in just that same way.
    </p>
    <p>
      This peculiar coincidence of simultaneous but separate work not only comes
      to light on the bringing out of great and important discoveries or
      inventions, but becomes more apparent if a new art is disclosed, for then
      the imagination of previous experimenters is stimulated through wide
      dissemination of the tidings, sometimes resulting in more or less effort
      to enter the newly opened field with devices or methods that resemble
      closely the original and fundamental ones in principle and application. In
      this and other ways there arises constantly in the United States Patent
      Office a large number of contested cases, called "Interferences," where
      applications for patents covering the invention of a similar device have
      been independently filed by two or even more persons. In such cases only
      one patent can be issued, and that to the inventor who on the taking of
      testimony shows priority in date of invention. [20]
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 20: A most remarkable instance of contemporaneous
     invention and without a parallel in the annals of the United
     States Patent Office, occurred when, on the same day,
     February 15, 1876, two separate descriptions were filed in
     that office, one a complete application and the other a
     caveat, but each covering an invention for "transmitting
     vocal sounds telegraphically." The application was made by
     Alexander Graham Bell, of Salem, Massachusetts, and the
     caveat by Elisha Gray, of Chicago, Illinois. On examination
     of the two papers it was found that both of them covered
     practically the same ground, hence, as only one patent could
     be granted, it became necessary to ascertain the precise
     hour at which the documents were respectively filed, and put
     the parties in interference. This was done, with the result
     that the patent was ultimately awarded to Bell.]
</pre>
    <p>
      In the opening up and development of any new art based upon a fundamental
      discovery or invention, there ensues naturally an era of supplemental or
      collateral inventive activity&mdash;the legitimate outcome of the basic
      original ideas. Part of this development may be due to the inventive skill
      and knowledge of the original inventor and his associates, who, by reason
      of prior investigation, would be in better position to follow up the art
      in its earliest details than others, who might be regarded as mere
      outsiders. Thus a new enterprise may be presented before the world by its
      promoters in the belief that they are strongly fortified by patent rights
      which will protect them in a degree commensurate with the risks they have
      assumed.
    </p>
    <p>
      Supplemental inventions, however, in any art, new or old, are not limited
      to those which emanate from the original workers, for the ingenuity of
      man, influenced by the spirit of the times, seizes upon any novel line of
      action and seeks to improve or enlarge upon it, or, at any rate, to
      produce more or less variation of its phases. Consequently, there is a
      constant endeavor on the part of a countless host of men possessing some
      degree of technical skill and inventive ability, to win fame and money by
      entering into the already opened fields of endeavor with devices and
      methods of their own, for which subsidiary patents may be obtainable. Some
      of such patents may prove to be valuable, while it is quite certain that
      in the natural order of things others will be commercially worthless, but
      none may be entirely disregarded in the history and development of the
      art.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will be quite obvious, therefore, that the advent of any useful
      invention or discovery, great or small, is followed by a clashing of many
      interests which become complex in their interpretation by reason of the
      many conflicting claims that cluster around the main principle. Nor is the
      confusion less confounded through efforts made on the part of dishonest
      persons, who, like vultures, follow closely on the trail of successful
      inventors and (sometimes through information derived by underhand methods)
      obtain patents on alleged inventions, closely approximating the real ones,
      solely for the purpose of harassing the original patentee until they are
      bought up, or else, with the intent of competing boldly in the new
      business, trust in the delays of legal proceedings to obtain a sure
      foothold in their questionable enterprise.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then again there are still others who, having no patent rights, but waving
      aside all compunction and in downright fraud, simply enter the commercial
      field against the whole world, using ruthlessly whatever inventive skill
      and knowledge the original patentee may have disclosed, and trusting to
      the power of money, rapid movement, and mendacious advertising to build up
      a business which shall presently assume such formidable proportions as to
      force a compromise, or stave off an injunction until the patent has
      expired. In nine cases out of ten such a course can be followed with
      relative impunity; and guided by skilful experts who may suggest really
      trivial changes here and there over the patented structure, and with the
      aid of keen and able counsel, hardly a patent exists that could not be
      invaded by such infringers. Such is the condition of our laws and practice
      that the patentee in seeking to enforce his rights labors under a terrible
      handicap.
    </p>
    <p>
      And, finally, in this recital of perplexing conditions confronting the
      inventor, there must not be forgotten the commercial "shark," whose
      predatory instincts are ever keenly alert for tender victims. In the wake
      of every newly developed art of world-wide importance there is sure to
      follow a number of unscrupulous adventurers, who hasten to take advantage
      of general public ignorance of the true inwardness of affairs. Basing
      their operations on this lack of knowledge, and upon the tendency of human
      nature to give credence to widely advertised and high-sounding
      descriptions and specious promises of vast profits, these men find little
      difficulty in conjuring money out of the pockets of the unsophisticated
      and gullible, who rush to become stockholders in concerns that have "airy
      nothings" for a foundation, and that collapse quickly when the bubble is
      pricked. [21]
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 21: A notable instance of the fleecing of
     unsuspecting and credulous persons occurred in the early
     eighties, during the furor occasioned by the introduction of
     Mr. Edison's electric-light system. A corporation claiming
     to have a self-generating dynamo (practically perpetual
     motion) advertised its preposterous claims extensively, and
     actually succeeded in selling a large amount of stock,
     which, of course, proved to be absolutely worthless.]
</pre>
    <p>
      To one who is unacquainted with the trying circumstances attending the
      introduction and marketing of patented devices, it might seem unnecessary
      that an inventor and his business associates should be obliged to take
      into account the unlawful or ostensible competition of pirates or
      schemers, who, in the absence of legal decision, may run a free course for
      a long time. Nevertheless, as public patronage is the element vitally
      requisite for commercial success, and as the public is not usually in full
      possession of all the facts and therefore cannot discriminate between the
      genuine and the false, the legitimate inventor must avail himself of every
      possible means of proclaiming and asserting his rights if he desires to
      derive any benefit from the results of his skill and labor. Not only must
      he be prepared to fight in the Patent Office and pursue a regular course
      of patent litigation against those who may honestly deem themselves to be
      protected by other inventions or patents of similar character, and also
      proceed against more palpable infringers who are openly, defiantly, and
      illegitimately engaged in competitive business operations, but he must, as
      well, endeavor to protect himself against the assaults of impudent fraud
      by educating the public mind to a point of intelligent apprehension of the
      true status of his invention and the conflicting claims involved.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the nature of a patent right is considered it is difficult to see why
      this should be so. The inventor creates a new thing&mdash;an invention of
      utility&mdash;and the people, represented by the Federal Government, say
      to him in effect: "Disclose your invention to us in a patent so that we
      may know how to practice it, and we will agree to give you a monopoly for
      seventeen years, after which we shall be free to use it. If the right thus
      granted is invaded, apply to a Federal Court and the infringer will be
      enjoined and required to settle in damages." Fair and false promise! Is it
      generally realized that no matter how flagrant the infringement nor how
      barefaced and impudent the infringer, no Federal Court will grant an
      injunction UNTIL THE PATENT SHALL HAVE BEEN FIRST LITIGATED TO FINAL
      HEARING AND SUSTAINED? A procedure, it may be stated, requiring years of
      time and thousands of dollars, during which other infringers have
      generally entered the field, and all have grown fat.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus Edison and his business associates have been forced into a veritable
      maelstrom of litigation during the major part of the last forty years, in
      the effort to procure for themselves a small measure of protection for
      their interests under the numerous inventions of note that he has made at
      various times in that period. The earlier years of his inventive activity,
      while productive of many important contributions to electrical industries,
      such as stock tickers and printers, duplex, quadruplex, and automatic
      telegraphs, were not marked by the turmoil of interminable legal conflicts
      that arose after the beginning of the telephone and electric-light epochs.
      In fact, his inventions; up to and including his telephone improvements
      (which entered into already existing arts), had been mostly purchased by
      the Western Union and other companies, and while there was more or less
      contesting of his claims (especially in respect of the telephone), the
      extent of such litigation was not so conspicuously great as that which
      centred subsequently around his patents covering incandescent electric
      lighting and power systems.
    </p>
    <p>
      Through these inventions there came into being an entirely new art,
      complete in its practicability evolved by Edison after protracted
      experiments founded upon most patient, thorough, and original methods of
      investigation extending over several years. Long before attaining the
      goal, he had realized with characteristic insight the underlying
      principles of the great and comprehensive problem he had started out to
      solve, and plodded steadily along the path that he had marked out,
      ignoring the almost universal scientific disbelief in his ultimate
      success. "Dreamer," "fool," "boaster" were among the appellations bestowed
      upon him by unbelieving critics. Ridicule was heaped upon him in the
      public prints, and mathematics were called into service by learned men to
      settle the point forever that he was attempting the utterly impossible.
    </p>
    <p>
      But, presto! no sooner had he accomplished the task and shown concrete
      results to the world than he found himself in the anomalous position of
      being at once surrounded by the conditions which inevitably confront every
      inventor. The path through the trackless forest had been blazed, and now
      every one could find the way. At the end of the road was a rich prize
      belonging rightfully to the man who had opened a way to it, but the
      struggles of others to reach it by more or less honest methods now began
      and continued for many years. If, as a former commissioner once said,
      "Edison was the man who kept the path to the Patent Office hot with his
      footsteps," there were other great inventors abreast or immediately on his
      heels, some, to be sure, with legitimate, original methods and vital
      improvements representing independent work; while there were also those
      who did not trouble to invent, but simply helped themselves to whatever
      ideas were available, and coming from any source.
    </p>
    <p>
      Possibly events might have happened differently had Edison been able to
      prevent the announcement of his electric-light inventions until he was
      entirely prepared to bring out the system as a whole, ready for commercial
      exploitation, but the news of his production of a practical and successful
      incandescent lamp became known and spread like wild-fire to all corners of
      the globe. It took more than a year after the evolution of the lamp for
      Edison to get into position to do actual business, and during that time
      his laboratory was the natural Mecca of every inquiring person. Small
      wonder, then, that when he was prepared to market his invention he should
      find others entering that market, at home and abroad, at the same time,
      and with substantially similar merchandise.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison narrates two incidents that may be taken as characteristic of a
      good deal that had to be contended with, coming in the shape of nefarious
      attack. "In the early days of my electric light," he says, "curiosity and
      interest brought a great many people to Menlo Park to see it. Some of them
      did not come with the best of intentions. I remember the visit of one
      expert, a well-known electrician, a graduate of Johns Hopkins University,
      and who then represented a Baltimore gas company. We had the lamps
      exhibited in a large room, and so arranged on a table as to illustrate the
      regular layout of circuits for houses and streets. Sixty of the men
      employed at the laboratory were used as watchers, each to keep an eye on a
      certain section of the exhibit, and see there was no monkeying with it.
      This man had a length of insulated No. 10 wire passing through his sleeves
      and around his back, so that his hands would conceal the ends and no one
      would know he had it. His idea, of course, was to put this wire across the
      ends of the supplying circuits, and short-circuit the whole thing&mdash;put
      it all out of business without being detected. Then he could report how
      easily the electric light went out, and a false impression would be
      conveyed to the public. He did not know that we had already worked out the
      safety-fuse, and that every group of lights was thus protected
      independently. He put this jumper slyly in contact with the wires&mdash;and
      just four lamps went out on the section he tampered with. The watchers saw
      him do it, however, and got hold of him and just led him out of the place
      with language that made the recording angels jump for their typewriters."
    </p>
    <p>
      The other incident is as follows: "Soon after I had got out the
      incandescent light I had an interference in the Patent Office with a man
      from Wisconsin. He filed an application for a patent and entered into a
      conspiracy to 'swear back' of the date of my invention, so as to deprive
      me of it. Detectives were put on the case, and we found he was a 'faker,'
      and we took means to break the thing up. Eugene Lewis, of Eaton &amp;
      Lewis, had this in hand for me. Several years later this same man
      attempted to defraud a leading firm of manufacturing chemists in New York,
      and was sent to State prison. A short time after that a syndicate took up
      a man named Goebel and tried to do the same thing, but again our
      detective-work was too much for them. This was along the same line as the
      attempt of Drawbaugh to deprive Bell of his telephone. Whenever an
      invention of large prospective value comes out, these cases always occur.
      The lamp patent was sustained in the New York Federal Court. I thought
      that was final and would end the matter, but another Federal judge out in
      St. Louis did not sustain it. The result is I have never enjoyed any
      benefits from my lamp patents, although I fought for many years." The
      Goebel case will be referred to later in this chapter.
    </p>
    <p>
      The original owner of the patents and inventions covering his
      electric-lighting system, the Edison Electric Light Company (in which
      Edison was largely interested as a stockholder), thus found at the outset
      that its commercial position was imperilled by the activity of competitors
      who had sprung up like mushrooms. It became necessary to take proper
      preliminary legal steps to protect the interests which had been acquired
      at the cost of so much money and such incessant toil and experiment.
      During the first few years in which the business of the introduction of
      the light was carried on with such strenuous and concentrated effort, the
      attention of Edison and his original associates was constantly focused
      upon the commercial exploitation and the further development of the system
      at home and abroad. The difficult and perplexing situation at that time is
      thus described by Major S. B. Eaton:
    </p>
    <p>
      "The reason for the delay in beginning and pushing suits for infringements
      of the lamp patent has never been generally understood. In my official
      position as president of the Edison Electric Light Company I became the
      target, along with Mr. Edison, for censure from the stockholders and
      others on account of this delay, and I well remember how deep the feeling
      was. In view of the facts that a final injunction on the lamp patent was
      not obtained until the life of the patent was near its end, and, next,
      that no damages in money were ever paid by the guilty infringers, it has
      been generally believed that Mr. Edison sacrificed the interest of his
      stockholders selfishly when he delayed the prosecution of patent suits and
      gave all his time and energies to manufacturing. This belief was the
      stronger because the manufacturing enterprises belonged personally to Mr.
      Edison and not to his company. But the facts render it easy to dispel this
      false belief. The Edison inventions were not only a lamp; they comprised
      also an entire system of central stations. Such a thing was new to the
      world, and the apparatus, as well as the manufacture thereof, was equally
      new. Boilers, engines, dynamos, motors, distribution mains, meters,
      house-wiring, safety-devices, lamps, and lamp-fixtures&mdash;all were
      vital parts of the whole system. Most of them were utterly novel and
      unknown to the arts, and all of them required quick, and, I may say,
      revolutionary thought and invention. The firm of Babcock &amp; Wilcox gave
      aid on the boilers, Armington &amp; Sims undertook the engines, but
      everything else was abnormal. No factories in the land would take up the
      manufacture. I remember, for instance, our interviews with Messrs.
      Mitchell, Vance &amp; Co., the leading manufacturers of house gas-lighting
      fixtures, such as brackets and chandeliers. They had no faith in electric
      lighting, and rejected all our overtures to induce them to take up the new
      business of making electric-light fixtures. As regards other parts of the
      Edison system, notably the Edison dynamo, no such machines had ever
      existed; there was no factory in the world equipped to make them, and,
      most discouraging of all, the very scientific principles of their
      construction were still vague and experimental.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What was to be done? Mr. Edison has never been greater than when he met
      and solved this crisis. 'If there are no factories,' he said, 'to make my
      inventions, I will build the factories myself. Since capital is timid, I
      will raise and supply it. The issue is factories or death.' Mr. Edison
      invited the cooperation of his leading stockholders. They lacked
      confidence or did not care to increase their investments. He was forced to
      go on alone. The chain of Edison shops was then created. By far the most
      perplexing of these new manufacturing problems was the lamp. Not only was
      it a new industry, one without shadow of prototype, but the mechanical
      devices for making the lamps, and to some extent the very machines to make
      those devices, were to be invented. All of this was done by the courage,
      capital, and invincible energy and genius of the great inventor. But Mr.
      Edison could not create these great and diverse industries and at the same
      time give requisite attention to litigation. He could not start and
      develop the new and hard business of electric lighting and yet spare one
      hour to pursue infringers. One thing or the other must wait. All agreed
      that it must be the litigation. And right there a lasting blow was given
      to the prestige of the Edison patents. The delay was translated as meaning
      lack of confidence; and the alert infringer grew strong in courage and
      capital. Moreover, and what was the heaviest blow of all, he had time,
      thus unmolested, to get a good start.
    </p>
    <p>
      "In looking back on those days and scrutinizing them through the years, I
      am impressed by the greatness, the solitary greatness I may say, of Mr.
      Edison. We all felt then that we were of importance, and that our
      contribution of effort and zeal were vital. I can see now, however, that
      the best of us was nothing but the fly on the wheel. Suppose anything had
      happened to Edison? All would have been chaos and ruin.. To him,
      therefore, be the glory, if not the profit."
    </p>
    <p>
      The foregoing remarks of Major Eaton show authoritatively how the
      much-discussed delay in litigating the Edison patents was so greatly
      misunderstood at the time, and also how imperatively necessary it was for
      Edison and his associates to devote their entire time and energies to the
      commercial development of the art. As the lighting business increased,
      however, and a great number of additional men were initiated into its
      mysteries, Edison and his experts were able to spare some time to legal
      matters, and an era of active patent litigation against infringers was
      opened about the year 1885 by the Edison company, and thereafter continued
      for many years.
    </p>
    <p>
      While the history of this vast array of legal proceedings possesses a
      fascinating interest for those involved, as well as for professional men,
      legal and scientific, it could not be expected that it would excite any
      such feeling on the part of a casual reader. Hence, it is not proposed to
      encumber this narrative with any detailed record of the numerous suits
      that were brought and conducted through their complicated ramifications by
      eminent counsel. Suffice it to say that within about sixteen years after
      the commencement of active patent litigation, there had been spent by the
      owners of the Edison lighting patents upward of two million dollars in
      prosecuting more than two hundred lawsuits brought against persons who
      were infringing many of the patents of Edison on the incandescent electric
      lamp and component parts of his system. Over fifty separate patents were
      involved in these suits, including the basic one on the lamp (ordinarily
      called the "Filament" patent), other detail lamp patents, as well as those
      on sockets, switches, dynamos, motors, and distributing systems.
    </p>
    <p>
      The principal, or "test," suit on the "Filament" patent was that brought
      against "The United States Electric Lighting Company," which became a
      cause celebre in the annals of American jurisprudence. Edison's claims
      were strenuously and stubbornly contested throughout a series of intense
      legal conflicts that raged in the courts for a great many years. Both
      sides of the controversy were represented by legal talent of the highest
      order, under whose examination and cross-examination volumes of testimony
      were taken, until the printed record (including exhibits) amounted to more
      than six thousand pages. Scientific and technical literature and records
      in all parts of the civilized world were subjected to the most minute
      scrutiny of opposing experts in the endeavor to prove Edison to be merely
      an adapter of methods and devices already projected or suggested by
      others. The world was ransacked for anything that might be claimed as an
      anticipation of what he had done. Every conceivable phase of ingenuity
      that could be devised by technical experts was exercised in the attempt to
      show that Edison had accomplished nothing new. Everything that legal
      acumen could suggest&mdash;every subtle technicality of the law&mdash;all
      the complicated variations of phraseology that the novel nomenclature of a
      young art would allow&mdash;all were pressed into service and availed of
      by the contestors of the Edison invention in their desperate effort to
      defeat his claims. It was all in vain, however, for the decision of the
      court was in favor of Edison, and his lamp patent was sustained not only
      by the tribunal of the first resort, but also by the Appellate Court some
      time afterward.
    </p>
    <p>
      The first trial was had before Judge Wallace in the United States Circuit
      Court for the Southern District of New York, and the appeal was heard by
      Judges Lacombe and Shipman, of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals.
      Before both tribunals the cause had been fully represented by counsel
      chosen from among the most eminent representatives of the bar at that
      time, those representing the Edison interests being the late Clarence A.
      Seward and Grosvenor P. Lowrey, together with Sherburne Blake Eaton,
      Albert H. Walker, and Richard N. Dyer. The presentation of the case to the
      courts had in both instances been marked by masterly and able arguments,
      elucidated by experiments and demonstrations to educate the judges on
      technical points. Some appreciation of the magnitude of this case may be
      gained from the fact that the argument on its first trial employed a great
      many days, and the minutes covered hundreds of pages of closely
      typewritten matter, while the argument on appeal required eight days, and
      was set forth in eight hundred and fifty pages of typewriting. Eliminating
      all purely forensic eloquence and exparte statements, the addresses of
      counsel in this celebrated suit are worthy of deep study by an earnest
      student, for, taken together, they comprise the most concise, authentic,
      and complete history of the prior state of the art and the development of
      the incandescent lamp that had been made up to that time. [22]
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 22: The argument on appeal was conducted with the dignity
     and decorum that characterize such a proceeding in that
     court. There is usually little that savors of humor in the
     ordinary conduct of a case of this kind, but in the present
     instance a pertinent story was related by Mr. Lowrey, and it
     is now reproduced. In the course of his address to the
     court, Mr. Lowrey said:

     "I have to mention the name of one expert whose testimony
     will, I believe, be found as accurate, as sincere, as
     straightforward as if it were the preaching of the gospel. I
     do it with great pleasure, and I ask you to read the
     testimony of Charles L. Clarke along with that of Thomas A.
     Edison. He had rather a hard row to hoe. He is a young
     gentleman; he is a very well-instructed man in his
     profession; he is not what I have called in the argument
     below an expert in the art of testifying, like some of the
     others, he has not yet become expert; what he may descend to
     later cannot be known; he entered upon his first experience,
     I think, with my brother Duncan, who is no trifler when he
     comes to deal with these questions, and for several months
     Mr. Clarke was pursued up and down, over a range of
     suggestions of what he would have thought if he had thought
     something else had been said at some time when something
     else was not said."

     Mr. Duncan&mdash;"I got three pages a day out of him, too."

     Mr. Lowrey&mdash;"Well, it was a good result. It always recalled
     to me what I venture now, since my friend breaks in upon me
     in this rude manner, to tell the court as well illustrative
     of what happened there. It is the story of the pickerel and
     the roach. My friend, Professor Von Reisenberg, of the
     University of Ghent, pursued a series of investigations into
     the capacity of various animals to receive ideas. Among the
     rest he put a pickerel into a tank containing water, and
     separated across its middle by a transparent glass plate,
     and on the other side he put a red roach. Now your Honors
     both know how a pickerel loves a red roach, and I have no
     doubt you will remember that he is a fish of a very low
     forehead and an unlimited appetite. When this pickerel saw
     the red roach through the glass, he made one of those awful
     dashes which is usually the ruin of whatever stands in its
     way; but he didn't reach the red roach. He received an
     impression, doubtless. It was not sufficient, however, to
     discourage him, and he immediately tried again, and he
     continued to try for three-quarters of an hour. At the end
     of three-quarters of an hour he seemed a little shaken and
     discouraged, and stopped, and the red roach was taken out
     for that day and the pickerel left. On the succeeding day
     the red roach was restored, and the pickerel had forgotten
     the impressions of the first day, and he repeated this
     again. At the end of the second day the roach was taken out.
     This was continued, not through so long a period as the
     effort to take my friend Clarke and devour him, but for a
     period of about three weeks. At the end of the three weeks,
     the time during which the pickerel persisted each day had
     been shortened and shortened, until it was at last
     discovered that he didn't try at all. The plate glass was
     then removed, and the pickerel and the red roach sailed
     around together in perfect peace ever afterward. The
     pickerel doubtless attributed to the roach all this shaking,
     the rebuff which he had received. And that is about the
     condition in which my brother Duncan and my friend Clarke
     were at the end of this examination."

     Mr. Duncan&mdash;"I notice on the redirect that Mr. Clarke
     changed his color."

     Mr. Lowrey&mdash;"Well, perhaps he was a different kind of a
     roach then; but you didn't succeed in taking him.

