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THOMAS   A.    EDISON 


THE  NEW  York] 

PUBLIC    LIBRARY  I 


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A8T0K,  LENOX  ^NB         { 
TiLOEN  FeUNDATJONi 


THOMAS  A. 
EDISON 


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WITH    SEVEN    ILLUSTRATIONS 
FROM    PHOTOGRAPHS 


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NEW  YORK 

FREDERICK  A.  STOKES   COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


THE  NEW  YORK  f 

PUBUC  UBRARY 


MTOR,  UNOX  AND 
TRJCN  rOUNDATiONi, 


Copyright,  igi4,  by 
FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 


All  rights  reserved 


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GENERAL  NOTE 

Of  all  books  perhaps  the  one  best  designed 
for  training  the  mind  and  forming  the  charac- 
ter is  ''Plutarch,'^  The  lives  of  great  men  are 
object-lessons.  They  teach  effort,  devotion,  in- 
dustry, heroism  and  sacrifice. 

Even  one  who  confines  his  reading  solely  to 
biographies  of  thinkers,  writers,  inventors,  poets 
of  the  spirit  or  poets  of  science,  will  in  a  short 
time  have  acquired  an  understanding  of  the 
whole  History  of  Humanity. 

And  what  novel  or  vjhat  drama  could  be  com- 
pared to  such  a  hieto'^yf  Accurate  biographies 
record  narratives  which  no  jomancer's  imagina- 
tion could  ho2)e  to  rival.  Researches,  suffer- 
ings, labors,  triumphs,  agonies  and  disasters, 
the  defeats  of  destiny,  glory,  which  is  the  ''sun- 
light of  the  dead,"  illuminating  the  past, 
whether  fortunate  or  tragic, — such  is  what  the 
lives  of  Great  Men  reveal  to  us,  or,  if  the  phrase 


vi  EDISON 

be  allowed,  paint  for  us  in  a  series  of  fascinat- 
ing and  dramatic  pictures. 

This  series  of  biographies  is  accordingly  in- 
tended to  form  a  sort  of  gallery,  a  museum  of 
the  great  servants  of  Art,  Science,  Thought  and 
Action. 

On  the  mountain  tops  we  breathe  a  purer  and 
more  vivifying  air.  And  it  is  like  ascending  to 
a  moral  mountain  top  when  we  live,  if  only  for 
a  moment,  with  the  dead  who,  in  their  lives  did 
honour  to  mankind,  and  attain  the  level  of 
those  whose  eyes  now  closed,  once  glowed  like 
beacon-lights,  leading  humanity  on  its  eternal 

* 

march  through  night-time  towards  the  light. 


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ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The  publishers  wish  to  make  a  general  acknowl- 
edgment of  indebtedness  to  The  Life  of  Edison^ 
by  Dyer  and  Martin  (New  York:  Harper  and 
Brothers),  to  which  frequent  reference  has  been 
made,  and  direct  quotations  from  which  have  been 
separately  acknowledged  where  they  occur. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  The  American  Way. — The  Boyhood  of  a 
Self-Made  Man. — How  a  Newspaper 
IS  Founded  Without  Money  and  With- 
out Collaborators       ....         1 

II    Apprenticed  to   Magic. — How  Electric- 
ity IS  Transformed  into  Dollars. — 
Science  and  Business  ....       40 

III  Edison  the  Napoleon  of  Modern  Times. — 

The  Fairyland  of  Menlo  Park. — Edison 

AT  Work  and  Edison  at  Play         .         .       84 

IV  Distance   is   Abolished. — Edison   Starts 

Upon  the  Conquest  of  the  Old  World 

of  Europe     ......     110 

V  Recording  the  Voice. — Is  