     "I beg your Honors to read the testimony of Mr. Clarke in
     the light of the anecdote of the pickerel and the roach."
</pre>
    <p>
      Owing to long-protracted delays incident to the taking of testimony and
      preparation for trial, the argument before the United States Circuit Court
      of Appeals was not had until the late spring of 1892, and its decision in
      favor of the Edison Lamp patent was filed on October 4, 1892, MORE THAN
      TWELVE YEARS AFTER THE ISSUANCE OF THE PATENT ITSELF.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the term of the patent had been limited under the law, because certain
      foreign patents had been issued to Edison before that in this country,
      there was now but a short time left for enjoyment of the exclusive rights
      contemplated by the statute and granted to Edison and his assigns by the
      terms of the patent itself. A vigorous and aggressive legal campaign was
      therefore inaugurated by the Edison Electric Light Company against the
      numerous infringing companies and individuals that had sprung up while the
      main suit was pending. Old suits were revived and new ones instituted.
      Injunctions were obtained against many old offenders, and it seemed as
      though the Edison interests were about to come into their own for the
      brief unexpired term of the fundamental patent, when a new bombshell was
      dropped into the Edison camp in the shape of an alleged anticipation of
      the invention forty years previously by one Henry Goebel. Thus, in 1893,
      the litigation was reopened, and a protracted series of stubbornly
      contested conflicts was fought in the courts.
    </p>
    <p>
      Goebel's claims were not unknown to the Edison Company, for as far back as
      1882 they had been officially brought to its notice coupled with an offer
      of sale for a few thousand dollars. A very brief examination into their
      merits, however, sufficed to demonstrate most emphatically that Goebel had
      never made a practical incandescent lamp, nor had he ever contributed a
      single idea or device bearing, remotely or directly, on the development of
      the art. Edison and his company, therefore, rejected the offer
      unconditionally and declined to enter into any arrangements whatever with
      Goebel. During the prosecution of the suits in 1893 it transpired that the
      Goebel claims had also been investigated by the counsel of the defendant
      company in the principal litigation already related, but although every
      conceivable defence and anticipation had been dragged into the case during
      the many years of its progress, the alleged Goebel anticipation was not
      even touched upon therein. From this fact it is quite apparent that they
      placed no credence on its bona fides.
    </p>
    <p>
      But desperate cases call for desperate remedies. Some of the infringing
      lamp-manufacturing concerns, which during the long litigation had grown
      strong and lusty, and thus far had not been enjoined by the court, now saw
      injunctions staring them in the face, and in desperation set up the Goebel
      so-called anticipation as a defence in the suits brought against them.
    </p>
    <p>
      This German watchmaker, Goebel, located in the East Side of New York City,
      had undoubtedly been interested, in a desultory kind of way, in simple
      physical phenomena, and a few trifling experiments made by him some forty
      or forty-five years previously were magnified and distorted into brilliant
      and all-comprehensive discoveries and inventions. Avalanches of affidavits
      of himself, "his sisters and his cousins and his aunts," practically all
      persons in ordinary walks of life, and of old friends, contributed a host
      of recollections that seemed little short of miraculous in their detailed
      accounts of events of a scientific nature that were said to have occurred
      so many years before. According to affidavits of Goebel himself and some
      of his family, nothing that would anticipate Edison's claim had been
      omitted from his work, for he (Goebel) claimed to have employed the
      all-glass globe, into which were sealed platinum wires carrying a tenuous
      carbon filament, from which the occluded gases had been liberated during
      the process of high exhaustion. He had even determined upon bamboo as the
      best material for filaments. On the face of it he was seemingly gifted
      with more than human prescience, for in at least one of his exhibit lamps,
      said to have been made twenty years previously, he claimed to have
      employed processes which Edison and his associates had only developed by
      several years of experience in making thousands of lamps!
    </p>
    <p>
      The Goebel story was told by the affidavits in an ingenuous manner, with a
      wealth of simple homely detail that carried on its face an appearance of
      truth calculated to deceive the elect, had not the elect been somewhat
      prepared by their investigation made some eleven years before.
    </p>
    <p>
      The story was met by the Edison interests with counter-affidavits, showing
      its utter improbabilities and absurdities from the standpoint of men of
      science and others versed in the history and practice of the art; also
      affidavits of other acquaintances and neighbors of Goebel flatly denying
      the exhibitions he claimed to have made. The issue thus being joined, the
      legal battle raged over different sections of the country. A number of
      contumeliously defiant infringers in various cities based fond hopes of
      immunity upon the success of this Goebel evidence, but were defeated. The
      attitude of the courts is well represented in the opinion of Judge Colt,
      rendered in a motion for injunction against the Beacon Vacuum Pump and
      Electrical Company. The defence alleged the Goebel anticipation, in
      support of which it offered in evidence four lamps, Nos. 1, 2, and 3
      purporting to have been made before 1854, and No. 4 before 1872. After a
      very full review of the facts in the case, and a fair consideration of the
      defendants' affidavits, Judge Colt in his opinion goes on to say:
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is extremely improbable that Henry Goebel constructed a practical
      incandescent lamp in 1854. This is manifest from the history of the art
      for the past fifty years, the electrical laws which since that time have
      been discovered as applicable to the incandescent lamp, the imperfect
      means which then existed for obtaining a vacuum, the high degree of skill
      necessary in the construction of all its parts, and the crude instruments
      with which Goebel worked.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Whether Goebel made the fiddle-bow lamps, 1, 2, and 3, is not necessary
      to determine. The weight of evidence on this motion is in the direction
      that he made these lamp or lamps similar in general appearance, though it
      is manifest that few, if any, of the many witnesses who saw the Goebel
      lamp could form an accurate judgment of the size of the filament or
      burner. But assuming they were made, they do not anticipate the invention
      of Edison. At most they were experimental toys used to advertise his
      telescope, or to flash a light upon his clock, or to attract customers to
      his shop. They were crudely constructed, and their life was brief. They
      could not be used for domestic purposes. They were in no proper sense the
      practical commercial lamp of Edison. The literature of the art is full of
      better lamps, all of which are held not to anticipate the Edison patent.
    </p>
    <p>
      "As for Lamp No. 4, I cannot but view it with suspicion. It presents a new
      appearance. The reason given for not introducing it before the hearing is
      unsatisfactory. This lamp, to my mind, envelops with a cloud of distrust
      the whole Goebel story. It is simply impossible under the circumstances to
      believe that a lamp so constructed could have been made by Goebel before
      1872. Nothing in the evidence warrants such a supposition, and other
      things show it to be untrue. This lamp has a carbon filament, platinum
      leading-in wires, a good vacuum, and is well sealed and highly finished.
      It is said that this lamp shows no traces of mercury in the bulb because
      the mercury was distilled, but Goebel says nothing about distilled mercury
      in his first affidavit, and twice he speaks of the particles of mercury
      clinging to the inside of the chamber, and for that reason he constructed
      a Geissler pump after he moved to 468 Grand Street, which was in 1877.
      Again, if this lamp has been in his possession since before 1872, as he
      and his son swear, why was it not shown to Mr. Crosby, of the American
      Company, when he visited his shop in 1881 and was much interested in his
      lamps? Why was it not shown to Mr. Curtis, the leading counsel for the
      defendants in the New York cases, when he was asked to produce a lamp and
      promised to do so? Why did not his son take this lamp to Mr. Bull's office
      in 1892, when he took the old fiddle-bow lamps, 1, 2, and 3? Why did not
      his son take this lamp to Mr. Eaton's office in 1882, when he tried to
      negotiate the sale of his father's inventions to the Edison Company? A
      lamp so constructed and made before 1872 was worth a large sum of money to
      those interested in defeating the Edison patent like the American Company,
      and Goebel was not a rich man. Both he and one of his sons were employed
      in 1881 by the American Company. Why did he not show this lamp to McMahon
      when he called in the interest of the American Company and talked over the
      electrical matters? When Mr. Dreyer tried to organize a company in 1882,
      and procured an option from him of all his inventions relating to electric
      lighting for which $925 was paid, and when an old lamp of this kind was of
      vital consequence and would have insured a fortune, why was it not
      forthcoming? Mr. Dreyer asked Goebel to produce an old lamp, and was
      especially anxious to find one pending his negotiations with the Edison
      Company for the sale of Goebel's inventions. Why did he not produce this
      lamp in his interviews with Bohm, of the American Company, or Moses, of
      the Edison Company, when it was for his interest to do so? The value of
      such an anticipation of the Edison lamp was made known to him. He was
      desirous of realizing upon his inventions. He was proud of his
      incandescent lamps, and was pleased to talk about them with anybody who
      would listen. Is it conceivable under all these circumstances, that he
      should have had this all-important lamp in his possession from 1872 to
      1893, and yet no one have heard of it or seen it except his son? It cannot
      be said that ignorance of the English language offers an excuse. He knew
      English very well although Bohm and Dreyer conversed with him in German.
      His children spoke English. Neither his ignorance nor his simplicity
      prevented him from taking out three patents: the first in 1865 for a
      sewing-machine hemmer, and the last in 1882 for an improvement in
      incandescent lamps. If he made Lamp No. 4 previous to 1872, why was it not
      also patented?
    </p>
    <p>
      "There are other circumstances which throw doubt on this alleged Goebel
      anticipation. The suit against the United States Electric Lighting Company
      was brought in the Southern District of New York in 1885. Large interests
      were at stake, and the main defence to the Edison patent was based on
      prior inventions. This Goebel claim was then investigated by the leading
      counsel for the defence, Mr. Curtis. It was further inquired into in 1892,
      in the case against the Sawyer-Man Company. It was brought to the
      attention and considered by the Edison Company in 1882. It was at that
      time known to the American Company, who hoped by this means to defeat the
      monopoly under the Edison patent. Dreyer tried to organize a company for
      its purchase. Young Goebel tried to sell it. It must have been known to
      hundreds of people. And now when the Edison Company after years of
      litigation, leaving but a short time for the patent to run, have obtained
      a final adjudication establishing its validity, this claim is again
      resurrected to defeat the operation of the judgment so obtained. A court
      in equity should not look with favor on such a defence. Upon the evidence
      here presented, I agree with the first impression of Mr. Curtis and with
      the opinion of Mr. Dickerson that whatever Goebel did must be considered
      as an abandoned experiment.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It has often been laid down that a meritorious invention is not to be
      defeated by something which rests in speculation or experiment, or which
      is rudimentary or incomplete.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The law requires not conjecture, but certainty. It is easy after an
      important invention has gone into public use for persons to come forward
      with claims that they invented the same thing years before, and to
      endeavor to establish this by the recollection of witnesses as to events
      long past. Such evidence is to be received with great caution, and the
      presumption of novelty arising from the grant of the patent is not to be
      overcome except upon clear and convincing proof.
    </p>
    <p>
      "When the defendant company entered upon the manufacture of incandescent
      lamps in May, 1891, it well knew the consequences which must follow a
      favorable decision for the Edison Company in the New York case."
    </p>
    <p>
      The injunction was granted.
    </p>
    <p>
      Other courts took practically the same view of the Goebel story as was
      taken by Judge Colt, and the injunctions asked in behalf of the Edison
      interests were granted on all applications except one in St. Louis,
      Missouri, in proceedings instituted against a strong local concern of that
      city.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus, at the eleventh hour in the life of this important patent, after a
      long period of costly litigation, Edison and his associates were compelled
      to assume the defensive against a claimant whose utterly baseless
      pretensions had already been thoroughly investigated and rejected years
      before by every interested party, and ultimately, on examination by the
      courts, pronounced legally untenable, if not indeed actually fraudulent.
      Irritating as it was to be forced into the position of combating a
      proposition so well known to be preposterous and insincere, there was
      nothing else to do but to fight this fabrication with all the strenuous
      and deadly earnestness that would have been brought to bear on a really
      meritorious defence. Not only did this Goebel episode divert for a long
      time the energies of the Edison interests from activities in other
      directions, but the cost of overcoming the extravagantly absurd claims ran
      up into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another quotation from Major Eaton is of interest in this connection:
    </p>
    <p>
      "Now a word about the Goebel case. I took personal charge of running down
      this man and his pretensions in the section of the city where he lived and
      among his old neighbors. They were a typical East Side lot&mdash;ignorant,
      generally stupid, incapable of long memory, but ready to oblige a neighbor
      and to turn an easy dollar by putting a cross-mark at the bottom of a
      forthcoming friendly affidavit. I can say in all truth and justice that
      their testimony was utterly false, and that the lawyers who took it must
      have known it.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The Goebel case emphasizes two defects in the court procedure in patent
      cases. One is that they may be spun out almost interminably, even,
      possibly, to the end of the life of the patent; the other is that the
      judge who decides the case does not see the witnesses. That adverse
      decision at St. Louis would never have been made if the court could have
      seen the men who swore for Goebel. When I met Mr. F. P. Fish on his return
      from St. Louis, after he had argued the Edison side, he felt keenly that
      disadvantage, to say nothing of the hopeless difficulty of educating the
      court."
    </p>
    <p>
      In the earliest days of the art, when it was apparent that incandescent
      lighting had come to stay, the Edison Company was a shining mark at which
      the shafts of the dishonest were aimed. Many there were who stood ready to
      furnish affidavits that they or some one else whom they controlled had
      really invented the lamp, but would obligingly withdraw and leave Edison
      in possession of the field on payment of money. Investigation of these
      cases, however, revealed invariably the purely fraudulent nature of all
      such offers, which were uniformly declined.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the incandescent light began to advance rapidly in public favor, the
      immense proportions of the future market became sufficiently obvious to
      tempt unauthorized persons to enter the field and become manufacturers.
      When the lamp became a thoroughly established article it was not a
      difficult matter to copy it, especially when there were employees to be
      hired away at increased pay, and their knowledge utilized by the more
      unscrupulous of these new competitors. This is not conjecture but known to
      be a fact, and the practice continued many years, during which new lamp
      companies sprang up on every side. Hence, it is not surprising that, on
      the whole, the Edison lamp litigation was not less remarkable for quantity
      than quality. Between eighty and ninety separate suits upon Edison's
      fundamental lamp and detail patents were brought in the courts of the
      United States and prosecuted to completion.
    </p>
    <p>
      In passing it may be mentioned that in England France, and Germany also
      the Edison fundamental lamp patent was stubbornly fought in the judicial
      arena, and his claim to be the first inventor of practical incandescent
      lighting was uniformly sustained in all those countries.
    </p>
    <p>
      Infringement was not, however, confined to the lamp alone, but, in
      America, extended all along the line of Edison's patents relating to the
      production and distribution of electric light, including those on dynamos,
      motors, distributing systems, sockets, switches, and other details which
      he had from time to time invented. Consequently, in order to protect its
      interests at all points, the Edison Company had found it necessary to
      pursue a vigorous policy of instituting legal proceedings against the
      infringers of these various patents, and, in addition to the large number
      of suits on the lamp alone, not less than one hundred and twenty-five
      other separate actions, involving some fifty or more of Edison's principal
      electric-lighting patents, were brought against concerns which were
      wrongfully appropriating his ideas and actively competing with his
      companies in the market.
    </p>
    <p>
      The ramifications of this litigation became so extensive and complex as to
      render it necessary to institute a special bureau, or department, through
      which the immense detail could be systematically sifted, analyzed, and
      arranged in collaboration with the numerous experts and counsel
      responsible for the conduct of the various cases. This department was
      organized in 1889 by Major Eaton, who was at this time and for some years
      afterward its general counsel.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the selection of the head of this department a man of methodical and
      analytical habit of mind was necessary, capable of clear reasoning, and at
      the same time one who had gained a thoroughly practical experience in
      electric light and power fields, and the choice fell upon Mr. W. J. Jenks,
      the manager of the Edison central station at Brockton, Massachusetts. He
      had resigned that position in 1885, and had spent the intervening period
      in exploiting the Edison municipal system of lighting, as well as taking
      an active part in various other branches of the Edison enterprises.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus, throughout the life of Edison's patents on electric light, power,
      and distribution, the interminable legal strife has continued from day to
      day, from year to year. Other inventors, some of them great and notable,
      have been coming into the field since the foundation of the art, patents
      have multiplied exceedingly, improvement has succeeded improvement, great
      companies have grown greater, new concerns have come into existence,
      coalitions and mergers have taken place, all tending to produce changes in
      methods, but not much in diminution of patent litigation. While Edison has
      not for a long time past interested himself particularly in electric light
      and power inventions, the bureau which was initiated under the old regime
      in 1889 still continues, enlarged in scope, directed by its original
      chief, but now conducted under the auspices of several allied companies
      whose great volumes of combined patents (including those of Edison) cover
      a very wide range of the electrical field.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the general conception and theory of a lawsuit is the recovery of some
      material benefit, the lay mind is apt to conceive of great sums of money
      being awarded to a complainant by way of damages upon a favorable decision
      in an important patent case. It might, therefore, be natural to ask how
      far Edison or his companies have benefited pecuniarily by reason of the
      many belated victories they have scored in the courts. To this question a
      strict regard for truth compels the answer that they have not been
      benefited at all, not to the extent of a single dollar, so far as cash
      damages are concerned.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not to be denied, however, that substantial advantages have accrued
      to them more or less directly through the numerous favorable decisions
      obtained by them as a result of the enormous amount of litigation, in the
      prosecution of which so great a sum of money has been spent and so
      concentrated an amount of effort and time lavished. Indeed, it would be
      strange and unaccountable were the results otherwise. While the benefits
      derived were not directly pecuniary in their nature, they were such as
      tended to strengthen commercially the position of the rightful owners of
      the patents. Many irresponsible and purely piratical concerns were closed
      altogether; others were compelled to take out royalty licenses;
      consolidations of large interests were brought about; the public was
      gradually educated to a more correct view of the true merits of
      conflicting claims, and, generally speaking, the business has been greatly
      unified and brought within well-defined and controllable lines.
    </p>
    <p>
      Not only in relation to his electric light and power inventions has the
      progress of Edison and his associates been attended by legal controversy
      all through the years of their exploitation, but also in respect to other
      inventions, notably those relating to the phonograph and to motion
      pictures.
    </p>
    <p>
      The increasing endeavors of infringers to divert into their own pockets
      some of the proceeds arising from the marketing of the devices covered by
      Edison's inventions on these latter lines, necessitated the institution by
      him, some years ago, of a legal department which, as in the case of the
      light inventions, was designed to consolidate all law and expert work and
      place it under the management of a general counsel. The department is of
      considerable extent, including a number of resident and other associate
      counsel, and a general office staff, all of whom are constantly engaged
      from day to day in patent litigation and other legal work necessary to
      protect the Edison interests. Through their labors the old story is
      reiterated in the contesting of approximate but conflicting claims, the
      never-ending effort to suppress infringement, and the destruction as far
      as possible of the commercial pirates who set sail upon the seas of all
      successful enterprises. The details, circumstances, and technical
      questions are, of course, different from those relating to other classes
      of inventions, and although there has been no cause celebre concerning the
      phonograph and motion-picture patents, the contention is as sharp and
      strenuous as it was in the cases relating to electric lighting and heavy
      current technics.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Edison's storage battery and the poured cement house have not yet
      reached the stage of great commercial enterprises, and therefore have not
      yet risen to the dignity of patent litigation. If, however, the experience
      of past years is any criterion, there will probably come a time in the
      future when, despite present widely expressed incredulity and contemptuous
      sniffs of unbelief in the practicability of his ideas in these directions,
      ultimate success will give rise to a series of hotly contested legal
      conflicts such as have signalized the practical outcome of his past
      efforts in other lines.
    </p>
    <p>
      When it is considered what Edison has done, what the sum and substance of
      his contributions to human comfort and happiness have been, the results,
      as measured by legal success, have been pitiable. With the exception of
      the favorable decision on the incandescent lamp filament patent, coming so
      late, however, that but little practical good was accomplished, the reader
      may search the law-books in vain for a single decision squarely and fairly
      sustaining a single patent of first order. There never was a monopoly in
      incandescent electric lighting, and even from the earliest days
      competitors and infringers were in the field reaping the benefits, and
      though defeated in the end, paying not a cent of tribute. The market was
      practically as free and open as if no patent existed. There never was a
      monopoly in the phonograph; practically all of the vital inventions were
      deliberately appropriated by others, and the inventor was laughed at for
      his pains. Even so beautiful a process as that for the duplication of
      phonograph records was solemnly held by a Federal judge as lacking
      invention&mdash;as being obvious to any one. The mere fact that Edison
      spent years of his life in developing that process counted for nothing.
    </p>
    <p>
      The invention of the three-wire system, which, when it was first announced
      as saving over 60 per cent. of copper in the circuits, was regarded as an
      utter impossibility&mdash;this patent was likewise held by a Federal judge
      to be lacking in invention. In the motion-picture art, infringements began
      with its very birth, and before the inevitable litigation could be
      terminated no less than ten competitors were in the field, with whom
      compromises had to be made.
    </p>
    <p>
      In a foreign country, Edison would have undoubtedly received signal
      honors; in his own country he has won the respect and admiration of
      millions; but in his chosen field as an inventor and as a patentee his
      reward has been empty. The courts abroad have considered his patents in a
      liberal spirit and given him his due; the decisions in this country have
      fallen wide of the mark. We make no criticism of our Federal judges; as a
      body they are fair, able, and hard-working; but they operate under a
      system of procedure that stifles absolutely the development of inventive
      genius.
    </p>
    <p>
      Until that system is changed and an opportunity offered for a final,
      swift, and economical adjudication of patent rights, American inventors
      may well hesitate before openly disclosing their inventions to the public,
      and may seriously consider the advisability of retaining them as "trade
      secrets."
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXIX
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE SOCIAL SIDE OF EDISON
    </h3>
    <p>
      THE title of this chapter might imply that there is an unsocial side to
      Edison. In a sense this is true, for no one is more impatient or
      intolerant of interruption when deeply engaged in some line of experiment.
      Then the caller, no matter how important or what his mission, is likely to
      realize his utter insignificance and be sent away without accomplishing
      his object. But, generally speaking, Edison is easy tolerance itself, with
      a peculiar weakness toward those who have the least right to make any
      demands on his time. Man is a social animal, and that describes Edison;
      but it does not describe accurately the inventor asking to be let alone.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison never sought Society; but "Society" has never ceased to seek him,
      and to-day, as ever, the pressure upon him to give up his work and receive
      honors, meet distinguished people, or attend public functions, is intense.
      Only two or three years ago, a flattering invitation came from one of the
      great English universities to receive a degree, but at that moment he was
      deep in experiments on his new storage battery, and nothing could budge
      him. He would not drop the work, and while highly appreciative of the
      proposed honor, let it go by rather than quit for a week or two the stern
      drudgery of probing for the fact and the truth. Whether one approves or
      not, it is at least admirable stoicism, of which the world has too little.
      A similar instance is that of a visit paid to the laboratory by some one
      bringing a gold medal from a foreign society. It was a very hot day in
      summer, the visitor was in full social regalia of silk hat and frock-coat,
      and insisted that he could deliver the medal only into Edison's hands. At
      that moment Edison, stripped pretty nearly down to the buff, was at the
      very crisis of an important experiment, and refused absolutely to be
      interrupted. He had neither sought nor expected the medal; and if the
      delegate didn't care to leave it he could take it away. At last Edison was
      overpersuaded, and, all dirty and perspiring as he was, received the medal
      rather than cause the visitor to come again. On one occasion, receiving a
      medal in New York, Edison forgot it on the ferry-boat and left it behind
      him. A few years ago, when Edison had received the Albert medal of the
      Royal Society of Arts, one of the present authors called at the laboratory
      to see it. Nobody knew where it was; hours passed before it could be
      found; and when at last the accompanying letter was produced, it had an
      office date stamp right over the signature of the royal president. A
      visitor to the laboratory with one of these medallic awards asked Edison
      if he had any others. "Oh yes," he said, "I have a couple of quarts more
      up at the house!" All this sounds like lack of appreciation, but it is
      anything else than that. While in Paris, in 1889, he wore the decoration
      of the Legion of Honor whenever occasion required, but at all other times
      turned the badge under his lapel "because he hated to have
      fellow-Americans think he was showing off." And any one who knows Edison
      will bear testimony to his utter absence of ostentation. It may be added
      that, in addition to the two quarts of medals up at the house, there will
      be found at Glenmont many other signal tokens of esteem and good-will&mdash;a
      beautiful cigar-case from the late Tsar of Russia, bronzes from the
      Government of Japan, steel trophies from Krupp, and a host of other
      mementos, to one of which he thus refers: "When the experiments with the
      light were going on at Menlo Park, Sarah Bernhardt came to America. One
      evening, Robert L. Cutting, of New York, brought her out to see the light.
      She was a terrific 'rubberneck.' She jumped all over the machinery, and I
      had one man especially to guard her dress. She wanted to know everything.
      She would speak in French, and Cutting would translate into English. She
      stayed there about an hour and a half. Bernhardt gave me two pictures,
      painted by herself, which she sent me from Paris."
    </p>
    <p>
      Reference has already been made to the callers upon Edison; and to give
      simply the names of persons of distinction would fill many pages of this
      record. Some were mere consumers of time; others were gladly welcomed,
      like Lord Kelvin, the greatest physicist of the last century, with whom
      Edison was always in friendly communication. "The first time I saw Lord
      Kelvin, he came to my laboratory at Menlo Park in 1876." (He reported most
      favorably on Edison's automatic telegraph system at the Philadelphia
      Exposition of 1876.) "I was then experimenting with sending eight messages
      simultaneously over a wire by means of synchronizing tuning-forks. I would
      take a wire with similar apparatus at both ends, and would throw it over
      on one set of instruments, take it away, and get it back so quickly that
      you would not miss it, thereby taking advantage of the rapidity of
      electricity to perform operations. On my local wire I got it to work very
      nicely. When Sir William Thomson (Kelvin) came in the room, he was
      introduced to me, and had a number of friends with him. He said: 'What
      have you here?' I told him briefly what it was. He then turned around, and
      to my great surprise explained the whole thing to his friends. Quite a
      different exhibition was given two weeks later by another well-known
      Englishman, also an electrician, who came in with his friends, and I was
      trying for two hours to explain it to him and failed."
    </p>
    <p>
      After the introduction of the electric light, Edison was more than ever in
      demand socially, but he shunned functions like the plague, not only
      because of the serious interference with work, but because of his
      deafness. Some dinners he had to attend, but a man who ate little and
      heard less could derive practically no pleasure from them. "George
      Washington Childs was very anxious I should go down to Philadelphia to
      dine with him. I seldom went to dinners. He insisted I should go&mdash;that
      a special car would leave New York. It was for me to meet Mr. Joseph
      Chamberlain. We had the private car of Mr. Roberts, President of the
      Pennsylvania Railroad. We had one of those celebrated dinners that only
      Mr. Childs could give, and I heard speeches from Charles Francis Adams and
      different people. When I came back to the depot, Mr. Roberts was there,
      and insisted on carrying my satchel for me. I never could understand
      that."
    </p>
    <p>
      Among the more distinguished visitors of the electric-lighting period was
      President Diaz, with whom Edison became quite intimate. "President Diaz,
      of Mexico, visited this country with Mrs. Diaz, a highly educated and
      beautiful woman. She spoke very good English. They both took a deep
      interest in all they saw. I don't know how it ever came about, as it is
      not in my line, but I seemed to be delegated to show them around. I took
      them to railroad buildings, electric-light plants, fire departments, and
      showed them a great variety of things. It lasted two days." Of another
      visit Edison says: "Sitting Bull and fifteen Sioux Indians came to
      Washington to see the Great Father, and then to New York, and went to the
      Goerck Street works. We could make some very good pyrotechnics there, so
      we determined to give the Indians a scare. But it didn't work. We had an
      arc there of a most terrifying character, but they never moved a muscle."
      Another episode at Goerck Street did not find the visitors quite so
      stoical. "In testing dynamos at Goerck Street we had a long flat belt
      running parallel with the floor, about four inches above it, and
      travelling four thousand feet a minute. One day one of the directors
      brought in three or four ladies to the works to see the new electric-light
      system. One of the ladies had a little poodle led by a string. The belt
      was running so smoothly and evenly, the poodle did not notice the
      difference between it and the floor, and got into the belt before we could
      do anything. The dog was whirled around forty or fifty times, and a little
      flat piece of leather came out&mdash;and the ladies fainted."
    </p>
    <p>
      A very interesting period, on the social side, was the visit paid by
      Edison and his family to Europe in 1889, when he had made a splendid
      exhibit of his inventions and apparatus at the great Paris Centennial
      Exposition of that year, to the extreme delight of the French, who
      welcomed him with open arms. The political sentiments that the Exposition
      celebrated were not such as to find general sympathy in monarchical
      Europe, so that the "crowned heads" were conspicuous by their absence. It
      was not, of course, by way of theatrical antithesis that Edison appeared
      in Paris at such a time. But the contrast was none the less striking and
      effective. It was felt that, after all, that which the great exposition
      exemplified at its best&mdash;the triumph of genius over matter, over
      ignorance, over superstition&mdash;met with its due recognition when
      Edison came to participate, and to felicitate a noble nation that could
      show so much in the victories of civilization and the arts, despite its
      long trials and its long struggle for liberty. It is no exaggeration to
      say that Edison was greeted with the enthusiastic homage of the whole
      French people. They could find no praise warm enough for the man who had
      "organized the echoes" and "tamed the lightning," and whose career was so
      picturesque with eventful and romantic development. In fact, for weeks
      together it seemed as though no Parisian paper was considered complete and
      up to date without an article on Edison. The exuberant wit and fancy of
      the feuilletonists seized upon his various inventions evolving from them
      others of the most extraordinary nature with which to bedazzle and
      bewilder the reader. At the close of the Exposition Edison was created a
      Commander of the Legion of Honor. His own exhibit, made at a personal
      expense of over $100,000, covered several thousand square feet in the vast
      Machinery Hall, and was centred around a huge Edison lamp built of myriads
      of smaller lamps of the ordinary size. The great attraction, however, was
      the display of the perfected phonograph. Several instruments were
      provided, and every day, all day long, while the Exposition lasted, queues
      of eager visitors from every quarter of the globe were waiting to hear the
      little machine talk and sing and reproduce their own voices. Never before
      was such a collection of the languages of the world made. It was the first
      linguistic concourse since Babel times. We must let Edison tell the story
      of some of his experiences:
    </p>
    <p>
      "At the Universal Exposition at Paris, in 1889, I made a personal exhibit
      covering about an acre. As I had no intention of offering to sell anything
      I was showing, and was pushing no companies, the whole exhibition was made
      for honor, and without any hope of profit. But the Paris newspapers came
      around and wanted pay for notices of it, which we promptly refused;
      whereupon there was rather a stormy time for a while, but nothing was
      published about it.
    </p>
    <p>
      "While at the Exposition I visited the Opera-House. The President of
      France lent me his private box. The Opera-House was one of the first to be
      lighted by the incandescent lamp, and the managers took great pleasure in
      showing me down through the labyrinth containing the wiring, dynamos, etc.
      When I came into the box, the orchestra played the 'Star-Spangled Banner,'
      and all the people in the house arose; whereupon I was very much
      embarrassed. After I had been an hour at the play, the manager came around
      and asked me to go underneath the stage, as they were putting on a ballet
      of 300 girls, the finest ballet in Europe. It seems there is a little hole
      on the stage with a hood over it, in which the prompter sits when opera is
      given. In this instance it was not occupied, and I was given the position
      in the prompter's seat, and saw the whole ballet at close range.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The city of Paris gave me a dinner at the new Hotel de Ville, which was
      also lighted with the Edison system. They had a very fine installation of
      machinery. As I could not understand or speak a word of French, I went to
      see our minister, Mr. Whitelaw Reid, and got him to send a deputy to
      answer for me, which he did, with my grateful thanks. Then the telephone
      company gave me a dinner, and the engineers of France; and I attended the
      dinner celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of
      photography. Then they sent to Reid my decoration, and they tried to put a
      sash on me, but I could not stand for that. My wife had me wear the little
      red button, but when I saw Americans coming I would slip it out of my
      lapel, as I thought they would jolly me for wearing it."
    </p>
    <p>
      Nor was this all. Edison naturally met many of the celebrities of France:
      "I visited the Eiffel Tower at the invitation of Eiffel. We went to the
      top, where there was an extension and a small place in which was Eiffel's
      private office. In this was a piano. When my wife and I arrived at the
      top, we found that Gounod, the composer, was there. We stayed a couple of
      hours, and Gounod sang and played for us. We spent a day at Meudon, an old
      palace given by the government to Jansen, the astronomer. He occupied
      three rooms, and there were 300. He had the grand dining-room for his
      laboratory. He showed me a gyroscope he had got up which made the
      incredible number of 4000 revolutions in a second. A modification of this
      was afterward used on the French Atlantic lines for making an artificial
      horizon to take observations for position at sea. In connection with this
      a gentleman came to me a number of years afterward, and I got out a part
      of some plans for him. He wanted to make a gigantic gyroscope weighing
      several tons, to be run by an electric motor and put on a sailing ship. He
      wanted this gyroscope to keep a platform perfectly horizontal, no matter
      how rough the sea was. Upon this platform he was going to mount a
      telescope to observe an eclipse off the Gold Coast of Africa. But for some
      reason it was never completed.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Pasteur invited me to come down to the Institute, and I went and had
      quite a chat with him. I saw a large number of persons being inoculated,
      and also the whole modus operandi, which was very interesting. I saw one
      beautiful boy about ten, the son of an English lord. His father was with
      him. He had been bitten in the face, and was taking the treatment. I said
      to Pasteur, 'Will he live?' 'No,' said he, 'the boy will be dead in six
      days. He was bitten too near the top of the spinal column, and came too
      late!'"
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison has no opinion to offer as an expert on art, but has his own
      standard of taste: "Of course I visited the Louvre and saw the Old
      Masters, which I could not enjoy. And I attended the Luxembourg, with
      modern masters, which I enjoyed greatly. To my mind, the Old Masters are
      not art, and I suspect that many others are of the same opinion; and that
      their value is in their scarcity and in the variety of men with lots of
      money." Somewhat akin to this is a shrewd comment on one feature of the
      Exposition: "I spent several days in the Exposition at Paris. I remember
      going to the exhibit of the Kimberley diamond mines, and they kindly
      permitted me to take diamonds from some of the blue earth which they were
      washing by machinery to exhibit the mine operations. I found several
      beautiful diamonds, but they seemed a little light weight to me when I was
      picking them out. They were diamonds for exhibition purposes &mdash;probably
      glass."
    </p>
    <p>
      This did not altogether complete the European trip of 1889, for Edison
      wished to see Helmholtz. "After leaving Paris we went to Berlin. The
      French papers then came out and attacked me because I went to Germany; and
      said I was now going over to the enemy. I visited all the things of
      interest in Berlin; and then on my way home I went with Helmholtz and
      Siemens in a private compartment to the meeting of the German Association
      of Science at Heidelberg, and spent two days there. When I started from
      Berlin on the trip, I began to tell American stories. Siemens was very
      fond of these stories and would laugh immensely at them, and could see the
      points and the humor, by his imagination; but Helmholtz could not see one
      of them. Siemens would quickly, in German, explain the point, but
      Helmholtz could not see it, although he understood English, which Siemens
      could speak. Still the explanations were made in German. I always wished I
      could have understood Siemens's explanations of the points of those
      stories. At Heidelberg, my assistant, Mr. Wangemann, an accomplished
      German-American, showed the phonograph before the Association."
    </p>
    <p>
      Then came the trip from the Continent to England, of which this will
      certainly pass as a graphic picture: "When I crossed over to England I had
      heard a good deal about the terrors of the English Channel as regards
      seasickness. I had been over the ocean three times and did not know what
      seasickness was, so far as I was concerned myself. I was told that while a
      man might not get seasick on the ocean, if he met a good storm on the
      Channel it would do for him. When we arrived at Calais to cross over,
      everybody made for the restaurant. I did not care about eating, and did
      not go to the restaurant, but my family did. I walked out and tried to
      find the boat. Going along the dock I saw two small smokestacks sticking
      up, and looking down saw a little boat. 'Where is the steamer that goes
      across the Channel?' 'This is the boat.' There had been a storm in the
      North Sea that had carried away some of the boats on the German steamer,
      and it certainly looked awful tough outside. I said to the man: 'Will that
      boat live in that sea?' 'Oh yes,' he said, 'but we've had a bad storm.' So
      I made up my mind that perhaps I would get sick this time. The managing
      director of the English railroad owning this line was Forbes, who heard I
      was coming over, and placed the private saloon at my disposal. The moment
      my family got in the room with the French lady's maid and the rest, they
      commenced to get sick, so I felt pretty sure I was in for it. We started
      out of the little inlet and got into the Channel, and that boat went in
      seventeen directions simultaneously. I waited awhile to see what was going
      to occur, and then went into the smoking-compartment. Nobody was there.
      By-and-by the fun began. Sounds of all kinds and varieties were heard in
      every direction. They were all sick. There must have been 100 people
      aboard. I didn't see a single exception except the waiters and myself. I
      asked one of the waiters concerning the boat itself, and was taken to see
      the engineer, and went down to look at the engines, and saw the captain.
      But I kept mostly in the smoking-room. I was smoking a big cigar, and when
      a man looked in I would give a big puff, and every time they saw that they
      would go away and begin again. The English Channel is a holy terror, all
      right, but it didn't affect me. I must be out of balance."
    </p>
    <p>
      While in Paris, Edison had met Sir John Pender, the English "cable king,"
      and had received an invitation from him to make a visit to his country
      residence: "Sir John Pender, the master of the cable system of the world
      at that time, I met in Paris. I think he must have lived among a lot of
      people who were very solemn, because I went out riding with him in the
      Bois de Boulogne and started in to tell him American stories. Although he
      was a Scotchman he laughed immoderately. He had the faculty of
      understanding and quickly seeing the point of the stories; and for three
      days after I could not get rid of him. Finally I made him a promise that I
      would go to his country house at Foot's Cray, near London. So I went
      there, and spent two or three days telling him stories.
    </p>
    <p>
      "While at Foot's Cray, I met some of the backers of Ferranti, then putting
      up a gigantic alternating-current dynamo near London to send ten or
      fifteen thousand volts up into the main district of the city for electric
      lighting. I think Pender was interested. At any rate the people invited to
      dinner were very much interested, and they questioned me as to what I
      thought of the proposition. I said I hadn't any thought about it, and
      could not give any opinion until I saw it. So I was taken up to London to
      see the dynamo in course of construction and the methods employed; and
      they insisted I should give them some expression of my views. While I gave
      them my opinion, it was reluctantly; I did not want to do so. I thought
      that commercially the thing was too ambitious, that Ferranti's ideas were
      too big, just then; that he ought to have started a little smaller until
      he was sure. I understand that this installation was not commercially
      successful, as there were a great many troubles. But Ferranti had good
      ideas, and he was no small man."
    </p>
    <p>
      Incidentally it may be noted here that during the same year (1889) the
      various manufacturing Edison lighting interests in America were brought
      together, under the leadership of Mr. Henry Villard, and consolidated in
      the Edison General Electric Company with a capital of no less than
      $12,000,000 on an eight-per-cent.-dividend basis. The numerous Edison
      central stations all over the country represented much more than that sum,
      and made a splendid outlet for the product of the factories. A few years
      later came the consolidation with the Thomson-Houston interests in the
      General Electric Company, which under the brilliant and vigorous
      management of President C. A. Coffin has become one of the greatest
      manufacturing institutions of the country, with an output of apparatus
      reaching toward $75,000,000 annually. The net result of both financial
      operations was, however, to detach Edison from the special field of
      invention to which he had given so many of his most fruitful years; and to
      close very definitely that chapter of his life, leaving him free to
      develop other ideas and interests as set forth in these volumes.
    </p>
    <p>
      It might appear strange on the surface, but one of the reasons that most
      influenced Edison to regrets in connection with the "big trade" of 1889
      was that it separated him from his old friend and ally, Bergmann, who, on
      selling out, saw a great future for himself in Germany, went there, and
      realized it. Edison has always had an amused admiration for Bergmann, and
      his "social side" is often made evident by his love of telling stories
      about those days of struggle. Some of the stories were told for this
      volume. "Bergmann came to work for me as a boy," says Edison. "He started
      in on stock-quotation printers. As he was a rapid workman and paid no
      attention to the clock, I took a fancy to him, and gave him piece-work. He
      contrived so many little tools to cheapen the work that he made lots of
      money. I even helped him get up tools until it occurred to me that this
      was too rapid a process of getting rid of my money, as I hadn't the heart
      to cut the price when it was originally fair. After a year or so, Bergmann
      got enough money to start a small shop in Wooster Street, New York, and it
      was at this shop that the first phonographs were made for sale. Then came
      the carbon telephone transmitter, a large number of which were made by
      Bergmann for the Western Union. Finally came the electric light. A dynamo
      was installed in Bergmann's shop to permit him to test the various small
      devices which he was then making for the system. He rented power from a
      Jew who owned the building. Power was supplied from a fifty-horse-power
      engine to other tenants on the several floors. Soon after the introduction
      of the big dynamo machine, the landlord appeared in the shop and insisted
      that Bergmann was using more power than he was paying for, and said that
      lately the belt on the engine was slipping and squealing. Bergmann
      maintained that he must be mistaken. The landlord kept going among his
      tenants and finally discovered the dynamo. 'Oh! Mr. Bergmann, now I know
      where my power goes to,' pointing to the dynamo. Bergmann gave him a
      withering look of scorn, and said, 'Come here and I will show you.'
      Throwing off the belt and disconnecting the wires, he spun the armature
      around by hand. 'There,' said Bergmann, 'you see it's not here that you
      must look for your loss.' This satisfied the landlord, and he started off
      to his other tenants. He did not know that that machine, when the wires
      were connected, could stop his engine.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Soon after, the business had grown so large that E. H. Johnson and I went
      in as partners, and Bergmann rented an immense factory building at the
      corner of Avenue B and East Seventeenth Street, New York, six stories high
      and covering a quarter of a block. Here were made all the small things
      used on the electric-lighting system, such as sockets, chandeliers,
      switches, meters, etc. In addition, stock tickers, telephones, telephone
      switchboards, and typewriters were made the Hammond typewriters were
      perfected and made there. Over 1500 men were finally employed. This shop
      was very successful both scientifically and financially. Bergmann was a
      man of great executive ability and carried economy of manufacture to the
      limit. Among all the men I have had associated with me, he had the
      commercial instinct most highly developed."
    </p>
    <p>
      One need not wonder at Edison's reminiscent remark that, "In any trade any
      of my 'boys' made with Bergmann he always got the best of them, no matter
      what it was. One time there was to be a convention of the managers of
      Edison illuminating companies at Chicago. There were a lot of
      representatives from the East, and a private car was hired. At Jersey City
      a poker game was started by one of the delegates. Bergmann was induced to
      enter the game. This was played right through to Chicago without any
      sleep, but the boys didn't mind that. I had gotten them immune to it.
      Bergmann had won all the money, and when the porter came in and said
      'Chicago,' Bergmann jumped up and said: 'What! Chicago! I thought it was
      only Philadelphia!'"
    </p>
    <p>
      But perhaps this further story is a better indication of developed humor
      and shrewdness: "A man by the name of Epstein had been in the habit of
      buying brass chips and trimmings from the lathes, and in some way Bergmann
      found out that he had been cheated. This hurt his pride, and he determined
      to get even. One day Epstein appeared and said: 'Good-morning, Mr.
      Bergmann, have you any chips to-day?' 'No,' said Bergmann, 'I have none.'
      'That's strange, Mr. Bergmann; won't you look?' No, he wouldn't look; he
      knew he had none. Finally Epstein was so persistent that Bergmann called
      an assistant and told him to go and see if he had any chips. He returned
      and said they had the largest and finest lot they ever had. Epstein went
      up to several boxes piled full of chips, and so heavy that he could not
      lift even one end of a box. 'Now, Mr. Bergmann,' said Epstein, 'how much
      for the lot?' 'Epstein,' said Bergmann, 'you have cheated me, and I will
      no longer sell by the lot, but will sell only by the pound.' No amount of
      argument would apparently change Bergmann's determination to sell by the
      pound, but finally Epstein got up to $250 for the lot, and Bergmann,
      appearing as if disgusted, accepted and made him count out the money. Then
      he said: 'Well, Epstein, good-bye, I've got to go down to Wall Street.'
      Epstein and his assistant then attempted to lift the boxes to carry them
      out, but couldn't; and then discovered that calculations as to quantity
      had been thrown out because the boxes had all been screwed down to the
      floor and mostly filled with boards with a veneer of brass chips. He made
      such a scene that he had to be removed by the police. I met him several
      days afterward and he said he had forgiven Mr. Bergmann, as he was such a
      smart business man, and the scheme was so ingenious.
    </p>
    <p>
      "One day as a joke I filled three or four sheets of foolscap paper with a
      jumble of figures and told Bergmann they were calculations showing the
      great loss of power from blowing the factory whistle. Bergmann thought it
      real, and never after that would he permit the whistle to blow."
    </p>
    <p>
      Another glimpse of the "social side" is afforded in the following little
      series of pen-pictures of the same place and time: "I had my laboratory at
      the top of the Bergmann works, after moving from Menlo Park. The building
      was six stories high. My father came there when he was eighty years of
      age. The old man had powerful lungs. In fact, when I was examined by the
      Mutual Life Insurance Company, in 1873, my lung expansion was taken by the
      doctor, and the old gentleman was there at the time. He said to the
      doctor: 'I wish you would take my lung expansion, too.' The doctor took
      it, and his surprise was very great, as it was one of the largest on
      record. I think it was five and one-half inches. There were only three or
      four could beat it. Little Bergmann hadn't much lung power. The old man
      said to him, one day: 'Let's run up-stairs.' Bergmann agreed and ran up.
      When they got there Bergmann was all done up, but my father never showed a
      sign of it. There was an elevator there, and each day while it was
      travelling up I held the stem of my Waterbury watch up against the column
      in the elevator shaft and it finished the winding by the time I got up the
      six stories." This original method of reducing the amount of physical
      labor involved in watch-winding brings to mind another instance of
      shrewdness mentioned by Edison, with regard to his newsboy days. Being
      asked whether he did not get imposed upon with bad bank-bills, he replied
      that he subscribed to a bank-note detector and consulted it closely
      whenever a note of any size fell into his hands. He was then less than
      fourteen years old.
    </p>
    <p>
      The conversations with Edison that elicited these stories brought out some
      details as to peril that attends experimentation. He has confronted many a
      serious physical risk, and counts himself lucky to have come through
      without a scratch or scar. Four instances of personal danger may be noted
      in his own language: "When I started at Menlo, I had an electric furnace
      for welding rare metals that I did not know about very clearly. I was in
      the dark-room, where I had a lot of chloride of sulphur, a very corrosive
      liquid. I did not know that it would decompose by water. I poured in a
      beakerful of water, and the whole thing exploded and threw a lot of it
      into my eyes. I ran to the hydrant, leaned over backward, opened my eyes,
      and ran the hydrant water right into them. But it was two weeks before I
      could see.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The next time we just saved ourselves. I was making some stuff to squirt
      into filaments for the incandescent lamp. I made about a pound of it. I
      had used ammonia and bromine. I did not know it at the time, but I had
      made bromide of nitrogen. I put the large bulk of it in three filters, and
      after it had been washed and all the water had come through the filter, I
      opened the three filters and laid them on a hot steam plate to dry with
      the stuff. While I and Mr. Sadler, one of my assistants, were working near
      it, there was a sudden flash of light, and a very smart explosion. I said
      to Sadler: 'What is that?' 'I don't know,' he said, and we paid no
      attention. In about half a minute there was a sharp concussion, and Sadler
      said: 'See, it is that stuff on the steam plate.' I grabbed the whole
      thing and threw it in the sink, and poured water on it. I saved a little
      of it and found it was a terrific explosive. The reason why those little
      preliminary explosions took place was that a little had spattered out on
      the edge of the filter paper, and had dried first and exploded. Had the
      main body exploded there would have been nothing left of the laboratory I
      was working in.
    </p>
    <p>
      "At another time, I had a briquetting machine for briquetting iron ore. I
      had a lever held down by a powerful spring, and a rod one inch in diameter
      and four feet long. While I was experimenting with it, and standing beside
      it, a washer broke, and that spring threw the rod right up to the ceiling
      with a blast; and it came down again just within an inch of my nose, and
      went clear through a two-inch plank. That was 'within an inch of your
      life,' as they say.
    </p>
    <p>
      "In my experimental plant for concentrating iron ore in the northern part
      of New Jersey, we had a vertical drier, a column about nine feet square
      and eighty feet high. At the bottom there was a space where two men could
      go through a hole; and then all the rest of the column was filled with
      baffle plates. One day this drier got blocked, and the ore would not run
      down. So I and the vice-president of the company, Mr. Mallory, crowded
      through the manhole to see why the ore would not come down. After we got
      in, the ore did come down and there were fourteen tons of it above us. The
      men outside knew we were in there, and they had a great time digging us
      out and getting air to us."
    </p>
    <p>
      Such incidents brought out in narration the fact that many of the men
      working with him had been less fortunate, particularly those who had
      experimented with the Roentgen X-ray, whose ravages, like those of
      leprosy, were responsible for the mutilation and death of at least one
      expert assistant. In the early days of work on the incandescent lamp,
      also, there was considerable trouble with mercury. "I had a series of
      vacuum-pumps worked by mercury and used for exhausting experimental
      incandescent lamps. The main pipe, which was full of mercury, was about
      seven and one-half feet from the floor. Along the length of the pipe were
      outlets to which thick rubber tubing was connected, each tube to a pump.
      One day, while experimenting with the mercury pump, my assistant, an
      awkward country lad from a farm on Staten Island, who had adenoids in his
      nose and breathed through his mouth, which was always wide open, was
      looking up at this pipe, at a small leak of mercury, when the rubber tube
      came off and probably two pounds of mercury went into his mouth and down
      his throat, and got through his system somehow. In a short time he became
      salivated, and his teeth got loose. He went home, and shortly his mother
      appeared at the laboratory with a horsewhip, which she proposed to use on
      the proprietor. I was fortunately absent, and she was mollified somehow by
      my other assistants. I had given the boy considerable iodide of potassium
      to prevent salivation, but it did no good in this case.
    </p>
    <p>
      "When the first lamp-works were started at Menlo Park, one of my
      experiments seemed to show that hot mercury gave a better vacuum in the
      lamp than cold mercury. I thereupon started to heat it. Soon all the men
      got salivated, and things looked serious; but I found that in the mirror
      factories, where mercury was used extensively, the French Government made
      the giving of iodide of potassium compulsory to prevent salivation. I
      carried out this idea, and made every man take a dose every day, but there
      was great opposition, and hot mercury was finally abandoned."
    </p>
    <p>
      It will have been gathered that Edison has owed his special immunity from
      "occupational diseases" not only to luck but to unusual powers of
      endurance, and a strong physique, inherited, no doubt, from his father.
      Mr. Mallory mentions a little fact that bears on this exceptional quality
      of bodily powers. "I have often been surprised at Edison's wonderful
      capacity for the instant visual perception of differences in materials
      that were invisible to others until he would patiently point them out.
      This had puzzled me for years, but one day I was unexpectedly let into
      part of the secret. For some little time past Mr. Edison had noticed that
      he was bothered somewhat in reading print, and I asked him to have an
      oculist give him reading-glasses. He partially promised, but never took
      time to attend to it. One day he and I were in the city, and as Mrs.
      Edison had spoken to me about it, and as we happened to have an hour to
      spare, I persuaded him to go to an oculist with me. Using no names, I
      asked the latter to examine the gentleman's eyes. He did so very
      conscientiously, and it was an interesting experience, for he was kept
      busy answering Mr. Edison's numerous questions. When the oculist finished,
      he turned to me and said: 'I have been many years in the business, but
      have never seen an optic nerve like that of this gentleman. An ordinary
      optic nerve is about the thickness of a thread, but his is like a cord. He
      must be a remarkable man in some walk of life. Who is he?'"
    </p>
    <p>
      It has certainly required great bodily vigor and physical capacity to
      sustain such fatigue as Edison has all his life imposed upon himself, to
      the extent on one occasion of going five days without sleep. In a
      conversation during 1909, he remarked, as though it were nothing out of
      the way, that up to seven years previously his average of daily working
      hours was nineteen and one-half, but that since then he figured it at
      eighteen. He said he stood it easily, because he was interested in
      everything, and was reading and studying all the time. For instance, he
      had gone to bed the night before exactly at twelve and had arisen at 4.30
      A. M. to read some New York law reports. It was suggested that the secret
      of it might be that he did not live in the past, but was always looking
      forward to a greater future, to which he replied: "Yes, that's it. I don't
      live with the past; I am living for to-day and to-morrow. I am interested
      in every department of science, arts, and manufacture. I read all the time
      on astronomy, chemistry, biology, physics, music, metaphysics, mechanics,
      and other branches&mdash;political economy, electricity, and, in fact, all
      things that are making for progress in the world. I get all the
      proceedings of the scientific societies, the principal scientific and
      trade journals, and read them. I also read The Clipper, The Police
      Gazette, The Billboard, The Dramatic Mirror, and a lot of similar
      publications, for I like to know what is going on. In this way I keep up
      to date, and live in a great moving world of my own, and, what's more, I
      enjoy every minute of it." Referring to some event of the past, he said:
      "Spilt milk doesn't interest me. I have spilt lots of it, and while I have
      always felt it for a few days, it is quickly forgotten, and I turn again
      to the future." During another talk on kindred affairs it was suggested to
      Edison that, as he had worked so hard all his life, it was about time for
      him to think somewhat of the pleasures of travel and the social side of
      life. To which he replied laughingly: "I already have a schedule worked
      out. From now until I am seventy-five years of age, I expect to keep more
      or less busy with my regular work, not, however, working as many hours or
      as hard as I have in the past. At seventy five I expect to wear loud
      waistcoats with fancy buttons; also gaiter tops; at eighty I expect to
      learn how to play bridge whist and talk foolishly to the ladies. At
      eighty-five I expect to wear a full-dress suit every evening at dinner,
      and at ninety&mdash;well, I never plan more than thirty years ahead."
    </p>
    <p>
      The reference to clothes is interesting, as it is one of the few subjects
      in which Edison has no interest. It rather bores him. His dress is always
      of the plainest; in fact, so plain that, at the Bergmann shops in New
      York, the children attending a parochial Catholic school were wont to
      salute him with the finger to the head, every time he went by. Upon
      inquiring, he found that they took him for a priest, with his dark garb,
      smooth-shaven face, and serious expression. Edison says: "I get a suit
      that fits me; then I compel the tailors to use that as a jig or pattern or
      blue-print to make others by. For many years a suit was used as a
      measurement; once or twice they took fresh measurements, but these didn't
      fit and they had to go back. I eat to keep my weight constant, hence I
      need never change measurements." In regard to this, Mr. Mallory furnishes
      a bit of chat as follows: "In a lawsuit in which I was a witness, I went
      out to lunch with the lawyers on both sides, and the lawyer who had been
      cross-examining me stated that he had for a client a Fifth Avenue tailor,
      who had told him that he had made all of Mr. Edison's clothes for the last
      twenty years, and that he had never seen him. He said that some twenty
      years ago a suit was sent to him from Orange, and measurements were made
      from it, and that every suit since had been made from these measurements.
      I may add, from my own personal observation, that in Mr. Edison's clothes
      there is no evidence but that every new suit that he has worn in that time
      looks as if he had been specially measured for it, which shows how very
      little he has changed physically in the last twenty years."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison has never had any taste for amusements, although he will indulge in
      the game of "Parchesi" and has a billiard-table in his house. The coming
      of the automobile was a great boon to him, because it gave him a form of
      outdoor sport in which he could indulge in a spirit of observation,
      without the guilty feeling that he was wasting valuable time. In his
      automobile he has made long tours, and with his family has particularly
      indulged his taste for botany. That he has had the usual experience in
      running machines will be evidenced by the following little story from Mr.
      Mallory: "About three years ago I had a motor-car of a make of which Mr.
      Edison had already two cars; and when the car was received I made inquiry
      as to whether any repair parts were carried by any of the various garages
      in Easton, Pennsylvania, near our cement works. I learned that this
      particular car was the only one in Easton. Knowing that Mr. Edison had had
      an experience lasting two or three years with this particular make of car,
      I determined to ask him for information relative to repair parts; so the
      next time I was at the laboratory I told him I was unable to get any
      repair parts in Easton, and that I wished to order some of the most
      necessary, so that, in case of breakdowns, I would not be compelled to
      lose the use of the car for several days until the parts came from the
      automobile factory. I asked his advice as to what I should order, to which
      he replied: 'I don't think it will be necessary to order an extra top.'"
      Since that episode, which will probably be appreciated by most
      automobilists, Edison has taken up the electric automobile, and is now
      using it as well as developing it. One of the cars equipped with his
      battery is the Bailey, and Mr. Bee tells the following story in regard to
      it: "One day Colonel Bailey, of Amesbury, Massachusetts, who was visiting
      the Automobile Show in New York, came out to the laboratory to see Mr.
      Edison, as the latter had expressed a desire to talk with him on his next
      visit to the metropolis. When he arrived at the laboratory, Mr. Edison,
      who had been up all night experimenting, was asleep on the cot in the
      library. As a rule we never wake Mr. Edison from sleep, but as he wanted
      to see Colonel Bailey, who had to go, I felt that an exception should be
      made, so I went and tapped him on the shoulder. He awoke at once, smiling,
      jumped up, was instantly himself as usual, and advanced and greeted the
      visitor. His very first question was: 'Well, Colonel, how did you come out
      on that experiment?'&mdash;referring to some suggestions he had made at
      their last meeting a year before. For a minute Colonel Bailey did not
      recall what was referred to; but a few words from Mr. Edison brought it
      back to his remembrance, and he reported that the results had justified
      Mr. Edison's expectations."
    </p>
    <p>
      It might be expected that Edison would have extreme and even radical ideas
      on the subject of education&mdash;and he has, as well as a perfect
      readiness to express them, because he considers that time is wasted on
      things that are not essential: "What we need," he has said, "are men
      capable of doing work. I wouldn't give a penny for the ordinary college
      graduate, except those from the institutes of technology. Those coming up
      from the ranks are a darned sight better than the others. They aren't
      filled up with Latin, philosophy, and the rest of that ninny stuff." A
      further remark of his is: "What the country needs now is the practical
      skilled engineer, who is capable of doing everything. In three or four
      centuries, when the country is settled, and commercialism is diminished,
      there will be time for the literary men. At present we want engineers,
      industrial men, good business-like managers, and railroad men." It is
      hardly to be marvelled at that such views should elicit warm protest,
      summed up in the comment: "Mr. Edison and many like him see in reverse the
      course of human progress. Invention does not smooth the way for the
      practical men and make them possible. There is always too much danger of
      neglecting thoughts for things, ideas for machinery. No theory of
      education that aggravates this danger is consistent with national
      well-being."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison is slow to discuss the great mysteries of life, but is of
      reverential attitude of mind, and ever tolerant of others' beliefs. He is
      not a religious man in the sense of turning to forms and creeds, but, as
      might be expected, is inclined as an inventor and creator to argue from
      the basis of "design" and thence to infer a designer. "After years of
      watching the processes of nature," he says, "I can no more doubt the
      existence of an Intelligence that is running things than I do of the
      existence of myself. Take, for example, the substance water that forms the
      crystals known as ice. Now, there are hundreds of combinations that form
      crystals, and every one of them, save ice, sinks in water. Ice, I say,
      doesn't, and it is rather lucky for us mortals, for if it had done so, we
      would all be dead. Why? Simply because if ice sank to the bottoms of
      rivers, lakes, and oceans as fast as it froze, those places would be
      frozen up and there would be no water left. That is only one example out
      of thousands that to me prove beyond the possibility of a doubt that some
      vast Intelligence is governing this and other planets."
    </p>
    <p>
      A few words as to the domestic and personal side of Edison's life, to
      which many incidental references have already been made in these pages. He
      was married in 1873 to Miss Mary Stillwell, who died in 1884, leaving
      three children&mdash;Thomas Alva, William Leslie, and Marion Estelle.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Edison was married again in 1886 to Miss Mina Miller, daughter of Mr.
      Lewis Miller, a distinguished pioneer inventor and manufacturer in the
      field of agricultural machinery, and equally entitled to fame as the
      father of the "Chautauqua idea," and the founder with Bishop Vincent of
      the original Chautauqua, which now has so many replicas all over the
      country, and which started in motion one of the great modern educational
      and moral forces in America. By this marriage there are three children&mdash;Charles,
      Madeline, and Theodore.
    </p>
    <p>
      For over a score of years, dating from his marriage to Miss Miller,
      Edison's happy and perfect domestic life has been spent at Glenmont, a
      beautiful property acquired at that time in Llewellyn Park, on the higher
      slopes of Orange Mountain, New Jersey, within easy walking distance of the
      laboratory at the foot of the hill in West Orange. As noted already, the
      latter part of each winter is spent at Fort Myers, Florida, where Edison
      has, on the banks of the Calahoutchie River, a plantation home that is in
      many ways a miniature copy of the home and laboratory up North. Glenmont
      is a rather elaborate and florid building in Queen Anne English style, of
      brick, stone, and wooden beams showing on the exterior, with an abundance
      of gables and balconies. It is set in an environment of woods and sweeps
      of lawn, flanked by unusually large conservatories, and always bright in
      summer with glowing flower beds. It would be difficult to imagine Edison
      in a stiffly formal house, and this big, cozy, three-story, rambling
      mansion has an easy freedom about it, without and within, quite in keeping
      with the genius of the inventor, but revealing at every turn traces of
      feminine taste and culture. The ground floor, consisting chiefly of broad
      drawing-rooms, parlors, and dining-hall, is chiefly noteworthy for the
      "den," or lounging-room, at the end of the main axis, where the family and
      friends are likely to be found in the evening hours, unless the party has
      withdrawn for more intimate social intercourse to the interesting and
      fascinating private library on the floor above. The lounging-room on the
      ground floor is more or less of an Edison museum, for it is littered with
      souvenirs from great people, and with mementos of travel, all related to
      some event or episode. A large cabinet contains awards, decorations, and
      medals presented to Edison, accumulating in the course of a long career,
      some of which may be seen in the illustration opposite. Near by may be
      noticed a bronze replica of the Edison gold medal which was founded in the
      American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the first award of which was
      made to Elihu Thomson during the present year (1910). There are statues of
      serpentine marble, gifts of the late Tsar of Russia, whose admiration is
      also represented by a gorgeous inlaid and enamelled cigar-case.
    </p>
    <p>
      There are typical bronze vases from the Society of Engineers of Japan, and
      a striking desk-set of writing apparatus from Krupp, all the pieces being
      made out of tiny but massive guns and shells of Krupp steel. In addition
      to such bric-a-brac and bibelots of all kinds are many pictures and
      photographs, including the original sketches of the reception given to
      Edison in 1889 by the Paris Figaro, and a letter from Madame Carnot,
      placing the Presidential opera-box at the disposal of Mr. and Mrs. Edison.
      One of the most conspicuous features of the room is a phonograph equipment
      on which the latest and best productions by the greatest singers and
      musicians can always be heard, but which Edison himself is everlastingly
      experimenting with, under the incurable delusion that this domestic
      retreat is but an extension of his laboratory.
    </p>
    <p>
      The big library&mdash;semi-boudoir&mdash;up-stairs is also very expressive
      of the home life of Edison, but again typical of his nature and
      disposition, for it is difficult to overlay his many technical books and
      scientific periodicals with a sufficiently thick crust of popular
      magazines or current literature to prevent their outcropping into
      evidence. In like manner the chat and conversation here, however lightly
      it may begin, turns invariably to large questions and deep problems,
      especially in the fields of discovery and invention; and Edison, in an
      easy-chair, will sit through the long evenings till one or two in the
      morning, pulling meditatively at his eyebrows, quoting something he has
      just read pertinent to the discussion, hearing and telling new stories
      with gusto, offering all kinds of ingenious suggestions, and without fail
      getting hold of pads and sheets of paper on which to make illustrative
      sketches. He is wonderfully handy with the pencil, and will sometimes
      amuse himself, while chatting, with making all kinds of fancy bits of
      penmanship, twisting his signature into circles and squares, but always
      writing straight lines&mdash;so straight they could not be ruled truer.
      Many a night it is a question of getting Edison to bed, for he would much
      rather probe a problem than eat or sleep; but at whatever hour the visitor
      retires or gets up, he is sure to find the master of the house on hand,
      serene and reposeful, and just as brisk at dawn as when he allowed the
      conversation to break up at midnight. The ordinary routine of daily family
      life is of course often interrupted by receptions and parties, visits to
      the billiard-room, the entertainment of visitors, the departure to and
      return from college, at vacation periods, of the young people, and matters
      relating to the many social and philanthropic causes in which Mrs. Edison
      is actively interested; but, as a matter of fact, Edison's round of toil
      and relaxation is singularly uniform and free from agitation, and that is
      the way he would rather have it.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison at sixty-three has a fine physique, and being free from serious
      ailments of any kind, should carry on the traditions of his long-lived
      ancestors as to a vigorous old age. His hair has whitened, but is still
      thick and abundant, and though he uses glasses for certain work, his
      gray-blue eyes are as keen and bright and deeply lustrous as ever, with
      the direct, searching look in them that they have ever worn. He stands
      five feet nine and one-half inches high, weighs one hundred and
      seventy-five pounds, and has not varied as to weight in a quarter of a
      century, although as a young man he was slim to gauntness. He is very
      abstemious, hardly ever touching alcohol, caring little for meat, but fond
      of fruit, and never averse to a strong cup of coffee or a good cigar. He
      takes extremely little exercise, although his good color and quickness of
      step would suggest to those who do not know better that he is in the best
      of training, and one who lives in the open air.
    </p>
    <p>
      His simplicity as to clothes has already been described. One would be
      startled to see him with a bright tie, a loud checked suit, or a fancy
      waistcoat, and yet there is a curious sense of fastidiousness about the
      plain things he delights in. Perhaps he is not wholly responsible
      personally for this state of affairs. In conversation Edison is direct,
      courteous, ready to discuss a topic with anybody worth talking to, and, in
      spite of his sore deafness, an excellent listener. No one ever goes away
      from Edison in doubt as to what he thinks or means, but he is ever shy and
      diffident to a degree if the talk turns on himself rather than on his
      work.
    </p>
    <p>
      If the authors were asked, after having written the foregoing pages, to
      explain here the reason for Edison's success, based upon their
      observations so far made, they would first answer that he combines with a
      vigorous and normal physical structure a mind capable of clear and logical
      thinking, and an imagination of unusual activity. But this would by no
      means offer a complete explanation. There are many men of equal bodily and
      mental vigor who have not achieved a tithe of his accomplishment. What
      other factors are there to be taken into consideration to explain this
      phenomenon? First, a stolid, almost phlegmatic, nervous system which takes
      absolutely no notice of ennui&mdash;a system like that of a Chinese
      ivory-carver who works day after day and month after month on a piece of
      material no larger than your hand. No better illustration of this
      characteristic can be found than in the development of the nickel pocket
      for the storage battery, an element the size of a short lead-pencil, on
      which upward of five years were spent in experiments, costing over a
      million dollars, day after day, always apparently with the same tubes but
      with small variations carefully tabulated in the note-books. To an
      ordinary person the mere sight of such a tube would have been as
      distasteful, certainly after a week or so, as the smell of a quail to a
      man striving to eat one every day for a month, near the end of his
      gastronomic ordeal. But to Edison these small perforated steel tubes held
      out as much of a fascination at the end of five years as when the search
      was first begun, and every morning found him as eager to begin the
      investigation anew as if the battery was an absolutely novel problem to
      which his thoughts had just been directed.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another and second characteristic of Edison's personality contributing so
      strongly to his achievements is an intense, not to say courageous,
      optimism in which no thought of failure can enter, an optimism born of
      self-confidence, and becoming&mdash;after forty or fifty years of
      experience more and more a sense of certainty in the accomplishment of
      success. In the overcoming of difficulties he has the same intellectual
      pleasure as the chess-master when confronted with a problem requiring all
      the efforts of his skill and experience to solve. To advance along smooth
      and pleasant paths, to encounter no obstacles, to wrestle with no
      difficulties and hardships&mdash;such has absolutely no fascination to
      him. He meets obstruction with the keen delight of a strong man battling
      with the waves and opposing them in sheer enjoyment, and the greater and
      more apparently overwhelming the forces that may tend to sweep him back,
      the more vigorous his own efforts to forge through them. At the conclusion
      of the ore-milling experiments, when practically his entire fortune was
      sunk in an enterprise that had to be considered an impossibility, when at
      the age of fifty he looked back upon five or six years of intense activity
      expended apparently for naught, when everything seemed most black and the
      financial clouds were quickly gathering on the horizon, not the slightest
      idea of repining entered his mind. The main experiment had succeeded&mdash;he
      had accomplished what he sought for. Nature at another point had
      outstripped him, yet he had broadened his own sum of knowledge to a
      prodigious extent. It was only during the past summer (1910) that one of
      the writers spent a Sunday with him riding over the beautiful New Jersey
      roads in an automobile, Edison in the highest spirits and pointing out
      with the keenest enjoyment the many beautiful views of valley and wood.
      The wanderings led to the old ore-milling plant at Edison, now practically
      a mass of deserted buildings all going to decay. It was a depressing
      sight, marking such titanic but futile struggles with nature. To Edison,
      however, no trace of sentiment or regret occurred, and the whole ruins
      were apparently as much a matter of unconcern as if he were viewing the
      remains of Pompeii. Sitting on the porch of the White House, where he
      lived during that period, in the light of the setting sun, his fine face
      in repose, he looked as placidly over the scene as a happy farmer over a
      field of ripening corn. All that he said was: "I never felt better in my
      life than during the five years I worked here. Hard work, nothing to
      divert my thought, clear air and simple food made my life very pleasant.
      We learned a great deal. It will be of benefit to some one some time."
      Similarly, in connection with the storage battery, after having
      experimented continuously for three years, it was found to fall below his
      expectations, and its manufacture had to be stopped. Hundreds of thousands
      of dollars had been spent on the experiments, and, largely without
      Edison's consent, the battery had been very generally exploited in the
      press. To stop meant not only to pocket a great loss already incurred,
      facing a dark and uncertain future, but to most men animated by ordinary
      human feelings, it meant more than anything else, an injury to personal
      pride. Pride? Pooh! that had nothing to do with the really serious
      practical problem, and the writers can testify that at the moment when his
      decision was reached, work stopped and the long vista ahead was peered
      into, Edison was as little concerned as if he had concluded that, after
      all, perhaps peach-pie might be better for present diet than apple-pie. He
      has often said that time meant very little to him, that he had but a small
      realization of its passage, and that ten or twenty years were as nothing
      when considering the development of a vital invention.
    </p>
    <p>
      These references to personal pride recall another characteristic of Edison
      wherein he differs from most men. There are many individuals who derive an
      intense and not improper pleasure in regalia or military garments, with
      plenty of gold braid and brass buttons, and thus arrayed, in appearing
      before their friends and neighbors. Putting at the head of the procession
      the man who makes his appeal to public attention solely because of the
      brilliancy of his plumage, and passing down the ranks through the
      multitudes having a gradually decreasing sense of vanity in their personal
      accomplishment, Edison would be placed at the very end. Reference herein
      has been made to the fact that one of the two great English universities
      wished to confer a degree upon him, but that he was unable to leave his
      work for the brief time necessary to accept the honor. At that occasion it
      was pointed out to him that he should make every possible sacrifice to go,
      that the compliment was great, and that but few Americans had been so
      recognized. It was hopeless&mdash;an appeal based on sentiment. Before him
      was something real&mdash;work to be accomplished&mdash;a problem to be
      solved. Beyond, was a prize as intangible as the button of the Legion of
      Honor, which he concealed from his friends that they might not feel he was
      "showing off." The fact is that Edison cares little for the approval of
      the world, but that he cares everything for the approval of himself.
      Difficult as it may be&mdash;perhaps impossible&mdash;to trace its origin,
      Edison possesses what he would probably call a well-developed case of New
      England conscience, for whose approval he is incessantly occupied.
    </p>
    <p>
      These, then, may be taken as the characteristics of Edison that have
      enabled him to accomplish more than most men&mdash;a strong body, a clear
      and active mind, a developed imagination, a capacity of great mental and
      physical concentration, an iron-clad nervous system that knows no ennui,
      intense optimism, and courageous self-confidence. Any one having these
      capacities developed to the same extent, with the same opportunities for
      use, would probably accomplish as much. And yet there is a peculiarity
      about him that so far as is known has never been referred to before in
      print. He seems to be conscientiously afraid of appearing indolent, and in
      consequence subjects himself regularly to unnecessary hardship. Working
      all night is seldom necessary, or until two or three o'clock in the
      morning, yet even now he persists in such tests upon his strength.
      Recently one of the writers had occasion to present to him a long
      typewritten document of upward of thirty pages for his approval. It was
      taken home to Glenmont. Edison had a few minor corrections to make,
      probably not more than a dozen all told. They could have been embodied by
      interlineations and marginal notes in the ordinary way, and certainly
      would not have required more than ten or fifteen minutes of his time. Yet
      what did he do? HE COPIED OUT PAINSTAKINGLY THE ENTIRE PAPER IN LONG HAND,
      embodying the corrections as he went along, and presented the result of
      his work the following morning. At the very least such a task must have
      occupied several hours. How can such a trait&mdash;and scores of similar
      experiences could be given&mdash;be explained except by the fact that,
      evidently, he felt the need of special schooling in industry&mdash;that
      under no circumstances must he allow a thought of indolence to enter his
      mind?
    </p>
    <p>
      Undoubtedly in the days to come Edison will not only be recognized as an
      intellectual prodigy, but as a prodigy of industry&mdash;of hard work. In
      his field as inventor and man of science he stands as clear-cut and secure
      as the lighthouse on a rock, and as indifferent to the tumult around. But
      as the "old man"&mdash;and before he was thirty years old he was
      affectionately so called by his laboratory associates&mdash;he is a
      normal, fun-loving, typical American. His sense of humor is intense, but
      not of the hothouse, overdeveloped variety. One of his favorite jokes is
      to enter the legal department with an air of great humility and apply for
      a job as an inventor! Never is he so preoccupied or fretted with cares as
      not to drop all thought of his work for a few moments to listen to a new
      story, with a ready smile all the while, and a hearty, boyish laugh at the
      end. His laugh, in fact, is sometimes almost aboriginal; slapping his
      hands delightedly on his knees, he rocks back and forth and fairly shouts
      his pleasure. Recently a daily report of one of his companies that had
      just been started contained a large order amounting to several thousand
      dollars, and was returned by him with a miniature sketch of a small
      individual viewing that particular item through a telescope! His facility
      in making hasty but intensely graphic sketches is proverbial. He takes
      great delight in imitating the lingo of the New York street gamin. A
      dignified person named James may be greeted with: "Hully Gee! Chimmy, when
      did youse blow in?" He likes to mimic and imitate types, generally, that
      are distasteful to him. The sanctimonious hypocrite, the sleek speculator,
      and others whom he has probably encountered in life are done "to the
      queen's taste."
    </p>
    <p>
      One very cold winter's day he entered the laboratory library in fine
      spirits, "doing" the decayed dandy, with imaginary cane under his arm,
      struggling to put on a pair of tattered imaginary gloves, with a
      self-satisfied smirk and leer that would have done credit to a real
      comedian. This particular bit of acting was heightened by the fact that
      even in the coldest weather he wears thin summer clothes, generally
      acid-worn and more or less disreputable. For protection he varies the
      number of his suits of underclothing, sometimes wearing three or four
      sets, according to the thermometer.
    </p>
    <p>
      If one could divorce Edison from the idea of work, and could regard him
      separate and apart from his embodiment as an inventor and man of science,
      it might truly be asserted that his temperament is essentially mercurial.
      Often he is in the highest spirits, with all the spontaneity of youth, and
      again he is depressed, moody, and violently angry. Anger with him,
      however, is a good deal like the story attributed to Napoleon:
    </p>
    <p>
      "Sire, how is it that your judgment is not affected by your great rage?"
      asked one of his courtiers.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Because," said the Emperor, "I never allow it to rise above this line,"
      drawing his hand across his throat. Edison has been seen sometimes almost
      beside himself with anger at a stupid mistake or inexcusable oversight on
      the part of an assistant, his voice raised to a high pitch, sneeringly
      expressing his feelings of contempt for the offender; and yet when the
      culprit, like a bad school-boy, has left the room, Edison has immediately
      returned to his normal poise, and the incident is a thing of the past. At
      other times the unsettled condition persists, and his spleen is vented not
      only on the original instigator but upon others who may have occasion to
      see him, sometimes hours afterward. When such a fit is on him the word is
      quickly passed around, and but few of his associates find it necessary to
      consult with him at the time. The genuine anger can generally be
      distinguished from the imitation article by those who know him intimately
      by the fact that when really enraged his forehead between the eyes
      partakes of a curious rotary movement that cannot be adequately described
      in words. It is as if the storm-clouds within are moving like a whirling
      cyclone. As a general rule, Edison does not get genuinely angry at
      mistakes and other human weaknesses of his subordinates; at best he merely
      simulates anger. But woe betide the one who has committed an act of bad
      faith, treachery, dishonesty, or ingratitude; THEN Edison can show what it
      is for a strong man to get downright mad. But in this respect he is
      singularly free, and his spells of anger are really few. In fact, those
      who know him best are continually surprised at his moderation and
      patience, often when there has been great provocation. People who come in
      contact with him and who may have occasion to oppose his views, may leave
      with the impression that he is hot-tempered; nothing could be further from
      the truth. He argues his point with great vehemence, pounds on the table
      to emphasize his views, and illustrates his theme with a wealth of apt
      similes; but, on account of his deafness, it is difficult to make the
      argument really two-sided. Before the visitor can fully explain his side
      of the matter some point is brought up that starts Edison off again, and
      new arguments from his viewpoint are poured forth. This constant
      interruption is taken by many to mean that Edison has a small opinion of
      any arguments that oppose him; but he is only intensely in earnest in
      presenting his own side. If the visitor persists until Edison has seen
      both sides of the controversy, he is always willing to frankly admit that
      his own views may be unsound and that his opponent is right. In fact,
      after such a controversy, both parties going after each other hammer and
      tongs, the arguments TO HIM being carried on at the very top of one's
      voice to enable him to hear, and FROM HIM being equally loud in the
      excitement of the discussion, he has often said: "I see now that my
      position was absolutely rotten."
    </p>
    <p>
      Obviously, however, all of these personal characteristics have nothing to
      do with Edison's position in the world of affairs. They show him to be a
      plain, easy-going, placid American, with no sense of self-importance, and
      ready at all times to have his mind turned into a lighter channel. In
      private life they show him to be a good citizen, a good family man,
      absolutely moral, temperate in all things, and of great charitableness to
      all mankind. But what of his position in the age in which he lives? Where
      does he rank in the mountain range of great Americans?
    </p>
    <p>
      It is believed that from the other chapters of this book the reader can
      formulate his own answer to the question.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      INTRODUCTION TO THE APPENDIX
    </h2>
    <p>
      THE reader who has followed the foregoing narrative may feel that inasmuch
      as it is intended to be an historical document, an appropriate addendum
      thereto would be a digest of all the inventions of Edison. The
      desirability of such a digest is not to be denied, but as there are some
      twenty-five hundred or more inventions to be considered (including those
      covered by caveats), the task of its preparation would be stupendous.
      Besides, the resultant data would extend this book into several additional
      volumes, thereby rendering it of value chiefly to the technical student,
      but taking it beyond the bounds of biography.
    </p>
    <p>
      We should, however, deem our presentation of Mr. Edison's work to be
      imperfectly executed if we neglected to include an intelligible exposition
      of the broader theoretical principles of his more important inventions. In
      the following Appendix we have therefore endeavored to present a few brief
      statements regarding Mr. Edison's principal inventions, classified as to
      subject-matter and explained in language as free from technicalities as is
      possible. No attempt has been made to conform with strictly scientific
      terminology, but, for the benefit of the general reader, well-understood
      conventional expressions, such as "flow of current," etc., have been
      employed. It should be borne in mind that each of the following items has
      been treated as a whole or class, generally speaking, and not as a digest
      of all the individual patents relating to it. Any one who is sufficiently
      interested can obtain copies of any of the patents referred to for five
      cents each by addressing the Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. C.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      APPENDIX
    </h2>
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    <h2>
      I. THE STOCK PRINTER
    </h2>
    <p>
      IN these modern days, when the Stock Ticker is in universal use, one
      seldom, if ever, hears the name of Edison coupled with the little
      instrument whose chatterings have such tremendous import to the whole
      world. It is of much interest, however, to remember the fact that it was
      by reason of his notable work in connection with this device that he first
      became known as an inventor. Indeed, it was through the intrinsic merits
      of his improvements in stock tickers that he made his real entree into
      commercial life.
    </p>
    <p>
      The idea of the ticker did not originate with Edison, as we have already
      seen in Chapter VII of the preceding narrative, but at the time of his
      employment with the Western Union, in Boston, in 1868, the crudities of
      the earlier forms made an impression on his practical mind, and he got out
      an improved instrument of his own, which he introduced in Boston through
      the aid of a professional promoter. Edison, then only twenty-one, had less
      business experience than the promoter, through whose manipulation he soon
      lost his financial interest in this early ticker enterprise. The narrative
      tells of his coming to New York in 1869, and immediately plunging into the
      business of gold and stock reporting. It was at this period that his real
      work on stock printers commenced, first individually, and later as a
      co-worker with F. L. Pope. This inventive period extended over a number of
      years, during which time he took out forty-six patents on stock-printing
      instruments and devices, two of such patents being issued to Edison and
      Pope as joint inventors. These various inventions were mostly in the line
      of development of the art as it progressed during those early years, but
      out of it all came the Edison universal printer, which entered into very
      extensive use, and which is still used throughout the United States and in
      some foreign countries to a considerable extent at this very day.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's inventive work on stock printers has left its mark upon the art
      as it exists at the present time. In his earlier work he directed his
      attention to the employment of a single-circuit system, in which only one
      wire was required, the two operations of setting the type-wheels and of
      printing being controlled by separate electromagnets which were actuated
      through polarized relays, as occasion required, one polarity energizing
      the electromagnet controlling the type-wheels, and the opposite polarity
      energizing the electromagnet controlling the printing. Later on, however,
      he changed over to a two-wire circuit, such as shown in Fig. 2 of this
      article in connection with the universal stock printer. In the earliest
      days of the stock printer, Edison realized the vital commercial importance
      of having all instruments recording precisely alike at the same moment,
      and it was he who first devised (in 1869) the "unison stop," by means of
      which all connected instruments could at any moment be brought to zero
      from the central transmitting station, and thus be made to work in
      correspondence with the central instrument and with one another. He also
      originated the idea of using only one inking-pad and shifting it from side
      to side to ink the type-wheels. It was also in Edison's stock printer that
      the principle of shifting type-wheels was first employed. Hence it will be
      seen that, as in many other arts, he made a lasting impression in this one
      by the intrinsic merits of the improvements resulting from his work
      therein.
    </p>
    <p>
      We shall not attempt to digest the forty-six patents above named, nor to
      follow Edison through the progressive steps which led to the completion of
      his universal printer, but shall simply present a sketch of the instrument
      itself, and follow with a very brief and general explanation of its
      theory. The Edison universal printer, as it virtually appears in practice,
      is illustrated in Fig. 1 below, from which it will be seen that the most
      prominent parts are the two type-wheels, the inking-pad, and the paper
      tape feeding from the reel, all appropriately placed in a substantial
      framework.
    </p>
    <p>
      The electromagnets and other actuating mechanism cannot be seen plainly in
      this figure, but are produced diagrammatically in Fig. 2, and somewhat
      enlarged for convenience of explanation.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will be seen that there are two electromagnets, one of which, TM, is
      known as the "type-magnet," and the other, PM, as the "press-magnet," the
      former having to do with the operation of the type-wheels, and the latter
      with the pressing of the paper tape against them. As will be seen from the
      diagram, the armature, A, of the type-magnet has an extension arm, on the
      end of which is an escapement engaging with a toothed wheel placed at the
      extremity of the shaft carrying the type-wheels. This extension arm is
      pivoted at B. Hence, as the armature is alternately attracted when current
      passes around its electromagnet, and drawn up by the spring on cessation
      of current, it moves up and down, thus actuating the escapement and
      causing a rotation of the toothed wheel in the direction of the arrow.
      This, in turn, brings any desired letters or figures on the type-wheels to
      a central point, where they may be impressed upon the paper tape. One
      type-wheel carries letters, and the other one figures. These two wheels
      are mounted rigidly on a sleeve carried by the wheel-shaft. As it is
      desired to print from only one type-wheel at a time, it becomes necessary
      to shift them back and forth from time to time, in order to bring the
      desired characters in line with the paper tape. This is accomplished
      through the movements of a three-arm rocking-lever attached to the
      wheel-sleeve at the end of the shaft. This lever is actuated through the
      agency of two small pins carried by an arm projecting from the
      press-lever, PL. As the latter moves up and down the pins play upon the
      under side of the lower arm of the rocking-lever, thus canting it and
      pushing the type-wheels to the right or left, as the case may be. The
      operation of shifting the type-wheels will be given further on.
    </p>
    <p>
      The press-lever is actuated by the press-magnet. From the diagram it will
      be seen that the armature of the latter has a long, pivoted extension arm,
      or platen, trough-like in shape, in which the paper tape runs. It has
      already been noted that the object of the press-lever is to press this
      tape against that character of the type-wheel centrally located above it
      at the moment. It will at once be perceived that this action takes place
      when current flows through the electromagnet and its armature is attracted
      downward, the platen again dropping away from the type-wheel as the
      armature is released upon cessation of current. The paper "feed" is shown
      at the end of the press-lever, and consists of a push "dog," or pawl,
      which operates to urge the paper forward as the press-lever descends.
    </p>
    <p>
      The worm-gear which appears in the diagram on the shaft, near the toothed
      wheel, forms part of the unison stop above referred to, but this device is
      not shown in full, in order to avoid unnecessary complications of the
      drawing.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the right-hand side of the diagram (Fig. 2) is shown a portion of the
      transmitting apparatus at a central office. Generally speaking, this
      consists of a motor-driven cylinder having metallic pins placed at
      intervals, and arranged spirally, around its periphery. These pins
      correspond in number to the characters on the type-wheels. A keyboard (not
      shown) is arranged above the cylinder, having keys lettered and numbered
      corresponding to the letters and figures on the type-wheels. Upon
      depressing any one of these keys the motion of the cylinder is arrested
      when one of its pins is caught and held by the depressed key. When the key
      is released the cylinder continues in motion. Hence, it is evident that
      the revolution of the cylinder may be interrupted as often as desired by
      manipulation of the various keys in transmitting the letters and figures
      which are to be recorded by the printing instrument. The method of
      transmission will presently appear.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the sketch (Fig. 2) there will be seen, mounted upon the cylinder
      shaft, two wheels made up of metallic segments insulated from each other,
      and upon the hubs of these wheels are two brushes which connect with the
      main battery. Resting upon the periphery of these two segmental wheels
      there are two brushes to which are connected the wires which carry the
      battery current to the type-magnet and press-magnet, respectively, as the
      brushes make circuit by coming in contact with the metallic segments. It
      will be remembered that upon the cylinder there are as many pins as there
      are characters on the type-wheels of the ticker, and one of the segmental
      wheels, W, has a like number of metallic segments, while upon the other
      wheel, W', there are only one-half that number. The wheel W controls the
      supply of current to the press-magnet, and the wheel W' to the
      type-magnet. The type-magnet advances the letter and figure wheels one
      step when the magnet is energized, and a succeeding step when the circuit
      is broken. Hence, the metallic contact surfaces on wheel W' are, as
      stated, only half as many as on the wheel W, which controls the
      press-magnet.
    </p>
    <p>
      It should be borne in mind, however, that the contact surfaces and
      insulated surfaces on wheel W' are together equal in number to the
      characters on the type-wheels, but the retractile spring of TM does half
      the work of operating the escapement. On the other hand, the wheel W has
      the full number of contact surfaces, because it must provide for the
      operative closure of the press-magnet circuit whether the brush B' is in
      engagement with a metallic segment or an insulated segment of the wheel
      W'. As the cylinder revolves, the wheels are carried around with its shaft
      and current impulses flow through the wires to the magnets as the brushes
      make contact with the metallic segments of these wheels.
    </p>
    <p>
      One example will be sufficient to convey to the reader an idea of the
      operation of the apparatus. Assuming, for instance, that it is desired to
      send out the letters AM to the printer, let us suppose that the pin
      corresponding to the letter A is at one end of the cylinder and near the
      upper part of its periphery, and that the letter M is about the centre of
      the cylinder and near the lower part of its periphery. The operator at the
      keyboard would depress the letter A, whereupon the cylinder would in its
      revolution bring the first-named pin against the key. During the rotation
      of the cylinder a current would pass through wheel W' and actuate TM,
      drawing down the armature and operating the escapement, which would bring
      the type-wheel to a point where the letter A would be central as regards
      the paper tape When the cylinder came to rest, current would flow through
      the brush of wheel W to PM, and its armature would be attracted, causing
      the platen to be lifted and thus bringing the paper tape in contact with
      the type-wheel and printing the letter A. The operator next sends the
      letter M by depressing the appropriate key. On account of the position of
      the corresponding pin, the cylinder would make nearly half a revolution
      before bringing the pin to the key. During this half revolution the
      segmental wheels have also been turning, and the brushes have transmitted
      a number of current impulses to TM, which have caused it to operate the
      escapement a corresponding number of times, thus turning the type-wheels
      around to the letter M. When the cylinder stops, current once more goes to
      the press-magnet, and the operation of lifting and printing is repeated.
      As a matter of fact, current flows over both circuits as the cylinder is
      rotated, but the press-magnet is purposely made to be comparatively
      "sluggish" and the narrowness of the segments on wheel W tends to diminish
      the flow of current in the press circuit until the cylinder comes to rest,
      when the current continuously flows over that circuit without interruption
      and fully energizes the press-magnet. The shifting of the type-wheels is
      brought about as follows: On the keyboard of the transmitter there are two
      characters known as "dots"&mdash;namely, the letter dot and the figure
      dot. If the operator presses one of these dot keys, it is engaged by an
      appropriate pin on the revolving cylinder. Meanwhile the type-wheels are
      rotating, carrying with them the rocking-lever, and current is pulsating
      over both circuits. When the type-wheels have arrived at the proper point
      the rocking-lever has been carried to a position where its lower arm is
      directly over one of the pins on the arm extending from the platen of the
      press-lever. The cylinder stops, and current operates the sluggish
      press-magnet, causing its armature to be attracted, thus lifting the
      platen and its projecting arm. As the arm lifts upward, the pin moves
      along the under side of the lower arm of the rocking-lever, thus causing
      it to cant and shift the type-wheels to the right or left, as desired. The
      principles of operation of this apparatus have been confined to a very
      brief and general description, but it is believed to be sufficient for the
      scope of this article.
    </p>
    <p>
      NOTE.&mdash;The illustrations in this article are reproduced from American
      Telegraphy and Encyclopedia of the Telegraph, by William Maver, Jr., by
      permission of Maver Publishing Company, New York.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      II. THE QUADRUPLEX AND PHONOPLEX
    </h2>
    <p>
      EDISON'S work in stock printers and telegraphy had marked him as a rising
      man in the electrical art of the period but his invention of quadruplex
      telegraphy in 1874 was what brought him very prominently before the notice
      of the public. Duplex telegraphy, or the sending of two separate messages
      in opposite directions at the same time over one line was known and
      practiced previous to this time, but quadruplex telegraphy, or the
      simultaneous sending of four separate messages, two in each direction,
      over a single line had not been successfully accomplished, although it had
      been the subject of many an inventor's dream and the object of anxious
      efforts for many long years.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the early part of 1873, and for some time afterward, the system
      invented by Joseph Stearns was the duplex in practical use. In April of
      that year, however, Edison took up the study of the subject and filed two
      applications for patents. One of these applications [23] embraced an
      invention by which two messages could be sent not only duplex, or in
      opposite directions as above explained, but could also be sent "diplex"&mdash;that
      is to say, in one direction, simultaneously, as separate and distinct
      messages, over the one line. Thus there was introduced a new feature into
      the art of multiplex telegraphy, for, whereas duplexing (accomplished by
      varying the strength of the current) permitted messages to be sent
      simultaneously from opposite stations, diplexing (achieved by also varying
      the direction of the current) permitted the simultaneous transmission of
      two messages from the same station and their separate reception at the
      distant station.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 23: Afterward issued as Patent No. 162,633, April
     27, 1875.]
</pre>
    <p>
      The quadruplex was the tempting goal toward which Edison now constantly
      turned, and after more than a year's strenuous work he filed a number of
      applications for patents in the late summer of 1874. Among them was one
      which was issued some years afterward as Patent No. 480,567, covering his
      well-known quadruplex. He had improved his own diplex, combined it with
      the Stearns duplex and thereby produced a system by means of which four
      messages could be sent over a single line at the same time, two in each
      direction.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the reader will probably be interested to learn something of the
      theoretical principles of this fascinating invention, we shall endeavor to
      offer a brief and condensed explanation thereof with as little
      technicality as the subject will permit. This explanation will necessarily
      be of somewhat elementary character for the benefit of the lay reader,
      whose indulgence is asked for an occasional reiteration introduced for the
      sake of clearness of comprehension. While the apparatus and the circuits
      are seemingly very intricate, the principles are really quite simple, and
      the difficulty of comprehension is more apparent than real if the
      underlying phenomena are studied attentively.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the root of all systems of telegraphy, including multiplex systems,
      there lies the single basic principle upon which their performance depends&mdash;namely,
      the obtaining of a slight mechanical movement at the more or less distant
      end of a telegraph line. This is accomplished through the utilization of
      the phenomena of electromagnetism. These phenomena are easy of
      comprehension and demonstration. If a rod of soft iron be wound around
      with a number of turns of insulated wire, and a current of electricity be
      sent through the wire, the rod will be instantly magnetized and will
      remain a magnet as long as the current flows; but when the current is cut
      off the magnetic effect instantly ceases. This device is known as an
      electromagnet, and the charging and discharging of such a magnet may, of
      course, be repeated indefinitely. Inasmuch as a magnet has the power of
      attracting to itself pieces of iron or steel, the basic importance of an
      electromagnet in telegraphy will be at once apparent when we consider the
      sounder, whose clicks are familiar to every ear. This instrument consists
      essentially of an electro-magnet of horseshoe form with its two poles
      close together, and with its armature, a bar of iron, maintained in close
      proximity to the poles, but kept normally in a retracted position by a
      spring. When the distant operator presses down his key the circuit is
      closed and a current passes along the line and through the (generally two)
      coils of the electromagnet, thus magnetizing the iron core. Its attractive
      power draws the armature toward the poles. When the operator releases the
      pressure on his key the circuit is broken, current does not flow, the
      magnetic effect ceases, and the armature is drawn back by its spring.
      These movements give rise to the clicking sounds which represent the dots
      and dashes of the Morse or other alphabet as transmitted by the operator.
      Similar movements, produced in like manner, are availed of in another
      instrument known as the relay, whose office is to act practically as an
      automatic transmitter key, repeating the messages received in its coils,
      and sending them on to the next section of the line, equipped with its own
      battery; or, when the message is intended for its own station, sending the
      message to an adjacent sounder included in a local battery circuit. With a
      simple circuit, therefore, between two stations and where an intermediate
      battery is not necessary, a relay is not used.
    </p>
    <p>
      Passing on to the consideration of another phase of the phenomena of
      electromagnetism, the reader's attention is called to Fig. 1, in which
      will be seen on the left a simple form of electromagnet consisting of a
      bar of soft iron wound around with insulated wire, through which a current
      is flowing from a battery. The arrows indicate the direction of flow.
    </p>
    <p>
      All magnets have two poles, north and south. A permanent magnet (made of
      steel, which, as distinguished from soft iron, retains its magnetism for
      long periods) is so called because it is permanently magnetized and its
      polarity remains fixed. In an electromagnet the magnetism exists only as
      long as current is flowing through the wire, and the polarity of the
      soft-iron bar is determined by the DIRECTION of flow of current around it
      for the time being. If the direction is reversed, the polarity will also
      be reversed. Assuming, for instance, the bar to be end-on toward the
      observer, that end will be a south pole if the current is flowing from
      left to right, clockwise, around the bar; or a north pole if flowing in
      the other direction, as illustrated at the right of the figure. It is
      immaterial which way the wire is wound around the bar, the determining
      factor of polarity being the DIRECTION of the current. It will be clear,
      therefore, that if two EQUAL currents be passed around a bar in opposite
      directions (Fig. 3) they will tend to produce exactly opposite polarities
      and thus neutralize each other. Hence, the bar would remain non-magnetic.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the path to the quadruplex passes through the duplex, let us consider
      the Stearns system, after noting one other principle&mdash;namely, that if
      more than one path is presented in which an electric current may complete
      its circuit, it divides in proportion to the resistance of each path.
      Hence, if we connect one pole of a battery with the earth, and from the
      other pole run to the earth two wires of equal resistance as illustrated
      in Fig. 2, equal currents will traverse the wires.
    </p>
    <p>
      The above principles were employed in the Stearns differential duplex
      system in the following manner: Referring to Fig. 3, suppose a wire, A, is
      led from a battery around a bar of soft iron from left to right, and
      another wire of equal resistance and equal number of turns, B, around from
      right to left. The flow of current will cause two equal opposing actions
      to be set up in the bar; one will exactly offset the other, and no
      magnetic effect will be produced. A relay thus wound is known as a
      differential relay&mdash;more generally called a neutral relay.
    </p>
    <p>
      The non-technical reader may wonder what use can possibly be made of an
      apparently non-operative piece of apparatus. It must be borne in mind,
      however, in considering a duplex system, that a differential relay is used
      AT EACH END of the line and forms part of the circuit; and that while each
      relay must be absolutely unresponsive to the signals SENT OUT FROM ITS
      HOME OFFICE, it must respond to signals transmitted by a DISTANT OFFICE.
      Hence, the next figure (4), with its accompanying explanation, will
      probably make the matter clear. If another battery, D, be introduced at
      the distant end of the wire A the differential or neutral relay becomes
      actively operative as follows: Battery C supplies wires A and B with an
      equal current, but battery D doubles the strength of the current
      traversing wire A. This is sufficient to not only neutralize the magnetism
      which the current in wire B would tend to set up, but also&mdash;by reason
      of the excess of current in wire A&mdash;to make the bar a magnet whose
      polarity would be determined by the direction of the flow of current
      around it.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the arrangement shown in Fig. 4 the batteries are so connected that
      current flow is in the same direction, thus doubling the amount of current
      flowing through wire A. But suppose the batteries were so connected that
      the current from each set flowed in an opposite direction? The result
      would be that these currents would oppose and neutralize each other, and,
      therefore, none would flow in wire A. Inasmuch, however, as there is
      nothing to hinder, current would flow from battery C through wire B, and
      the bar would therefore be magnetized. Hence, assuming that the relay is
      to be actuated from the distant end, D, it is in a sense immaterial
      whether the batteries connected with wire A assist or oppose each other,
      as, in either case, the bar would be magnetized only through the operation
      of the distant key.
    </p>
    <p>
      A slight elaboration of Fig. 4 will further illustrate the principle of
      the differential duplex. In Fig. 5 are two stations, A the home end, and B
      the distant station to which a message is to be sent. The relay at each
      end has two coils, 1 and 2, No. 1 in each case being known as the
      "main-line coil" and 2 as the "artificial-line coil." The latter, in each
      case, has in its circuit a resistance, R, to compensate for the resistance
      of the main line, so that there shall be no inequalities in the circuits.
      The artificial line, as well as that to which the two coils are joined,
      are connected to earth. There is a battery, C, and a key, K. When the key
      is depressed, current flows through the relay coils at A, but no magnetism
      is produced, as they oppose each other. The current, however, flows out
      through the main-line coil over the line and through the main-line coil 1
      at B, completing its circuit to earth and magnetizing the bar of the
      relay, thus causing its armature to be attracted. On releasing the key the
      circuit is broken and magnetism instantly ceases.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will be evident, therefore, that the operator at A may cause the relay
      at B to act without affecting his own relay. Similar effects would be
      produced from B to A if the battery and key were placed at the B end.
    </p>
    <p>
      If, therefore, like instruments are placed at each end of the line, as in
      Fig. 6, we have a differential duplex arrangement by means of which two
      operators may actuate relays at the ends distant from them, without
      causing the operation of the relays at their home ends. In practice this
      is done by means of a special instrument known as a continuity preserving
      transmitter, or, usually, as a transmitter. This consists of an
      electromagnet, T, operated by a key, K, and separate battery. The armature
      lever, L, is long, pivoted in the centre, and is bent over at the end. At
      a point a little beyond its centre is a small piece of insulating material
      to which is screwed a strip of spring metal, S. Conveniently placed with
      reference to the end of the lever is a bent metallic piece, P, having a
      contact screw in its upper horizontal arm, and attached to the lower end
      of this bent piece is a post, or standard, to which the main battery is
      electrically connected. The relay coils are connected by wire to the
      spring piece, S, and the armature lever is connected to earth. If the key
      is depressed, the armature is attracted and its bent end is moved upward,
      depressing the spring which makes contact with the upper screw, which
      places the battery to the line, and simultaneously breaks the ground
      connection between the spring and the upturned end of the lever, as shown
      at the left. When the key is released the battery is again connected to
      earth. The compensating resistances and condensers necessary for a duplex
      arrangement are shown in the diagram.
    </p>
    <p>
      In Fig. 6 one transmitter is shown as closed, at A, while the other one is
      open. From our previous illustrations and explanations it will be readily
      seen that, with the transmitter closed at station A, current flows via
      post P, through S, and to both relay coils at A, thence over the main line
      to main-line coil at B, and down to earth through S and the armature lever
      with its grounded wire. The relay at A would be unresponsive, but the core
      of the relay at B would be magnetized and its armature respond to signals
      from A. In like manner, if the transmitter at B be closed, current would
      flow through similar parts and thus cause the relay at A to respond. If
      both transmitters be closed simultaneously, both batteries will be placed
      to the line, which would practically result in doubling the current in
      each of the main-line coils, in consequence of which both relays are
      energized and their armatures attracted through the operation of the keys
      at the distant ends. Hence, two messages can be sent in opposite
      directions over the same line simultaneously.
    </p>
    <p>
      The reader will undoubtedly see quite clearly from the above system, which
      rests upon varying the STRENGTH of the current, that two messages could
      not be sent in the same direction over the one line at the same time. To
      accomplish this object Edison introduced another and distinct feature&mdash;namely,
      the using of the same current, but ALSO varying its DIRECTION of flow;
      that is to say, alternately reversing the POLARITY of the batteries as
      applied to the line and thus producing corresponding changes in the
      polarity of another specially constructed type of relay, called a
      polarized relay. To afford the reader a clear conception of such a relay
      we would refer again to Fig. 1 and its explanation, from which it appears
      that the polarity of a soft-iron bar is determined not by the strength of
      the current flowing around it but by the direction thereof.
    </p>
    <p>
      With this idea clearly in mind, the theory of the polarized relay,
      generally called "polar" relay, as presented in the diagram (Fig. 7), will
      be readily understood.
    </p>
    <p>
      A is a bar of soft iron, bent as shown, and wound around with insulated
      copper wire, the ends of which are connected with a battery, B, thus
      forming an electromagnet. An essential part of this relay consists of a
      swinging PERMANENT magnet, C, whose polarity remains fixed, that end
      between the terminals of the electromagnet being a north pole. Inasmuch as
      unlike poles of magnets are attracted to each other and like poles
      repelled, it follows that this north pole will be repelled by the north
      pole of the electromagnet, but will swing over and be attracted by its
      south pole. If the direction of flow of current be reversed, by reversing
      the battery, the electromagnetic polarity also reverses and the end of the
      permanent magnet swings over to the other side. This is shown in the two
      figures of Fig. 7. This device being a relay, its purpose is to repeat
      transmitted signals into a local circuit, as before explained. For this
      purpose there are provided at D and E a contact and a back stop, the
      former of which is opened and closed by the swinging permanent magnet,
      thus opening and closing the local circuit.
    </p>
    <p>
      Manifestly there must be provided some convenient way for rapidly
      transposing the direction of the current flow if such a device as the
      polar relay is to be used for the reception of telegraph messages, and
      this is accomplished by means of an instrument called a pole-changer,
      which consists essentially of a movable contact piece connected
      permanently to the earth, or grounded, and arranged to connect one or the
      other pole of a battery to the line and simultaneously ground the other
      pole. This action of the pole-changer is effected by movements of the
      armature of an electromagnet through the manipulation of an ordinary
      telegraph key by an operator at the home station, as in the operation of
      the "transmitter," above referred to.
    </p>
    <p>
      By a combination of the neutral relay and the polar relay two operators,
      by manipulating two telegraph keys in the ordinary way, can simultaneously
      send two messages over one line in the SAME direction with the SAME
      current, one operator varying its strength and the other operator varying
      its polarity or direction of flow. This principle was covered by Edison's
      Patent No. 162,633, and was known as the "diplex" system, although, in the
      patent referred to, Edison showed and claimed the adaptation of the
      principle to duplex telegraphy. Indeed, as a matter of fact, it was found
      that by winding the polar relay differentially and arranging the circuits
      and collateral appliances appropriately, the polar duplex system was more
      highly efficient than the neutral system, and it is extensively used to
      the present day.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus far we have referred to two systems, one the neutral or differential
      duplex, and the other the combination of the neutral and polar relays,
      making a diplex system. By one of these two systems a single wire could be
      used for sending two messages in opposite directions, and by the other in
      the same direction or in opposite directions. Edison followed up his work
      on the diplex and combined the two systems into the quadruplex, by means
      of which FOUR messages could be sent and received simultaneously over the
      one wire, two in each direction, thus employing eight operators&mdash;four
      at each end&mdash;two sending and two receiving. The general principles of
      quadruplex telegraphy are based upon the phenomena which we have briefly
      outlined in connection with the neutral relay and the polar relay. The
      equipment of such a system at each end of the line consists of these two
      instruments, together with the special form of transmitter and the
      pole-changer and their keys for actuating the neutral and polar relays at
      the other, or distant, end. Besides these there are the compensating
      resistances and condensers. All of these will be seen in the diagram (Fig.
      8). It will be understood, of course, that the polar relay, as used in the
      quadruplex system, is wound differentially, and therefore its operation is
      somewhat similar in principle to that of the differentially wound neutral
      relay, in that it does not respond to the operation of the key at the home
      office, but only operates in response to the movements of the distant key.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our explanation has merely aimed to show the underlying phenomena and
      principles in broad outline without entering into more detail than was
      deemed absolutely necessary. It should be stated, however, that between
      the outline and the filling in of the details there was an enormous amount
      of hard work, study, patient plodding, and endless experiments before
      Edison finally perfected his quadruplex system in the year 1874.
    </p>
    <p>
      If it were attempted to offer here a detailed explanation of the varied
      and numerous operations of the quadruplex, this article would assume the
      proportions of a treatise. An idea of their complexity may be gathered
      from the following, which is quoted from American Telegraphy and
      Encyclopedia of the Telegraph, by William Maver, Jr.:
    </p>
    <p>
      "It may well be doubted whether in the whole range of applied electricity
      there occur such beautiful combinations, so quickly made, broken up, and
      others reformed, as in the operation of the Edison quadruplex. For
      example, it is quite demonstrable that during the making of a simple dash
      of the Morse alphabet by the neutral relay at the home station the distant
      pole-changer may reverse its battery several times; the home pole-changer
      may do likewise, and the home transmitter may increase and decrease the
      electromotive force of the home battery repeatedly. Simultaneously, and,
      of course, as a consequence of the foregoing actions, the home neutral
      relay itself may have had its magnetism reversed several times, and the
      SIGNAL, that is, the dash, will have been made, partly by the home
      battery, partly by the distant and home batteries combined, partly by
      current on the main line, partly by current on the artificial line, partly
      by the main-line 'static' current, partly by the condenser static current,
      and yet, on a well-adjusted circuit the dash will have been produced on
      the quadruplex sounder as clearly as any dash on an ordinary single-wire
      sounder."
    </p>
    <p>
      We present a diagrammatic illustration of the Edison quadruplex, battery
      key system, in Fig. 8, and refer the reader to the above or other
      text-books if he desires to make a close study of its intricate
      operations. Before finally dismissing the quadruplex, and for the benefit
      of the inquiring reader who may vainly puzzle over the intricacies of the
      circuits shown in Fig. 8, a hint as to an essential difference between the
      neutral relay, as used in the duplex and as used in the quadruplex, may be
      given. With the duplex, as we have seen, the current on the main line is
      changed in strength only when both keys at OPPOSITE stations are closed
      together, so that a current due to both batteries flows over the main
      line. When a single message is sent from one station to the other, or when
      both stations are sending messages that do not conflict, only one battery
      or the other is connected to the main line; but with the quadruplex,
      suppose one of the operators, in New York for instance, is sending
      reversals of current to Chicago; we can readily see how these changes in
      polarity will operate the polar relay at the distant station, but why will
      they not also operate the neutral relay at the distant station as well?
      This difficulty was solved by dividing the battery at each station into
      two unequal parts, the smaller battery being always in circuit with the
      pole-changer ready to have its polarity reversed on the main line to
      operate the distant polar relay, but the spring retracting the armature of
      the neutral relay is made so stiff as to resist these weak currents. If,
      however, the transmitter is operated at the same end, the entire battery
      is connected to the main line, and the strength of this current is
      sufficient to operate the neutral relay. Whether the part or all the
      battery is alternately connected to or disconnected from the main line by
      the transmitter, the current so varied in strength is subject to reversal
      of polarity by the pole-changer; but the variations in strength have no
      effect upon the distant polar relay, because that relay being responsive
      to changes in polarity of a weak current is obviously responsive to
      corresponding changes in polarity of a powerful current. With this
      distinction before him, the reader will have no difficulty in following
      the circuits of Fig. 8, bearing always in mind that by reason of the
      differential winding of the polar and neutral relays, neither of the
      relays at one station will respond to the home battery, and can only
      respond to the distant battery&mdash;the polar relay responding when the
      polarity of the current is reversed, whether the current be strong or
      weak, and the neutral relay responding when the line-current is increased,
      regardless of its polarity. It should be added that besides the system
      illustrated in Fig. 8, which is known as the differential principle, the
      quadruplex was also arranged to operate on the Wheatstone bridge
      principle; but it is not deemed necessary to enter into its details. The
      underlying phenomena were similar, the difference consisting largely in
      the arrangement of the circuits and apparatus. [24]
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 24: Many of the illustrations in this article are
     reproduced from American Telegraphy and Encyclopedia of the
     Telegraph, by William Maver, Jr., by permission of Maver
     Publishing Company, New York.]
</pre>
    <p>
      Edison made another notable contribution to multiplex telegraphy some
      years later in the Phonoplex. The name suggests the use of the telephone,
      and such indeed is the case. The necessity for this invention arose out of
      the problem of increasing the capacity of telegraph lines employed in
      "through" and "way" service, such as upon railroads. In a railroad system
      there are usually two terminal stations and a number of way stations.
      There is naturally much intercommunication, which would be greatly
      curtailed by a system having the capacity of only a single message at a
      time. The duplexes above described could not be used on a railroad
      telegraph system, because of the necessity of electrically balancing the
      line, which, while entirely feasible on a through line, would not be
      practicable between a number of intercommunicating points. Edison's
      phonoplex normally doubled the capacity of telegraph lines, whether
      employed on way business or through traffic, but in actual practice made
      it possible to obtain more than double service. It has been in practical
      use for many years on some of the leading railroads of the United States.
    </p>
    <p>
      The system is a combination of telegraphic apparatus and telephone
      receiver, although in this case the latter instrument is not used in the
      generally understood manner. It is well known that the diaphragm of a
      telephone vibrates with the fluctuations of the current energizing the
      magnet beneath it. If the make and break of the magnetizing current be
      rapid, the vibrations being within the limits of the human ear, the
      diaphragm will produce an audible sound; but if the make and break be as
      slow as with ordinary Morse transmission, the diaphragm will be merely
      flexed and return to its original form without producing a sound. If,
      therefore, there be placed in the same circuit a regular telegraph relay
      and a special telephone, an operator may, by manipulating a key, operate
      the relay (and its sounder) without producing a sound in the telephone, as
      the makes and breaks of the key are far below the limit of audibility. But
      if through the same circuit, by means of another key suitably connected
      there is sent the rapid changes in current from an induction-coil, it will
      cause a series of loud clicks in the telephone, corresponding to the
      signals transmitted; but this current is too weak to affect the telegraph
      relay. It will be seen, therefore, that this method of duplexing is
      practiced, not by varying the strength or polarity, but by sending TWO
      KINDS OF CURRENT over the wire. Thus, two sets of Morse signals can be
      transmitted by two operators over one line at the same time without
      interfering with each other, and not only between terminal offices, but
      also between a terminal office and any intermediate office, or between two
      intermediate offices alone.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      III
    </h2>
    <h3>
      AUTOMATIC TELEGRAPHY
    </h3>
    <p>
      FROM the year 1848, when a Scotchman, Alexander Bain, first devised a
      scheme for rapid telegraphy by automatic methods, down to the beginning of
      the seventies, many other inventors had also applied themselves to the
      solution of this difficult problem, with only indifferent success. "Cheap
      telegraphy" being the slogan of the time, Edison became arduously
      interested in the subject, and at the end of three years of hard work
      produced an entirely successful system, a public test of which was made on
      December 11, 1873 when about twelve thousand (12,000) words were
      transmitted over a single wire from Washington to New York. in twenty-two
      and one-half minutes. Edison's system was commercially exploited for
      several years by the Automatic Telegraph Company, as related in the
      preceding narrative.
    </p>
    <p>
      As a premise to an explanation of the principles involved it should be
      noted that the transmission of telegraph messages by hand at a rate of
      fifty words per minute is considered a good average speed; hence, the
      availability of a telegraph line, as thus operated, is limited to this
      capacity except as it may be multiplied by two with the use of the duplex,
      or by four, with the quadruplex. Increased rapidity of transmission may,
      however, be accomplished by automatic methods, by means of which, through
      the employment of suitable devices, messages may be stamped in or upon a
      paper tape, transmitted through automatically acting instruments, and be
      received at distant points in visible characters, upon a similar tape, at
      a rate twenty or more times greater&mdash;a speed far beyond the
      possibilities of the human hand to transmit or the ear to receive.
    </p>
    <p>
      In Edison's system of automatic telegraphy a paper tape was perforated
      with a series of round holes, so arranged and spaced as to represent Morse
      characters, forming the words of the message to be transmitted. This was
      done in a special machine of Edison's invention, called a perforator,
      consisting of a series of punches operated by a bank of keys&mdash;typewriter
      fashion. The paper tape passed over a cylinder, and was kept in regular
      motion so as to receive the perforations in proper sequence.
    </p>
    <p>
      The perforated tape was then placed in the transmitting instrument, the
      essential parts of which were a metallic drum and a projecting arm
      carrying two small wheels, which, by means of a spring, were maintained in
      constant pressure on the drum. The wheels and drum were electrically
      connected in the line over which the message was to be sent. current being
      supplied by batteries in the ordinary manner.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the transmitting instrument was in operation, the perforated tape was
      passed over the drum in continuous, progressive motion. Thus, the paper
      passed between the drum and the two small wheels, and, as dry paper is a
      non-conductor, current was prevented from passing until a perforation was
      reached. As the paper passed along, the wheels dropped into the
      perforations, making momentary contacts with the drum beneath and causing
      momentary impulses of current to be transmitted over the line in the same
      way that they would be produced by the manipulation of the telegraph key,
      but with much greater rapidity. The perforations being so arranged as to
      regulate the length of the contact, the result would be the transmission
      of long and short impulses corresponding with the dots and dashes of the
      Morse alphabet.
    </p>
    <p>
      The receiving instrument at the other end of the line was constructed upon
      much the same general lines as the transmitter, consisting of a metallic
      drum and reels for the paper tape. Instead of the two small contact
      wheels, however, a projecting arm carried an iron pin or stylus, so
      arranged that its point would normally impinge upon the periphery of the
      drum. The iron pin and the drum were respectively connected so as to be in
      circuit with the transmission line and batteries. As the principle
      involved in the receiving operation was electrochemical decomposition, the
      paper tape upon which the incoming message was to be received was
      moistened with a chemical solution readily decomposable by the electric
      current. This paper, while still in a damp condition, was passed between
      the drum and stylus in continuous, progressive motion. When an electrical
      impulse came over the line from the transmitting end, current passed
      through the moistened paper from the iron pin, causing chemical
      decomposition, by reason of which the iron would be attacked and would
      mark a line on the paper. Such a line would be long or short, according to
      the duration of the electric impulse. Inasmuch as a succession of such
      impulses coming over the line owed their origin to the perforations in the
      transmitting tape, it followed that the resulting marks upon the receiving
      tape would correspond thereto in their respective lengths. Hence, the
      transmitted message was received on the tape in visible dots and dashes
      representing characters of the Morse alphabet.
    </p>
    <p>
      The system will, perhaps, be better understood by reference to the
      following diagrammatic sketch of its general principles:
    </p>
    <p>
      Some idea of the rapidity of automatic telegraphy may be obtained when we
      consider the fact that with the use of Edison's system in the early
      seventies it was common practice to transmit and receive from three to
      four thousand words a minute over a single line between New York and
      Philadelphia. This system was exploited through the use of a moderately
      paid clerical force.
    </p>
    <p>
      In practice, there was employed such a number of perforating machines as
      the exigencies of business demanded. Each machine was operated by a clerk,
      who translated the message into telegraphic characters and prepared the
      transmitting tape by punching the necessary perforations therein. An
      expert clerk could perforate such a tape at the rate of fifty to sixty
      words per minute. At the receiving end the tape was taken by other clerks
      who translated the Morse characters into ordinary words, which were
      written on message blanks for delivery to persons for whom the messages
      were intended.
    </p>
    <p>
      This latter operation&mdash;"copying." as it was called&mdash;was not
      consistent with truly economical business practice. Edison therefore
      undertook the task of devising an improved system whereby the message when
      received would not require translation and rewriting, but would
      automatically appear on the tape in plain letters and words, ready for
      instant delivery.
    </p>
    <p>
      The result was his automatic Roman letter system, the basis for which
      included the above-named general principles of perforated transmission
      tape and electrochemical decomposition. Instead of punching Morse
      characters in the transmission tape however, it was perforated with a
      series of small round holes forming Roman letters. The verticals of these
      letters were originally five holes high. The transmitting instrument had
      five small wheels or rollers, instead of two, for making contacts through
      the perforations and causing short electric impulses to pass over the
      lines. At first five lines were used to carry these impulses to the
      receiving instrument, where there were five iron pins impinging on the
      drum. By means of these pins the chemically prepared tape was marked with
      dots corresponding to the impulses as received, leaving upon it a legible
      record of the letters and words transmitted.
    </p>
    <p>
      For purposes of economy in investment and maintenance, Edison devised
      subsequently a plan by which the number of conducting lines was reduced to
      two, instead of five. The verticals of the letters were perforated only
      four holes high, and the four rollers were arranged in pairs, one pair
      being slightly in advance of the other. There were, of course, only four
      pins at the receiving instrument. Two were of iron and two of tellurium,
      it being the gist of Edison's plan to effect the marking of the chemical
      paper by one metal with a positive current, and by the other metal with a
      negative current. In the following diagram, which shows the theory of this
      arrangement, it will be seen that both the transmitting rollers and the
      receiving pins are arranged in pairs, one pair in each case being slightly
      in advance of the other. Of these receiving pins, one pair&mdash;1 and 3&mdash;are
      of iron, and the other pair&mdash;2 and 4&mdash;of tellurium. Pins 1-2 and
      3-4 are electrically connected together in other pairs, and then each of
      these pairs is connected with one of the main lines that run respectively
      to the middle of two groups of batteries at the transmitting end. The
      terminals of these groups of batteries are connected respectively to the
      four rollers which impinge upon the transmitting drum, the negatives being
      connected to 5 and 7, and the positives to 6 and 8, as denoted by the
      letters N and P. The transmitting and receiving drums are respectively
      connected to earth.
    </p>
    <p>
      In operation the perforated tape is placed on the transmission drum, and
      the chemically prepared tape on the receiving drum. As the perforated tape
      passes over the transmission drum the advanced rollers 6 or 8 first close
      the circuit through the perforations, and a positive current passes from
      the batteries through the drum and down to the ground; thence through the
      earth at the receiving end up to the other drum and back to the batteries
      via the tellurium pins 2 or 4 and the line wire. With this positive
      current the tellurium pins make marks upon the paper tape, but the iron
      pins make no mark. In the merest fraction of a second, as the perforated
      paper continues to pass over the transmission drum, the rollers 5 or 7
      close the circuit through other perforations and t e current passes in the
      opposite direction, over the line wire, through pins 1 or 3, and returns
      through the earth. In this case the iron pins mark the paper tape, but the
      tellurium pins make no mark. It will be obvious, therefore, that as the
      rollers are set so as to allow of currents of opposite polarity to be
      alternately and rapidly sent by means of the perforations, the marks upon
      the tape at the receiving station will occupy their proper relative
      positions, and the aggregate result will be letters corresponding to those
      perforated in the transmission tape.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison subsequently made still further improvements in this direction, by
      which he reduced the number of conducting wires to one, but the principles
      involved were analogous to the one just described.
    </p>
    <p>
      This Roman letter system was in use for several years on lines between New
      York, Philadelphia, and Washington, and was so efficient that a speed of
      three thousand words a minute was attained on the line between the two
      first-named cities.
    </p>
    <p>
      Inasmuch as there were several proposed systems of rapid automatic
      telegraphy in existence at the time Edison entered the field, but none of
      them in practical commercial use, it becomes a matter of interest to
      inquire wherein they were deficient, and what constituted the elements of
      Edison's success.
    </p>
    <p>
      The chief difficulties in the transmission of Morse characters had been
      two in number, the most serious of which was that on the receiving tape
      the characters would be prolonged and run into one another, forming a
      draggled line and thus rendering the message unintelligible. This arose
      from the fact that, on account of the rapid succession of the electric
      impulses, there was not sufficient time between them for the electric
      action to cease entirely. Consequently the line could not clear itself,
      and became surcharged, as it were; the effect being an attenuated
      prolongation of each impulse as manifested in a weaker continuation of the
      mark on the tape, thus making the whole message indistinct. These
      secondary marks were called "tailings."
    </p>
    <p>
      For many years electricians had tried in vain to overcome this difficulty.
      Edison devoted a great deal of thought and energy to the question, in the
      course of which he experimented through one hundred and twenty consecutive
      nights, in the year 1873, on the line between New York and Washington. His
      solution of the problem was simple but effectual. It involved the
      principle of inductive compensation. In a shunt circuit with the receiving
      instrument he introduced electromagnets. The pulsations of current passed
      through the helices of these magnets, producing an augmented marking
      effect upon the receiving tape, but upon the breaking of the current, the
      magnet, in discharging itself of the induced magnetism, would set up
      momentarily a counter-current of opposite polarity. This neutralized the
      "tailing" effect by clearing the line between pulsations, thus allowing
      the telegraphic characters to be clearly and distinctly outlined upon the
      tape. Further elaboration of this method was made later by the addition of
      rheostats, condensers, and local opposition batteries on long lines.
    </p>
    <p>
      The other difficulty above referred to was one that had also occupied
      considerable thought and attention of many workers in the field, and
      related to the perforating of the dash in the transmission tape. It
      involved mechanical complications that seemed to be insurmountable, and up
      to the time Edison invented his perforating machine no really good method
      was available. He abandoned the attempt to cut dashes as such, in the
      paper tape, but instead punched three round holes so arranged as to form a
      triangle. A concrete example is presented in the illustration below, which
      shows a piece of tape with perforations representing the word "same."
    </p>
    <p>
      The philosophy of this will be at once perceived when it is remembered
      that the two little wheels running upon the drum of the transmitting
      instrument were situated side by side, corresponding in distance to the
      two rows of holes. When a triangle of three holes, intended to form the
      dash, reached the wheels, one of them dropped into a lower hole. Before it
      could get out, the other wheel dropped into the hole at the apex of the
      triangle, thus continuing the connection, which was still further
      prolonged by the first wheel dropping into the third hole. Thus, an
      extended contact was made, which, by transmitting a long impulse, resulted
      in the marking of a dash upon the receiving tape.
    </p>
    <p>
      This method was in successful commercial use for some time in the early
      seventies, giving a speed of from three to four thousand words a minute
      over a single line, but later on was superseded by Edison's Roman letter
      system, above referred to.
    </p>
    <p>
      The subject of automatic telegraphy received a vast amount of attention
      from inventors at the time it was in vogue. None was more earnest or
      indefatigable than Edison, who, during the progress of his investigations,
      took out thirty-eight patents on various inventions relating thereto, some
      of them covering chemical solutions for the receiving paper. This of
      itself was a subject of much importance and a vast amount of research and
      labor was expended upon it. In the laboratory note-books there are
      recorded thousands of experiments showing that Edison's investigations not
      only included an enormous number of chemical salts and compounds, but also
      an exhaustive variety of plants, flowers, roots, herbs, and barks.
    </p>
    <p>
      It seems inexplicable at first view that a system of telegraphy
      sufficiently rapid and economical to be practically available for
      important business correspondence should have fallen into disuse. This,
      however, is made clear&mdash;so far as concerns Edison's invention at any
      rate&mdash;in Chapter VIII of the preceding narrative.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      IV. WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY
    </h2>
    <p>
      ALTHOUGH Mr. Edison has taken no active part in the development of the
      more modern wireless telegraphy, and his name has not occurred in
      connection therewith, the underlying phenomena had been noted by him many
      years in advance of the art, as will presently be explained. The authors
      believe that this explanation will reveal a status of Edison in relation
      to the subject that has thus far been unknown to the public.
    </p>
    <p>
      While the term "wireless telegraphy," as now applied to the modern method
      of electrical communication between distant points without intervening
      conductors, is self-explanatory, it was also applicable, strictly
      speaking, to the previous art of telegraphing to and from moving trains,
      and between points not greatly remote from each other, and not connected
      together with wires.
    </p>
    <p>
      The latter system (described in Chapter XXIII and in a succeeding article
      of this Appendix) was based upon the phenomena of electromagnetic or
      electrostatic induction between conductors separated by more or less
      space, whereby electric impulses of relatively low potential and low
      frequency set up in. one conductor were transmitted inductively across the
      air to another conductor, and there received through the medium of
      appropriate instruments connected therewith.
    </p>
    <p>
      As distinguished from this system, however, modern wireless telegraphy&mdash;so
      called&mdash;has its basis in the utilization of electric or ether waves
      in free space, such waves being set up by electric oscillations, or
      surgings, of comparatively high potential and high frequency, produced by
      the operation of suitable electrical apparatus. Broadly speaking, these
      oscillations arise from disruptive discharges of an induction coil, or
      other form of oscillator, across an air-gap, and their character is
      controlled by the manipulation of a special type of circuit-breaking key,
      by means of which long and short discharges are produced. The electric or
      etheric waves thereby set up are detected and received by another special
      form of apparatus more or less distant, without any intervening wires or
      conductors.
    </p>
    <p>
      In November, 1875, Edison, while experimenting in his Newark laboratory,
      discovered a new manifestation of electricity through mysterious sparks
      which could be produced under conditions unknown up to that time.
      Recognizing at once the absolutely unique character of the phenomena, he
      continued his investigations enthusiastically over two mouths, finally
      arriving at a correct conclusion as to the oscillatory nature of the
      hitherto unknown manifestations. Strange to say, however, the true import
      and practical applicability of these phenomena did not occur to his mind.
      Indeed, it was not until more than TWELVE YEARS AFTERWARD, in 1887, upon
      the publication of the notable work of Prof. H. Hertz proving the
      existence of electric waves in free space, that Edison realized the fact
      that the fundamental principle of aerial telegraphy had been within his
      grasp in the winter of 1875; for although the work of Hertz was more
      profound and mathematical than that of Edison, the principle involved and
      the phenomena observed were practically identical&mdash;in fact, it may be
      remarked that some of the methods and experimental apparatus were quite
      similar, especially the "dark box" with micrometer adjustment, used by
      both in observing the spark. [25]
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 25: During the period in which Edison exhibited
     his lighting system at the Paris Exposition in 1881, his
     representative, Mr. Charles Batchelor, repeated Edison's
     remarkable experiments of the winter of 1875 for the benefit
     of a great number of European savants, using with other
     apparatus the original "dark box" with micrometer
     adjustment.]
</pre>
    <p>
      There is not the slightest intention on the part of the authors to detract
      in the least degree from the brilliant work of Hertz, but, on the
      contrary, to ascribe to him the honor that is his due in having given
      mathematical direction and certainty to so important a discovery. The
      adaptation of the principles thus elucidated and the subsequent
      development of the present wonderful art by Marconi, Branly, Lodge, Slaby,
      and others are now too well known to call for further remark at this
      place.
    </p>
    <p>
      Strange to say, that although Edison's early experiments in "etheric
      force" called forth extensive comment and discussion in the public prints
      of the period, they seemed to have been generally overlooked when the work
      of Hertz was published. At a meeting of the Institution of Electrical
      Engineers, held in London on May 16, 1889, at which there was a discussion
      on the celebrated paper of Prof. (Sir) Oliver Lodge on "Lightning
      Conductors," however; the chairman, Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin),
      made the following remarks:
    </p>
    <p>
      "We all know how Faraday made himself a cage six feet in diameter, hung it
      up in mid-air in the theatre of the Royal Institution, went into it, and,
      as he said, lived in it and made experiments. It was a cage with tin-foil
      hanging all round it; it was not a complete metallic enclosing shell.
      Faraday had a powerful machine working in the neighborhood, giving all
      varieties of gradual working-up and discharges by 'impulsive rush'; and
      whether it was a sudden discharge of ordinary insulated conductors, or of
      Leyden jars in the neighborhood outside the cage, or electrification and
      discharge of the cage itself, he saw no effects on his most delicate
      gold-leaf electroscopes in the interior. His attention was not directed to
      look for Hertz sparks, or probably he might have found them in the
      interior. Edison seems to have noticed something of the kind in what he
      called the etheric force. His name 'etheric' may, thirteen years ago, have
      seemed to many people absurd. But now we are all beginning to call these
      inductive phenomena 'etheric.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      With these preliminary observations, let us now glance briefly at Edison's
      laboratory experiments, of which mention has been made.
    </p>
    <p>
      Oh the first manifestation of the unusual phenomena in November, 1875,
      Edison's keenness of perception led him at once to believe that he had
      discovered a new force. Indeed, the earliest entry of this discovery in
      the laboratory note-book bore that caption. After a few days of further
      experiment and observation, however, he changed it to "Etheric Force," and
      the further records thereof (all in Mr. Batchelor's handwriting) were
      under that heading.
    </p>
    <p>
      The publication of Edison's discovery created considerable attention at
      the time, calling forth a storm of general ridicule and incredulity. But a
      few scientific men of the period, whose experimental methods were careful
      and exact, corroborated his deductions after obtaining similar phenomena
      by repeating his experiments with intelligent precision. Among these was
      the late Dr. George M. Beard, a noted physicist, who entered
      enthusiastically into the investigation, and, in addition to a great deal
      of independent experiment, spent much time with Edison at his laboratory.
      Doctor Beard wrote a treatise of some length on the subject, in which he
      concurred with Edison's deduction that the phenomena were the
      manifestation of oscillations, or rapidly reversing waves of electricity,
      which did not respond to the usual tests. Edison had observed the tendency
      of this force to diffuse itself in various directions through the air and
      through matter, hence the name "Etheric" that he had provisionally applied
      to it.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's laboratory notes on this striking investigation are fascinating
      and voluminous, but cannot be reproduced in full for lack of space. In
      view of the later practical application of the principles involved,
      however, the reader will probably be interested in perusing a few extracts
      therefrom as illustrated by facsimiles of the original sketches from the
      laboratory note-book.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the full significance of the experiments shown by these extracts may
      not be apparent to a lay reader, it may be stated by way of premise that,
      ordinarily, a current only follows a closed circuit. An electric bell or
      electric light is a familiar instance of this rule. There is in each case
      an open (wire) circuit which is closed by pressing the button or turning
      the switch, thus making a complete and uninterrupted path in which the
      current may travel and do its work. Until the time of Edison's
      investigations of 1875, now under consideration, electricity had never
      been known to manifest itself except through a closed circuit. But, as the
      reader will see from the following excerpts, Edison discovered a hitherto
      unknown phenomenon&mdash;namely, that under certain conditions the rule
      would be reversed and electricity would pass through space and through
      matter entirely unconnected with its point of origin. In other words, he
      had found the forerunner of wireless telegraphy. Had he then realized the
      full import of his discovery, all he needed was to increase the strength
      of the waves and to provide a very sensitive detector, like the coherer,
      in order to have anticipated the principal developments that came many
      years afterward. With these explanatory observations, we will now turn to
      the excerpts referred to, which are as follows:
    </p>
    <p>
      "November 22, 1875. New Force.&mdash;In experimenting with a vibrator
      magnet consisting of a bar of Stubb's steel fastened at one end and made
      to vibrate by means of a magnet, we noticed a spark coming from the cores
      of the magnet. This we have noticed often in relays, in stock-printers,
      when there were a little iron filings between the armature and core, and
      more often in our new electric pen, and we have always come to the
      conclusion that it was caused by strong induction. But when we noticed it
      on this vibrator it seemed so strong that it struck us forcibly there
      might be something more than induction. We now found that if we touched
      any metallic part of the vibrator or magnet we got the spark. The larger
      the body of iron touched to the vibrator the larger the spark. We now
      connected a wire to X, the end of the vibrating rod, and we found we could
      get a spark from it by touching a piece of iron to it, and one of the most
      curious phenomena is that if you turn the wire around on itself and let
      the point of the wire touch any other portion of itself you get a spark.
      By connecting X to the gas-pipe we drew sparks from the gas-pipes in any
      part of the room by drawing an iron wire over the brass jet of the cock.
      This is simply wonderful, and a good proof that the cause of the spark is
      a TRUE UNKNOWN FORCE."
    </p>
    <p>
      "November 23, 1815. New Force.&mdash;The following very curious result was
      obtained with it. The vibrator shown in Fig. 1 and battery were placed on
      insulated stands; and a wire connected to X (tried both copper and iron)
      carried over to the stove about twenty feet distant. When the end of the
      wire was rubbed on the stove it gave out splendid sparks. When permanently
      connected to the stove, sparks could be drawn from the stove by a piece of
      wire held in the hand. The point X of vibrator was now connected to the
      gas-pipe and still the sparks could be drawn from the stove."
    </p>
    <p>
      . . . . . . . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      "Put a coil of wire over the end of rod X and passed the ends of spool
      through galvanometer without affecting it in any way. Tried a 6-ohm spool
      add a 200-ohm. We now tried all the metals, touching each one in turn to
      the point X." [Here follows a list of metals and the character of spark
      obtained with each.]
    </p>
    <p>
      . . . . . . . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      "By increasing the battery from eight to twelve cells we get a spark when
      the vibrating magnet is shunted with 3 ohms. Cannot taste the least shock
      at B, yet between carbon points the spark is very vivid. As will be seen,
      X has no connection with anything. With a glass rod four feet long, well
      rubbed with a piece of silk over a hot stove, with a piece of battery
      carbon secured to one end, we received vivid sparks into the carbon when
      the other end was held in the hand with the handkerchief, yet the
      galvanometer, chemical paper, the sense of shock in the tongue, and a
      gold-leaf electroscope which would diverge at two feet from a half-inch
      spark plate-glass machine were not affected in the least by it.
    </p>
    <p>
      "A piece of coal held to the wire showed faint sparks.
    </p>
    <p>
      "We had a box made thus: whereby two points could be brought together
      within a dark box provided with an eyepiece. The points were iron, and we
      found the sparks were very irregular. After testing some time two
      lead-pencils found more regular and very much more vivid. We then
      substituted the graphite points instead of iron." [26]
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 26: The dark box had micrometer screws for
     delicate adjustment of the carbon points, and was thereafter
     largely used in this series of investigations for better
     study of the spark. When Mr. Edison's experiments were
     repeated by Mr. Batchelor, who represented him at the Paris
     Exposition of 1881, the dark box was employed for a similar
     purpose.]
</pre>
    <p>
      . . . . . . . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      After recording a considerable number of other experiments, the laboratory
      notes go on to state:
    </p>
    <p>
      "November 30, 1875. Etheric Force.&mdash;We found the addition of battery
      to the Stubb's wire vibrator greatly increased the volume of spark.
      Several persons could obtain sparks from the gas-pipes at once, each spark
      being equal in volume and brilliancy to the spark drawn by a single
      person.... Edison now grasped the (gas) pipe, and with the other hand
      holding a piece of metal, he touched several other metallic substances,
      obtained sparks, showing that the force passed through his body."
    </p>
    <p>
      . . . . . . . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      "December 3, 1875. Etheric Force.&mdash;Charley Edison hung to the
      gas-pipe with feet above the floor, and with a knife got a spark from the
      pipe he was hanging on. We now took the wire from the vibrator in one hand
      and stood on a block of paraffin eighteen inches square and six inches
      thick; holding a knife in the other hand, we drew sparks from the
      stove-pipe. We now tried the crucial test of passing the etheric current
      through the sciatic nerve of a frog just killed. Previous to trying, we
      tested its sensibility by the current from a single Bunsen cell. We put in
      resistance up to 500,000 ohms, and the twitching was still perceptible. We
      tried the induced current from our induction coil having one cell on
      primary,, the spark jumping about one-fiftieth of an inch, the terminal of
      the secondary connected to the frog and it straightened out with violence.
      We arranged frog's legs to pass etheric force through. We placed legs on
      an inverted beaker, and held the two ends of the wires on glass rods eight
      inches long. On connecting one to the sciatic nerve and the other to the
      fleshy part of the leg no movement could be discerned, although brilliant
      sparks could be obtained on the graphite points when the frog was in
      circuit. Doctor Beard was present when this was tried."
    </p>
    <p>
      . . . . . . . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      "December 5, 1875. Etheric Force.&mdash;Three persons grasping hands and
      standing upon blocks of paraffin twelve inches square and six thick drew
      sparks from the adjoining stove when another person touched the sounder
      with any piece of metal.... A galvanoscopic frog giving contractions with
      one cell through two water rheostats was then placed in circuit. When the
      wires from the vibrator and the gas-pipe were connected, slight
      contractions were noted, sometimes very plain and marked, showing the
      apparent presence of electricity, which from the high insulation seemed
      improbable. Doctor Beard, who was present, inferred from the way the leg
      contracted that it moved on both opening and closing the circuit. To test
      this we disconnected the wire between the frog and battery, and placed,
      instead of a vibrating sounder, a simple Morse key and a sounder taking
      the 'etheric' from armature. The spark was now tested in dark box and
      found to be very strong. It was then connected to the nerves of the frog,
      BUT NO MOVEMENT OF ANY KIND COULD BE DETECTED UPON WORKING THE KEY,
      although the brilliancy and power of the spark were undiminished. The
      thought then occurred to Edison that the movement of the frog was due to
      mechanical vibrations from the vibrator (which gives probably two hundred
      and fifty vibrations per second), passing through the wires and irritating
      the sensitive nerves of the frog. Upon disconnecting the battery wires and
      holding a tuning-fork giving three hundred and twenty-six vibrations per
      second to the base of the sounder, the vibrations over the wire made the
      frog contract nearly every time.... The contraction of the frog's legs may
      with considerable safety be said to be caused by these mechanical
      vibrations being transmitted through the conducting wires."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison thought that the longitudinal vibrations caused by the sounder
      produced a more marked effect, and proceeded to try out his theory. The
      very next entry in the laboratory note-book bears the same date as the
      above (December 5, 1875), and is entitled "Longitudinal Vibrations," and
      reads as follows:
    </p>
    <p>
      "We took a long iron wire one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter and rubbed
      it lengthways with a piece of leather with resin on for about three feet,
      backward and forward. About ten feet away we applied the wire to the back
      of the neck and it gives a horrible sensation, showing the vibrations
      conducted through the wire."
    </p>
    <p>
      . . . . . . . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      The following experiment illustrates notably the movement of the electric
      waves through free space:
    </p>
    <p>
      "December 26, 1875. Etheric Force.&mdash;An experiment tried to-night
      gives a curious result. A is a vibrator, B, C, D, E are sheets of tin-foil
      hung on insulating stands. The sheets are about twelve by eight inches. B
      and C are twenty-six inches apart, C and D forty-eight inches and D and E
      twenty-six inches. B is connected to the vibrator and E to point in dark
      box, the other point to ground. We received sparks at intervals, although
      insulated by such space."
    </p>
    <p>
      With the above our extracts must close, although we have given but a few
      of the interesting experiments tried at the time. It will be noticed,
      however, that these records show much progression in a little over a
      month. Just after the item last above extracted, the Edison shop became
      greatly rushed on telegraphic inventions, and not many months afterward
      came the removal to Menlo Park; hence the etheric-force investigations
      were side-tracked for other matters deemed to be more important at that
      time.
    </p>
    <p>
      Doctor Beard in his previously mentioned treatise refers, on page 27, to
      the views of others who have repeated Edison's experiments and observed
      the phenomena, and in a foot-note says:
    </p>
    <p>
      "Professor Houston, of Philadelphia, among others, has repeated some of
      these physical experiments, has adopted in full and after but a partial
      study of the subject, the hypothesis of rapidly reversed electricity as
      suggested in my letter to the Tribune of December 8th, and further claims
      priority of discovery, because he observed the spark of this when
      experimenting with a Ruhmkorff coil four years ago. To this claim, if it
      be seriously entertained, the obvious reply is that thousands of persons,
      probably, had seen this spark before it was DISCOVERED by Mr. Edison; it
      had been seen by Professor Nipher, who supposed, and still supposes, it is
      the spark of the extra current; it has been seen by my friend, Prof. J. E.
      Smith, who assumed, as he tells me, without examination, that it was
      inductive electricity breaking through bad insulation; it had been seen,
      as has been stated, by Mr. Edison many times before he thought it worthy
      of study, it was undoubtedly seen by Professor Houston, who, like so many
      others, failed to even suspect its meaning and thus missed an important
      discovery. The honor of a scientific discovery belongs, not to him who
      first sees a thing, but to him who first sees it with expert eyes; not to
      him even who drops an original suggestion, but to him who first makes,
      that suggestion fruitful of results. If to see with the eyes a phenomenon
      is to discover the law of which that phenomenon is a part, then every
      schoolboy who, before the time of Newton, ever saw an apple fall, was a
      discoverer of the law of gravitation...."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison took out only one patent on long-distance telegraphy without wires.
      While the principle involved therein (induction) was not precisely
      analogous to the above, or to the present system of wireless telegraphy,
      it was a step forward in the progress of the art. The application was
      filed May 23, 1885, at the time he was working on induction telegraphy
      (two years before the publication of the work of Hertz), but the patent
      (No. 465,971) was not issued until December 29, 1891. In 1903 it was
      purchased from him by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company. Edison has
      always had a great admiration for Marconi and his work, and a warm
      friendship exists between the two men. During the formative period of the
      Marconi Company attempts were made to influence Edison to sell this patent
      to an opposing concern, but his regard for Marconi and belief in the
      fundamental nature of his work were so strong that he refused flatly,
      because in the hands of an enemy the patent might be used inimically to
      Marconi's interests.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's ideas, as expressed in the specifications of this patent, show
      very clearly the close analogy of his system to that now in vogue. As they
      were filed in the Patent Office several years before the possibility of
      wireless telegraphy was suspected, it will undoubtedly be of interest to
      give the following extract therefrom:
    </p>
    <p>
      "I have discovered that if sufficient elevation be obtained to overcome
      the curvature of the earth's surface and to reduce to the minimum the
      earth's absorption, electric telegraphing or signalling between distant
      points can be carried on by induction without the use of wires connecting
      such distant points. This discovery is especially applicable to
      telegraphing across bodies of water, thus avoiding the use of submarine
      cables, or for communicating between vessels at sea, or between vessels at
      sea and points on land, but it is also applicable to electric
      communication between distant points on land, it being necessary, however,
      on land (with the exception of communication over open prairie) to
      increase the elevation in order to reduce to the minimum the
      induction-absorbing effect of houses, trees, and elevations in the land
      itself. At sea from an elevation of one hundred feet I can communicate
      electrically a great distance, and since this elevation or one
      sufficiently high can be had by utilizing the masts of ships, signals can
      be sent and received between ships separated a considerable distance, and
      by repeating the signals from ship to ship communication can be
      established between points at any distance apart or across the largest
      seas and even oceans. The collision of ships in fogs can be prevented by
      this character of signalling, by the use of which, also, the safety of a
      ship in approaching a dangerous coast in foggy weather can be assured. In
      communicating between points on land, poles of great height can be used,
      or captive balloons. At these elevated points, whether upon the masts of
      ships, upon poles or balloons, condensing surfaces of metal or other
      conductor of electricity are located. Each condensing surface is connected
      with earth by an electrical conducting wire. On land this earth connection
      would be one of usual character in telegraphy. At sea the wire would run
      to one or more metal plates on the bottom of the vessel, where the earth
      connection would be made with the water. The high-resistance secondary
      circuit of an induction coil is located in circuit between the condensing
      surface and the ground. The primary circuit of the induction coil includes
      a battery and a device for transmitting signals, which may be a revolving
      circuit-breaker operated continually by a motor of any suitable kind,
      either electrical or mechanical, and a key normally short-circuiting the
      circuit-breaker or secondary coil. For receiving signals I locate in said
      circuit between the condensing surface and the ground a diaphragm sounder,
      which is preferably one of my electromotograph telephone receivers. The
      key normally short-circuiting the revolving circuit-breaker, no impulses
      are produced in the induction coil until the key is depressed, when a
      large number of impulses are produced in the primary, and by means of the
      secondary corresponding impulses or variations in tension are produced at
      the elevated condensing surface, producing thereat electrostatic impulses.
      These electrostatic impulses are transmitted inductively to the elevated
      condensing surface at the distant point, and are made audible by the
      electromotograph connected in the ground circuit with such distant
      condensing surface."
    </p>
    <p>
      The accompanying illustrations are reduced facsimiles of the drawings
      attached to the above patent, No. 465,971.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      V. THE ELECTROMOTOGRAPH
    </h2>
    <p>
      IN solving a problem that at the time was thought to be insurmountable,
      and in the adaptability of its principles to the successful overcoming of
      apparently insuperable difficulties subsequently arising in other lines of
      work, this invention is one of the most remarkable of the many that Edison
      has made in his long career as an inventor.
    </p>
    <p>
      The object primarily sought to be accomplished was the repeating of
      telegraphic signals from a distance without the aid of a galvanometer or
      an electromagnetic relay, to overcome the claims of the Page patent
      referred to in the preceding narrative. This object was achieved in the
      device described in Edison's basic patent No. 158,787, issued January 19,
      1875, by the substitution of friction and anti-friction for the presence
      and absence of magnetism in a regulation relay.
    </p>
    <p>
      It may be observed, parenthetically, for the benefit of the lay reader,
      that in telegraphy the device known as the relay is a receiving instrument
      containing an electromagnet adapted to respond to the weak line-current.
      Its armature moves in accordance with electrical impulses, or signals,
      transmitted from a distance, and, in so responding, operates mechanically
      to alternately close and open a separate local circuit in which there is a
      sounder and a powerful battery. When used for true relaying purposes the
      signals received from a distance are in turn repeated over the next
      section of the line, the powerful local battery furnishing current for
      this purpose. As this causes a loud repetition of the original signals, it
      will be seen that relaying is an economic method of extending a telegraph
      circuit beyond the natural limits of its battery power.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the time of Edison's invention, as related in Chapter IX of the
      preceding narrative, there existed no other known method than the one just
      described for the repetition of transmitted signals, thus limiting the
      application of telegraphy to the pleasure of those who might own any
      patent controlling the relay, except on simple circuits where a single
      battery was sufficient. Edison's previous discovery of differential
      friction of surfaces through electrochemical decomposition was now adapted
      by him to produce motion at the end of a circuit without the intervention
      of an electromagnet. In other words, he invented a telegraph instrument
      having a vibrator controlled by electrochemical decomposition, to take the
      place of a vibrating armature operated by an electromagnet, and thus
      opened an entirely new and unsuspected avenue in the art.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's electromotograph comprised an ingeniously arranged apparatus in
      which two surfaces, normally in contact with each other, were caused to
      alternately adhere by friction or slip by reason of electrochemical
      decomposition. One of these surfaces consisted of a small drum or cylinder
      of chalk, which was kept in a moistened condition with a suitable chemical
      solution, and adapted to revolve continuously by clockwork. The other
      surface consisted of a small pad which rested with frictional pressure on
      the periphery of the drum. This pad was carried on the end of a vibrating
      arm whose lateral movement was limited between two adjustable points.
      Normally, the frictional pressure between the drum and pad would carry the
      latter with the former as it revolved, but if the friction were removed a
      spring on the end of the vibrator arm would draw it back to its
      starting-place.
    </p>
    <p>
      In practice, the chalk drum was electrically connected with one pole of an
      incoming telegraph circuit, and the vibrating arm and pad with the other
      pole. When the drum rotated, the friction of the pad carried the vibrating
      arm forward, but an electrical impulse coming over the line would
      decompose the chemical solution with which the drum was moistened, causing
      an effect similar to lubrication, and thus allowing the pad to slip
      backward freely in response to the pull of its retractile spring. The
      frictional movements of the pad with the drum were comparatively long or
      short, and corresponded with the length of the impulses sent in over the
      line. Thus, the transmission of Morse dots and dashes by the distant
      operator resulted in movements of corresponding length by the frictional
      pad and vibrating arm.
    </p>
    <p>
      This brings us to the gist of the ingenious way in which Edison
      substituted the action of electrochemical decomposition for that of the
      electromagnet to operate a relay. The actual relaying was accomplished
      through the medium of two contacts making connection with the local or
      relay circuit. One of these contacts was fixed, while the other was
      carried by the vibrating arm; and, as the latter made its forward and
      backward movements, these contacts were alternately brought together or
      separated, thus throwing in and out of circuit the battery and sounder in
      the local circuit and causing a repetition of the incoming signals. The
      other side of the local circuit was permanently connected to an insulated
      block on the vibrator. This device not only worked with great rapidity,
      but was extremely sensitive, and would respond to currents too weak to
      affect the most delicate electromagnetic relay. It should be stated that
      Edison did not confine himself to the working of the electromotograph by
      the slipping of surfaces through the action of incoming current, but by
      varying the character of the surfaces in contact the frictional effect
      might be intensified by the electrical current. In such a case the
      movements would be the reverse of those above indicated, but the end
      sought&mdash;namely, the relaying of messages&mdash;would be attained with
      the same certainty.
    </p>
    <p>
      While the principal object of this invention was to accomplish the
      repetition of signals without the aid of an electromagnetic relay, the
      instrument devised by Edison was capable of use as a recorder also, by
      employing a small wheel inked by a fountain wheel and attached to the
      vibrating arm through suitable mechanism. By means of this adjunct the
      dashes and dots of the transmitted impulses could be recorded upon a paper
      ribbon passing continuously over the drum.
    </p>
    <p>
      The electromotograph is shown diagrammatically in Figs. 1 and 2, in plan
      and vertical section respectively. The reference letters in each case
      indicate identical parts: A being the chalk drum, B the paper tape, C the
      auxiliary cylinder, D the vibrating arm, E the frictional pad, F the
      spring, G and H the two contacts, I and J the two wires leading to local
      circuit, K a battery, and L an ordinary telegraph key. The two last named,
      K and L, are shown to make the sketch complete but in practice would be at
      the transmitting end, which might be hundreds of miles away. It will be
      understood, of course, that the electromotograph is a receiving and
      relaying instrument.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another notable use of the electromotograph principle was in its
      adaptation to the receiver in Edison's loud-speaking telephone, on which
      United States Patent No. 221,957 was issued November 25, 1879. A chalk
      cylinder moistened with a chemical solution was revolved by hand or a
      small motor. Resting on the cylinder was a palladium-faced pen or spring,
      which was attached to a mica diaphragm in a resonator. The current passed
      from the main line through the pen to the chalk and to the battery. The
      sound-waves impinging upon the distant transmitter varied the resistance
      of the carbon button therein, thus causing corresponding variations in the
      strength of the battery current. These variations, passing through the
      chalk cylinder produced more or less electrochemical decomposition, which
      in turn caused differences of adhesion between the pen and cylinder and
      hence gave rise to mechanical vibrations of the diaphragm by reason of
      which the speaker's words were reproduced. Telephones so operated repeated
      speaking and singing in very loud tones. In one instance, spoken words and
      the singing of songs originating at a distance were heard perfectly by an
      audience of over five thousand people.
    </p>
    <p>
      The loud-speaking telephone is shown in section, diagrammatically, in the
      sketch (Fig. 3), in which A is the chalk cylinder mounted on a shaft, B.
      The palladium-faced pen or spring, C, is connected to diaphragm D. The
      instrument in its commercial form is shown in Fig. 4.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      VI. THE TELEPHONE
    </h2>
    <p>
      ON April 27, 1877, Edison filed in the United States Patent Office an
      application for a patent on a telephone, and on May 3, 1892, more than
      fifteen years afterward, Patent No. 474,230 was granted thereon. Numerous
      other patents have been issued to him for improvements in telephones, but
      the one above specified may be considered as the most important of them,
      since it is the one that first discloses the principle of the carbon
      transmitter.
    </p>
    <p>
      This patent embodies but two claims, which are as follows:
    </p>
    <p>
      "1. In a speaking-telegraph transmitter, the combination of a metallic
      diaphragm and disk of plumbago or equivalent material, the contiguous
      faces of said disk and diaphragm being in contact, substantially as
      described.
    </p>
    <p>
      "2. As a means for effecting a varying surface contact in the circuit of a
      speaking-telegraph transmitter, the combination of two electrodes, one of
      plumbago or similar material, and both having broad surfaces in vibratory
      contact with each other, substantially as described."
    </p>
    <p>
      The advance that was brought about by Edison's carbon transmitter will be
      more apparent if we glance first at the state of the art of telephony
      prior to his invention.
    </p>
    <p>
      Bell was undoubtedly the first inventor of the art of transmitting speech
      over an electric circuit, but, with his particular form of telephone, the
      field was circumscribed. Bell's telephone is shown in the diagrammatic
      sectional sketch (Fig. 1).
    </p>
    <p>
      In the drawing M is a bar magnet contained in the rubber case, L. A
      bobbin, or coil of wire, B, surrounds one end of the magnet. A diaphragm
      of soft iron is shown at D, and E is the mouthpiece. The wire terminals of
      the coil, B, connect with the binding screws, C C.
    </p>
    <p>
      The next illustration shows a pair of such telephones connected for use,
      the working parts only being designated by the above reference letters.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will be noted that the wire terminals are here put to their proper
      uses, two being joined together to form a line of communication, and the
      other two being respectively connected to "ground."
    </p>
    <p>
      Now, if we imagine a person at each one of the instruments (Fig. 2) we
      shall find that when one of them speaks the sound vibrations impinge upon
      the diaphragm and cause it to act as a vibrating armature. By reason of
      its vibrations, this diaphragm induces very weak electric impulses in the
      magnetic coil. These impulses, according to Bell's theory, correspond in
      form to the sound-waves, and, passing over the line, energize the magnet
      coil at the receiving end, thus giving rise to corresponding variations in
      magnetism by reason of which the receiving diaphragm is similarly vibrated
      so as to reproduce the sounds. A single apparatus at each end is therefore
      sufficient, performing the double function of transmitter and receiver. It
      will be noticed that in this arrangement no battery is used The strength
      of the impulses transmitted is therefore limited to that of the
      necessarily weak induction currents generated by the original sounds minus
      any loss arising by reason of resistance in the line.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's carbon transmitter overcame this vital or limiting weakness by
      providing for independent power on the transmission circuit, and by
      introducing the principle of varying the resistance of that circuit with
      changes in the pressure. With Edison's telephone there is used a closed
      circuit on which a battery current constantly flows, and in that circuit
      is a pair of electrodes, one or both of which is carbon. These electrodes
      are always in contact with a certain initial pressure, so that current
      will be always flowing over the circuit. One of the electrodes is
      connected with the diaphragm on which the sound-waves impinge, and the
      vibrations of this diaphragm cause corresponding variations in pressure
      between the electrodes, and thereby effect similar variations in the
      current which is passing over the line to the receiving end. This current,
      flowing around the receiving magnet, causes corresponding impulses
      therein, which, acting upon its diaphragm, effect a reproduction of the
      original vibrations and hence of the original sounds.
    </p>
    <p>
      In other words, the essential difference is that with Bell's telephone the
      sound-waves themselves generate the electric impulses, which are therefore
      extremely faint. With Edison's telephone the sound-waves simply actuate an
      electric valve, so to speak, and permit variations in a current of any
      desired strength.
    </p>
    <p>
      A second distinction between the two telephones is this: With the Bell
      apparatus the very weak electric impulses generated by the vibration of
      the transmitting diaphragm pass over the entire line to the receiving end,
      and, in consequence, the possible length of line is limited to a few
      miles, even under ideal conditions. With Edison's telephone the battery
      current does not flow on the main line, but passes through the primary
      circuit of an induction-coil, from the secondary of which corresponding
      impulses of enormously higher potential are sent out on the main line to
      the receiving end. In consequence, the line may be hundreds of miles in
      length. No modern telephone system is in use to-day that does not use
      these characteristic features: the varying resistance and the
      induction-coil. The system inaugurated by Edison is shown by the diagram
      (Fig. 3), in which the carbon transmitter, the induction-coil, the line,
      and the distant receiver are respectively indicated.
    </p>
    <p>
      In Fig. 4 an early form of the Edison carbon transmitter is represented in
      sectional view.
    </p>
    <p>
      The carbon disk is represented by the black portion, E, near the
      diaphragm, A, placed between two platinum plates D and G, which are
      connected in the battery circuit, as shown by the lines. A small piece of
      rubber tubing, B, is attached to the centre of the metallic diaphragm, and
      presses lightly against an ivory piece, F, which is placed directly over
      one of the platinum plates. Whenever, therefore, any motion is given to
      the diaphragm, it is immediately followed by a corresponding pressure upon
      the carbon, and by a change of resistance in the latter, as described
      above.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is interesting to note the position which Edison occupies in the
      telephone art from a legal standpoint. To this end the reader's attention
      is called to a few extracts from a decision of Judge Brown in two suits
      brought in the United States Circuit Court, District of Massachusetts, by
      the American Bell Telephone Company against the National Telephone
      Manufacturing Company, et al., and Century Telephone Company, et al.,
      reported in Federal Reporter, 109, page 976, et seq. These suits were
      brought on the Berliner patent, which, it was claimed, covered broadly the
      electrical transmission of speech by variations of pressure between
      opposing electrodes in constant contact. The Berliner patent was declared
      invalid, and in the course of a long and exhaustive opinion, in which the
      state of art and the work of Bell, Edison, Berliner, and others was fully
      discussed, the learned Judge made the following remarks: "The carbon
      electrode was the invention of Edison.... Edison preceded Berliner in the
      transmission of speech.... The carbon transmitter was an experimental
      invention of a very high order of merit.... Edison, by countless
      experiments, succeeded in advancing the art. . . . That Edison did produce
      speech with solid electrodes before Berliner is clearly proven.... The use
      of carbon in a transmitter is, beyond controversy, the invention of
      Edison. Edison was the first to make apparatus in which carbon was used as
      one of the electrodes.... The carbon transmitter displaced Bell's magnetic
      transmitter, and, under several forms of construction, remains the only
      commercial instrument.... The advance in the art was due to the carbon
      electrode of Edison.... It is conceded that the Edison transmitter as
      apparatus is a very important invention.... An immense amount of
      painstaking and highly ingenious experiment preceded Edison's successful
      result. The discovery of the availability of carbon was unquestionably
      invention, and it resulted in the 'first practical success in the art.'"
    </p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      VII. EDISON'S TASIMETER
    </h2>
    <p>
      THIS interesting and remarkable device is one of Edison's many inventions
      not generally known to the public at large, chiefly because the range of
      its application has been limited to the higher branches of science. He
      never applied for a patent on the instrument, but dedicated it to the
      public.
    </p>
    <p>
      The device was primarily intended for use in detecting and measuring
      infinitesimal degrees of temperature, however remote, and its conception
      followed Edison's researches on the carbon telephone transmitter. Its
      principle depends upon the variable resistance of carbon in accordance
      with the degree of pressure to which it is subjected. By means of this
      instrument, pressures that are otherwise inappreciable and undiscoverable
      may be observed and indicated.
    </p>
    <p>
      The detection of small variations of temperatures is brought about through
      the changes which heat or cold will produce in a sensitive material placed
      in contact with a carbon button, which is put in circuit with a battery
      and delicate galvanometer. In the sketch (Fig. 1) there is illustrated,
      partly in section, the form of tasimeter which Edison took with him to
      Rawlins, Wyoming, in July, 1878, on the expedition to observe the total
      eclipse of the sun.
    </p>
    <p>
      The substance on whose expansion the working of the instrument depends is
      a strip of some material extremely sensitive to heat, such as vulcanite.
      shown at A, and firmly clamped at B. Its lower end fits into a slot in a
      metal plate, C, which in turn rests upon a carbon button. This latter and
      the metal plate are connected in an electric circuit which includes a
      battery and a sensitive galvanometer. A vulcanite or other strip is easily
      affected by differences of temperature, expanding and contracting by
      reason of the minutest changes. Thus, an infinitesimal variation in its
      length through expansion or contraction changes the pressure on the carbon
      and affects the resistance of the circuit to a corresponding degree,
      thereby causing a deflection of the galvanometer; a movement of the needle
      in one direction denoting expansion, and in the other contraction. The
      strip, A, is first put under a slight pressure, deflecting the needle a
      few degrees from zero. Any subsequent expansion or contraction of the
      strip may readily be noted by further movements of the needle. In
      practice, and for measurements of a very delicate nature, the tasimeter is
      inserted in one arm of a Wheatstone bridge, as shown at A in the diagram
      (Fig. 2). The galvanometer is shown at B in the bridge wire, and at C, D,
      and E there are shown the resistances in the other arms of the bridge,
      which are adjusted to equal the resistance of the tasimeter circuit. The
      battery is shown at F. This arrangement tends to obviate any misleading
      deflections that might arise through changes in the battery.
    </p>
    <p>
      The dial on the front of the instrument is intended to indicate the exact
      amount of physical expansion or contraction of the strip. This is
      ascertained by means of a micrometer screw, S, which moves a needle, T, in
      front of the dial. This screw engages with a second and similar screw
      which is so arranged as to move the strip of vulcanite up or down. After a
      galvanometer deflection has been obtained through the expansion or
      contraction of the strip by reason of a change of temperature, a similar
      deflection is obtained mechanically by turning the screw, S, one way or
      the other. This causes the vulcanite strip to press more or less upon the
      carbon button, and thus produces the desired change in the resistance of
      the circuit. When the galvanometer shows the desired deflection, the
      needle, T, will indicate upon the dial, in decimal fractions of an inch,
      the exact distance through which the strip has been moved.
    </p>
    <p>
      With such an instrument as the above, Edison demonstrated the existence of
      heat in the corona at the above-mentioned total eclipse of the sun, but
      exact determinations could not be made at that time, because the tasimeter
      adjustment was too delicate, and at the best the galvanometer deflections
      were so marked that they could not be kept within the limits of the scale.
      The sensitiveness of the instrument may be easily comprehended when it is
      stated that the heat of the hand thirty feet away from the cone-like
      funnel of the tasimeter will so affect the galvanometer as to cause the
      spot of light to leave the scale.
    </p>
    <p>
      This instrument can also be used to indicate minute changes of moisture in
      the air by substituting a strip of gelatine in place of the vulcanite.
      When so arranged a moistened piece of paper held several feet away will
      cause a minute expansion of the gelatine strip, which effects a pressure
      on the carbon, and causes a variation in the circuit sufficient to throw
      the spot of light from the galvanometer mirror off the scale.
    </p>
    <p>
      The tasimeter has been used to demonstrate heat from remote stars (suns),
      such as Arcturus.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      VIII. THE EDISON PHONOGRAPH
    </h2>
    <p>
      THE first patent that was ever granted on a device for permanently
      recording the human voice and other sounds, and for reproducing the same
      audibly at any future time, was United States Patent No. 200,251, issued
      to Thomas A. Edison on February 19, 1878, the application having been
      filed December 24, 1877. It is worthy of note that no references whatever
      were cited against the application while under examination in the Patent
      Office. This invention therefore, marked the very beginning of an entirely
      new art, which, with the new industries attendant upon its development,
      has since grown to occupy a position of worldwide reputation.
    </p>
    <p>
      That the invention was of a truly fundamental character is also evident
      from the fact that although all "talking-machines" of to-day differ very
      widely in refinement from the first crude but successful phonograph of
      Edison, their performance is absolutely dependent upon the employment of
      the principles stated by him in his Patent No. 200,251. Quoting from the
      specification attached to this patent, we find that Edison said:
    </p>
    <p>
      "The invention consists in arranging a plate, diaphragm or other flexible
      body capable of being vibrated by the human voice or other sounds, in
      conjunction with a material capable of registering the movements of such
      vibrating body by embossing or indenting or altering such material, in
      such a manner that such register marks will be sufficient to cause a
      second vibrating plate or body to be set in motion by them, and thus
      reproduce the motions of the first vibrating body."
    </p>
    <p>
      It will be at once obvious that these words describe perfectly the basic
      principle of every modern phonograph or other talking-machine,
      irrespective of its manufacture or trade name.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's first model of the phonograph is shown in the following
      illustration.
    </p>
    <p>
      It consisted of a metallic cylinder having a helical indenting groove cut
      upon it from end to end. This cylinder was mounted on a shaft supported on
      two standards. This shaft at one end was fitted with a handle, by means of
      which the cylinder was rotated. There were two diaphragms, one on each
      side of the cylinder, one being for recording and the other for
      reproducing speech or other sounds. Each diaphragm had attached to it a
      needle. By means of the needle attached to the recording diaphragm,
      indentations were made in a sheet of tin-foil stretched over the
      peripheral surface of the cylinder when the diaphragm was vibrated by
      reason of speech or other sounds. The needle on the other diaphragm
      subsequently followed these indentations, thus reproducing the original
      sounds.
    </p>
    <p>
      Crude as this first model appears in comparison with machines of later
      development and refinement, it embodied their fundamental essentials, and
      was in fact a complete, practical phonograph from the first moment of its
      operation.
    </p>
    <p>
      The next step toward the evolution of the improved phonograph of to-day
      was another form of tin-foil machine, as seen in the illustration.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will be noted that this was merely an elaborated form of the first
      model, and embodied several mechanical modifications, among which was the
      employment of only one diaphragm for recording and reproducing. Such was
      the general type of phonograph used for exhibition purposes in America and
      other countries in the three or four years immediately succeeding the date
      of this invention.
    </p>
    <p>
      In operating the machine the recording diaphragm was advanced nearly to
      the cylinder, so that as the diaphragm was vibrated by the voice the
      needle would prick or indent a wave-like record in the tin-foil that was
      on the cylinder. The cylinder was constantly turned during the recording,
      and in turning, was simultaneously moved forward. Thus the record would be
      formed on the tin-foil in a continuous spiral line. To reproduce this
      record it was only necessary to again start at the beginning and cause the
      needle to retrace its path in the spiral line. The needle, in passing
      rapidly in contact with the recorded waves, was vibrated up and down,
      causing corresponding vibrations of the diaphragm. In this way sound-waves
      similar to those caused by the original sounds would be set up in the air,
      thus reproducing the original speech.
    </p>
    <p>
      The modern phonograph operates in a precisely similar way, the only
      difference being in details of refinement. Instead of tin-foil, a wax
      cylinder is employed, the record being cut thereon by a cutting-tool
      attached to a diaphragm, while the reproduction is effected by means of a
      blunt stylus similarly attached.
    </p>
    <p>
      The cutting-tool and stylus are devices made of sapphire, a gem next in
      hardness to a diamond, and they have to be cut and formed to an exact
      nicety by means of diamond dust, most of the work being performed under
      high-powered microscopes. The minute proportions of these devices will be
      apparent by a glance at the accompanying illustrations, in which the
      object on the left represents a common pin, and the objects on the right
      the cutting-tool and reproducing stylus, all actual sizes.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the next illustration (Fig. 4) there is shown in the upper sketch,
      greatly magnified, the cutting or recording tool in the act of forming the
      record, being vibrated rapidly by the diaphragm; and in the lower sketch,
      similarly enlarged, a representation of the stylus travelling over the
      record thus made, in the act of effecting a reproduction.
    </p>
    <p>
      From the late summer of 1878 and to the fall of 1887 Edison was intensely
      busy on the electric light, electric railway, and other problems, and
      virtually gave no attention to the phonograph. Hence, just prior to the
      latter-named period the instrument was still in its tin-foil age; but he
      then began to devote serious attention to the development of an improved
      type that should be of greater commercial importance. The practical
      results are too well known to call for further comment. That his efforts
      were not limited in extent may be inferred from the fact that since the
      fall of 1887 to the present writing he has been granted in the United
      States one hundred and four patents relating to the phonograph and its
      accessories.
    </p>
    <p>
      Interesting as the numerous inventions are, it would be a work of
      supererogation to digest all these patents in the present pages, as they
      represent not only the inception but also the gradual development and
      growth of the wax-record type of phonograph from its infancy to the
      present perfected machine and records now so widely known all over the
      world. From among these many inventions, however, we will select two or
      three as examples of ingenuity and importance in their bearing upon
      present perfection of results.
    </p>
    <p>
      One of the difficulties of reproduction for many years was the trouble
      experienced in keeping the stylus in perfect engagement with the wave-like
      record, so that every minute vibration would be reproduced. It should be
      remembered that the deepest cut of the recording tool is only about
      one-third the thickness of tissue-paper. Hence, it will be quite apparent
      that the slightest inequality in the surface of the wax would be
      sufficient to cause false vibration, and thus give rise to distorted
      effects in such music or other sounds as were being reproduced. To remedy
      this, Edison added an attachment which is called a "floating weight," and
      is shown at A in the illustration above.
    </p>
    <p>
      The function of the floating weight is to automatically keep the stylus in
      close engagement with the record, thus insuring accuracy of reproduction.
      The weight presses the stylus to its work, but because of its mass it
      cannot respond to the extremely rapid vibrations of the stylus. They are
      therefore communicated to the diaphragm.
    </p>
    <p>
      Some of Edison's most remarkable inventions are revealed in a number of
      interesting patents relating to the duplication of phonograph records. It
      would be obviously impossible, from a commercial standpoint, to obtain a
      musical record from a high-class artist and sell such an original to the
      public, as its cost might be from one hundred to several thousand dollars.
      Consequently, it is necessary to provide some way by which duplicates may
      be made cheaply enough to permit their purchase by the public at a
      reasonable price.
    </p>
    <p>
      The making of a perfect original musical or other record is a matter of no
      small difficulty, as it requires special technical knowledge and skill
      gathered from many years of actual experience; but in the exact copying,
      or duplication, of such a record, with its many millions of microscopic
      waves and sub-waves, the difficulties are enormously increased. The
      duplicates must be microscopically identical with the original, they must
      be free from false vibrations or other defects, although both original and
      duplicates are of such easily defacable material as wax; and the process
      must be cheap and commercial not a scientific laboratory possibility.
    </p>
    <p>
      For making duplicates it was obviously necessary to first secure a mold
      carrying the record in negative or reversed form. From this could be
      molded, or cast, positive copies which would be identical with the
      original. While the art of electroplating would naturally suggest itself
      as the means of making such a mold, an apparently insurmountable obstacle
      appeared on the very threshold. Wax, being a non-conductor, cannot be
      electroplated unless a conducting surface be first applied. The coatings
      ordinarily used in electro-deposition were entirely out of the question on
      account of coarseness, the deepest waves of the record being less than
      one-thousandth of an inch in depth, and many of them probably ten to one
      hundred times as shallow. Edison finally decided to apply a preliminary
      metallic coating of infinitesimal thinness, and accomplished this object
      by a remarkable process known as the vacuous deposit. With this he applied
      to the original record a film of gold probably no thicker than one
      three-hundred-thousandth of an inch, or several hundred times less than
      the depth of an average wave. Three hundred such layers placed one on top
      of the other would make a sheet no thicker than tissue-paper.
    </p>
    <p>
      The process consists in placing in a vacuum two leaves, or electrodes, of
      gold, and between them the original record. A constant discharge of
      electricity of high tension between the electrodes is effected by means of
      an induction-coil. The metal is vaporized by this discharge, and is
      carried by it directly toward and deposited upon the original record, thus
      forming the minute film of gold above mentioned. The record is constantly
      rotated until its entire surface is coated. A sectional diagram of the
      apparatus (Fig. 6.) will aid to a clearer understanding of this ingenious
      process.
    </p>
    <p>
      After the gold film is formed in the manner described above, a heavy
      backing of baser metal is electroplated upon it, thus forming a
      substantial mold, from which the original record is extracted by breakage
      or shrinkage.
    </p>
    <p>
      Duplicate records in any quantity may now be made from this mold by
      surrounding it with a cold-water jacket and dipping it in a molten
      wax-like material. This congeals on the record surface just as melted
      butter would collect on a cold knife, and when the mold is removed the
      surplus wax falls out, leaving a heavy deposit of the material which forms
      the duplicate record. Numerous ingenious inventions have been made by
      Edison providing for a variety of rapid and economical methods of
      duplication, including methods of shrinking a newly made copy to
      facilitate its quick removal from the mold; methods of reaming, of forming
      ribs on the interior, and for many other important and essential details,
      which limits of space will not permit of elaboration. Those mentioned
      above are but fair examples of the persistent and effective work he has
      done to bring the phonograph to its present state of perfection.
    </p>
    <p>
      In perusing Chapter X of the foregoing narrative, the reader undoubtedly
      noted Edison's clear apprehension of the practical uses of the phonograph,
      as evidenced by his prophetic utterances in the article written by him for
      the North American Review in June, 1878. In view of the crudity of the
      instrument at that time, it must be acknowledged that Edison's foresight,
      as vindicated by later events was most remarkable. No less remarkable was
      his intensely practical grasp of mechanical possibilities of future types
      of the machine, for we find in one of his early English patents (No. 1644
      of 1878) the disk form of phonograph which, some ten to fifteen years
      later, was supposed to be a new development in the art. This disk form was
      also covered by Edison's application for a United States patent, filed in
      1879. This application met with some merely minor technical objections in
      the Patent Office, and seems to have passed into the "abandoned" class for
      want of prosecution, probably because of being overlooked in the
      tremendous pressure arising from his development of his electric-lighting
      system.
    </p>
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</pre>
    <p>
      IX. THE INCANDESCENT LAMP
    </p>
    <p>
      ALTHOUGH Edison's contributions to human comfort and progress are
      extensive in number and extraordinarily vast and comprehensive in scope
      and variety, the universal verdict of the world points to his incandescent
      lamp and system of distribution of electrical current as the central and
      crowning achievements of his life up to this time. This view would seem
      entirely justifiable when we consider the wonderful changes in the
      conditions of modern life that have been brought about by the wide-spread
      employment of these inventions, and the gigantic industries that have
      grown up and been nourished by their world-wide application. That he was
      in this instance a true pioneer and creator is evident as we consider the
      subject, for the United States Patent No. 223,898, issued to Edison on
      January 27, 1880, for an incandescent lamp, was of such fundamental
      character that it opened up an entirely new and tremendously important art&mdash;the
      art of incandescent electric lighting. This statement cannot be
      successfully controverted, for it has been abundantly verified after many
      years of costly litigation. If further proof were desired, it is only
      necessary to point to the fact that, after thirty years of most strenuous
      and practical application in the art by the keenest intellects of the
      world, every incandescent lamp that has ever since been made, including
      those of modern days, is still dependent upon the employment of the
      essentials disclosed in the above-named patent&mdash;namely, a filament of
      high resistance enclosed in a sealed glass globe exhausted of air, with
      conducting wires passing through the glass.
    </p>
    <p>
      An incandescent lamp is such a simple-appearing article&mdash;merely a
      filament sealed into a glass globe&mdash;that its intrinsic relation to
      the art of electric lighting is far from being apparent at sight. To the
      lay mind it would seem that this must have been THE obvious device to make
      in order to obtain electric light by incandescence of carbon or other
      material. But the reader has already learned from the preceding narrative
      that prior to its invention by Edison such a device was NOT obvious, even
      to the most highly trained experts of the world at that period; indeed, it
      was so far from being obvious that, for some time after he had completed
      practical lamps and was actually lighting them up twenty-four hours a day,
      such a device and such a result were declared by these same experts to be
      an utter impossibility. For a short while the world outside of Menlo Park
      held Edison's claims in derision. His lamp was pronounced a fake, a myth,
      possibly a momentary success magnified to the dignity of a permanent
      device by an overenthusiastic inventor.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such criticism, however, did not disturb Edison. He KNEW that he had
      reached the goal. Long ago, by a close process of reasoning, he had
      clearly seen that the only road to it was through the path he had
      travelled, and which was now embodied in the philosophy of his
      incandescent lamp&mdash;namely, a filament, or carbon, of high resistance
      and small radiating surface, sealed into a glass globe exhausted of air to
      a high degree of vacuum. In originally committing himself to this line of
      investigation he was well aware that he was going in a direction
      diametrically opposite to that followed by previous investigators. Their
      efforts had been confined to low-resistance burners of large radiating
      surface for their lamps, but he realized the utter futility of such
      devices. The tremendous problems of heat and the prohibitive quantities of
      copper that would be required for conductors for such lamps would be
      absolutely out of the question in commercial practice.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was convinced from the first that the true solution of the problem lay
      in a lamp which should have as its illuminating body a strip of material
      which would offer such a resistance to the flow of electric current that
      it could be raised to a high temperature&mdash;incandescence&mdash;and be
      of such small cross-section that it would radiate but little heat. At the
      same time such a lamp must require a relatively small amount of current,
      in order that comparatively small conductors could be used, and its burner
      must be capable of withstanding the necessarily high temperatures without
      disintegration.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is interesting to note that these conceptions were in Edison's mind at
      an early period of his investigations, when the best expert opinion was
      that the subdivision of the electric current was an ignis fatuus. Hence we
      quote the following notes he made, November 15, 1878, in one of the
      laboratory note-books:
    </p>
    <p>
      "A given straight wire having 1 ohm resistance and certain length is
      brought to a given degree of temperature by given battery. If the same
      wire be coiled in such a manner that but one-quarter of its surface
      radiates, its temperature will be increased four times with the same
      battery, or, one-quarter of this battery will bring it to the temperature
      of straight wire. Or the same given battery will bring a wire whose total
      resistance is 4 ohms to the same temperature as straight wire.
    </p>
    <p>
      "This was actually determined by trial.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The amount of heat lost by a body is in proportion to the radiating
      surface of that body. If one square inch of platina be heated to 100
      degrees it will fall to, say, zero in one second, whereas, if it was at
      200 degrees it would require two seconds.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Hence, in the case of incandescent conductors, if the radiating surface
      be twelve inches and the temperature on each inch be 100, or 1200 for all,
      if it is so coiled or arranged that there is but one-quarter, or three
      inches, of radiating surface, then the temperature on each inch will be
      400. If reduced to three-quarters of an inch it will have on that
      three-quarters of an inch 1600 degrees Fahr., notwithstanding the original
      total amount was but 1200, because the radiation has been reduced to
      three-quarters, or 75 units; hence, the effect of the lessening of the
      radiation is to raise the temperature of each remaining inch not radiating
      to 125 degrees. If the radiating surface should be reduced to
      three-thirty-seconds of an inch, the temperature would reach 6400 degrees
      Fahr. To carry out this law to the best advantage in regard to platina,
      etc., then with a given length of wire to quadruple the heat we must
      lessen the radiating surface to one-quarter, and to do this in a spiral,
      three-quarters must be within the spiral and one-quarter outside for
      radiating; hence, a square wire or other means, such as a spiral within a
      spiral, must be used. These results account for the enormous temperature
      of the Electric Arc with one horse-power; as, for instance, if one
      horse-power will heat twelve inches of wire to 1000 degrees Fahr., and
      this is concentrated to have one-quarter of the radiating surface, it
      would reach a temperature of 4000 degrees or sufficient to melt it; but,
      supposing it infusible, the further concentration to one-eighth its
      surface, it would reach a temperature of 16,000 degrees, and to
      one-thirty-second its surface, which would be about the radiating surface
      of the Electric Arc, it would reach 64,000 degrees Fahr. Of course, when
      Light is radiated in great quantities not quite these temperatures would
      be reached.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Another curious law is this: It will require a greater initial battery to
      bring an iron wire of the same size and resistance to a given temperature
      than it will a platina wire in proportion to their specific heats, and in
      the case of Carbon, a piece of Carbon three inches long and one-eighth
      diameter, with a resistance of 1 ohm, will require a greater battery power
      to bring it to a given temperature than a cylinder of thin platina foil of
      the same length, diameter, and resistance, because the specific heat of
      Carbon is many times greater; besides, if I am not mistaken, the radiation
      of a roughened body for heat is greater than a polished one like platina."
    </p>
    <p>
      Proceeding logically upon these lines of thought and following them out
      through many ramifications, we have seen how he at length made a filament
      of carbon of high resistance and small radiating surface, and through a
      concurrent investigation of the phenomena of high vacua and occluded gases
      was able to produce a true incandescent lamp. Not only was it a lamp as a
      mere article&mdash;a device to give light&mdash;but it was also an
      integral part of his great and complete system of lighting, to every part
      of which it bore a fixed and definite ratio, and in relation to which it
      was the keystone that held the structure firmly in place.
    </p>
    <p>
      The work of Edison on incandescent lamps did not stop at this fundamental
      invention, but extended through more than eighteen years of a most intense
      portion of his busy life. During that period he was granted one hundred
      and forty-nine other patents on the lamp and its manufacture. Although
      very many of these inventions were of the utmost importance and value, we
      cannot attempt to offer a detailed exposition of them in this necessarily
      brief article, but must refer the reader, if interested, to the patents
      themselves, a full list being given at the end of this Appendix. The
      outline sketch will indicate the principal patents covering the basic
      features of the lamp.
    </p>
    <p>
      The litigation on the Edison lamp patents was one of the most determined
      and stubbornly fought contests in the history of modern jurisprudence.
      Vast interests were at stake. All of the technical, expert, and
      professional skill and knowledge that money could procure or experience
      devise were availed of in the bitter fights that raged in the courts for
      many years. And although the Edison interests had spent from first to last
      nearly $2,000,000, and had only about three years left in the life of the
      fundamental patent, Edison was thoroughly sustained as to priority by the
      decisions in the various suits. We shall offer a few brief extracts from
      some of these decisions.
    </p>
    <p>
      In a suit against the United States Electric Lighting Company, United
      States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York, July 14, 1891,
      Judge Wallace said, in his opinion: "The futility of hoping to maintain a
      burner in vacuo with any permanency had discouraged prior inventors, and
      Mr. Edison is entitled to the credit of obviating the mechanical
      difficulties which disheartened them.... He was the first to make a carbon
      of materials, and by a process which was especially designed to impart
      high specific resistance to it; the first to make a carbon in the special
      form for the special purpose of imparting to it high total resistance; and
      the first to combine such a burner with the necessary adjuncts of lamp
      construction to prevent its disintegration and give it sufficiently long
      life. By doing these things he made a lamp which was practically operative
      and successful, the embryo of the best lamps now in commercial use, and
      but for which the subdivision of the electric light by incandescence would
      still be nothing but the ignis fatuus which it was proclaimed to be in
      1879 by some of the reamed experts who are now witnesses to belittle his
      achievement and show that it did not rise to the dignity of an
      invention.... It is impossible to resist the conclusion that the invention
      of the slender thread of carbon as a substitute for the burners previously
      employed opened the path to the practical subdivision of the electric
      light."
    </p>
    <p>
      An appeal was taken in the above suit to the United States Circuit Court
      of Appeals, and on October 4, 1892, the decree of the lower court was
      affirmed. The judges (Lacombe and Shipman), in a long opinion reviewed the
      facts and the art, and said, inter alia: "Edison's invention was
      practically made when he ascertained the theretofore unknown fact that
      carbon would stand high temperature, even when very attenuated, if
      operated in a high vacuum, without the phenomenon of disintegration. This
      fact he utilized by the means which he has described, a lamp having a
      filamentary carbon burner in a nearly perfect vacuum."
    </p>
    <p>
      In a suit against the Boston Incandescent Lamp Company et al., in the
      United States Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts, decided in
      favor of Edison on June 11, 1894, Judge Colt, in his opinion, said, among
      other things: "Edison made an important invention; he produced the first
      practical incandescent electric lamp; the patent is a pioneer in the sense
      of the patent law; it may be said that his invention created the art of
      incandescent electric lighting."
    </p>
    <p>
      Opinions of other courts, similar in tenor to the foregoing, might be
      cited, but it would be merely in the nature of reiteration. The above are
      sufficient to illustrate the direct clearness of judicial decision on
      Edison's position as the founder of the art of electric lighting by
      incandescence.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043">
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
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    <h2>
      X. EDISON'S DYNAMO WORK
    </h2>
    <p>
      AT the present writing, when, after the phenomenally rapid electrical
      development of thirty years, we find on the market a great variety of
      modern forms of efficient current generators advertised under the names of
      different inventors (none, however, bearing the name of Edison), a young
      electrical engineer of the present generation might well inquire whether
      the great inventor had ever contributed anything to the art beyond a mere
      TYPE of machine formerly made and bearing his name, but not now marketed
      except second hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      For adequate information he might search in vain the books usually
      regarded as authorities on the subject of dynamo-electric machinery, for
      with slight exceptions there has been a singular unanimity in the omission
      of writers to give Edison credit for his great and basic contributions to
      heavy-current technics, although they have been universally acknowledged
      by scientific and practical men to have laid the foundation for the
      efficiency of, and to be embodied in all modern generators of current.
    </p>
    <p>
      It might naturally be expected that the essential facts of Edison's work
      would appear on the face of his numerous patents on dynamo-electric
      machinery, but such is not necessarily the case, unless they are carefully
      studied in the light of the state of the art as it existed at the time.
      While some of these patents (especially the earlier ones) cover specific
      devices embodying fundamental principles that not only survive to the
      present day, but actually lie at the foundation of the art as it now
      exists, there is no revelation therein of Edison's preceding studies of
      magnets, which extended over many years, nor of his later systematic
      investigations and deductions.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dynamo-electric machines of a primitive kind had been invented and were in
      use to a very limited extent for arc lighting and electroplating for some
      years prior to the summer of 1819, when Edison, with an embryonic lighting
      SYSTEM in mind, cast about for a type of machine technically and
      commercially suitable for the successful carrying out of his plans. He
      found absolutely none. On the contrary, all of the few types then
      obtainable were uneconomical, indeed wasteful, in regard to efficiency.
      The art, if indeed there can be said to have been an art at that time, was
      in chaotic confusion, and only because of Edison's many years' study of
      the magnet was he enabled to conclude that insufficiency in quantity of
      iron in the magnets of such machines, together with poor surface contacts,
      rendered the cost of magnetization abnormally high. The heating of solid
      armatures, the only kind then known, and poor insulation in the
      commutators, also gave rise to serious losses. But perhaps the most
      serious drawback lay in the high-resistance armature, based upon the
      highest scientific dictum of the time that in order to obtain the maximum
      amount of work from a machine, the internal resistance of the armature
      must equal the resistance of the exterior circuit, although the
      application of this principle entailed the useless expenditure of at least
      50 per cent. of the applied energy.
    </p>
    <p>
      It seems almost incredible that only a little over thirty years ago the
      sum of scientific knowledge in regard to dynamo-electric machines was so
      meagre that the experts of the period should settle upon such a dictum as
      this, but such was the fact, as will presently appear. Mechanical
      generators of electricity were comparatively new at that time; their
      theory and practice were very imperfectly understood; indeed, it is quite
      within the bounds of truth to say that the correct principles were
      befogged by reason of the lack of practical knowledge of their actual use.
      Electricians and scientists of the period had been accustomed for many
      years past to look to the chemical battery as the source from which to
      obtain electrical energy; and in the practical application of such energy
      to telegraphy and kindred uses, much thought and ingenuity had been
      expended in studying combinations of connecting such cells so as to get
      the best results. In the text-books of the period it was stated as a
      settled principle that, in order to obtain the maximum work out of a set
      of batteries, the internal resistance must approximately equal the
      resistance of the exterior circuit. This principle and its application in
      practice were quite correct as regards chemical batteries, but not as
      regards dynamo machines. Both were generators of electrical current, but
      so different in construction and operation, that rules applicable to the
      practical use of the one did not apply with proper commercial efficiency
      to the other. At the period under consideration, which may be said to have
      been just before dawn of the day of electric light, the philosophy of the
      dynamo was seen only in mysterious, hazy outlines&mdash;just emerging from
      the darkness of departing night. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that
      the dynamo was loosely regarded by electricians as the practical
      equivalent of a chemical battery; that many of the characteristics of
      performance of the chemical cell were also attributed to it, and that if
      the maximum work could be gotten out of a set of batteries when the
      internal and external resistances were equal (and this was commercially
      the best thing to do), so must it be also with a dynamo.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was by no miracle that Edison was far and away ahead of his time when
      he undertook to improve the dynamo. He was possessed of absolute KNOWLEDGE
      far beyond that of his contemporaries. This he ad acquired by the hardest
      kind of work and incessant experiment with magnets of all kinds during
      several years preceding, particularly in connection with his study of
      automatic telegraphy. His knowledge of magnets was tremendous. He had
      studied and experimented with electromagnets in enormous variety, and knew
      their peculiarities in charge and discharge, lag, self-induction, static
      effects, condenser effects, and the various other phenomena connected
      therewith. He had also made collateral studies of iron, steel, and copper,
      insulation, winding, etc. Hence, by reason of this extensive work and
      knowledge, Edison was naturally in a position to realize the utter
      commercial impossibility of the then best dynamo machine in existence,
      which had an efficiency of only about 40 per cent., and was constructed on
      the "cut-and-try" principle.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was also naturally in a position to assume the task he set out to
      accomplish, of undertaking to plan and-build an improved type of machine
      that should be commercial in having an efficiency of at least 90 per cent.
      Truly a prodigious undertaking in those dark days, when from the
      standpoint of Edison's large experience the most practical and correct
      electrical treatise was contained in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and in
      a German publication which Mr. Upton had brought with him after he had
      finished his studies with the illustrious Helmholtz. It was at this period
      that Mr. Upton commenced his association with Edison, bringing to the
      great work the very latest scientific views and the assistance of the
      higher mathematics, to which he had devoted his attention for several
      years previously.
    </p>
    <p>
      As some account of Edison's investigations in this connection has already
      been given in Chapter XII of the narrative, we shall not enlarge upon them
      here, but quote from An Historical Review, by Charles L. Clarke,
      Laboratory Assistant at Menlo Park, 1880-81; Chief Engineer of the Edison
      Electric Light Company, 1881-84:
    </p>
    <p>
      "In June, 1879, was published the account of the Edison dynamo-electric
      machine that survived in the art. This machine went into extensive
      commercial use, and was notable for its very massive and powerful
      field-magnets and armature of extremely low resistance as compared with
      the combined external resistance of the supply-mains and lamps. By means
      of the large masses of iron in the field-magnets, and closely fitted
      joints between the several parts thereof, the magnetic resistance
      (reluctance) of the iron parts of the magnetic circuit was reduced to a
      minimum, and the required magnetization effected with the maximum economy.
      At the same time Mr. Edison announced the commercial necessity of having
      the armature of the dynamo of low resistance, as compared with the
      external resistance, in order that a large percentage of the electrical
      energy developed should be utilized in the lamps, and only a small
      percentage lost in the armature, albeit this procedure reduced the total
      generating capacity of the machine. He also proposed to make the
      resistance of the supply-mains small, as compared with the combined
      resistance of the lamps in multiple arc, in order to still further
      increase the percentage of energy utilized in the lamps. And likewise to
      this end the combined resistance of the generator armatures in multiple
      arc was kept relatively small by adjusting the number of generators
      operating in multiple at any time to the number of lamps then in use. The
      field-magnet circuits of the dynamos were connected in multiple with a
      separate energizing source; and the field-current; and strength of field,
      were regulated to maintain the required amount of electromotive force upon
      the supply-mains under all conditions of load from the maximum to the
      minimum number of lamps in use, and to keep the electromotive force of all
      machines alike."
    </p>
    <p>
      Among the earliest of Edison's dynamo experiments were those relating to
      the core of the armature. He realized at once that the heat generated in a
      solid core was a prolific source of loss. He experimented with bundles of
      iron wires variously insulated, also with sheet-iron rolled cylindrically
      and covered with iron wire wound concentrically. These experiments and
      many others were tried in a great variety of ways, until, as the result of
      all this work, Edison arrived at the principle which has remained in the
      art to this day. He split up the iron core of the armature into thin
      laminations, separated by paper, thus practically suppressing Foucault
      currents therein and resulting heating effect. It was in his machine also
      that mica was used for the first time as an insulating medium in a
      commutator. [27]
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 27: The commercial manufacture of built-up sheets
     of mica for electrical purposes was first established at the
     Edison Machine Works, Goerck Street, New York, in 1881.]
</pre>
    <p>
      Elementary as these principles will appear to the modern student or
      engineer, they were denounced as nothing short of absurdity at the time of
      their promulgation&mdash;especially so with regard to Edison's proposal to
      upset the then settled dictum that the armature resistance should be equal
      to the external resistance. His proposition was derided in the technical
      press of the period, both at home and abroad. As public opinion can be
      best illustrated by actual quotation, we shall present a characteristic
      instance.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the Scientific American of October 18, 1879, there appeared an
      illustrated article by Mr. Upton on Edison's dynamo machine, in which
      Edison's views and claims were set forth. A subsequent issue contained a
      somewhat acrimonious letter of criticism by a well-known maker of dynamo
      machines. At the risk of being lengthy, we must quote nearly all this
      letter: "I can scarcely conceive it as possible that the article on the
      above subject '(Edison's Electric Generator)' in last week's Scientific
      American could have been written from statements derived from Mr. Edison
      himself, inasmuch as so many of the advantages claimed for the machine
      described and statements of the results obtained are so manifestly absurd
      as to indicate on the part of both writer and prompter a positive want of
      knowledge of the electric circuit and the principles governing the
      construction and operation of electric machines.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is not my intention to criticise the design or construction of the
      machine (not because they are not open to criticism), as I am now and have
      been for many years engaged in the manufacture of electric machines, but
      rather to call attention to the impossibility of obtaining the described
      results without destroying the doctrine of the conservation and
      correlation of forces.
    </p>
    <p>
      . . . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is stated that 'the internal resistance of the armature' of this
      machine 'is only 1/2 ohm.' On this fact and the disproportion between this
      resistance and that of the external circuit, the theory of the alleged
      efficiency of the machine is stated to be based, for we are informed that,
      'while this generator in general principle is the same as in the best
      well-known forms, still there is an all-important difference, which is
      that it will convert and deliver for useful work nearly double the number
      of foot-pounds that any other machine will under like conditions.'" The
      writer of this critical letter then proceeds to quote Mr. Upton's
      statement of this efficiency: "'Now the energy converted is distributed
      over the whole resistance, hence if the resistance of the machine be
      represented by 1 and the exterior circuit by 9, then of the total energy
      converted nine-tenths will be useful, as it is outside of the machine, and
      one-tenth is lost in the resistance of the machine.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      After this the critic goes on to say:
    </p>
    <p>
      "How any one acquainted with the laws of the electric circuit can make
      such statements is what I cannot understand. The statement last quoted is
      mathematically absurd. It implies either that the machine is CAPABLE OF
      INCREASING ITS OWN ELECTROMOTIVE FORCE NINE TIMES WITHOUT AN INCREASED
      EXPENDITURE OF POWER, or that external resistance is NOT resistance to the
      current induced in the Edison machine.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Does Mr. Edison, or any one for him, mean to say that r/n enables him to
      obtain nE, and that C IS NOT = E / (r/n + R)? If so Mr. Edison has
      discovered something MORE than perpetual motion, and Mr. Keely had better
      retire from the field.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Further on the writer (Mr. Upton) gives us another example of this mode
      of reasoning when, emboldened and satisfied with the absurd theory above
      exposed, he endeavors to prove the cause of the inefficiency of the
      Siemens and other machines. Couldn't the writer of the article see that
      since C = E/(r + R) that by R/n or by making R = r, the machine would,
      according to his theory, have returned more useful current to the circuit
      than could be due to the power employed (and in the ratio indicated), so
      that there would actually be a creation of force! . . . .
    </p>
    <p>
      "In conclusion allow me to say that if Mr Edison thinks he has
      accomplished so much by the REDUCTION OF THE INTERNAL RESISTANCE of his
      machine, that he has much more to do in this direction before his machine
      will equal IN THIS RESPECT others already in the market."
    </p>
    <p>
      Another participant in the controversy on Edison's generator was a
      scientific gentleman, who in a long article published in the Scientific
      American, in November, 1879, gravely undertook to instruct Edison in the A
      B C of electrical principles, and then proceeded to demonstrate
      mathematically the IMPOSSIBILITY of doing WHAT EDISON HAD ACTUALLY DONE.
      This critic concludes with a gentle rebuke to the inventor for ill-timed
      jesting, and a suggestion to furnish AUTHENTIC information!
    </p>
    <p>
      In the light of facts, as they were and are, this article is so full of
      humor that we shall indulge in a few quotations It commences in A B C
      fashion as follows: "Electric machines convert mechanical into electrical
      energy.... The ratio of yield to consumption is the expression of the
      efficiency of the machine.... How many foot-pounds of electricity can be
      got out of 100 foot-pounds of mechanical energy? Certainly not more than
      100: certainly less.... The facts and laws of physics, with the assistance
      of mathematical logic, never fail to furnish precious answers to such
      questions."
    </p>
    <p>
      The would-be critic then goes on to tabulate tests of certain other dynamo
      machines by a committee of the Franklin Institute in 1879, the results of
      which showed that these machines returned about 50 per cent. of the
      applied mechanical energy, ingenuously remarking: "Why is it that when we
      have produced the electricity, half of it must slip away? Some persons
      will be content if they are told simply that it is a way which electricity
      has of behaving. But there is a satisfactory rational explanation which I
      believe can be made plain to persons of ordinary intelligence. It ought to
      be known to all those who are making or using machines. I am grieved to
      observe that many persons who talk and write glibly about electricity do
      not understand it; some even ignore or deny the fact to be explained."
    </p>
    <p>
      Here follows HIS explanation, after which he goes on to say: "At this
      point plausibly comes in a suggestion that the internal part of the
      circuit be made very small and the external part very large. Why not (say)
      make the internal part 1 and the external 9, thus saving nine-tenths and
      losing only one-tenth? Unfortunately, the suggestion is not practical; a
      fallacy is concealed in it."
    </p>
    <p>
      He then goes on to prove his case mathematically, to his own satisfaction,
      following it sadly by condoling with and a warning to Edison: "But about
      Edison's electric generator! . . . No one capable of making the
      improvements in the telegraph and telephone, for which we are indebted to
      Mr. Edison, could be other than an accomplished electrician. His
      reputation as a scientist, indeed, is smirched by the newspaper
      exaggerations, and no doubt he will be more careful in future. But there
      is a danger nearer home, indeed, among his own friends and in his very
      household.
    </p>
    <p>
      ". . . The writer of page 242" (the original article) "is probably a
      friend of Mr. Edison, but possibly, alas! a wicked partner. Why does he
      say such things as these? 'Mr. Edison claims that he realizes 90 per cent.
      of the power applied to this machine in external work.' . . . Perhaps the
      writer is a humorist, and had in his mind Colonel Sellers, etc., which he
      could not keep out of a serious discussion; but such jests are not good.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Mr. Edison has built a very interesting machine, and he has the
      opportunity of making a valuable contribution to the electrical arts by
      furnishing authentic accounts of its capabilities."
    </p>
    <p>
      The foregoing extracts are unavoidably lengthy, but, viewed in the light
      of facts, serve to illustrate most clearly that Edison's conceptions and
      work were far and away ahead of the comprehension of his contemporaries in
      the art, and that his achievements in the line of efficient dynamo design
      and construction were indeed truly fundamental and revolutionary in
      character. Much more of similar nature to the above could be quoted from
      other articles published elsewhere, but the foregoing will serve as
      instances generally representing all. In the controversy which appeared in
      the columns of the Scientific American, Mr. Upton, Edison's mathematician,
      took up the question on his side, and answered the critics by further
      elucidations of the principles on which Edison had founded such remarkable
      and radical improvements in the art. The type of Edison's first
      dynamo-electric machine, the description of which gave rise to the above
      controversy, is shown in Fig. 1.
    </p>
    <p>
      Any account of Edison's work on the dynamo would be incomplete did it omit
      to relate his conception and construction of the great direct-connected
      steam-driven generator that was the prototype of the colossal units which
      are used throughout the world to-day.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the demonstrating plant installed and operated by him at Menlo Park in
      1880 ten dynamos of eight horse-power each were driven by a slow-speed
      engine through a complicated system of counter-shafting, and, to quote
      from Mr. Clarke's Historical Review, "it was found that a considerable
      percentage of the power of the engine was necessarily wasted in friction
      by this method of driving, and to prevent this waste and thus increase the
      economy of his system, Mr. Edison conceived the idea of substituting a
      single large dynamo for the several small dynamos, and directly coupling
      it with the driving engine, and at the same time preserve the requisite
      high armature speed by using an engine of the high-speed type. He also
      expected to realize still further gains in economy from the use of a large
      dynamo in place of several small machines by a more than correspondingly
      lower armature resistance, less energy for magnetizing the field, and for
      other minor reasons. To the same end, he intended to supply steam to the
      engine under a much higher boiler pressure than was customary in
      stationary-engine driving at that time."
    </p>
    <p>
      The construction of the first one of these large machines was commenced
      late in the year 1880. Early in 1881 it was completed and tested, but some
      radical defects in armature construction were developed, and it was also
      demonstrated that a rate of engine speed too high for continuously safe
      and economical operation had been chosen. The machine was laid aside. An
      accurate illustration of this machine, as it stood in the engine-room at
      Menlo Park, is given in Van Nostrand's Engineering Magazine, Vol. XXV,
      opposite page 439, and a brief description is given on page 450.
    </p>
    <p>
      With the experience thus gained, Edison began, in the spring of 1881, at
      the Edison Machine Works, Goerck Street, New York City, the construction
      of the first successful machine of this type. This was the great machine
      known as "Jumbo No. 1," which is referred to in the narrative as having
      been exhibited at the Paris International Electrical Exposition, where it
      was regarded as the wonder of the electrical world. An intimation of some
      of the tremendous difficulties encountered in the construction of this
      machine has already been given in preceding pages, hence we shall not now
      enlarge on the subject, except to note in passing that the terribly
      destructive effects of the spark of self-induction and the arcing
      following it were first manifested in this powerful machine, but were
      finally overcome by Edison after a strenuous application of his powers to
      the solution of the problem.
    </p>
    <p>
      It may be of interest, however, to mention some of its dimensions and
      electrical characteristics, quoting again from Mr. Clarke: "The
      field-magnet had eight solid cylindrical cores, 8 inches in diameter and
      57 inches long, upon each of which was wound an exciting-coil of 3.2 ohms
      resistance, consisting of 2184 turns of No. 10 B. W. G. insulated copper
      wire, disposed in six layers. The laminated iron core of the armature,
      formed of thin iron disks, was 33 3/4 inches long, and had an internal
      diameter of 12 1/2 inches, and an external diameter of 26 7/16 inches. It
      was mounted on a 6-inch shaft. The field-poles were 33 3/4 inches long,
      and 27 1/2 inches inside diameter The armature winding consisted of 146
      copper bars on the face of the core, connected into a closed-coil winding
      by means of 73 copper disks at each end of the core. The cross-sectional
      area of each bar was 0.2 square inch their average length was 42.7 inches,
      and the copper end-disks were 0.065 inch thick. The commutator had 73
      sections. The armature resistance was 0.0092 ohm, [28] of which 0.0055 ohm
      was in the armature bars and 0.0037 ohm in the end-disks." An illustration
      of the next latest type of this machine is presented in Fig. 2.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 28: Had Edison in Upton's Scientific American
     article in 1879 proposed such an exceedingly low armature
     resistance for this immense generator (although its ratio
     was proportionate to the original machine), his critics
     might probably have been sufficiently indignant as to be
     unable to express themselves coherently.]
</pre>
    <p>
      The student may find it interesting to look up Edison's United States
      Patents Nos. 242,898, 263,133, 263,146, and 246,647, bearing upon the
      construction of the "Jumbo"; also illustrated articles in the technical
      journals of the time, among which may be mentioned: Scientific American,
      Vol. XLV, page 367; Engineering, London, Vol. XXXII, pages 409 and 419,
      The Telegraphic Journal and Electrical Review, London, Vol. IX, pages
      431-433, 436-446; La Nature, Paris, 9th year, Part II, pages 408-409;
      Zeitschrift fur Angewandte Elektricitaatslehre, Munich and Leipsic, Vol.
      IV, pages 4-14; and Dredge's Electric Illumination, 1882, Vol. I, page
      261.
    </p>
    <p>
      The further development of these great machines later on, and their
      extensive practical use, are well known and need no further comment,
      except in passing it may be noted that subsequent machines had each a
      capacity of 1200 lamps of 16 candle-power, and that the armature
      resistance was still further reduced to 0.0039 ohm.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's clear insight into the future, as illustrated by his persistent
      advocacy of large direct-connected generating units, is abundantly
      vindicated by present-day practice. His Jumbo machines, of 175
      horse-power, so enormous for their time, have served as prototypes, and
      have been succeeded by generators which have constantly grown in size and
      capacity until at this time (1910) it is not uncommon to employ such
      generating units of a capacity of 14,000 kilowatts, or about 18,666
      horse-power.
    </p>
    <p>
      We have not entered into specific descriptions of the many other forms of
      dynamo machines invented by Edison, such as the multipolar, the disk
      dynamo, and the armature with two windings, for sub-station distribution;
      indeed, it is not possible within our limited space to present even a
      brief digest of Edison's great and comprehensive work on the
      dynamo-electric machine, as embodied in his extensive experiments and in
      over one hundred patents granted to him. We have, therefore, confined
      ourselves to the indication of a few salient and basic features, leaving
      it to the interested student to examine the patents and the technical
      literature of the long period of time over which Edison's labors were
      extended.
    </p>
    <p>
      Although he has not given any attention to the subject of generators for
      many years, an interesting instance of his incisive method of overcoming
      minor difficulties occurred while the present volumes were under
      preparation (1909). Carbon for commutator brushes has been superseded by
      graphite in some cases, the latter material being found much more
      advantageous, electrically. Trouble developed, however, for the reason
      that while carbon was hard and would wear away the mica insulation
      simultaneously with the copper, graphite, being softer, would wear away
      only the copper, leaving ridges of mica and thus causing sparking through
      unequal contact. At this point Edison was asked to diagnose the trouble
      and provide a remedy. He suggested the cutting out of the mica pieces
      almost to the bottom, leaving the commutator bars separated by air-spaces.
      This scheme was objected to on the ground that particles of graphite would
      fill these air-spaces and cause a short-circuit. His answer was that the
      air-spaces constituted the value of his plan, as the particles of graphite
      falling into them would be thrown out by the action of centrifugal force
      as the commutator revolved. And thus it occurred as a matter of fact, and
      the trouble was remedied. This idea was subsequently adopted by a great
      manufacturer of generators.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0044" id="link2H_4_0044">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      XI. THE EDISON FEEDER SYSTEM
    </h2>
    <p>
      TO quote from the preamble of the specifications of United States Patent
      No. 264,642, issued to Thomas A. Edison September 19, 1882: "This
      invention relates to a method of equalizing the tension or 'pressure' of
      the current through an entire system of electric lighting or other
      translation of electric force, preventing what is ordinarily known as a
      'drop' in those portions of the system the more remote from the central
      station...."
    </p>
    <p>
      The problem which was solved by the Edison feeder system was that relating
      to the equal distribution of current on a large scale over extended areas,
      in order that a constant and uniform electrical pressure could be
      maintained in every part of the distribution area without prohibitory
      expenditure for copper for mains and conductors.
    </p>
    <p>
      This problem had a twofold aspect, although each side was inseparably
      bound up in the other. On the one hand it was obviously necessary in a
      lighting system that each lamp should be of standard candle-power, and
      capable of interchangeable use on any part of the system, giving the same
      degree of illumination at every point, whether near to or remote from the
      source of electrical energy. On the other hand, this must be accomplished
      by means of a system of conductors so devised and arranged that while they
      would insure the equal pressure thus demanded, their mass and consequent
      cost would not exceed the bounds of practical and commercially economical
      investment.
    </p>
    <p>
      The great importance of this invention can be better understood and
      appreciated by a brief glance at the state of the art in 1878-79, when
      Edison was conducting the final series of investigations which culminated
      in his invention of the incandescent lamp and SYSTEM of lighting. At this
      time, and for some years previously, the scientific world had been working
      on the "subdivision of the electric light," as it was then termed. Some
      leading authorities pronounced it absolutely impossible of achievement on
      any extended scale, while a very few others, of more optimistic mind,
      could see no gleam of light through the darkness, but confidently hoped
      for future developments by such workers as Edison.
    </p>
    <p>
      The earlier investigators, including those up to the period above named,
      thought of the problem as involving the subdivision of a FIXED UNIT of
      current, which, being sufficient to cause illumination by one large lamp,
      might be divided into a number of small units whose aggregate light would
      equal the candle-power of this large lamp. It was found, however, in their
      experiments that the contrary effect was produced, for with every
      additional lamp introduced in the circuit the total candle-power decreased
      instead of increasing. If they were placed in series the light varied
      inversely as the SQUARE of the number of lamps in circuit; while if they
      were inserted in multiple arc, the light diminished as the CUBE of the
      number in circuit. [29] The idea of maintaining a constant potential and
      of PROPORTIONING THE CURRENT to the number of lamps in circuit did not
      occur to most of these early investigators as a feasible method of
      overcoming the supposed difficulty.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 29: M. Fontaine, in his book on Electric Lighting
     (1877), showed that with the current of a battery composed
     of sixteen elements, one lamp gave an illumination equal to
     54 burners; whereas two similar lamps, if introduced in
     parallel or multiple arc, gave the light of only 6 1/2
     burners in all; three lamps of only 2 burners in all; four
     lamps of only 3/4 of one burner, and five lamps of 1/4 of a
     burner.]
</pre>
    <p>
      It would also seem that although the general method of placing
      experimental lamps in multiple arc was known at this period, the idea of
      "drop" of electrical pressure was imperfectly understood, if, indeed,
      realized at all, as a most important item to be considered in attempting
      the solution of the problem. As a matter of fact, the investigators
      preceding Edison do not seem to have conceived the idea of a "system" at
      all; hence it is not surprising to find them far astray from the correct
      theory of subdivision of the electric current. It may easily be believed
      that the term "subdivision" was a misleading one to these early
      experimenters. For a very short time Edison also was thus misled, but as
      soon as he perceived that the problem was one involving the MULTIPLICATION
      OF CURRENT UNITS, his broad conception of a "system" was born.
    </p>
    <p>
      Generally speaking, all conductors of electricity offer more or less
      resistance to the passage of current through them and in the technical
      terminology of electrical science the word "drop" (when used in reference
      to a system of distribution) is used to indicate a fall or loss of initial
      electrical pressure arising from the resistance offered by the copper
      conductors leading from the source of energy to the lamps. The result of
      this resistance is to convert or translate a portion of the electrical
      energy into another form&mdash;namely, heat, which in the conductors is
      USELESS and wasteful and to some extent inevitable in practice, but is to
      be avoided and remedied as far as possible.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is true that in an electric-lighting system there is also a fall or
      loss of electrical pressure which occurs in overcoming the much greater
      resistance of the filament in an incandescent lamp. In this case there is
      also a translation of the energy, but here it accomplishes a USEFUL
      purpose, as the energy is converted into the form of light through the
      incandescence of the filament. Such a conversion is called "work" as
      distinguished from "drop," although a fall of initial electrical pressure
      is involved in each case.
    </p>
    <p>
      The percentage of "drop" varies according to the quantity of copper used
      in conductors, both as to cross-section and length. The smaller the
      cross-sectional area, the greater the percentage of drop. The practical
      effect of this drop would be a loss of illumination in the lamps as we go
      farther away from the source of energy. This may be illustrated by a
      simple diagram in which G is a generator, or source of energy, furnishing
      current at a potential or electrical pressure of 110 volts; 1 and 2 are
      main conductors, from which 110-volt lamps, L, are taken in derived
      circuits. It will be understood that the circuits represented in Fig. 1
      are theoretically supposed to extend over a large area. The main
      conductors are sufficiently large in cross-section to offer but little
      resistance in those parts which are comparatively near the generator, but
      as the current traverses their extended length there is a gradual increase
      of resistance to overcome, and consequently the drop increases, as shown
      by the figures. The result of the drop in such a case would be that while
      the two lamps, or groups, nearest the generator would be burning at their
      proper degree of illumination, those beyond would give lower and lower
      candle-power, successively, until the last lamp, or group, would be giving
      only about two-thirds the light of the first two. In other words, a very
      slight drop in voltage means a disproportionately great loss in
      illumination. Hence, by using a primitive system of distribution, such as
      that shown by Fig. 1, the initial voltage would have to be so high, in
      order to obtain the proper candle-power at the end of the circuit, that
      the lamps nearest the generator would be dangerously overheated. It might
      be suggested as a solution of this problem that lamps of different
      voltages could be used. But, as we are considering systems of extended
      distribution employing vast numbers of lamps (as in New York City, where
      millions are in use), it will be seen that such a method would lead to
      inextricable confusion, and therefore be absolutely out of the question.
      Inasmuch as the percentage of drop decreases in proportion to the
      increased cross-section of the conductors, the only feasible plan would
      seem to be to increase their size to such dimensions as to eliminate the
      drop altogether, beginning with conductors of large cross-section and
      tapering off as necessary. This would, indeed, obviate the trouble, but,
      on the other hand, would give rise to a much more serious difficulty&mdash;namely,
      the enormous outlay for copper; an outlay so great as to be absolutely
      prohibitory in considering the electric lighting of large districts, as
      now practiced.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another diagram will probably make this more clear. The reference figures
      are used as before, except that the horizontal lines extending from square
      marked G represent the main conductors. As each lamp requires and takes
      its own proportion of the total current generated, it is obvious that the
      size of the conductors to carry the current for a number of lamps must be
      as large as the sum of ALL the separate conductors which would be required
      to carry the necessary amount of current to each lamp separately. Hence,
      in a primitive multiple-arc system, it was found that the system must have
      conductors of a size equal to the aggregate of the individual conductors
      necessary for every lamp. Such conductors might either be separate, as
      shown above (Fig. 2), or be bunched together, or made into a solid
      tapering conductor, as shown in the following figure:
    </p>
    <p>
      The enormous mass of copper needed in such a system can be better
      appreciated by a concrete example. Some years ago Mr. W. J. Jenks made a
      comparative calculation which showed that such a system of conductors
      (known as the "Tree" system), to supply 8640 lamps in a territory
      extending over so small an area as nine city blocks, would require 803,250
      pounds of copper, which at the then price of 25 cents per pound would cost
      $200,812.50!
    </p>
    <p>
      Such, in brief, was the state of the art, generally speaking, at the
      period above named (1878-79). As early in the art as the latter end of the
      year 1878, Edison had developed his ideas sufficiently to determine that
      the problem of electric illumination by small units could be solved by
      using incandescent lamps of high resistance and small radiating surface,
      and by distributing currents of constant potential thereto in multiple arc
      by means of a ramification of conductors, starting from a central source
      and branching therefrom in every direction. This was an equivalent of the
      method illustrated in Fig. 3, known as the "Tree" system, and was, in
      fact, the system used by Edison in the first and famous exhibition of his
      electric light at Menlo Park around the Christmas period of 1879. He
      realized, however, that the enormous investment for copper would militate
      against the commercial adoption of electric lighting on an extended scale.
      His next inventive step covered the division of a large city district into
      a number of small sub-stations supplying current through an interconnected
      network of conductors, thus reducing expenditure for copper to some
      extent, because each distribution unit was small and limited the drop.
    </p>
    <p>
      His next development was the radical advancement of the state of the art
      to the feeder system, covered by the patent now under discussion. This
      invention swept away the tree and other systems, and at one bound brought
      into being the possibility of effectively distributing large currents over
      extended areas with a commercially reasonable investment for copper.
    </p>
    <p>
      The fundamental principles of this invention were, first, to sever
      entirely any direct connection of the main conductors with the source of
      energy; and, second, to feed current at a constant potential to central
      points in such main conductors by means of other conductors, called
      "feeders," which were to be connected directly with the source of energy
      at the central station. This idea will be made more clear by reference to
      the following simple diagram, in which the same letters are used as
      before, with additions:
    </p>
    <p>
      In further elucidation of the diagram, it may be considered that the mains
      are laid in the street along a city block, more or less distant from the
      station, while the feeders are connected at one end with the source of
      energy at the station, their other extremities being connected to the
      mains at central points of distribution. Of course, this system was
      intended to be applied in every part of a district to be supplied with
      current, separate sets of feeders running out from the station to the
      various centres. The distribution mains were to be of sufficiently large
      size that between their most extreme points the loss would not be more
      than 3 volts. Such a slight difference would not make an appreciable
      variation in the candle-power of the lamps.
    </p>
    <p>
      By the application of these principles, the inevitable but useless loss,
      or "drop," required by economy might be incurred, but was LOCALIZED IN THE
      FEEDERS, where it would not affect the uniformity of illumination of the
      lamps in any of the circuits, whether near to or remote from the station,
      because any variations of loss in the feeders would not give rise to
      similar fluctuations in any lamp circuit. The feeders might be operated at
      any desired percentage of loss that would realize economy in copper, so
      long as they delivered current to the main conductors at the potential
      represented by the average voltage of the lamps.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus the feeders could be made comparatively small in cross-section. It
      will be at once appreciated that, inasmuch as the mains required to be
      laid ONLY along the blocks to be lighted, and were not required to be run
      all the way to the central station (which might be half a mile or more
      away), the saving of copper by Edison's feeder system was enormous.
      Indeed, the comparative calculation of Mr. Jenks, above referred to, shows
      that to operate the same number of lights in the same extended area of
      territory, the feeder system would require only 128,739 pounds of copper,
      which, at the then price of 25 cents per pound, would cost only $39,185,
      or A SAVING of $168,627.50 for copper in this very small district of only
      nine blocks.
    </p>
    <p>
      An additional illustration, appealing to the eye, is presented in the
      following sketch, in which the comparative masses of copper of the tree
      and feeder systems for carrying the same current are shown side by side:
    </p>
    <p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      XII. THE THREE-WIRE SYSTEM
    </h2>
    <p>
      THIS invention is covered by United States Patent No. 274,290, issued to
      Edison on March 20, 1883. The object of the invention was to provide for
      increased economy in the quantity of copper employed for the main
      conductors in electric light and power installations of considerable
      extent at the same time preserving separate and independent control of
      each lamp, motor, or other translating device, upon any one of the various
      distribution circuits.
    </p>
    <p>
      Immediately prior to this invention the highest state of the art of
      electrical distribution was represented by Edison's feeder system, which
      has already been described as a straight parallel or multiple-arc system
      wherein economy of copper was obtained by using separate sets of
      conductors&mdash;minus load&mdash;feeding current at standard potential or
      electrical pressure into the mains at centres of distribution.
    </p>
    <p>
      It should be borne in mind that the incandescent lamp which was accepted
      at the time as a standard (and has so remained to the present day) was a
      lamp of 110 volts or thereabouts. In using the word "standard," therefore,
      it is intended that the same shall apply to lamps of about that voltage,
      as well as to electrical circuits of the approximate potential to operate
      them.
    </p>
    <p>
      Briefly stated, the principle involved in the three-wire system is to
      provide main circuits of double the standard potential, so as to operate
      standard lamps, or other translating devices, in multiple series of two to
      each series; and for the purpose of securing independent, individual
      control of each unit, to divide each main circuit into any desired number
      of derived circuits of standard potential (properly balanced) by means of
      a central compensating conductor which would be normally neutral, but
      designed to carry any minor excess of current that might flow by reason of
      any temporary unbalancing of either side of the main circuit.
    </p>
    <p>
      Reference to the following diagrams will elucidate this principle more
      clearly than words alone can do. For the purpose of increased lucidity we
      will first show a plain multiple-series system.
    </p>
    <p>
      In this diagram G&lt;1S> and G&lt;2S> represent two generators, each
      producing current at a potential of 110 volts. By connecting them in
      series this potential is doubled, thus providing a main circuit (P and N)
      of 220 volts. The figures marked L represent eight lamps of 110 volts
      each, in multiple series of two, in four derived circuits. The arrows
      indicate the flow of current. By this method each pair of lamps takes,
      together, only the same quantity or volume of current required by a single
      lamp in a simple multiple-arc system; and, as the cross-section of a
      conductor depends upon the quantity of current carried, such an
      arrangement as the above would allow the use of conductors of only
      one-fourth the cross-section that would be otherwise required. From the
      standpoint of economy of investment such an arrangement would be highly
      desirable, but considered commercially it is impracticable because the
      principle of independent control of each unit would be lost, as the
      turning out of a lamp in any series would mean the extinguishment of its
      companion also. By referring to the diagram it will be seen that each
      series of two forms one continuous path between the main conductors, and
      if this path be broken at any one point current will immediately cease to
      flow in that particular series.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison, by his invention of the three-wire system, overcame this
      difficulty entirely, and at the same time conserved approximately, the
      saving of copper, as will be apparent from the following illustration of
      that system, in its simplest form.
    </p>
    <p>
      The reference figures are similar to those in the preceding diagram, and
      all conditions are also alike except that a central compensating, or
      balancing, conductor, PN, is here introduced. This is technically termed
      the "neutral" wire, and in the discharge of its functions lies the
      solution of the problem of economical distribution. Theoretically, a
      three-wire installation is evenly balanced by wiring for an equal number
      of lamps on both sides. If all these lamps were always lighted, burned,
      and extinguished simultaneously the central conductor would, in fact,
      remain neutral, as there would be no current passing through it, except
      from lamp to lamp. In practice, however, no such perfect conditions can
      obtain, hence the necessity of the provision for balancing in order to
      maintain the principle of independent control of each unit.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will be apparent that the arrangement shown in Fig. 2 comprises
      practically two circuits combined in one system, in which the central
      conductor, PN, in case of emergency, serves in two capacities&mdash;namely,
      as negative to generator G&lt;1S> or as positive to generator G&lt;2S>,
      although normally neutral. There are two sides to the system, the positive
      side being represented by the conductors P and PN, and the negative side
      by the conductors PN and N. Each side, if considered separately, has a
      potential of about 110 volts, yet the potential of the two outside
      conductors, P and N, is 220 volts. The lamps are 110 volts.
    </p>
    <p>
      In practical use the operation of the system is as follows: If all the
      lamps were lighted the current would flow along P and through each pair of
      lamps to N, and so back to the source of energy. In this case the balance
      is preserved and the central wire remains neutral, as no return current
      flows through it to the source of energy. But let us suppose that one lamp
      on the positive side is extinguished. None of the other lamps is affected
      thereby, but the system is immediately thrown out of balance, and on the
      positive side there is an excess of current to this extent which flows
      along or through the central conductor and returns to the generator, the
      central conductor thus becoming the negative of that side of the system
      for the time being. If the lamp extinguished had been one of those on the
      negative side of the system results of a similar nature would obtain,
      except that the central conductor would for the time being become the
      positive of that side, and the excess of current would flow through the
      negative, N, back to the source of energy. Thus it will be seen that a
      three-wire system, considered as a whole, is elastic in that it may
      operate as one when in balance and as two when unbalanced, but in either
      event giving independent control of each unit.
    </p>
    <p>
      For simplicity of illustration a limited number of circuits, shown in Fig.
      2, has been employed. In practice, however, where great numbers of lamps
      are in use (as, for instance, in New York City, where about 7,000,000
      lamps are operated from various central stations), there is constantly
      occurring more or less change in the balance of many circuits extending
      over considerable distances, but of course there is a net result which is
      always on one side of the system or the other for the time being, and this
      is met by proper adjustment at the appropriate generator in the station.
    </p>
    <p>
      In order to make the explanation complete, there is presented another
      diagram showing a three-wire system unbalanced:
    </p>
    <p>
      The reference figures are used as before, but in this case the vertical
      lines represent branches taken from the main conductors into buildings or
      other spaces to be lighted, and the loops between these branch wires
      represent lamps in operation. It will be seen from this sketch that there
      are ten lamps on the positive side and twelve on the negative side. Hence,
      the net result is an excess of current equal to that required by two lamps
      flowing through the central or compensating conductor, which is now acting
      as positive to generator G&lt;2S> The arrows show the assumed direction of
      flow of current throughout the system, and the small figures at the
      arrow-heads the volume of that current expressed in the number of lamps
      which it supplies.
    </p>
    <p>
      The commercial value of this invention may be appreciated from the fact
      that by the application of its principles there is effected a saving of 62
      1/2 per cent. of the amount of copper over that which would be required
      for conductors in any previously devised two-wire system carrying the same
      load. This arises from the fact that by the doubling of potential the two
      outside mains are reduced to one-quarter the cross-section otherwise
      necessary. A saving of 75 per cent. would thus be assured, but the
      addition of a third, or compensating, conductor of the same cross-section
      as one of the outside mains reduces the total saving to 62 1/2 per cent.
    </p>
    <p>
      The three-wire system is in universal use throughout the world at the
      present day.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XIII. EDISON'S ELECTRIC RAILWAY
    </h2>
    <p>
      AS narrated in Chapter XVIII, there were two electric railroads installed
      by Edison at Menlo Park&mdash;one in 1880, originally a third of a mile
      long, but subsequently increased to about a mile in length, and the other
      in 1882, about three miles long. As the 1880 road was built very soon
      after Edison's notable improvements in dynamo machines, and as the art of
      operating them to the best advantage was then being developed, this early
      road was somewhat crude as compared with the railroad of 1882; but both
      were practicable and serviceable for the purpose of hauling passengers and
      freight. The scope of the present article will be confined to a
      description of the technical details of these two installations.
    </p>
    <p>
      The illustration opposite page 454 of the preceding narrative shows the
      first Edison locomotive and train of 1880 at Menlo Park.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the locomotive a four-wheel iron truck was used, and upon it was
      mounted one of the long "Z" type 110-volt Edison dynamos, with a capacity
      of 75 amperes, which was to be used as a motor. This machine was laid on
      its side, its armature being horizontal and located toward the front of
      the locomotive.
    </p>
    <p>
      We now quote from an article by Mr. E. W. Hammer, published in the
      Electrical World, New York, June 10, 1899, and afterward elaborated and
      reprinted in a volume entitled Edisonia, compiled and published under the
      auspices of a committee of the Association of Edison Illuminating
      Companies, in 1904: "The gearing originally employed consisted of a
      friction-pulley upon the armature shaft, another friction-pulley upon the
      driven axle, and a third friction-pulley which could be brought in contact
      with the other two by a suitable lever. Each wheel of the locomotive was
      made with metallic rim and a centre portion made of wood or papier-mache.
      A three-legged spider connected the metal rim of each front wheel to a
      brass hub, upon which rested a collecting brush. The other wheels were
      subsequently so equipped. It was the intention, therefore, that the
      current should enter the locomotive wheels at one side, and after passing
      through the metal spiders, collecting brushes and motor, would pass out
      through the corresponding brushes, spiders, and wheels to the other rail."
    </p>
    <p>
      As to the road: "The rails were light and were spiked to ordinary
      sleepers, with a gauge of about three and one-half feet. The sleepers were
      laid upon the natural grade, and there was comparatively no effort made to
      ballast the road. . . . No special precautions were taken to insulate the
      rails from the earth or from each other."
    </p>
    <p>
      The road started about fifty feet away from the generating station, which
      in this case was the machine shop. Two of the "Z" type dynamos were used
      for generating the current, which was conveyed to the two rails of the
      road by underground conductors.
    </p>
    <p>
      On Thursday, May 13, 1880, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, this historic
      locomotive made its first trip, packed with as many of the "boys" as could
      possibly find a place to hang on. "Everything worked to a charm, until, in
      starting up at one end of the road, the friction gearing was brought into
      action too suddenly and it was wrecked. This accident demonstrated that
      some other method of connecting the armature with the driven axle should
      be arranged.
    </p>
    <p>
      "As thus originally operated, the motor had its field circuit in permanent
      connection as a shunt across the rails, and this field circuit was
      protected by a safety-catch made by turning up two bare ends of the wire
      in its circuit and winding a piece of fine copper wire across from one
      bare end to the other. The armature circuit had a switch in it which
      permitted the locomotive to be reversed by reversing the direction of
      current flow through the armature.
    </p>
    <p>
      "After some consideration of the gearing question, it was decided to
      employ belts instead of the friction-pulleys." Accordingly, Edison
      installed on the locomotive a system of belting, including an idler-pulley
      which was used by means of a lever to tighten the main driving-belt, and
      thus power was applied to the driven axle. This involved some slipping and
      consequent burning of belts; also, if the belt were prematurely tightened,
      the burning-out of the armature. This latter event happened a number of
      times, "and proved to be such a serious annoyance that resistance-boxes
      were brought out from the laboratory and placed upon the locomotive in
      series with the armature. This solved the difficulty. The locomotive would
      be started with these resistance-boxes in circuit, and after reaching full
      speed the operator could plug the various boxes out of circuit, and in
      that way increase the speed." To stop, the armature circuit was opened by
      the main switch and the brake applied.
    </p>
    <p>
      This arrangement was generally satisfactory, but the resistance-boxes
      scattered about the platform and foot-rests being in the way, Edison
      directed that some No. 8 B. &amp; S. copper wire be wound on the lower leg
      of the motor field-magnet. "By doing this the resistance was put where it
      would take up the least room, and where it would serve as an additional
      field-coil when starting the motor, and it replaced all the
      resistance-boxes which had heretofore been in plain sight. The boxes under
      the seat were still retained in service. The coil of coarse wire was in
      series with the armature, just as the resistance-boxes had been, and could
      be plugged in or out of circuit at the will of the locomotive driver. The
      general arrangement thus secured was operated as long as this road was in
      commission."
    </p>
    <p>
      On this short stretch of road there were many sharp curves and steep
      grades, and in consequence of the high speed attained (as high as
      forty-two miles an hour) several derailments took place, but fortunately
      without serious results. Three cars were in service during the entire time
      of operating this 1880 railroad: one a flat-car for freight; one an open
      car with two benches placed back to back; and the third a box-car,
      familiarly known as the "Pullman." This latter car had an interesting
      adjunct in an electric braking system (covered by Edison's Patent No.
      248,430). "Each car axle had a large iron disk mounted on and revolving
      with it between the poles of a powerful horseshoe electromagnet. The
      pole-pieces of the magnet were movable, and would be attracted to the
      revolving disk when the magnet was energized, grasping the same and acting
      to retard the revolution of the car axle."
    </p>
    <p>
      Interesting articles on Edison's first electric railroad were published in
      the technical and other papers, among which may be mentioned the New York
      Herald, May 15 and July 23, 1880; the New York Graphic, July 27, 1880; and
      the Scientific American, June 6, 1880.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's second electric railroad of 1882 was more pretentious as regards
      length, construction, and equipment. It was about three miles long, of
      nearly standard gauge, and substantially constructed. Curves were
      modified, and grades eliminated where possible by the erection of numerous
      trestles. This road also had some features of conventional railroads, such
      as sidings, turn-tables, freight platform, and car-house. "Current was
      supplied to the road by underground feeder cables from the dynamo-room of
      the laboratory. The rails were insulated from the ties by giving them two
      coats of japan, baking them in the oven, and then placing them on pads of
      tar-impregnated muslin laid on the ties. The ends of the rails were not
      japanned, but were electroplated, to give good contact surfaces for
      fish-plates and copper bonds."
    </p>
    <p>
      The following notes of Mr. Frederick A. Scheffler, who designed the
      passenger locomotive for the 1882 road, throw an interesting light on its
      technical details:
    </p>
    <p>
      "In May, 1881, I was engaged by Mr. M. F. Moore, who was the first General
      Manager of the Edison Company for Isolated Lighting, as a draftsman to
      undertake the work of designing and building Edison's electric locomotive
      No. 2.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Previous to that time I had been employed in the engineering department
      of Grant Locomotive Works, Paterson, New Jersey, and the Rhode Island
      Locomotive Works, Providence, Rhode Island....
    </p>
    <p>
      "It was Mr. Edison's idea, as I understood it at that time, to build a
      locomotive along the general lines of steam locomotives (at least, in
      outward appearance), and to combine in that respect the framework, truck,
      and other parts known to be satisfactory in steam locomotives at the same
      time.
    </p>
    <p>
      "This naturally required the services of a draftsman accustomed to
      steam-locomotive practice.... Mr. Moore was a man of great railroad and
      locomotive experience, and his knowledge in that direction was of great
      assistance in the designing and building of this locomotive.
    </p>
    <p>
      "At that time I had no knowledge of electricity.... One could count
      so-called electrical engineers on his fingers then, and have some fingers
      left over.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Consequently, the ELECTRICAL equipment was designed by Mr. Edison and his
      assistants. The data and parts, such as motor, rheostat, switches, etc.,
      were given to me, and my work was to design the supporting frame, axles,
      countershafts, driving mechanism, speed control, wheels and boxes, cab,
      running board, pilot (or 'cow-catcher'), buffers, and even supports for
      the headlight. I believe I also designed a bell and supports. From this it
      will be seen that the locomotive had all the essential paraphernalia to
      make it LOOK like a steam locomotive.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The principal part of the outfit was the electric motor. At that time
      motors were curiosities. There were no electric motors even for stationary
      purposes, except freaks built for experimental uses. This motor was made
      from the parts&mdash;such as fields, armature, commutator, shaft and
      bearings, etc., of an Edison 'Z,' or 60-light dynamo. It was the only size
      of dynamo that the Edison Company had marketed at that time.... As a
      motor, it was wound to run at maximum speed to develop a torque equal to
      about fifteen horse-power with 220 volts. At the generating station at
      Menlo Park four Z dynamos of 110 volts were used, connected two in series,
      in multiple arc, giving a line voltage of 220.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The motor was located in the front part of the locomotive, on its side,
      with the armature shaft across the frames, or parallel with the driving
      axles.
    </p>
    <p>
      "On account of the high speed of the armature shaft it was not possible to
      connect with driving-axles direct, but this was an advantage in one way,
      as by introducing an intermediate counter-shaft (corresponding to the
      well-known type of double-reduction motor used on trolley-cars since
      1885), a fairly good arrangement was obtained to regulate the speed of the
      locomotive, exclusive of resistance in the electric circuit.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Endless leather belting was used to transmit the power from the motor to
      the counter-shaft, and from the latter to the driving-wheels, which were
      the front pair. A vertical idler-pulley was mounted in a frame over the
      belt from motor to counter-shaft, terminating in a vertical screw and
      hand-wheel for tightening the belt to increase speed, or the reverse to
      lower speed. This hand-wheel was located in the cab, where it was easily
      accessible....
    </p>
    <p>
      "The rough outline sketched below shows the location of motor in relation
      to counter-shaft, belting, driving-wheels, idler, etc.:
    </p>
    <p>
      "On account of both rails being used for circuits, . . . the
      driving-wheels had to be split circumferentially and completely insulated
      from the axles. This was accomplished by means of heavy wood blocks well
      shellacked or otherwise treated to make them water and weather proof,
      placed radially on the inside of the wheels, and then substantially bolted
      to the hubs and rims of the latter.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The weight of the locomotive was distributed over the driving-wheels in
      the usual locomotive practice by means of springs and equalizers.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The current was taken from the rims of the driving-wheels by a
      three-pronged collector of brass, against which flexible copper brushes
      were pressed&mdash;a simple manner of overcoming any inequalities of the
      road-bed.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The late Mr. Charles T. Hughes was in charge of the track construction at
      Menlo Park.... His work was excellent throughout, and the results were
      highly satisfactory so far as they could possibly be with the arrangement
      originally planned by Mr. Edison and his assistants.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Mr. Charles L. Clarke, one of the earliest electrical engineers employed
      by Mr. Edison, made a number of tests on this 1882 railroad. I believe
      that the engine driving the four Z generators at the power-house indicated
      as high as seventy horse-power at the time the locomotive was actually in
      service."
    </p>
    <p>
      The electrical features of the 1882 locomotive were very similar to those
      of the earlier one, already described. Shunt and series field-windings
      were added to the motor, and the series windings could be plugged in and
      out of circuit as desired. The series winding was supplemented by
      resistance-boxes, also capable of being plugged in or out of circuit.
      These various electrical features are diagrammatically shown in Fig. 2,
      which also illustrates the connection with the generating plant.
    </p>
    <p>
      We quote again from Mr. Hammer, who says: "The freight-locomotive had
      single reduction gears, as is the modern practice, but the power was
      applied through a friction-clutch The passenger-locomotive was very
      speedy, and ninety passengers have been carried at a time by it; the
      freight-locomotive was not so fast, but could pull heavy trains at a good
      speed. Many thousand people were carried on this road during 1882." The
      general appearance of Edison's electric locomotive of 1882 is shown in the
      illustration opposite page 462 of the preceding narrative. In the picture
      Mr. Edison may be seen in the cab, and Mr. Insull on the front platform of
      the passenger-car.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XIV. TRAIN TELEGRAPHY
    </h2>
    <p>
      WHILE the one-time art of telegraphing to and from moving trains was
      essentially a wireless system, and allied in some of its principles to the
      art of modern wireless telegraphy through space, the two systems cannot,
      strictly speaking be regarded as identical, as the practice of the former
      was based entirely on the phenomenon of induction.
    </p>
    <p>
      Briefly described in outline, the train telegraph system consisted of an
      induction circuit obtained by laying strips of metal along the top or roof
      of a railway-car, and the installation of a special telegraph line running
      parallel with the track and strung on poles of only medium height. The
      train, and also each signalling station, was equipped with regulation
      telegraph apparatus, such as battery, key, relay, and sounder, together
      with induction-coil and condenser. In addition, there was a special
      transmitting device in the shape of a musical reed, or "buzzer." In
      practice, this buzzer was continuously operated at a speed of about five
      hundred vibrations per second by an auxiliary battery. Its vibrations were
      broken by means of a telegraph key into long and short periods,
      representing Morse characters, which were transmitted inductively from the
      train circuit to the pole line or vice versa, and received by the operator
      at the other end through a high-resistance telephone receiver inserted in
      the secondary circuit of the induction-coil.
    </p>
    <p>
      The accompanying diagrammatic sketch of a simple form of the system, as
      installed on a car, will probably serve to make this more clear.
    </p>
    <p>
      An insulated wire runs from the metallic layers on the roof of the car to
      switch S, which is shown open in the sketch. When a message is to be
      received on the car from a station more or less remote, the switch is
      thrown to the left to connect with a wire running to the telephone
      receiver, T. The other wire from this receiver is run down to one of the
      axles and there permanently connected, thus making a ground. The operator
      puts the receiver to his ear and listens for the message, which the
      telephone renders audible in the Morse characters.
    </p>
    <p>
      If a message is to be transmitted from the car to a receiving station,
      near or distant, the switch, S, is thrown to the other side, thus
      connecting with a wire leading to one end of the secondary of
      induction-coil C. The other end of the secondary is connected with the
      grounding wire. The primary of the induction-coil is connected as shown,
      one end going to key K and the other to the buzzer circuit. The other side
      of the key is connected to the transmitting battery, while the opposite
      pole of this battery is connected in the buzzer circuit. The buzzer, R, is
      maintained in rapid vibration by its independent auxiliary battery, B&lt;1S>.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the key is pressed down the circuit is closed, and current from the
      transmitting battery, B, passes through primary of the coil, C, and
      induces a current of greatly increased potential in the secondary. The
      current as it passes into the primary, being broken up into short impulses
      by the tremendously rapid vibrations of the buzzer, induces similarly
      rapid waves of high potential in the secondary, and these in turn pass to
      the roof and thence through the intervening air by induction to the
      telegraph wire. By a continued lifting and depression of the key in the
      regular manner, these waves are broken up into long and short periods, and
      are thus transmitted to the station, via the wire, in Morse characters,
      dots and dashes.
    </p>
    <p>
      The receiving stations along the line of the railway were similarly
      equipped as to apparatus, and, generally speaking the operations of
      sending and receiving messages were substantially the same as above
      described.
    </p>
    <p>
      The equipment of an operator on a car was quite simple consisting merely
      of a small lap-board, on which were mounted the key, coil, and buzzer,
      leaving room for telegraph blanks. To this board were also attached
      flexible conductors having spring clips, by means of which connections
      could be made quickly with conveniently placed terminals of the ground,
      roof, and battery wires. The telephone receiver was held on the head with
      a spring, the flexible connecting wire being attached to the lap board,
      thus leaving the operator with both hands free.
    </p>
    <p>
      The system, as shown in the sketch and elucidated by the text, represents
      the operation of train telegraphy in a simple form, but combining the main
      essentials of the art as it was successfully and commercially practiced
      for a number of years after Edison and Gilliland entered the field. They
      elaborated the system in various ways, making it more complete; but it has
      not been deemed necessary to enlarge further upon the technical minutiae
      of the art for the purpose of this work.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XV. KINETOGRAPH AND PROJECTING KINETOSCOPE
    </h2>
    <p>
      ALTHOUGH many of the arts in which Edison has been a pioneer have been
      enriched by his numerous inventions and patents, which were subsequent to
      those of a fundamental nature, the (so-called) motion-picture art is an
      exception, as the following, together with three other additional patents
      [30] comprise all that he has taken out on this subject: United States
      Patent No. 589,168, issued August 31, 1897, reissued in two parts&mdash;namely,
      No. 12,037, under date of September 30,1902, and No. 12,192, under date of
      January 12, 1904. Application filed August 24, 1891.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 30: Not 491,993, issued February 21, 1893; No.
     493,426, issued March 14, 1893; No. 772,647, issued October
     18, 1904.]
</pre>
    <p>
      There is nothing surprising in this, however, as the possibility of
      photographing and reproducing actual scenes of animate life are so
      thoroughly exemplified and rendered practicable by the apparatus and
      methods disclosed in the patents above cited, that these basic inventions
      in themselves practically constitute the art&mdash;its development
      proceeding mainly along the line of manufacturing details. That such a
      view of his work is correct, the highest criterion&mdash;commercial
      expediency&mdash;bears witness; for in spite of the fact that the courts
      have somewhat narrowed the broad claims of Edison's patents by reason of
      the investigations of earlier experimenters, practically all the immense
      amount of commercial work that is done in the motion-picture field to-day
      is accomplished through the use of apparatus and methods licensed under
      the Edison patents.
    </p>
    <p>
      The philosophy of this invention having already been described in Chapter
      XXI, it will be unnecessary to repeat it here. Suffice it to say by way of
      reminder that it is founded upon the physiological phenomenon known as the
      persistence of vision, through which a series of sequential photographic
      pictures of animate motion projected upon a screen in rapid succession
      will reproduce to the eye all the appearance of the original movements.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's work in this direction comprised the invention not only of a
      special form of camera for making original photographic exposures from a
      single point of view with very great rapidity, and of a machine adapted to
      effect the reproduction of such pictures in somewhat similar manner but
      also of the conception and invention of a continuous uniform, and evenly
      spaced tape-like film, so absolutely essential for both the above objects.
    </p>
    <p>
      The mechanism of such a camera, as now used, consists of many parts
      assembled in such contiguous proximity to each other that an illustration
      from an actual machine would not help to clearness of explanation to the
      general reader. Hence a diagram showing a sectional view of a simple form
      of such a camera is presented below.
    </p>
    <p>
      In this diagram, A represents an outer light-tight box containing a lens,
      C, and the other necessary mechanism for making the photographic
      exposures, H&lt;1S> and H&lt;2S> being cases for holding reels of film
      before and after exposure, F the long, tape-like film, G a sprocket whose
      teeth engage in perforations on the edges of the film, such sprocket being
      adapted to be revolved with an intermittent or step-by-step movement by
      hand or by motor, and B a revolving shutter having an opening and
      connected by gears with G, and arranged to expose the film during the
      periods of rest. A full view of this shutter is also represented, with its
      opening, D, in the small illustration to the right.
    </p>
    <p>
      In practice, the operation would be somewhat as follows, generally
      speaking: The lens would first be focussed on the animate scene to be
      photographed. On turning the main shaft of the camera the sprocket, G, is
      moved intermittently, and its teeth, catching in the holes in the
      sensitized film, draws it downward, bringing a new portion of its length
      in front of the lens, the film then remaining stationary for an instant.
      In the mean time, through gearing connecting the main shaft with the
      shutter, the latter is rotated, bringing its opening, D, coincident with
      the lens, and therefore exposing the film while it is stationary, after
      which the film again moves forward. So long as the action is continued
      these movements are repeated, resulting in a succession of enormously
      rapid exposures upon the film during its progress from reel H&lt;1S> to
      its automatic rewinding on reel H&lt;2S>. While the film is passing
      through the various parts of the machine it is guided and kept straight by
      various sets of rollers between which it runs, as indicated in the
      diagram.
    </p>
    <p>
      By an ingenious arrangement of the mechanism, the film moves
      intermittently so that it may have a much longer period of rest than of
      motion. As in practice the pictures are taken at a rate of twenty or more
      per second, it will be quite obvious that each period of rest is
      infinitesimally brief, being generally one-thirtieth of a second or less.
      Still it is sufficient to bring the film to a momentary condition of
      complete rest, and to allow for a maximum time of exposure, comparatively
      speaking, thus providing means for taking clearly defined pictures. The
      negatives so obtained are developed in the regular way, and the positive
      prints subsequently made from them are used for reproduction.
    </p>
    <p>
      The reproducing machine, or, as it is called in practice, the Projecting
      Kinetoscope, is quite similar so far as its general operations in handling
      the film are concerned. In appearance it is somewhat different; indeed, it
      is in two parts, the one containing the lighting arrangements and
      condensing lens, and the other embracing the mechanism and objective lens.
      The "taking" camera must have its parts enclosed in a light-tight box,
      because of the undeveloped, sensitized film, but the projecting
      kinetoscope, using only a fully developed positive film, may, and, for
      purposes of convenient operation, must be accessibly open. The
      illustration (Fig. 2) will show the projecting apparatus as used in
      practice.
    </p>
    <p>
      The philosophy of reproduction is very simple, and is illustrated
      diagrammatically in Fig. 3, reference letters being the same as in Fig. 1.
      As to the additional reference letters, I is a condenser J the source of
      light, and K a reflector.
    </p>
    <p>
      The positive film is moved intermittently but swiftly throughout its
      length between the objective lens and a beam of light coming through the
      condenser, being exposed by the shutter during the periods of rest. This
      results in a projection of the photographs upon a screen in such rapid
      succession as to present an apparently continuous photograph of the
      successive positions of the moving objects, which, therefore, appear to
      the human eye to be in motion.
    </p>
    <p>
      The first claim of Reissue Patent No. 12,192 describes the film. It reads
      as follows:
    </p>
    <p>
      "An unbroken transparent or translucent tape-like photographic film having
      thereon uniform, sharply defined, equidistant photographs of successive
      positions of an object in motion as observed from a single point of view
      at rapidly recurring intervals of time, such photographs being arranged in
      a continuous straight-line sequence, unlimited in number save by the
      length of the film, and sufficient in number to represent the movements of
      the object throughout an extended period of time."
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XVI. EDISON'S ORE-MILLING INVENTIONS
    </h2>
    <p>
      THE wide range of Edison's activities in this department of the arts is
      well represented in the diversity of the numerous patents that have been
      issued to him from time to time. These patents are between fifty and sixty
      in number, and include magnetic ore separators of ten distinct types; also
      breaking, crushing, and grinding rolls, conveyors, dust-proof bearings,
      screens, driers, mixers, bricking apparatus and machines, ovens, and
      processes of various kinds.
    </p>
    <p>
      A description of the many devices in each of these divisions would require
      more space than is available; hence, we shall confine ourselves to a few
      items of predominating importance, already referred to in the narrative,
      commencing with the fundamental magnetic ore separator, which was covered
      by United States Patent No. 228,329, issued June 1, 1880.
    </p>
    <p>
      The illustration here presented is copied from the drawing forming part of
      this patent. A hopper with adjustable feed is supported several feet above
      a bin having a central partition. Almost midway between the hopper and the
      bin is placed an electromagnet whose polar extension is so arranged as to
      be a little to one side of a stream of material falling from the hopper.
      Normally, a stream of finely divided ore falling from the hopper would
      fall into that portion of the bin lying to the left of the partition. If,
      however, the magnet is energized from a source of current, the magnetic
      particles in the falling stream are attracted by and move toward the
      magnet, which is so placed with relation to the falling material that the
      magnetic particles cannot be attracted entirely to the magnet before
      gravity has carried them past. Hence, their trajectory is altered, and
      they fall on the right-hand side of the partition in the bin, while the
      non-magnetic portion of the stream continues in a straight line and falls
      on the other side, thus effecting a complete separation.
    </p>
    <p>
      This simple but effective principle was the one employed by Edison in his
      great concentrating plant already described. In practice, the numerous
      hoppers, magnets, and bins were many feet in length; and they were
      arranged in batteries of varied magnetic strength, in order that the
      intermingled mass of crushed rock and iron ore might be more thoroughly
      separated by being passed through magnetic fields of successively
      increasing degrees of attracting power. Altogether there were about four
      hundred and eighty of these immense magnets in the plant, distributed in
      various buildings in batteries as above mentioned, the crushed rock
      containing the iron ore being delivered to them by conveyors, and the
      gangue and ore being taken away after separation by two other conveyors
      and delivered elsewhere. The magnetic separators at first used by Edison
      at this plant were of the same generality as the ones employed some years
      previously in the separation of sea-shore sand, but greatly enlarged and
      improved. The varied experiences gained in the concentration of vast
      quantities of ore led naturally to a greater development, and several new
      types and arrangements of magnetic separators were evolved and elaborated
      by him from first to last, during the progress of the work at the
      concentrating plant.
    </p>
    <p>
      The magnetic separation of iron from its ore being the foundation idea of
      the inventions now under discussion, a consideration of the separator has
      naturally taken precedence over those of collateral but inseparable
      interest. The ore-bearing rock, however, must first be ground to powder
      before it can be separated; hence, we will now begin at the root of this
      operation and consider the "giant rolls," which Edison devised for
      breaking huge masses of rock. In his application for United States Patent
      No. 672,616, issued April 23, 1901, applied for on July 16, 1897, he says:
      "The object of my invention is to produce a method for the breaking of
      rock which will be simple and effective, will not require the
      hand-sledging or blasting of the rock down to pieces of moderate size, and
      will involve the consumption of a small amount of power."
    </p>
    <p>
      While this quotation refers to the method as "simple," the patent under
      consideration covers one of the most bold and daring projects that Edison
      has ever evolved. He proposed to eliminate the slow and expensive method
      of breaking large boulders manually, and to substitute therefor momentum
      and kinetic energy applied through the medium of massive machinery, which,
      in a few seconds, would break into small pieces a rock as big as an
      ordinary upright cottage piano, and weighing as much as six tons.
      Engineers to whom Edison communicated his ideas were unanimous in
      declaring the thing an impossibility; it was like driving two
      express-trains into each other at full speed to crack a great rock placed
      between them; that no practical machinery could be built to stand the
      terrific impact and strains. Edison's convictions were strong, however,
      and he persisted. The experiments were of heroic size, physically and
      financially, but after a struggle of several years and an expenditure of
      about $100,000, he realized the correctness and practicability of his
      plans in the success of the giant rolls, which were the outcome of his
      labors.
    </p>
    <p>
      The giant rolls consist of a pair of iron cylinders of massive size and
      weight, with removable wearing plates having irregular surfaces formed by
      projecting knobs. These rolls are mounted side by side in a very heavy
      frame (leaving a gap of about fourteen inches between them), and are so
      belted up with the source of power that they run in opposite directions.
      The giant rolls described by Edison in the above-named patent as having
      been built and operated by him had a combined weight of 167,000 pounds,
      including all moving parts, which of themselves weighed about seventy
      tons, each roll being six feet in diameter and five feet long. A top view
      of the rolls is shown in the sketch, one roll and one of its bearings
      being shown in section.
    </p>
    <p>
      In Fig. 2 the rolls are illustrated diagrammatically. As a sketch of this
      nature, even if given with a definite scale, does not always carry an
      adequate idea of relative dimensions to a non-technical reader, we present
      in Fig. 3 a perspective illustration of the giant rolls as installed in
      the concentrating plant.
    </p>
    <p>
      In practice, a small amount of power is applied to run the giant rolls
      gradually up to a surface speed of several thousand feet a minute. When
      this high speed is attained, masses of rock weighing several tons in one
      or more pieces are dumped into a hopper which guides them into the gap
      between the rapidly revolving rolls. The effect is to partially arrest the
      swift motion of the rolls instantaneously, and thereby develop and expend
      an enormous amount of kinetic energy, which with pile-driver effect cracks
      the rocks and breaks them into pieces small enough to pass through the
      fourteen-inch gap. As the power is applied to the rolls through slipping
      friction-clutches, the speed of the driving-pulleys is not materially
      reduced; hence the rolls may again be quickly speeded up to their highest
      velocity while another load of rock is being hoisted in position to be
      dumped into the hopper. It will be obvious from the foregoing that if it
      were attempted to supply the great energy necessary for this operation by
      direct application of steam-power, an engine of enormous horse-power would
      be required, and even then it is doubtful if one could be constructed of
      sufficient strength to withstand the terrific strains that would ensue.
      But the work is done by the great momentum and kinetic energy obtained by
      speeding up these tremendous masses of metal, and then suddenly opposing
      their progress, the engine being relieved of all strain through the medium
      of the slipping friction-clutches. Thus, this cyclopean operation may be
      continuously conducted with an amount of power prodigiously inferior, in
      proportion, to the results accomplished.
    </p>
    <p>
      The sketch (Fig. 4) showing a large boulder being dumped into the hopper,
      or roll-pit, will serve to illustrate the method of feeding these great
      masses of rock to the rolls, and will also enable the reader to form an
      idea of the rapidity of the breaking operation, when it is stated that a
      boulder of the size represented would be reduced by the giant rolls to
      pieces a trifle larger than a man's head in a few seconds.
    </p>
    <p>
      After leaving the giant rolls the broken rock passed on through other
      crushing-rolls of somewhat similar construction. These also were invented
      by Edison, but antedated those previously described; being covered by
      Patent No. 567,187, issued September 8, 1896. These rolls were intended
      for the reducing of "one-man-size" rocks to small pieces, which at the
      time of their original inception was about the standard size of similar
      machines. At the Edison concentrating plant the broken rock, after passing
      through these rolls, was further reduced in size by other rolls, and was
      then ready to be crushed to a fine powder through the medium of another
      remarkable machine devised by Edison to meet his ever-recurring and
      well-defined ideas of the utmost economy and efficiency.
    </p>
    <p>
      NOTE.&mdash;Figs. 3 and 4 are reproduced from similar sketches on pages 84
      and 85 of McClure's Magazine for November, 1897, by permission of S. S.
      McClure Co.
    </p>
    <p>
      The best fine grinding-machines that it was then possible to obtain were
      so inefficient as to involve a loss of 82 per cent. of the power applied.
      The thought of such an enormous loss was unbearable, and he did not rest
      until he had invented and put into use an entirely new grinding-machine,
      which was called the "three-high" rolls. The device was covered by a
      patent issued to him on November 21, 1899, No. 637,327. It was a most
      noteworthy invention, for it brought into the art not only a greater
      efficiency of grinding than had ever been dreamed of before, but also a
      tremendous economy by the saving of power; for whereas the previous
      efficiency had been 18 per cent. and the loss 82 per cent., Edison
      reversed these figures, and in his three-high rolls produced a working
      efficiency of 84 per cent., thus reducing the loss of power by friction to
      16 per cent. A diagrammatic sketch of this remarkable machine is shown in
      Fig. 5, which shows a front elevation with the casings, hopper, etc.,
      removed, and also shows above the rolls the rope and pulleys, the supports
      for which are also removed for the sake of clearness in the illustration.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the convenience of the reader, in referring to Fig. 5, we will repeat
      the description of the three-high rolls, which is given on pages 487 and
      488 of the preceding narrative.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the two end-pieces of a heavy iron frame were set three rolls, or
      cylinders&mdash;one in the centre, another below, and the other above&mdash;all
      three being in a vertical line. These rolls were about three feet in
      diameter, made of cast-iron, and had face-plates of chilled-iron. [31] The
      lowest roll was set in a fixed bearing at the bottom of the frame, and,
      therefore, could only turn around on its axis. The middle and top rolls
      were free to move up or down from and toward the lower roll, and the
      shafts of the middle and upper rolls were set in a loose bearing which
      could slip up and down in the iron frame. It will be apparent, therefore,
      that any material which passed in between the top and the middle rolls,
      and the middle and bottom rolls, could be ground as fine as might be
      desired, depending entirely upon the amount of pressure applied to the
      loose rolls. In operation the material passed first through the upper and
      middle rolls, and then between the middle and lowest rolls.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     [Footnote 31: The faces of these rolls were smooth, but as
     three-high rolls came into use later in Edison's Portland
     cement operations the faces were corrugated so as to fit
     into each other, gear-fashion, to provide for a high rate of
     feed]
</pre>
    <p>
      This pressure was applied in a most ingenious manner. On the ends of the
      shafts of the bottom and top rolls there were cylindrical sleeves, or
      bearings, having seven sheaves in which was run a half-inch endless wire
      rope. This rope was wound seven times over the sheaves as above, and led
      upward and over a single-groove sheave, which was operated by the piston
      of an air-cylinder, and in this manner the pressure was applied to the
      rolls. It will be seen, therefore that the system consisted in a single
      rope passed over sheaves and so arranged that it could be varied in
      length, thus providing for elasticity in exerting pressure and regulating
      it as desired. The efficiency of this system was incomparably greater than
      that of any other known crusher or grinder, for while a pressure of one
      hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds could be exerted by these rolls,
      friction was almost entirely eliminated, because the upper and lower roll
      bearings turned with the rolls and revolved in the wire rope, which
      constituted the bearing proper.
    </p>
    <p>
      Several other important patents have been issued to Edison for crushing
      and grinding rolls, some of them being for elaborations and improvements
      of those above described but all covering methods of greater economy and
      effectiveness in rock-grinding.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's work on conveyors during the period of his ore-concentrating
      labors was distinctively original, ingenious and far in advance of the
      times. His conception of the concentrating problem was broad and embraced
      an entire system, of which a principal item was the continuous transfer of
      enormous quantities of material from place to place at the lowest possible
      cost. As he contemplated the concentration of six thousand tons daily, the
      expense of manual labor to move such an immense quantity of rock, sand,
      and ore would be absolutely prohibitive. Hence, it became necessary to
      invent a system of conveyors that would be capable of transferring this
      mass of material from one place to another. And not only must these
      conveyors be capable of carrying the material, but they must also be
      devised so that they would automatically receive and discharge their
      respective loads at appointed places. Edison's ingenuity, engineering
      ability, and inventive skill were equal to the task, however, and were
      displayed in a system and variety of conveyors that in practice seemed to
      act with almost human discrimination. When fully installed throughout the
      plant, they automatically transferred daily a mass of material equal to
      about one hundred thousand cubic feet, from mill to mill, covering about a
      mile in the transit. Up and down, winding in and out, turning corners,
      delivering material from one to another, making a number of loops in the
      drying-oven, filling up bins and passing on to the next when they were
      full, these conveyors in automatic action seemingly played their part with
      human intelligence, which was in reality the reflection of the
      intelligence and ingenuity that had originally devised them and set them
      in motion.
    </p>
    <p>
      Six of Edison's patents on conveyors include a variety of devices that
      have since came into broad general use for similar work, and have been the
      means of effecting great economies in numerous industries of widely
      varying kinds. Interesting as they are, however, we shall not attempt to
      describe them in detail, as the space required would be too great. They
      are specified in the list of patents following this Appendix, and may be
      examined in detail by any interested student.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the same list will also be found a large number of Edison's patents on
      apparatus and methods of screening, drying, mixing, and briquetting, as
      well as for dust-proof bearings, and various types and groupings of
      separators, all of which were called forth by the exigencies and magnitude
      of his great undertaking, and without which he could not possibly have
      attained the successful physical results that crowned his labors. Edison's
      persistence in reducing the cost of his operations is noteworthy in
      connection with his screening and drying inventions, in which the utmost
      advantage is taken of the law of gravitation. With its assistance, which
      cost nothing, these operations were performed perfectly. It was only
      necessary to deliver the material at the top of the chambers, and during
      its natural descent it was screened or dried as the case might be.
    </p>
    <p>
      All these inventions and devices, as well as those described in detail
      above (except magnetic separators and mixing and briquetting machines),
      are being used by him to-day in the manufacture of Portland cement, as
      that industry presents many of the identical problems which presented
      themselves in relation to the concentration of iron ore.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XVII. THE LONG CEMENT KILN
    </h2>
    <p>
      IN this remarkable invention, which has brought about a striking
      innovation in a long-established business, we see another characteristic
      instance of Edison's incisive reasoning and boldness of conception carried
      into practical effect in face of universal opinions to the contrary.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the information of those unacquainted with the process of
      manufacturing Portland cement, it may be stated that the material consists
      preliminarily of an intimate mixture of cement rock and limestone, ground
      to a very fine powder. This powder is technically known in the trade as
      "chalk," and is fed into rotary kilns and "burned"; that is to say, it is
      subjected to a high degree of heat obtained by the combustion of
      pulverized coal, which is injected into the interior of the kiln. This
      combustion effects a chemical decomposition of the chalk, and causes it to
      assume a plastic consistency and to collect together in the form of small
      spherical balls, which are known as "clinker." Kilns are usually arranged
      with a slight incline, at the upper end of which the chalk is fed in and
      gradually works its way down to the interior flame of burning fuel at the
      other end. When it arrives at the lower end, the material has been
      "burned," and the clinker drops out into a receiving chamber below. The
      operation is continuous, a constant supply of chalk passing in at one end
      of the kiln and a continuous dribble of clinker-balls dropping out at the
      other. After cooling, the clinker is ground into very fine powder, which
      is the Portland cement of commerce.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is self-evident that an ideal kiln would be one that produced the
      maximum quantity of thoroughly clinkered material with a minimum amount of
      fuel, labor, and investment. When Edison was preparing to go into the
      cement business, he looked the ground over thoroughly, and, after
      considerable investigation and experiment, came to the conclusion that
      prevailing conditions as to kilns were far from ideal.
    </p>
    <p>
      The standard kilns then in use were about sixty feet in length, with an
      internal diameter of about five feet. In all rotary kilns for burning
      cement, the true clinkering operation takes place only within a limited
      portion of their total length, where the heat is greatest; hence the
      interior of the kiln may be considered as being divided longitudinally
      into two parts or zones&mdash;namely, the combustion, or clinkering, zone,
      and the zone of oncoming raw material. In the sixty-foot kiln the length
      of the combustion zone was about ten feet, extending from a point six or
      eight feet from the lower, or discharge, end to a point about eighteen
      feet from that end. Consequently, beyond that point there was a zone of
      only about forty feet, through which the heated gases passed and came in
      contact with the oncoming material, which was in movement down toward the
      clinkering zone. Since the bulk of oncoming material was small, the gases
      were not called upon to part with much of their heat, and therefore passed
      on up the stack at very high temperatures, ranging from 1500 degrees to
      1800 degrees Fahr. Obviously, this heat was entirely lost.
    </p>
    <p>
      An additional loss of efficiency arose from the fact that the material
      moved so rapidly toward the combustion zone that it had not given up all
      its carbon dioxide on reaching there; and by the giving off of large
      quantities of that gas within the combustion zone, perfect and economical
      combustion of coal could not be effected.
    </p>
    <p>
      The comparatively short length of the sixty-foot kiln not only limited the
      amount of material that could be fed into it, but the limitation in length
      of the combustion zone militated against a thorough clinkering of the
      material, this operation being one in which the elements of time and
      proper heat are prime considerations. Thus the quantity of good clinker
      obtainable was unfavorably affected. By reason of these and other
      limitations and losses, it had been possible, in practice, to obtain only
      about two hundred and fifty barrels of clinker per day of twenty-four
      hours; and that with an expenditure for coal proportionately equal to
      about 29 to 33 per cent. of the quantity of clinker produced, even
      assuming that all the clinker was of good quality.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison realized that the secret of greater commercial efficiency and
      improvement of quality lay in the ability to handle larger quantities of
      material within a given time, and to produce a more perfect product
      without increasing cost or investment in proportion. His reasoning led him
      to the conclusion that this result could only be obtained through the use
      of a kiln of comparatively great length, and his investigations and
      experiments enabled him to decide upon a length of one hundred and fifty
      feet, but with an increase in diameter of only six inches to a foot over
      that of the sixty-foot kiln.
    </p>
    <p>
      The principal considerations that influenced Edison in making this radical
      innovation may be briefly stated as follows:
    </p>
    <p>
      First. The ability to maintain in the kiln a load from five to seven times
      greater than ordinarily employed, thereby tending to a more economical
      output.
    </p>
    <p>
      Second. The combustion of a vastly increased bulk of pulverized coal and a
      greatly enlarged combustion zone, extending about forty feet
      longitudinally into the kiln&mdash;thus providing an area within which the
      material might be maintained in a clinkering temperature for a
      sufficiently long period to insure its being thoroughly clinkered from
      periphery to centre.
    </p>
    <p>
      Third. By reason of such a greatly extended length of the zone of oncoming
      material (and consequently much greater bulk), the gases and other
      products of combustion would be cooled sufficiently between the combustion
      zone and the stack so as to leave the kiln at a comparatively low
      temperature. Besides, the oncoming material would thus be gradually raised
      in temperature instead of being heated abruptly, as in the shorter kilns.
    </p>
    <p>
      Fourth. The material having thus been greatly raised in temperature before
      reaching the combustion zone would have parted with substantially all its
      carbon dioxide, and therefore would not introduce into the combustion zone
      sufficient of that gas to disturb the perfect character of the combustion.
    </p>
    <p>
      Fifth. On account of the great weight of the heavy load in a long kiln,
      there would result the formation of a continuous plastic coating on that
      portion of the inner surface of the kiln where temperatures are highest.
      This would effectively protect the fire-brick lining from the destructive
      effects of the heat.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such, in brief, were the essential principles upon which Edison based his
      conception and invention of the long kiln, which has since become so well
      known in the cement business.
    </p>
    <p>
      Many other considerations of a minor and mechanical nature, but which were
      important factors in his solution of this difficult problem, are worthy of
      study by those intimately associated with or interested in the art. Not
      the least of the mechanical questions was settled by Edison's decision to
      make this tremendously long kiln in sections of cast-iron, with flanges,
      bolted together, and supported on rollers rotated by electric motors.
      Longitudinal expansion and thrust were also important factors to be
      provided for, as well as special devices to prevent the packing of the
      mass of material as it passed in and out of the kiln. Special provision
      was also made for injecting streams of pulverized coal in such manner as
      to create the largely extended zone of combustion. As to the details of
      these and many other ingenious devices, we must refer the curious reader
      to the patents, as it is merely intended in these pages to indicate in a
      brief manner the main principles of Edison's notable inventions. The
      principal United States patent on the long kiln was issued October 24,
      1905, No. 802,631.
    </p>
    <p>
      That his reasonings and deductions were correct in this case have been
      indubitably proven by some years of experience with the long kiln in its
      ability to produce from eight hundred to one thousand barrels of good
      clinker every twenty-four hours, with an expenditure for coal
      proportionately equal to about only 20 per cent. of the quantity of
      clinker produced.
    </p>
    <p>
      To illustrate the long cement kiln by diagram would convey but little to
      the lay mind, and we therefore present an illustration (Fig. 1) of actual
      kilns in perspective, from which sense of their proportions may be
      gathered.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XVIII. EDISON'S NEW STORAGE BATTERY
    </h2>
    <p>
      GENERICALLY considered, a "battery" is a device which generates electric
      current. There are two distinct species of battery, one being known as
      "primary," and the other as "storage," although the latter is sometimes
      referred to as a "secondary battery" or "accumulator." Every type of each
      of these two species is essentially alike in its general make-up; that is
      to say, every cell of battery of any kind contains at least two elements
      of different nature immersed in a more or less liquid electrolyte of
      chemical character. On closing the circuit of a primary battery an
      electric current is generated by reason of the chemical action which is
      set up between the electrolyte and the elements. This involves a gradual
      consumption of one of the elements and a corresponding exhaustion of the
      active properties of the electrolyte. By reason of this, both the element
      and the electrolyte that have been used up must be renewed from time to
      time, in order to obtain a continued supply of electric current.
    </p>
    <p>
      The storage battery also generates electric current through chemical
      action, but without involving the constant repriming with active materials
      to replace those consumed and exhausted as above mentioned. The term
      "storage," as applied to this species of battery, is, however, a misnomer,
      and has been the cause of much misunderstanding to nontechnical persons.
      To the lay mind a "storage" battery presents itself in the aspect of a
      device in which electric energy is STORED, just as compressed air is
      stored or accumulated in a tank. This view, however, is not in accordance
      with facts. It is exactly like the primary battery in the fundamental
      circumstance that its ability for generating electric current depends upon
      chemical action. In strict terminology it is a "reversible" battery, as
      will be quite obvious if we glance briefly at its philosophy. When a
      storage battery is "charged," by having an electric current passed through
      it, the electric energy produces a chemical effect, adding oxygen to the
      positive plate, and taking oxygen away from the negative plate. Thus, the
      positive plate becomes oxidized, and the negative plate reduced. After the
      charging operation is concluded the battery is ready for use, and upon its
      circuit being closed through a translating device, such as a lamp or
      motor, a reversion ("discharge") takes place, the positive plate giving up
      its oxygen, and the negative plate being oxidized. These chemical actions
      result in the generation of an electric current as in a primary battery.
      As a matter of fact, the chemical actions and reactions in a storage
      battery are much more complex, but the above will serve to afford the lay
      reader a rather simple idea of the general result arrived at through the
      chemical activity referred to.
    </p>
    <p>
      The storage battery, as a commercial article, was introduced into the
      market in the year 1881. At that time, and all through the succeeding
      years, until about 1905, there was only one type that was recognized as
      commercially practicable&mdash;namely, that known as the
      lead-sulphuric-acid cell, consisting of lead plates immersed in an
      electrolyte of dilute sulphuric acid. In the year last named Edison first
      brought out his new form of nickel-iron cell with alkaline electrolyte, as
      we have related in the preceding narrative. Early in the eighties, at
      Menlo Park, he had given much thought to the lead type of storage battery,
      and during the course of three years had made a prodigious number of
      experiments in the direction of improving it, probably performing more
      experiments in that time than the aggregate of those of all other
      investigators. Even in those early days he arrived at the conclusion that
      the lead-sulphuric-acid combination was intrinsically wrong, and did not
      embrace the elements of a permanent commercial device. He did not at that
      time, however, engage in a serious search for another form of storage
      battery, being tremendously occupied with his lighting system and other
      matters.
    </p>
    <p>
      It may here be noted, for the information of the lay reader, that the
      lead-acid type of storage battery consists of two or more lead plates
      immersed in dilute sulphuric acid and contained in a receptacle of glass,
      hard rubber, or other special material not acted upon by acid. The plates
      are prepared and "formed" in various ways, and the chemical actions are
      similar to those above stated, the positive plate being oxidized and the
      negative reduced during "charge," and reversed during "discharge." This
      type of cell, however, has many serious disadvantages inherent to its very
      nature. We will name a few of them briefly. Constant dropping of fine
      particles of active material often causes short-circuiting of the plates,
      and always necessitates occasional washing out of cells; deterioration
      through "sulphation" if discharge is continued too far or if recharging is
      not commenced quickly enough; destruction of adjacent metalwork by the
      corrosive fumes given out during charge and discharge; the tendency of
      lead plates to "buckle" under certain conditions; the limitation to the
      use of glass, hard rubber, or similar containers on account of the action
      of the acid; and the immense weight for electrical capacity. The
      tremendously complex nature of the chemical reactions which take place in
      the lead-acid storage battery also renders it an easy prey to many
      troublesome diseases.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the year 1900, when Edison undertook to invent a storage battery, he
      declared it should be a new type into which neither sulphuric nor any
      other acid should enter. He said that the intimate and continued
      companionship of an acid and a metal was unnatural, and incompatible with
      the idea of durability and simplicity. He furthermore stated that lead was
      an unmechanical metal for a battery, being heavy and lacking stability and
      elasticity, and that as most metals were unaffected by alkaline solutions,
      he was going to experiment in that direction. The soundness of his
      reasoning is amply justified by the perfection of results obtained in the
      new type of storage battery bearing his name, and now to be described.
    </p>
    <p>
      The essential technical details of this battery are fully described in an
      article written by one of Edison's laboratory staff, Walter E. Holland,
      who for many years has been closely identified with the inventor's work on
      this cell The article was published in the Electrical World, New York,
      April 28, 1910; and the following extracts therefrom will afford an
      intelligent comprehension of this invention:
    </p>
    <p>
      "The 'A' type Edison cell is the outcome of nine years of costly
      experimentation and persistent toil on the part of its inventor and his
      associates....
    </p>
    <p>
      "The Edison invention involves the use of an entirely new voltaic
      combination in an alkaline electrolyte, in place of the lead-lead-peroxide
      combination and acid electrolyte, characteristic of all other commercial
      storage batteries. Experience has proven that this not only secures
      durability and greater output per unit-weight of battery, but in addition
      there is eliminated a long list of troubles and diseases inherent in the
      lead-acid combination....
    </p>
    <p>
      "The principle on which the action of this new battery is based is the
      oxidation and reduction of metals in an electrolyte which does not combine
      with, and will not dissolve, either the metals or their oxides; and an
      electrolyte, furthermore, which, although decomposed by the action of the
      battery, is immediately re-formed in equal quantity; and therefore in
      effect is a CONSTANT element, not changing in density or in conductivity.
    </p>
    <p>
      "A battery embodying this basic principle will have features of great
      value where lightness and durability are desiderata. For instance, the
      electrolyte, being a constant factor, as explained, is not required in any
      fixed and large amount, as is the case with sulphuric acid in the lead
      battery; thus the cell may be designed with minimum distancing of plates
      and with the greatest economy of space that is consistent with safe
      insulation and good mechanical design. Again, the active materials of the
      electrodes being insoluble in, and absolutely unaffected by, the
      electrolyte, are not liable to any sort of chemical deterioration by
      action of the electrolyte&mdash;no matter how long continued....
    </p>
    <p>
      "The electrolyte of the Edison battery is a 21 per cent. solution of
      potassium hydrate having, in addition, a small amount of lithium hydrate.
      The active metals of the electrodes&mdash;which will oxidize and reduce in
      this electrolyte without dissolution or chemical deterioration&mdash;are
      nickel and iron. These active elements are not put in the plates AS
      METALS; but one, nickel, in the form of a hydrate, and the other, iron, as
      an oxide.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The containing cases of both kinds of active material (Fig. 1), and their
      supporting grids (Fig. 2), as well as the bolts, washers, and nuts used in
      assembling (Fig. 3), and even the retaining can and its cover (Fig. 4),
      are all made of nickel-plated steel&mdash;a material in which lightness,
      durability and mechanical strength are most happily combined, and a
      material beyond suspicion as to corrosion in an alkaline electrolyte....
    </p>
    <p>
      "An essential part of Edison's discovery of active masetials for an
      alkaline storage battery was the PREPARATION of these materials. Metallic
      powder of iron and nickel, or even oxides of these metals, prepared in the
      ordinary way, are not chemically active in a sufficient degree to work in
      a battery. It is only when specially prepared iron oxide of exceeding
      fineness, and nickel hydrate conforming to certain physical, as well as
      chemical, standards can be made that the alkaline battery is practicable.
      Needless to say, the working out of the conditions and processes of
      manufacture of the materials has involved great ingenuity and endless
      experimentation."
    </p>
    <p>
      The article then treats of Edison's investigations into means for
      supporting and making electrical connection with the active materials,
      showing some of the difficulties encountered and the various discoveries
      made in developing the perfected cell, after which the writer continues
      his description of the "A" type cell, as follows:
    </p>
    <p>
      "It will be seen at once that the construction of the two kinds of plate
      is radically different. The negative or iron plate (Fig. 5) has the
      familiar flat-pocket construction. Each negative contains twenty-four
      pockets&mdash;a pocket being 1/2 inch wide by 3 inches long, and having a
      maximum thickness of a little more than 1/8 inch. The positive or nickel
      plate (Fig. 6) is seen to consist of two rows of round rods or pencils,
      thirty in number, held in a vertical position by a steel support-frame.
      The pencils have flat flanges at the ends (formed by closing in the metal
      case), by which they are supported and electrical connection is made. The
      frame is slit at the inner horizontal edges, and then folded in such a way
      as to make individual clamping-jaws for each end-flange. The clamping-in
      is done at great pressure, and the resultant plate has great rigidity and
      strength.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The perforated tubes into which the nickel active material is loaded are
      made of nickel-plated steel of high quality. They are put together with a
      double-lapped spiral seam to give expansion-resisting qualities, and as an
      additional precaution small metal rings are slipped on the outside. Each
      tube is 1/4 inch in diameter by 4 1/8 inches long, add has eight of the
      reinforcing rings.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It will be seen that the 'A' positive plate has been given the
      theoretically best design to prevent expansion and overcome trouble from
      that cause. Actual tests, long continued under very severe conditions,
      have shown that the construction is right, and fulfils the most sanguine
      expectations."
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Holland in his article then goes on to explain the development of the
      nickel flakes as the conducting factor in the positive element, but as
      this has already been described in Chapter XXII, we shall pass on to a
      later point, where he says:
    </p>
    <p>
      "An idea of the conditions inside a loaded tube can best be had by
      microscopic examination. Fig. 7 shows a magnified section of a regularly
      loaded tube which has been sawed lengthwise. The vertical bounding walls
      are edges of the perforated metal containing tube; the dark horizontal
      lines are layers of nickel flake, while the light-colored thicker layers
      represent the nickel hydrate. It should be noted that the layers of flake
      nickel extend practically unbroken across the tube and make contact with
      the metal wall at both sides. These metal layers conduct current to or
      from the active nickel hydrate in all parts of the tube very efficiently.
      There are about three hundred and fifty layers of each kind of material in
      a 4 1/8-inch tube, each layer of nickel hydrate being about 0.01 inch
      thick; so it will be seen that the current does not have to penetrate very
      far into the nickel hydrate&mdash;one-half a layer's thickness being the
      maximum distance. The perforations of the containing tube, through which
      the electrolyte reaches the active material, are also shown in Fig. 7."
    </p>
    <p>
      In conclusion, the article enumerates the chief characteristics of the
      Edison storage battery which fit it preeminently for transportation
      service, as follows: 1. No loss of active material, hence no sediment
      short-circuits. 2. No jar breakage. 3. Possibility of quick disconnection
      or replacement of any cell without employment of skilled labor. 4.
      Impossibility of "buckling" and harmlessness of a dead short-circuit. 5.
      Simplicity of care required. 6. Durability of materials and construction.
      7. Impossibility of "sulphation." 8. Entire absence of corrosive fumes. 9.
      Commercial advantages of light weight. 10. Duration on account of its
      dependability. 11. Its high practical efficiency.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XIX. EDISON'S POURED CEMENT HOUSE
    </h2>
    <p>
      THE inventions that have been thus far described fall into two classes&mdash;first,
      those that were fundamental in the great arts and industries which have
      been founded and established upon them, and, second, those that have
      entered into and enlarged other arts that were previously in existence. On
      coming to consider the subject now under discussion, however, we find
      ourselves, at this writing, on the threshold of an entirely new and
      undeveloped art of such boundless possibilities that its ultimate extent
      can only be a matter of conjecture.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's concrete house, however, involves two main considerations, first
      of which was the conception or creation of the IDEA&mdash;vast and
      comprehensive&mdash;of providing imperishable and sanitary homes for the
      wage-earner by molding an entire house in one piece in a single operation,
      so to speak, and so simply that extensive groups of such dwellings could
      be constructed rapidly and at very reasonable cost. With this idea
      suggested, one might suppose that it would be a simple matter to make
      molds and pour in a concrete mixture. Not so, however. And here the second
      consideration presents itself. An ordinary cement mixture is composed of
      crushed stone, sand, cement, and water. If such a mixture be poured into
      deep molds the heavy stone and sand settle to the bottom. Should the
      mixture be poured into a horizontal mold, like the floor of a house, the
      stone and sand settle, forming an ununiform mass. It was at this point
      that invention commenced, in order to produce a concrete mixture which
      would overcome this crucial difficulty. Edison, with characteristic
      thoroughness, took up a line of investigation, and after a prolonged
      series of experiments succeeded in inventing a mixture that upon hardening
      remained uniform throughout its mass. In the beginning of his
      experimentation he had made the conditions of test very severe by the
      construction of forms similar to that shown in the sketch below.
    </p>
    <p>
      This consisted of a hollow wooden form of the dimensions indicated. The
      mixture was to be poured into the hopper until the entire form was filled,
      such mixture flowing down and along the horizontal legs and up the
      vertical members. It was to be left until the mixture was hard, and the
      requirement of the test was that there should be absolute uniformity of
      mixture and mass throughout. This was finally accomplished, and further
      invention then proceeded along engineering lines looking toward the
      devising of a system of molds with which practicable dwellings might be
      cast.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edison's boldness and breadth of conception are well illustrated in his
      idea of a poured house, in which he displays his accustomed tendency to
      reverse accepted methods. In fact, it is this very reversal of usual
      procedure that renders it difficult for the average mind to instantly
      grasp the full significance of the principles involved and the results
      attained.
    </p>
    <p>
      Up to this time we have been accustomed to see the erection of a house
      begun at the foundation and built up slowly, piece by piece, of solid
      materials: first the outer frame, then the floors and inner walls,
      followed by the stairways, and so on up to the putting on of the roof.
      Hence, it requires a complete rearrangement of mental conceptions to
      appreciate Edison's proposal to build a house FROM THE TOP DOWNWARD, in a
      few hours, with a freely flowing material poured into molds, and in a few
      days to take away the molds and find a complete indestructible sanitary
      house, including foundation, frame, floors, walls, stairways, chimneys,
      sanitary arrangements, and roof, with artistic ornamentation inside and
      out, all in one solid piece, as if it were graven or bored out of a rock.
    </p>
    <p>
      To bring about the accomplishment of a project so extraordinarily broad
      involves engineering and mechanical conceptions of a high order, and, as
      we have seen, these have been brought to bear on the subject by Edison,
      together with an intimate knowledge of compounded materials.
    </p>
    <p>
      The main features of this invention are easily comprehensible with the aid
      of the following diagrammatic sectional sketch:
    </p>
    <p>
      It should be first understood that the above sketch is in broad outline,
      without elaboration, merely to illustrate the working principle; and while
      the upright structure on the right is intended to represent a set of molds
      in position to form a three-story house, with cellar, no regular details
      of such a building (such as windows, doors, stairways, etc.) are here
      shown, as they would only tend to complicate an explanation.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will be noted that there are really two sets of molds, an inside and an
      outside set, leaving a space between them throughout. Although not shown
      in the sketch, there is in practice a number of bolts passing through
      these two sets of molds at various places to hold them together in their
      relative positions. In the open space between the molds there are placed
      steel rods for the purpose of reinforcement; while all through the entire
      structure provision is made for water and steam pipes, gas-pipes and
      electric-light wires being placed in appropriate positions as the molds
      are assembled.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the centre of the roof there will be noted a funnel-shaped opening.
      Into this there is delivered by the endless chain of buckets shown on the
      left a continuous stream of a special free-flowing concrete mixture. This
      mixture descends by gravity, and gradually fills the entire space between
      the two sets of molds. The delivery of the material&mdash;or "pouring," as
      it is called&mdash;is continued until every part of the space is filled
      and the mixture is even with the tip of the roof, thus completing the
      pouring, or casting, of the house. In a few days afterward the concrete
      will have hardened sufficiently to allow the molds to be taken away
      leaving an entire house, from cellar floor to the peak of the roof,
      complete in all its parts, even to mantels and picture molding, and
      requiring only windows and doors, plumbing, heating, and lighting fixtures
      to make it ready for habitation.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the above sketch the concrete mixers, A, B, are driven by the electric
      motor, C. As the material is mixed it descends into the tank, D, and flows
      through a trough into a lower tank, E, in which it is constantly stirred,
      and from which it is taken by the endless chain of buckets and dumped into
      the funnel-shaped opening at the top of the molds, as above described.
    </p>
    <p>
      The molds are made of cast-iron in sections of such size and weight as
      will be most convenient for handling, mostly in pieces not exceeding two
      by four feet in rectangular dimensions. The subjoined sketch shows an
      exterior view of several of these molds as they appear when bolted
      together, the intersecting central portions representing ribs, which are
      included as part of the casting for purposes of strength and rigidity.
    </p>
    <p>
      The molds represented above are those for straight work, such as walls and
      floors. Those intended for stairways, eaves, cornices, windows, doorways,
      etc., are much more complicated in design, although the same general
      principles are employed in their construction.
    </p>
    <p>
      While the philosophy of pouring or casting a complete house in its
      entirety is apparently quite simple, the development of the engineering
      and mechanical questions involves the solution of a vast number of most
      intricate and complicated problems covering not only the building as a
      whole, but its numerous parts, down to the minutest detail. Safety,
      convenience, duration, and the practical impossibility of altering a
      one-piece solid dwelling are questions that must be met before its
      construction, and therefore Edison has proceeded calmly on his way toward
      the goal he has ever had clearly in mind, with utter indifference to the
      criticisms and jeers of those who, as "experts," have professed positive
      knowledge of the impossibility of his carrying out this daring scheme.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_LIST" id="link2H_LIST">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      LIST OF UNITED STATES PATENTS
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
List of United States patents granted to Thomas A. Edison, arranged
according to dates of execution of applications for such patents. This
list shows the inventions as Mr. Edison has worked upon them from year
to year

   1868

   NO.         TITLE OF PATENT DATE EXECUTED                    DATE EXECUTED
   90,646,     Electrographic Vote Recorder . . . . .Oct. 13, 1868

   1869

   91,527      Printing Telegraph (reissued October
               25, 1870, numbered 4166, and August
               5, 1873, numbered 5519). . . . . . . .Jan. 25, 1869
   96,567      Apparatus for Printing Telegraph (reissued
               February 1, 1870, numbered
               3820). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 17, 1869
   96,681      Electrical Switch for Telegraph Apparatus Aug. 27, 1869
   102,320     Printing Telegraph&mdash;Pope and Edison
               (reissued April 17, 1877, numbered
               7621, and December 9, 1884, numbered
               10,542). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 16, 1869
   103,924     Printing Telegraphs&mdash;Pope and Edison
               (reissued August 5, 1873)

   1870

   103,035     Electromotor Escapement. . . . . . . . Feb. 5, 1870
   128,608     Printing Telegraph Instruments . . . . .May 4, 1870
   114,656     Telegraph Transmitting Instruments . .June 22, 1870
   114,658     Electro Magnets for Telegraph
               Instruments. . . . . . . . . . . . . .June 22, 1870
   114,657     Relay Magnets for Telegraph
               Instruments. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sept. 6, 1870
   111,112     Electric Motor Governors . . . . . . .June 29, 1870
   113,033     Printing Telegraph Apparatus . . . . .Nov. 17, 1870

   1871

   113,034     Printing Telegraph Apparatus . . . . .Jan. 10, 1871
   123,005     Telegraph Apparatus. . . . . . . . . .July 26, 1871
   123,006     Printing Telegraph . . . . . . . . . .July 26, 1871
   123,984     Telegraph Apparatus. . . . . . . . . .July 26, 1871
   124,800     Telegraphic Recording Instruments. . .Aug. 12, 1871
   121,601     Machinery for Perforating Paper for
               Telegraph Purposes . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 16, 1871
   126,535     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .Nov. 13, 1871
   133,841     Typewriting Machine. . . . . . . . . .Nov. 13, 1871

   1872
   126,532     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 3 1872
   126,531     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .Jan. 17, 1872
   126,534     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .Jan. 17, 1872
   126,528     Type Wheels for Printing Telegraphs. .Jan. 23, 1872
   126,529     Type Wheels for Printing Telegraphs. .Jan. 23, 1872
   126,530     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .Feb. 14, 1872
   126,533     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .Feb. 14, 1872
   132,456     Apparatus for Perforating Paper for
               Telegraphic Use. . . . . . . . . . . March 15, 1872
   132,455     Improvement in Paper for Chemical
               Telegraphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 10, 1872
   133,019     Electrical Printing Machine. . . . . April 18, 1872
   128,131     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . April 26, 1872
   128,604     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . April 26, 1872
   128,605     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . April 26, 1872
   128,606     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . April 26, 1872
   128,607     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . April 26, 1872
   131,334     Rheotomes or Circuit Directors . . . . .May 6, 1872
   134,867     Automatic Telegraph Instruments. . . . .May 8, 1872
   134,868     Electro Magnetic Adjusters . . . . . . .May 8, 1872
   130,795     Electro Magnets. . . . . . . . . . . . .May 9, 1872
   131,342     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . . .May 9, 1872
   131,341     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . . May 28, 1872
   131,337     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .June 10, 1872
   131,340     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .June 10, 1872
   131,343     Transmitters and Circuits for Printing
               Telegraph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .June 10, 1872
   131,335     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .June 15, 1872
   131,336     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .June 15, 1872
   131,338     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .June 29, 1872
   131,339     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .June 29, 1872
   131,344     Unison Stops for Printing Telegraphs .June 29, 1872
   134,866     Printing and Telegraph Instruments . .Oct. 16, 1872
   138,869     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .Oct. 16, 1872
   142,999     Galvanic Batteries . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 31, 1872
   141,772     Automatic or Chemical Telegraphs . . . Nov. 5, 1872
   135,531     Circuits for Chemical Telegraphs . . . Nov. 9, 1872
   146,812     Telegraph Signal Boxes . . . . . . . .Nov. 26, 1872
   141,773     Circuits for Automatic Telegraphs. . .Dec. 12, 1872
   141,776     Circuits for Automatic Telegraphs. . .Dec. 12, 1872
   150,848     Chemical or Automatic Telegraphs . . .Dec. 12, 1872
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
   1873

   139,128     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .Jan. 21, 1873
   139,129     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .Feb. 13, 1873
   140,487     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .Feb. 13, 1873
   140,489     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .Feb. 13, 1873
   138,870     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .March 7, 1873
   141,774     Chemical Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .March 7, 1873
   141,775     Perforator for Automatic Telegraphs. .March 7, 1873
   141,777     Relay Magnets. . . . . . . . . . . . .March 7, 1873
   142,688     Electric Regulators for Transmitting
              Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . .March 7, 1873
   156,843     Duplex Chemical Telegraphs . . . . . .March 7, 1873
   147,312     Perforators for Automatic Telegraphy March 24, 1873
   147,314     Circuits for Chemical Telegraphs . . March 24, 1873
   150,847     Receiving Instruments for Chemical
               Telegraphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 24, 1873
   140,488     Printing Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . April 23, 1873
   147,311     Electric Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . April 23, 1873
   147,313     Chemical Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . April 23, 1873
   147,917     Duplex Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . . April 23, 1873
   150,846     Telegraph Relays . . . . . . . . . . April 23, 1873
   160,405     Adjustable Electro Magnets for
               Relays, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . April 23, 1873
   162,633     Duplex Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . . April 22, 1873
   151,209     Automatic Telegraphy and Perforators
               Therefor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 25, 1873
   160,402     Solutions for Chemical Telegraph PaperSept. 29, 1873
   160,404     Solutions for Chemical Telegraph PaperSept. 29, 1873
   160,580     Solutions for Chemical Telegraph PaperOct. 14, 1873
   160,403     Solutions for Chemical Telegraph PaperOct. 29, 1873

   1874
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
   154,788     District Telegraph Signal Box. . . . .April 2, 1874
   168,004     Printing Telegraph . . . . . . . . . . May 22, 1874
   166,859     Chemical Telegraphy. . . . . . . . . . June 1, 1874
   166,860     Chemical Telegraphy. . . . . . . . . . June 1, 1874
   166,861     Chemical Telegraphy. . . . . . . . . . June 1, 1874
   158,787     Telegraph Apparatus. . . . . . . . . . Aug. 7, 1874
   172,305     Automatic Roman Character
               Telegraph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 7, 1874
   173,718     Automatic Telegraphy . . . . . . . . . Aug. 7, 1874
   178,221     Duplex Telegraphs. . . . . . . .      Aug. 19, 1874
   178,222     Duplex Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 19, 1874
   178,223     Duplex Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 19, 1874
   180,858     Duplex Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 19, 1874
   207,723     Duplex Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 19, 1874
   480,567     Duplex Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 19, 1874
   207,724     Duplex Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 14, 1874
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
   1875

   168,242     Transmitter and Receiver for Automatic
               Telegraph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 18, 1875
   168,243     Automatic Telegraphs . . . . . . . . .Jan. 18, 1875
   168,385     Duplex Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 18, 1875
   168,466     Solution for Chemical Telegraphs . . .Jan. 18, 1875
   168,467     Recording Point for Chemical Telegraph Jan. 18, 1875
   195,751     Automatic Telegraphs . . . . . . . . . Jan. 18 1875
   195,752     Automatic Telegraphs . . . . . . . . .Jan. 19, 1875
   171,273     Telegraph Apparatus. . . . . . . . . . Feb 11, 1875
   169,972     Electric Signalling Instrument . . . . Feb 24, 1875
   209,241     Quadruplex Telegraph Repeaters (reissued
               September 23, 1879, numbered
               8906). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feb 24, 1875

   1876

   180,857     Autographic Printing . . . . . . . . .March 7, 1876
   198,088     Telephonic Telegraphs. . . . . . . . .April 3, 1876
   198,089     Telephonic or Electro Harmonic
               Telegraphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . .April 3, 1876
   182,996     Acoustic Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . . .May 9, 1876
   186,330     Acoustic Electric Telegraphs . . . . . .May 9, 1876
   186,548     Telegraph Alarm and Signal Apparatus . .May 9, 1876
   198,087     Telephonic Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . .May 9, 1876
   185,507     Electro Harmonic Multiplex Telegraph .Aug. 16, 1876
   200,993     Acoustic Telegraph . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 26, 1876
   235,142     Acoustic Telegraph . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 26, 1876
   200,032     Synchronous Movements for Electric
               Telegraphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 30, 1876
   200,994     Automatic Telegraph Perforator and
               Transmitter. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 30, 1876

   1877
   205,370     Pneumatic Stencil Pens . . . . . . . . Feb. 3, 1877
   213,554     Automatic Telegraphs . . . . . . . . . Feb. 3, 1877
   196,747     Stencil Pens . . . . . . . . . . . . April 18, 1877
   203,329     Perforating Pens . . . . . . . . . . April 18, 1877
   474,230     Speaking Telegraph . . . . . . . . . April 18, 1877
   217,781     Sextuplex Telegraph. . . . . . . . . . .May 8, 1877
   230,621     Addressing Machine . . . . . . . . . . .May 8, 1877
   377,374     Telegraphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .May 8, 1877
   453,601     Sextuplex Telegraph. . . . . . . . . . May 31, 1877
   452,913     Sextuplex Telegraph. . . . . . . . . . May 31, 1877
   512,872     Sextuplex Telegraph. . . . . . . . . . May 31, 1877
   474,231     Speaking Telegraph . . . . . . . . . . July 9, 1877
   203,014     Speaking Telegraph . . . . . . . . . .July 16, 1877
   208,299     Speaking Telegraph . . . . . . . . . .July 16, 1877
   203,015     Speaking Telegraph . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 16, 1877
   420,594     Quadruplex Telegraph . . . . . . . . .Aug. 16, 1877
   492,789     Speaking Telegraph . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 31, 1877
   203,013     Speaking Telegraph . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 8, 1877
   203 018     Telephone or Speaking Telegraph. . . . Dec. 8, 1877
   200 521     Phonograph or Speaking Machine . . . .Dec. 15, 1877

   1878

   203,019     Circuit for Acoustic or Telephonic
               Telegraphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 13, 1878
   201,760     Speaking Machines. . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 28, 1878
   203,016     Speaking Machines. . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 28, 1878
   203,017     Telephone Call Signals . . . . . . . .Feb. 28, 1878
   214,636     Electric Lights. . . . . . . . . . . . Oct. 5, 1878
   222,390     Carbon Telephones. . . . . . . . . . . Nov. 8, 1878
   217,782     Duplex Telegraphs. . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 11, 1878
   214,637     Thermal Regulator for Electric Lights.Nov. 14, 1878
   210,767     Vocal Engines. . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 31, 1878
   218,166     Magneto Electric Machines. . . . . . . Dec. 3, 1878
   218,866     Electric Lighting Apparatus. . . . . . Dec. 3, 1878
   219,628     Electric Lights. . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 3, 1878
   295,990     Typewriter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 4, 1878
   218,167     Electric Lights. . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 31, 1878

   1879

   224,329     Electric Lighting Apparatus. . . . . .Jan. 23, 1879
   227,229     Electric Lights. . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 28, 1879
   227,227     Electric Lights. . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 6, 1879
   224.665     Autographic Stencils for Printing. . March 10, 1879
   227.679     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 19, 1879
   221,957     Telephone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 24, 1879
   227,229     Electric Lights. . . . . . . . . . . April 12, 1879
   264,643     Magneto Electric Machines. . . . . . April 21, 1879
   219,393     Dynamo Electric Machines . . . . . . . July 7, 1879
   231,704     Electro Chemical Receiving Telephone .July 17, 1879
   266,022     Telephone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 1, 1879
   252,442     Telephone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 4, 1879
   222,881     Magneto Electric Machines. . . . . . .Sept. 4, 1879
   223,898     Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . . Nov. 1, 1879

   1880

   230,255     Electric Lamps . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 28, 1880
   248,425     Apparatus for Producing High Vacuums Jan.28 1880
   265,311     Electric Lamp and Holder for Same. . . Jan. 28 1880
   369,280     System of Electrical Distribution. . .Jan. 28, 1880
   227,226     Safety Conductor for Electric Lights .March 10,1880
   228,617     Brake for Electro Magnetic Motors. . March 10, 1880
   251,545     Electric Meter . . . . . . . . . . . March 10, 1880
   525,888     Manufacture of Carbons for Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 10, 1880
   264,649     Dynamo or Magneto Electric Machines. March 11,
   1880
   228,329     Magnetic Ore Separator . . . . . . . .April 3, 1880
   238,868     Manufacture of Carbons for Incandescent
               Electric Lamps . . . . . . . . . . . April 25, 1880
   237,732     Electric Light . . . . . . . . . . . .June 15, 1880
   248,417     Manufacturing Carbons for Electric
               Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .June 15, 1880
   298,679     Treating Carbons for Electric Lights .June 15, 1880
   248,430     Electro Magnetic Brake . . . . . . . . July 2, 1880
   265,778     Electro Magnetic Railway Engine. . . . July 3, 1880
   248,432     Magnetic Separator . . . . . . . . . .July 26, 1880
   239,150     Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . .July 27, 1880
   239,372     Testing Electric Light Carbons&mdash;Edison
               and Batchelor. . . . . . . . . . . . .July 28, 1880
   251,540     Carbon Electric Lamps. . . . . . . . .July 28, 1880
   263,139     Manufacture of Carbons for Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .July 28, 1880
   434,585     Telegraph Relay. . . . . . . . . . . .July 29, 1880
   248 423     Carbonizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . .July 30, 1880
   263 140     Dynamo Electric Machines . . . . . . .July 30, 1880
   248,434     Governor for Electric Engines. . . . .July 31, 1880
   239,147     System of Electric Lighting. . . . . .July 31, 1880
   264,642     Electric Distribution and Translation
               System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 4, 1880
   293,433     Insulation of Railroad Tracks used for
               Electric Circuits. . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 6, 1880
   239,373     Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 7, 1880
   239,745     Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 7, 1880
   263,135     Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 7, 1880
   251,546     Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 10, 1880
   239,153     Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 11, 1880
   351,855     Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 11, 1880
   248,435     Utilizing Electricity as Motive Power.Aug. 12, 1880
   263,132     Electro Magnetic Roller. . . . . . . .Aug. 14, 1880
   264,645     System of Conductors for the Distribution
               of Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . .Sept. 1, 1880
   240,678     Webermeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 22, 1880
   239,152     System of Electric Lighting. . . . . .Oct. 14, 1880
   239,148     Treating Carbons for Electric Lights .Oct. 15, 1880
   238,098     Magneto Signalling Apparatus&mdash;Edison
               and Johnson. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 21, 1880
   242,900     Manufacturing Carbons for Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 21, 1880
   251,556     Regulator for Magneto or Dynamo
               Electric Machines. . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 21, 1880
   248,426     Apparatus for Treating Carbons for
               Electric Lamps . . . . . . . . . . . . Nov. 5, 1880
   239,151     Forming Enlarged Ends on Carbon
               Filaments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 19, 1880
   12,631      Design Patent&mdash;Incandescent Electric
               Lamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 23, 1880
   239,149     Incandescing Electric Lamp . . . . . . Dec. 3, 1880
   242,896     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . . Dec. 3, 1880
   242,897     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . . Dec. 3, 1880
   248,565     Webermeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 3, 1880
   263,878     Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 3, 1880
   239,154     Relay for Telegraphs . . . . . . . . .Dec. 11, 1880
   242,898     Dynamo Electric Machine. . . . . . . .Dec. 11, 1880
   248,431     Preserving Fruit . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 11, 1880
   265,777     Treating Carbons for Electric Lamps. .Dec. 11, 1880
   239,374     Regulating the Generation of Electric
               Currents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 16, 1880
   248,428     Manufacture of Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 16, 1880
   248,427     Apparatus for Treating Carbons for
               Electric Lamps . . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 21, 1880
   248,437     Apparatus for Treating Carbons for
               Electric Lamps . . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 21, 1880
   248,416     Manufacture of Carbons for Electric
               Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 30, 1880

   1881

   242,899     Electric Lighting. . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 19, 1881
   248,418     Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan. 19 1881
   248,433     Vacuum Apparatus . . . . . . . . . . . Jan. 19 1881
   251,548     Incandescent Electric Lamps. . . . . .Jan. 19, 1881
   406,824     Electric Meter . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 19, 1881
   248,422     System of Electric Lighting. . . . . .Jan. 20, 1881
   431,018     Dynamo or Magneto Electric Machine . . Feb. 3, 1881
   242,901     Electric Motor . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 24, 1881
   248,429     Electric Motor . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 24, 1881
   248,421     Current Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 25, 1881
   251,550     Magneto or Dynamo Electric Machines. .Feb. 26, 1881
   251,555     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 26, 1881
   482,549     Means for Controlling Electric
               Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . .March 2, 1881
   248,420     Fixture and Attachment for Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .March 7, 1881
   251,553     Electric Chandeliers . . . . . . . . .March 7, 1881
   251,554     Electric Lamp and Socket or Holder . .March 7, 1881
   248,424     Fitting and Fixtures for Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .March 8, 1881
   248,419     Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . March 30, 1881
   251,542     System of Electric Light . . . . . . April 19, 1881
   263,145     Making Incandescents . . . . . . . . April 19, 1881
   266,447     Electric Incandescent Lamp . . . . . April 21, 1881
   251,552     Underground Conductors . . . . . . . April 22, 1881
   476,531     Electric Lighting System . . . . . . April 22, 1881
   248,436     Depositing Cell for Plating the Connections
               of Electric Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . May 17, 1881
   251,539     Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . . May 17, 1881
   263,136     Regulator for Dynamo or Magneto
               Electric Machine . . . . . . . . . . . May 17, 1881
   251,557     Webermeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 19, 1881
   263,134     Regulator for Magneto Electric
               Machine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 19, 1881
   251,541     Electro Magnetic Motor . . . . . . . . May 20, 1881
   251,544     Manufacture of Electric Lamps. . . . . May 20, 1881
   251,549     Electric Lamp and the Manufacture
               thereof. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 20, 1881
   251,558     Webermeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 20, 1881
   341,644     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . . May 20, 1881
   251,551     System of Electric Lighting. . . . . . May 21, 1881
   263,137     Electric Chandelier. . . . . . . . . . May 21, 1881
   263,141     Straightening Carbons for Incandescent
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 21, 1881
   264,657     Incandescent Electric Lamps. . . . . . May 21, 1881
   251,543     Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . . May 24, 1881
   251,538     Electric Light . . . . . . . . . . . . May 27, 1881
   425,760     Measurement of Electricity in Distribution
               System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .May 3 1, 1881
   251,547     Electrical Governor. . . . . . . . . . June 2, 1881
   263,150     Magneto or Dynamo Electric Machines. June 3, 1881
   263,131     Magnetic Ore Separator . . . . . . . . June 4, 1881
   435,687     Means for Charging and Using Secondary
               Batteries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .June 21, 1881
   263,143     Magneto or Dynamo Electric Machines. .June 24, 1881
   251,537     Dynamo Electric Machine. . . . . . . .June 25, 1881
   263,147     Vacuum Apparatus . . . . . . . . . . .July 1, 188 1
   439,389     Electric Lighting System . . . . . . . July 1, 1881
   263,149     Commutator for Dynamo or Magneto
               Electric Machines. . . . . . . . . . .July 22, 1881
   479,184     Facsimile Telegraph&mdash;Edison and Kenny.July 26, 1881
   400,317     Ore Separator. . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 11, 1881
   425,763     Commutator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 20, 1881
   263,133     Dynamo or Magneto Electric Machine . .Aug. 24, 1881
   263,142     Electrical Distribution System . . . .Aug. 24, 1881
   264,647     Dynamo or Magneto Electric Machines. .Aug. 24, 1881
   404,902     Electrical Distribution System . . . .Aug. 24, 1881
   257,677     Telephone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sept. 7, 1881
   266,021     Telephone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sept. 7, 1881
   263,144     Mold for Carbonizing Incandescents . Sept. 19, 1881
   265,774     Maintaining Temperatures in
               Webermeters. . . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 21, 1881
   264,648     Dynamo or Magneto Electric Machines. Sept. 23, 1881
   265,776     Electric Lighting System . . . . . . Sept. 27, 1881
   524,136     Regulator for Dynamo Electrical
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 27, 1881
   273,715     Malleableizing Iron. . . . . . . . . . Oct. 4, 1881
   281,352     Webermeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oct. 5, 1881
   446,667     Locomotives for Electric Railways. . .Oct. 11, 1881
   288,318     Regulator for Dynamo or Magneto
               Electric Machines. . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 17, 1881
   263,148     Dynamo or Magneto Electric Machines. Oct. 25, 1881
   264,646     Dynamo or Magneto Electric Machines. Oct. 25, 1881
   251,559     Electrical Drop Light. . . . . . . . .Oct. 25, 1881
   266,793     Electric Distribution System . . . . .Oct. 25, 1881
   358,599     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . .Oct. 29, 1881
   264,673     Regulator for Dynamo Electric Machine. Nov. 3, 1881
   263,138     Electric Arc Light . . . . . . . . . . Nov. 7, 1881
   265,775     Electric Arc Light . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 7 1881
   297,580     Electric Arc Light . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 7 1881
   263,146     Dynamo Magneto Electric Machines . . .Nov. 22, 1881
   266,588     Vacuum Apparatus . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 25, 1881
   251,536     Vacuum Pump. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 5, 1881
   264,650     Manufacturing Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 5, 1881
   264,660     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 5, 1881
   379,770     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . . Dec. 5, 1881
   293,434     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . . Dec. 5, 1881
   439,391     Junction Box for Electric Wires. . . . Dec. 5, 1881
   454,558     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . . Dec. 5, 1881
   264,653     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . .Dec. 13, 1881
   358,600     Incandescing Electric Lamp . . . . . .Dec. 13, 1881
   264,652     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . .Dec. 15, 1881
   278,419     Dynamo Electric Machines . . . . . . .Dec. 15, 1881

   1882

   265,779     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 17, 1882
   264,654     Incandescent Electric Lamps. . . . . .Feb. 10, 1882
   264,661     Regulator for Dynamo Electric Machines Feb. 10, 1882
   264,664     Regulator for Dynamo Electric Machines Feb. 10, 1882
   264,668     Regulator for Dynamo Electric Machines Feb. 10, 1882
   264,669     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 10, 1882
   264,671     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 10, 1882
   275,613     Incandescing Electric Lamp . . . . . .Feb. 10, 1882
   401,646     Incandescing Electric Lamp . . . . . .Feb. 10, 1882
   264,658     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 28, 1882
   264,659     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 28, 1882
   265,780     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 28, 1882
   265,781     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 28, 1882
   278,416     Manufacture of Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 28, 1882
   379,771     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 28, 1882
   272,034     Telephone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 30, 1882
   274,576     Transmitting Telephone . . . . . . . March 30, 1882
   274,577     Telephone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 30, 1882
   264,662     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .May 1, 1882
   264,663     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .May 1, 1882
   264,665     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .May 1, 1882
   264,666     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .May 1, 1882
   268,205     Dynamo or Magneto Electric
               Machine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .May 1, 1882
   273,488     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .May 1, 1882
   273,492     Secondary Battery. . . . . . . . . . . May 19, 1882
   460,122     Process of and Apparatus for
               Generating Electricity . . . . . . . . May 19, 1882
   466,460     Electrolytic Decomposition . . . . . .May 19,. 1882
   264,672     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 22, 1882
   264,667     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 22, 1882
   265,786     Apparatus for Electrical Transmission
               of Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 22, 1882
   273,828 System of Underground Conductors of
               Electric Distribution. . . . . . . . . May 22, 1882
   379,772     System of Electrical Distribution. . . May 22, 1882
   274,292     Secondary Battery. . . . . . . . . . . June 3, 1882
   281,353     Dynamo or Magneto Electric Machine . . June 3, 1882
   287,523     Dynamo or Magneto Electric Machine . . June 3, 1882
   365,509     Filament for Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .June 3 1882
   446,668     Electric Are Light . . . . . . . . . . .June 3 1882
   543,985     Incandescent Conductor for Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 3, 1882
   264,651     Incandescent Electric Lamps. . . . . . June 9, 1882
   264,655     Incandescing Electric Lamps. . . . . . June 9, 1882
   264,670     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 9, 1882
   273,489     Turn-Table for Electric Railway. . . . June 9, 1882
   273,490     Electro Magnetic Railway System. . . . June 9, 1882
   401,486     System of Electric Lighting. . . . . .June 12, 1882
   476,527     System of Electric Lighting. . . . . .June 12, 1882
   439,390     Electric Lighting System . . . . . . .June 19, 1882
   446,666     System of Electric Lighting. . . . . .June 19, 1882
   464,822     System of Distributing Electricity . .June 19, 1882
   304,082     Electrical Meter . . . . . . . . . . .June 24, 1882
   274,296     Manufacture of Incandescents . . . . . July 5, 1882
   264,656     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . . July 7, 1882
   265,782     Regulator for Dynamo Electric Machines July 7, 1882
   265,783     Regulator for Dynamo Electric Machines July 7, 1882
   265,784     Regulator for Dynamo Electric Machines July 7, 1882
   265,785     Dynamo Electric Machine. . . . . . . . July 7, 1882
   273,494     Electrical Railroad. . . . . . . . . . July 7, 1882
   278,418     Translating Electric Currents from High
               to Low Tension . . . . . . . . . . . . July 7, 1882
   293,435     Electrical Meter . . . . . . . . . . . July 7, 1882
   334,853     Mold for Carbonizing . . . . . . . . . July 7, 1882
   339,278     Electric Railway . . . . . . . . . . . July 7, 1882
   273,714     Magnetic Electric Signalling
               Apparatus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 5, 1882
   282,287     Magnetic Electric Signalling
               Apparatus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 5, 1882
   448,778     Electric Railway . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 5, 1882
   439,392     Electric Lighting System . . . . . . .Aug. 12, 1882
   271,613     Manufacture of Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 25, 1882
   287,518     Manufacture of Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 25, 1882
   406,825     Electric Meter . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 25, 1882
   439,393     Carbonizing Chamber. . . . . . . . . .Aug. 25, 1882
   273,487     Regulator for Dynamo Electric Machines Sept. 12, 1882
   297,581     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . Sept. 12, 1882
   395,962     Manufacturing Electric Lamps . . . . Sept. 16, 1882
   287,525     Regulator for Systems of Electrical
               Distribution&mdash;Edison and C. L.
               Clarke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oct. 4, 1882
   365,465     Valve Gear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oct. 5, 1882
   317,631     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . . Oct. 7, 1882
   307,029     Filament for Incandescent Lamp . . . . Oct. 9, 1882
   268,206     Incandescing Electric Lamp . . . . . .Oct. 10, 1882
   273,486     Incandescing Electric Lamp . . . . . .Oct. 12, 1882
   274,293     Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 14, 1882
   275,612     Manufacture of Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 14, 1882
   430,932     Manufacture of Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 14, 1882
   271,616     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 16, 1882
   543,986     Process for Treating Products Derived
               from Vegetable Fibres. . . . . . . . .Oct. 17, 1882
   543,987     Filament for Incandescent Lamps. . . .Oct. 17, 1882
   271,614     Shafting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 19, 1882
   271,615     Governor for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 19, 1882
   273,491     Regulator for Driving Engines of
               Electrical Generators. . . . . . . . .Oct. 19, 1882
   273,493     Valve Gear for Electrical Generator
               Engines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 19, 1882
   411,016     Manufacturing Carbon Filaments . . . .Oct. 19, 1882
   492,150     Coating Conductors for Incandescent
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 19, 1882
   273,485     Incandescent Electric Lamps. . . . . .Oct. 26, 1882
   317,632     Incandescent Electric Lamps. . . . . .Oct. 26, 1882
   317,633     Incandescent Electric Lamps. . . . . .Oct. 26, 1882
   287,520     Incandescing Conductor for Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nov. 3, 1882
   353,783     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . . Nov. 3, 1882
   430,933     Filament for Incandescent Lamps. . . . Nov. 3, 1882
   274,294     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . .Nov. 13, 1882
   281,350     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 13, 1882
   274,295     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . .Nov. 14, 1882
   276,233     Electrical Generator and Motor . . . .Nov. 14, 1882
   274,290     System of Electrical Distribution. . .Nov. 20, 1882
   274,291     Mold for Carbonizer. . . . . . . . . .Nov. 28, 1882
   278,413     Regulator for Dynamo Electric MachinesNov. 28, 1882
   278,414     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 28, 1882
   287,519     Manufacturing Incandescing Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 28, 1882
   287,524     Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 28, 1882
   438,298     Manufacture of Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 28, 1882
   276,232     Operating and Regulating Electrical
               Generators . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 20, 1882

   1883

   278,415     Manufacture of Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 13, 1883
   278,417     Manufacture of Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 13, 1883
   281,349 Regulator for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 13, 1883
   283,985     System of Electrical Distribution. . . Jan. 13 1883
   283,986     System o' Electrical Distribution. . . Jan. 13 1883
   459,835     Manufacture of Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 13, 1883
   13,940      Design Patent&mdash;Incandescing Electric
               Lamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 13 1883
   280,727     System of Electrical Distribution. . . Feb. 13 1883
   395,123     Circuit Controller for Dynamo Machine.Feb. 13, 1883
   287,521     Dynamo or Magneto Electric Machine . .Feb. 17, 1883
   287,522     Molds for Carbonizing. . . . . . . . .Feb. 17, 1883
   438,299     Manufacture of Carbon Filaments. . . .Feb. 17, 1883
   446,669     Manufacture of Filaments for Incandescent
               Electric Lamps . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 17, 1883
   476,528     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . .Feb. 17, 1883
   281,351     Electrical Generator . . . . . . . . .March 5, 1883
   283,984     System of Electrical Distribution. . .March 5, 1883
   287,517     System of Electrical Distribution. . .March 14,1883
   283,983     System of Electrical Distribution. . .April 5, 1883
   354,310     Manufacture of Carbon Conductors . . .April 6, 1883
   370,123     Electric Meter . . . . . . . . . . . .April 6, 1883
   411,017     Carbonizing Flask. . . . . . . . . . .April 6, 1883
   370,124     Manufacture of Filament for Incandescing
               Electric Lamp. . . . . . . . . . . . April 12, 1883
   287,516     System of Electrical Distribution. . . .May 8, 1883
   341,839     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . . .May 8, 1883
   398,774     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . . .May 8, 1883
   370,125     Electrical Transmission of Power . . . June 1, 1883
   370,126     Electrical Transmission of Power . . . June 1, 1883
   370,127     Electrical Transmission of Power . . . June 1, 1883
   370,128     Electrical Transmission of Power . . . June 1, 1883
   370,129     Electrical Transmission of Power . . . June 1, 1883
   370,130     Electrical Transmission of Power . . . June 1, 1883
   370,131     Electrical Transmission of Power . . . June 1, 1883
   438,300     Gauge for Testing Fibres for
               Incandescent Lamp Carbons. . . . . . . June 1, 1883
   287,511     Electric Regulator . . . . . . . . . .June 25, 1883
   287,512     Dynamo Electric Machine. . . . . . . .June 25, 1883
   287,513     Dynamo Electric Machine. . . . . . . .June 25, 1883
   287,514     Dynamo Electric Machine. . . . . . . .June 25, 1883
   287,515     System of Electrical Distribution. . .June 25, 1883
   297,582     Dynamo Electric Machine. . . . . . . .June 25, 1883
   328,572     Commutator for Dynamo Electric Machines June 25, 1883
   430,934     Electric Lighting System . . . . . . .June 25, 1883
   438,301     System of Electric Lighting. . . . . .June 25, 1883
   297,583     Dynamo Electric Machines . . . . . . .July 27, 1883
   304,083     Dynamo Electric Machines . . . . . . .July 27; 1883
   304,084     Device for Protecting Electric Light
               Systems from Lightning . . . . . . . .July 27, 1883
   438,302     Commutator for Dynamo Electric
               Machine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .July 27, 1883
   476,529     System of Electrical Distribution. . .July 27, 1883
   297,584     Dynamo Electric Machine. . . . . . . . Aug. 8, 1883
   307,030     Electrical Meter . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 8, 1883
   297,585     Incandescing Conductor for Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 14, 1883
   297,586     Electrical Conductor . . . . . . . . Sept. 14, 1883
   435,688     Process and Apparatus for Generating
               Electricity. . . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 14, 1883
   470,922     Manufacture of Filaments for
               Incandescent Lamps . . . . . . . . . Sept. 14, 1883
   490,953     Generating Electricity . . . . . . . . Oct. 9, 1883
   293,432     Electrical Generator or Motor. . . . .Oct. 17, 1883
   307,031     Electrical Indicator . . . . . . . . . Nov. 2, 1883
   337,254     Telephone&mdash;Edison and Bergmann . . . .Nov. 10, 1883
   297,587     Dynamo Electric Machine. . . . . . . .Nov. 16, 1883
   298,954     Dynamo Electric Machine. . . . . . . .Nov. 15, 1883
   298,955     Dynamo Electric Machine. . . . . . . .Nov. 15, 1883
   304,085     System of Electrical Distribution. . .Nov. 15, 1883
   509,517     System of Electrical Distribution. . .Nov. 15, 1883
   425,761     Incandescent Lamp. . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 20, 1883
   304,086     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . .Dec. 15, 1883

   1884

   298,956     Operating Dynamo Electric Machine. . . Jan. 5, 1884
   304,087     Electrical Conductor . . . . . . . . .Jan. 12, 1884
   395,963     Incandescent Lamp Filament . . . . . .Jan. 22, 1884
   526,147     Plating One Material with Another. . .Jan. 22, 1884
   339,279     System of Electrical Distribution. . . Feb. 8, 1884
   314,115     Chemical Stock Quotation Telegraph&mdash;
               Edison and Kenny . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 9, 1884
   436,968     Method and Apparatus for Drawing
               Wire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 2, 1884
   436,969     Apparatus for Drawing Wire . . . . . . June 2, 1884
   438,303     Arc Lamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 2, 1884
   343,017     System of Electrical Distribution. . .June 27, 1884
   391,595     System of Electric Lighting. . . . . .July 16, 1884
   328,573     System of Electric Lighting. . . . . Sept. 12, 1884
   328,574     System of Electric Lighting. . . . . Sept. 12, 1884
   328,575     System of Electric Lighting. . . . . Sept. 12, 1884
   391,596     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . Sept. 24, 1884
   438,304     Electric Signalling Apparatus. . . . Sept. 24, 1884
   422,577     Apparatus for Speaking Telephones&mdash;
               Edison and Gilliland . . . . . . . . .Oct. 21, 1884
   329,030     Telephone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 3, 1884
   422,578     Telephone Repeater . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 9, 1884
   422,579     Telephone Repeater . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 9, 1884
   340,707     Telephonic Repeater. . . . . . . . . . Dec. 9, 1884
   340,708     Electrical Signalling Apparatus. . . .Dec. 19, 1884
   347,097     Electrical Signalling Apparatus. . . .Dec. 19, 1884
   478,743     Telephone Repeater . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 31, 1884

   1885

   340,709     Telephone Circuit&mdash;Edison and
               Gilliland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan. 2, 1885
   378,044     Telephone Transmitter. . . . . . . . . Jan. 9, 1885
   348,114     Electrode for Telephone Transmitters .Jan. 12, 1885
   438,305     Fuse Block . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 14, 1885
   350,234     System of Railway Signalling&mdash;Edison
               and Gilliland. . . . . . . . . . . . .March 27,1885
   486,634     System of Railway Signalling&mdash;Edison
               and Gilliland. . . . . . . . . . . . .March 27,1885
   333,289     Telegraphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 27, 1885
   333,290     Duplex Telegraphy. . . . . . . . . . April 30, 1885
   333,291     Way Station Quadruplex Telegraph . . . .May 6, 1885
   465,971     Means for Transmitting Signals Electrically May 14, 1885
   422 072     Telegraphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oct. 7, 1885
   437 422     Telegraphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oct. 7, 1885
   422,073     Telegraphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nov. I 2, 1885
   422,074     Telegraphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 24, 1885
   435,689     Telegraphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 30, 1885
   438,306     Telephone - Edison and Gilliland . . .Dec. 22, 1885
   350,235     Railway Telegraphy&mdash;Edison and
               Gilliland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 28, 1885

   1886

   406,567     Telephone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 28, 1886
   474,232     Speaking Telegraph . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 17, 1886
   370 132     Telegraphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 11, 1886
   411,018     Manufacture of Incandescent Lamps. . .July 15, 1886
   438,307     Manufacture of Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July I 5, 1886
   448,779     Telegraph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .July IS, 1886
   411,019     Manufacture of Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .July 20, 1886
   406,130     Manufacture of Incandescent Electric
               Lamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 6, 1886
   351,856     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . Sept. 30, 1886
   454,262     Incandescent Lamp Filaments. . . . . .Oct. 26, 1886
   466,400     Cut-Out for Incandescent Lamps&mdash;Edison
               and J. F. Ott. . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 26, 1886
   484,184     Manufacture of Carbon Filaments. . . .Oct. 26, 1886
   490,954     Manufacture of Carbon Filaments for
               Electric Lamps . . . . . . . . . . . . Nov. 2, 1886
   438,308     System of Electrical Distribution. . . Nov. 9, 1886
   524,378     System of Electrical Distribution. . . Nov. 9, 1886
   365,978     System of Electrical Distribution. . .Nov. 22, 1886
   369 439     System of Electrical Distribution. . .Nov. 22, 1886
   384 830     Railway Signalling&mdash;Edison and Gilliland Nov. 24, 1886
   379,944     Commutator for Dynamo Electric MachinesNov. 26, 1886
   411,020     Manufacture of Carbon Filaments. . . .Nov. 26, 1886
   485,616     Manufacture of Carbon Filaments. . . . .Dec 6, 1886
   485,615     Manufacture of Carbon Filaments. . . . .Dec 6, 1886
   525,007     Manufacture of Carbon Filaments. . . . Dec. 6, 1886
   369,441     System of Electrical Distribution. . .Dec. 10, 1886
   369,442     System of Electrical Distribution. . .Dec. 16, 1886
   369,443     System of Electrical Distribution. . .Dec. 16, 1886
   484,185     Manufacture of Carbon Filaments. . . .Dec. 20, 1886
   534,207     Manufacture of Carbon Filaments. . . .Dec. 20, 1886
   373,584     Dynamo Electric Machine. . . . . . . .Dec. 21, 1886

   1887

   468,949     Converter System for Electric
               Railways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 7, 1887
   380,100     Pyromagnetic Motor . . . . . . . . . . May 24, 1887
   476,983     Pyromagnetic Generator . . . . . . . . .May 24 1887
   476,530     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . . June 1, 1887
   377,518     Magnetic Separator . . . . . . . . . .June 30, 1887
   470,923     Railway Signalling . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 9, 1887
   545,405     System of Electrical Distribution. . .Aug. 26, 1887
   380,101     System of Electrical Distribution. . .Sept. 13 1887
   380,102     System of Electrical Distribution. . .Sept. 14 1887
   470,924     Electric Conductor . . . . . . . . . Sept. 26, 1887
   563,462     Method of and Apparatus for Drawing
               Wire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 17, 1887
   385,173     System of Electrical Distribution. . . Nov. 5, 1887
   506,215     Making Plate Glass . . . . . . . . . . Nov. 9, 1887
   382,414     Burnishing Attachments for PhonographsNov. 22, 1887
   386,974     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 22, 1887
   430,570     Phonogram Blank. . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 22, 1887
   382,416     Feed and Return Mechanism for PhonographsNov. 29, 1887
   382,415     System of Electrical Distribution. . . Dec. 4, 1887
   382,462     Phonogram Blanks . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 5, 1887

   1888

   484,582     Duplicating Phonograms . . . . . . . .Jan. 17, 1888
   434,586     Electric Generator . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 21, 1888
   434,587     Thermo Electric Battery. . . . . . . .Jan. 21, 1888
   382,417     Making Phonogram Blanks. . . . . . . .Jan. 30, 1888
   389,369     Incandescing Electric Lamp . . . . . . Feb. 2, 1888
   382,418     Phonogram Blank. . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 20, 1888
   390,462     Making Carbon Filaments. . . . . . . .Feb. 20, 1888
   394,105     Phonograph Recorder. . . . . . . . . .Feb. 20, 1888
   394,106     Phonograph Reproducer. . . . . . . . .Feb. 20, 1888
   382,419     Duplicating Phonograms . . . . . . . .March 3, 1888
   425,762     Cut-Out for Incandescent Lamps . . . .March 3, 1888
   396,356     Magnetic Separator . . . . . . . . . .March 19,1888
   393,462     Making Phonogram Blanks. . . . . . . April 28, 1888
   393,463     Machine for Making Phonogram Blanks. April 28, 1888
   393,464     Machine for Making Phonogram Blanks. April 28, 1888
   534,208     Induction Converter. . . . . . . . . . .May 7, 1888
   476,991     Method of and Apparatus for Separating
               Ores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .May 9, 1888
   400,646     Phonograph Recorder and Reproducer . . May 22, 1888
   488,190     Phonograph Reproducer. . . . . . . . . May 22, 1888
   488,189     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 26, 1888
   470,925     Manufacture of Filaments for Incandescent
               Electric Lamps . . . . . . . . . . . .June 21, 1888
   393,465     Preparing Phonograph Recording Surfaces June 30, 1888
   400,647     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .June 30, 1888
   448,780     Device for Turning Off Phonogram Blanks June 30, 1888
   393,466     Phonograph Recorder. . . . . . . . . .July 14, 1888
   393,966     Recording and Reproducing Sounds . . .July 14, 1888
   393,967     Recording and Reproducing Sounds . . .July 14, 1888
   430,274     Phonogram Blank. . . . . . . . . . . .July 14, 1888
   437,423     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .July 14, 1888
   450,740     Phonograph Recorder. . . . . . . . . .July 14, 1888
   485,617     Incandescent Lamp Filament . . . . . .July 14, 1888
   448,781     Turning-Off Device for Phonographs . .July 16, 1888
   400,648     Phonogram Blank. . . . . . . . . . . .July 27, 1888
   499,879     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .July 27, 1888
   397,705     Winding Field Magnets. . . . . . . . .Aug. 31, 1888
   435,690     Making Armatures for Dynamo Electric
               Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 31, 1888
   430,275     Magnetic Separator . . . . . . . . . Sept. 12, 1888
   474,591     Extracting Gold from Sulphide Ores . Sept. 12, 1888
   397,280     Phonograph Recorder and Reproducer . Sept. 19, 1888
   397,706     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 29, 1888
   400,649     Making Phonogram Blanks. . . . . . . Sept. 29, 1888
   400,650     Making Phonogram Blanks. . . . . . . .Oct. 15, 1888
   406,568     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 15, 1888
   437,424     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 15, 1888
   393,968     Phonograph Recorder. . . . . . . . . .Oct. 31, 1888

   1889

   406,569     Phonogram Blank. . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 10, 1889
   488,191     Phonogram Blank. . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 10, 1889
   430,276     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 12, 1889
   406,570     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 1, 1889
   406,571     Treating Phonogram Blanks. . . . . . . Feb. 1, 1889
   406,572     Automatic Determining Device for
               Phonographs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 1, 1889
   406,573     Automatic Determining Device for
               Phonographs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 1, 1889
   406,574     Automatic Determining Device for
               Phonographs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 1, 1889
   406,575     Automatic Determining Device for
               Phonographs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 1, 1889
   406,576     Phonogram Blank. . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 1, 1889
   430,277     Automatic Determining Device for
               Phonographs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 1, 1889
   437,425     Phonograph Recorder. . . . . . . . . . Feb. 1, 1889
   414,759     Phonogram Blanks . . . . . . . . . . March 22, 1889
   414,760     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 22, 1889
   462,540     Incandescent Electric Lamps. . . . . March 22, 1889
   430,278     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .April 8, 1889
   438,309     Insulating Electrical Conductors . . April 25, 1889
   423,039     Phonograph Doll or Other Toys. . . . .June 15, 1889
   426,527     Automatic Determining Device for
               Phonographs. . . . . . . . . . . . . .June 15, 1889
   430,279     Voltaic Battery. . . . . . . . . . . .June 15, 1889
   506,216     Apparatus for Making Glass . . . . . .June 29, 1889
   414,761     Phonogram Blanks . . . . . . . . . . .July 16, 1889
   430,280     Magnetic Separator . . . . . . . . . .July 20, 1889
   437,426     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .July 20, 1889
   465,972     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 14, 1889
   443,507     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 11 1889
   513,095     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 11 1889

   1890

   434,588     Magnetic Ore Separator&mdash;Edison and
               W. K. L. Dickson . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 16, 1890
   437,427     Making Phonogram Blanks. . . . . . . . Feb. 8, 1890
   465,250     Extracting Copper Pyrites. . . . . . . Feb. 8, 1890
   434,589     Propelling Mechanism for Electric Vehicles Feb. 14, 1890
   438,310     Lamp Base. . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 25, 1890
   437,428     Propelling Device for Electric Cars. April 29, 1890
   437,429     Phonogram Blank. . . . . . . . . . . April 29, 1890
   454,941     Phonograph Recorder and Reproducer . . .May 6, 1890
   436,127     Electric Motor . . . . . . . . . . . . May 17, 1890
   484,583     Phonograph Cutting Tool. . . . . . . . May 24, 1890
   484,584     Phonograph Reproducer. . . . . . . . . May 24, 1890
   436,970     Apparatus for Transmitting Power . . . June 2, 1890
   453,741     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 5, 1890
   454,942     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 5, 1890
   456,301     Phonograph Doll. . . . . . . . . . . . July 5, 1890
   484,585     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 5, 1890
   456,302     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 4, 1890
   476,984     Expansible Pulley. . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 9, 1890
   493,858     Transmission of Power. . . . . . . . . Aug. 9, 1890
   457,343     Magnetic Belting . . . . . . . . . . .Sept. 6, 1890
   444,530     Leading-in Wires for Incandescent Electric
               Lamps (reissued October 10, 1905,
               No. 12,393). . . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 12, 1890
   534 209     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . Sept. 13, 1890
   476 985     Trolley for Electric Railways. . . . .Oct. 27, 1890
   500,280     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 27, 1890
   541,923     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 27, 1890
   457,344     Smoothing Tool for Phonogram
               Blanks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 17, 1890
   460,123     Phonogram Blank Carrier. . . . . . . .Nov. 17, 1890
   500,281     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 17, 1890
   541,924     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 17, 1890
   500,282     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 1, 1890
   575,151     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 1, 1890
   605,667     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 1, 1890
   610,706     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 1, 1890
   622,843     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 1, 1890
   609,268     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 6, 1890
   493,425     Electric Locomotive. . . . . . . . . .Dec. 20, 1890

   1891

   476,992     Incandescent Electric Lamp . . . . . .Jan. 20, 1891
   470,926     Dynamo Electric Machine or Motor . . . Feb. 4, 1891
   496,191     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 4, 1891
   476,986     Means for Propelling Electric Cars . .Feb. 24, 1891
   476,987     Electric Locomotive. . . . . . . . . .Feb. 24, 1891
   465,973     Armatures for Dynamos or Motors. . . .March 4, 1891
   470,927     Driving Mechanism for Cars . . . . . .March 4, 1891
   465,970     Armature Connection for Motors or
               Generators . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 20, 1891
   468,950     Commutator Brush for Electric Motors
               and Dynamos. . . . . . . . . . . . . March 20, 1891
   475,491     Electric Locomotive. . . . . . . . . . June 3, 1891
   475,492     Electric Locomotive. . . . . . . . . . June 3, 1891
   475,493     Electric Locomotive. . . . . . . . . . June 3, 1891
   475,494     Electric Railway . . . . . . . . . . . June 3, 1891
   463,251     Bricking Fine Ores . . . . . . . . . .July 31, 1891
   470,928     Alternating Current Generator. . . . .July 31, 1891
   476,988     Lightning Arrester . . . . . . . . . .July 31, 1891
   476,989     Conductor for Electric Railways. . . .July 31, 1891
   476,990     Electric Meter . . . . . . . . . . . .July 31, 1891
   476,993     Electric Arc . . . . . . . . . . . . .July 31, 1891
   484,183     Electrical Depositing Meter. . . . . .July 31, 1891
   485,840     Bricking Fine Iron Ores. . . . . . . .July 31, 1891
   493,426     Apparatus for Exhibiting Photographs
               of Moving Objects. . . . . . . . . . .July 31, 1891
   509,518     Electric Railway . . . . . . . . . . .July 31, 1891
   589,168     Kinetographic Camera (reissued September
               30, 1902, numbered 12,037
               and 12,038, and January 12, 1904,
               numbered 12,192) . . . . . . . . . . .July 31, 1891
   470,929     Magnetic Separator . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 28, 1891
   471,268     Ore Conveyor and Method of Arranging
               Ore Thereon. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 28, 1891
   472,288     Dust-Proof Bearings for Shafts . . . .Aug. 28, 1891
   472,752     Dust-Proof Journal Bearings. . . . . .Aug. 28, 1891
   472,753     Ore-Screening Apparatus. . . . . . . .Aug. 28, 1891
   474,592     Ore-Conveying Apparatus. . . . . . . .Aug. 28, 1891
   474,593     Dust-Proof Swivel Shaft Bearing. . . .Aug. 28, 1891
   498,385     Rollers for Ore-Crushing or Other
               Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 28, 1891
   470,930     Dynamo Electric Machine. . . . . . . . .Oct 8, 1891
   476,532     Ore-Screening Apparatus. . . . . . . . .Oct 8, 1891
   491,992     Cut-Out for Incandescent Electric Lamps Nov. 10, 1891

   1892

   491,993     Stop Device. . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 5 1892
   564,423     Separating Ores. . . . . . . . . . . .June 2;, 1892
   485,842     Magnetic Ore Separation. . . . . . . . July 9, 1892
   485,841     Mechanically Separating Ores . . . . . July 9, 1892
   513,096     Method of and Apparatus for Mixing
               Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 24, 1892

   1893

   509,428     Composition Brick and Making Same. . March 15, 1893
   513,097     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 22, 1893
   567,187     Crushing Rolls . . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 13, 1893
   602 064     Conveyor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 13, 1893
   534 206     Filament for Incandescent Lamps. . . .Dec. 15, 1893

   1896

   865,367     Fluorescent Electric Lamp. . . . . . . May 16, 1896

   1897

   604.740     Governor for Motors. . . . . . . . . .Jan. 25, 1897
   607,588     Phonograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 25, 1897
   637,327     Rolls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 14, 1897
   672,616     Breaking Rock. . . . . . . . . . . . . May 14, 1897
   675,056     Magnetic Separator . . . . . . . . . . May 14, 1897
   676,618     Magnetic Separator . . . . . . . . . . May 14, 1897
   605,475     Drying Apparatus . . . . . . . . . . .June 10, 1897
   605,668     Mixer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .June 10, 1897
   667,201     Flight Conveyor. . . . . . . . . . . .June 10, 1897
   671,314     Lubricating Journal Bearings . . . . .June 10, 1897
   671,315     Conveyor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .June 10, 1897
   675,057     Screening Pulverized Material. . . . .June 10, 1897

   1898

   713,209     Duplicating Phonograms . . . . . . . .Feb. 21, 1898
   703,774     Reproducer for Phonographs . . . . . March 21, 1898
   626,460     Filament for Incandescent Lamps and
               Manufacturing Same . . . . . . . . . .March 29,1898
   648,933     Dryer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 11, 1898
   661,238     Machine for Forming Pulverized
               Material in Briquettes . . . . . . . April 11, 1898
   674,057     Crushing Rolls . . . . . . . . . . . April 11, 1898
   703,562     Apparatus for Bricking Pulverized Material April 11, 1898
   704,010     Apparatus for Concentrating Magnetic
               Iron Ores. . . . . . . . . . . . . . April 11, 1898
   659,389     Electric Meter . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 19, 1898

   1899

   648,934     Screening or Sizing Very Fine Materials Feb. 6, 1899
   663,015     Electric Meter . . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 6, 1899
   688,610     Phonographic Recording Apparatus . . .Feb. 10, 1899
   643,764     Reheating Compressed Air for
               Industrial Purposes. . . . . . . . . .Feb. 24, 1899
   660,293     Electric Meter . . . . . . . . . . . .March 23,1899
   641,281     Expanding Pulley&mdash;Edison and Johnson .March 28,1899
   727,116     Grinding Rolls . . . . . . . . . . . .June 15, 1899
   652,457     Phonograph (reissued September 25,
               1900, numbered 11,857) . . . . . . . Sept. 12, 1899
   648,935     Apparatus for Duplicating Phonograph
               Records. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 27, 1899
   685,911     Apparatus for Reheating Compressed
               Air for Industrial Purposes. . . . . .Nov. 24, 1899
   657,922     Apparatus for Reheating Compressed
               Air for Industrial Purposes. . . . . . Dec. 9, 1899

   1900

   676,840     Magnetic Separating Apparatus. . . . . Jan. 3, 1900
   660,845     Apparatus for Sampling, Averaging,
               Mixing, and Storing Materials in Bulk Jan. 9, 1900
   662,063     Process of Sampling, Averaging, Mixing,
               and Storing Materials in Bulk. . . . . Jan. 9, 1900
   679,500     Apparatus for Screening Fine Materials Jan. 24, 1900
   671,316     Apparatus for Screening Fine Materials  Feb. 23, 1900
   671,317     Apparatus for Screening Fine Materials March 28, 1900
   759,356     Burning Portland Cement Clinker, etc April 10, 1900
   759,357     Apparatus for Burning Portland Cement
               Clinker, etc . . . . . . . . . . . . .April 10 1900
   655,480     Phonographic Reproducing Device. . . .April 30 1900
   657,527     Making Metallic Phonograph Records . April 30, 1900
   667,202     Duplicating Phonograph Records . . . April 30, 1900
   667,662     Duplicating Phonograph Records . . . April 30, 1900
   713,863     Coating Phonograph Records . . . . . . May IS, 1900
   676,841     Magnetic Separating Apparatus. . . . . June 11 1900
   759,358     Magnetic Separating Apparatus. . . . . June 11 1900
   680,520     Phonograph Records . . . . . . . . . .July 23, 1900
   672,617     Apparatus for Breaking Rock. . . . . . Aug. 1, 1900
   676,225     Phonographic Recording Apparatus . . .Aug. 10, 1900
   703,051     Electric Meter . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 28, 1900
   684,204     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . . Oct. IS 1900
   871,214     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . . Oct. IS 1900
   704,303     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . .Dec. 22, 1900

   1901

   700,136     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . . Feb. 18 1901
   700,137     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . . Feb. 23 1901
   704,304     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . .Feb. 23, 1901
   704,305     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . . May 10, 1901
   678,722     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . .June 17, 1901
   684,205     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . .June 17, 1901
   692,507     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . .June 17, 1901
   701,804     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . .June 17, 1901
   704,306     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . .June 17, 1901
   705,829     Reproducer for Sound Records . . . . .Oct. 24, 1901
   831,606     Sound Recording Apparatus. . . . . . .Oct. 24, 1901
   827,089     Calcining Furnaces . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 24, 1901
</pre>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
   1902

   734,522     Process of Nickel-Plating. . . . . . .Feb. 11, 1902
   727,117     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . Sept. 29, 1902

   727,118     Manufacturing Electrolytically Active
               Finely Divided Iron. . . . . . . . . .Oct. 13, 1902
   721,682     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . .Nov. 13, 1902
   721,870     Funnel for Filling Storage Battery Jars Nov. 13, 1902
   723,449     Electrode for Storage Batteries. . . .Nov. 13, 1902
   723,450     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . .Nov. 13, 1902
   754,755     Compressing Dies . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 13, 1902
   754,858     Storage Battery Tray . . . . . . . . .Nov. 13, 1902
   754,859     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . .Nov. 13, 1902
   764,183     Separating Mechanically Entrained
               Globules from Gases. . . . . . . . . .Nov. 13, 1902
   802,631     Apparatus for Burning Portland Cement
               Clinker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 13, 1902
   852,424     Secondary Batteries. . . . . . . . . .Nov. 13, 1902
   722,502     Handling Cable Drawn Cars on Inclines. Dec. 18,
   1902
   724,089     Operating Motors in Dust Laden
               Atmospheres. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 18, 1902
   750,102     Electrical Automobile. . . . . . . . .Dec. 18, 1902
   758,432     Stock House Conveyor . . . . . . . . .Dec. 18, 1902
   873,219     Feed Regulators for Grinding Machines. Dec. 18,
   1902
   832,046     Automatic Weighing and Mixing Apparatus Dec. 18, 1902

   1903

   772,647     Photographic Film for Moving Picture
               Machine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 13, 1903
   841,677     Apparatus for Separating and Grinding
               Fine Materials . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 22, 1903
   790,351     Duplicating Phonograph Records . . . .Jan. 30. 1903
   831,269     Storage Battery Electrode Plate. . . .Jan. 30, 1903
   775,965     Dry Separator. . . . . . . . . . . . April 27, 1903
   754,756     Process of Treating Ores from Magnetic
               Gangue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 25, 1903
   775,600     Rotary Cement Kilns. . . . . . . . . .July 20, 1903
   767,216     Apparatus for Vacuously Depositing
               Metals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 30 1903
   796,629     Lamp Guard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July 30 1903
   772,648     Vehicle Wheel. . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 25, 1903
   850,912     Making Articles by Electro-Plating . . .Oct 3, 1903
   857,041     Can or Receptacle for Storage Batteries.Oct 3, 1903
   766,815     Primary Battery. . . . . . . . . . . .Nov. 16, 1903
   943,664     Sound Recording Apparatus. . . . . . .Nov. 16, 1903
   873,220     Reversible Galvanic Battery. . . . . .Nov. 20, 1903
   898,633     Filling Apparatus for Storage Battery
               Jars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 8, 1903

   1904

   767,554     Rendering Storage Battery Gases Non-
               Explosive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 8, 1904
   861,241     Portland Cement and Manufacturing Same June 20, 1904
   800,800     Phonograph Records and Making Same . .June 24, 1904
   821,622     Cleaning Metallic Surfaces . . . . . .June 24, 1904
   879,612     Alkaline Storage Batteries . . . . . .June 24, 1904
   880,484     Process of Producing Very Thin Sheet
               Metal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .June 24, 1904
   827,297     Alkaline Batteries . . . . . . . . . .July 12, 1904
   797,845     Sheet Metal for Perforated Pockets of
               Storage Batteries. . . . . . . . . . .July 12, 1904
   847,746     Electrical Welding Apparatus . . . . .July 12, 1904
   821,032     Storage Battery. . . . . . . . . . . . Aug 10, 1904
   861,242     Can or Receptacle for Storage Battery. Aug 10, 1904
   970,615     Methods and Apparatus for Making
               Sound Records. . . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 23, 1904
   817,162     Treating Alkaline Storage Batteries. Sept. 26, 1904
   948,542     Method of Treating Cans of Alkaline
               Storage Batteries. . . . . . . . . . Sept. 28, 1904
   813,490     Cement Kiln. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oct 29, 1904
   821,625     Treating Alkaline Storage Batteries. . Oct 29, 1904
   821,623     Storage Battery Filling Apparatus. . . Nov. 1, 1904
   821,624     Gas Separator for Storage Battery. . .Oct. 29, 1904

   1905

   879,859     Apparatus for Producing Very Thin
               Sheet Metal. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 16, 1905
   804,799     Apparatus for Perforating Sheet Metal March 17, 1905
   870,024     Apparatus for Producing Perforated
               Strips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 23, 1905
   882,144     Secondary Battery Electrodes . . . . March 29, 1905
   821,626     Process of Making Metallic Films or
               Flakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .March 29,1905
   821,627     Making Metallic Flakes or Scales . . .March 29,1905
   827,717     Making Composite Metal . . . . . . . .March 29,1905
   839,371     Coating Active Material with Flake-like
               Conducting Material. . . . . . . . . .March 29,1905
   854,200     Making Storage Battery Electrodes. . .March 29,1905
   857,929     Storage Battery Electrodes . . . . . March 29, 1905
   860,195     Storage Battery Electrodes . . . . . April 26, 1905
   862,145     Process of Making Seamless Tubular
               Pockets or Receptacles for Storage
               Battery Electrodes . . . . . . . . . April 26, 1905
   839,372     Phonograph Records or Blanks . . . . April 28, 1905
   813,491     Pocket Filling Machine . . . . . . . . May 15, 1905
   821,628     Making Conducting Films. . . . . . . . May 20, 1905
   943,663     Horns for Talking Machines . . . . . . May 20, 1905
   950 226     Phonograph Recording Apparatus . . . . May 20, 1905
   785 297     Gas Separator for Storage Batteries. .July 18, 1905
   950,227     Apparatus for Making Metallic Films
               or Flakes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 10, 1905
   936,433     Tube Filling and Tamping Machine . . .Oct. 12, 1905
   967,178     Tube Forming Machines&mdash;Edison and
               John F. Ott. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 16, 1905
   880,978     Electrode Elements for Storage
               Batteries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 31, 1905
   880,979     Method of Making Storage Battery
               Electrodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Oct. 31, 1905
   850,913     Secondary Batteries. . . . . . . . . . Dec. 6, 1905
   914,342     Storage Battery. . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 6, 1905

   1906

   858,862     Primary and Secondary Batteries. . . . Jan. 9, 1906
   850,881     Composite Metal. . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 19, 1906
   964,096     Processes of Electro-Plating . . . . .Feb. 24, 1906
   914,372     Making Thin Metallic Flakes. . . . . .July 13, 1906
   962,822     Crushing Rolls . . . . . . . . . . . .Sept. 4, 1906
   923,633     Shaft Coupling . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 11, 1906
   962,823     Crushing Rolls . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 11, 1906
   930,946     Apparatus for Burning Portland Cement. Oct. 22,1906
   898 404     Making Articles by Electro-Plating . . Nov. 2, 1906
   930,948     Apparatus for Burning Portland Cement.Nov. 16, 1906
   930,949     Apparatus for Burning Portland Cement. Nov. 26 1906
   890,625     Apparatus for Grinding Coal. . . . . . Nov, 33 1906
   948,558     Storage Battery Electrodes . . . . . .Nov. 28, 1906
   964,221     Sound Records. . . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 28, 1906

   1907

   865,688     Making Metallic Films or Flakes. . . .Jan. 11, 1907
   936,267     Feed Mechanism for Phonographs and
               Other Machines . . . . . . . . . . . .Jan. 11, 1907
   936,525     Making Metallic Films or Flakes. . . .Jan. 17, 1907
   865,687     Making Nickel Films. . . . . . . . . .Jan. 18, 1907
   939,817     Cement Kiln. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 8, 1907
   855,562     Diaphragm for Talking Machines . . . .Feb. 23, 1907
   939,992     Phonographic Recording and Reproducing
               Machine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 25, 1907
   941,630     Process and Apparatus for Artificially
               Aging or Seasoning Portland Cement . .Feb. 25, 1907
   876,445     Electrolyte for Alkaline Storage Batteries May 8, 1907
   914,343     Making Storage Battery Electrodes. . . May 15, 1907
   861,819     Discharging Apparatus for Belt Conveyors June 11, 1907
   954,789     Sprocket Chain Drives. . . . . . . . .June 11, 1907
   909,877     Telegraphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . .June 18, 1907

   1908

   896,811     Metallic Film for Use with Storage Batteries
               and Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 4, 1908
   940,635     Electrode Element for Storage Batteries Feb. 4,
   1908
   909,167     Water-Proofing Paint for Portland
               Cement Buildings . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 4, 1908
   896,812     Storage Batteries. . . . . . . . . . March 13, 1908
   944,481     Processes and Apparatus for Artificially
               Aging or Seasoning Portland Cement. March 13,1908
   947,806     Automobiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . March 13,-1908
   909,168     Water-Proofing Fibres and Fabrics. . . May 27, 1908
   909,169     Water-Proofing Paint for Portland
               Cement Structures. . . . . . . . . . . May 27, 1908
   970,616     Flying Machines. . . . . . . . . . . .Aug. 20, 1908

   1909
   930,947     Gas Purifier . . . . . . . . . . . . .Feb. 15, 1909
   40,527     Design Patent for Phonograph Cabinet. Sept. 13, 1909
</pre>
    <p>
      <br /> <br /> <br /> <a name="linkforeign" id="linkforeign"></a> <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      FOREIGN PATENTS
    </h2>
    <p>
      In addition to the United States patents issued to Edison, as above
      enumerated, there have been granted to him (up to October, 1910) by
      foreign governments 1239 patents, as follows:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
   Argentine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
   Australia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
   Austria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101
   Belgium. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
   Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
   Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129
   Cape of Good Hope. . . . . . . . . . . . .5
   Ceylon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
   Cuba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   Denmark. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
   France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111
   Germany. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130
   Great Britain. . . . . . . . . . . . . .131
   Hungary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
   India. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
   Italy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
   Japan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
   Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   Natal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
   New South Wales. . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
   New Zealand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
   Norway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   Orange Free State. . . . . . . . . . . . .2
   Portugal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   Queensland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
   Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   South African Republic . . . . . . . . . .4
   South Australia. . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
   Spain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
   Sweden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
   Switzerland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   Tasmania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
   Victoria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
   West Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

   Total of Edison's Foreign Patents. . . 1239
</pre>
    <div style="height: 6em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
<pre xml:space="preserve">





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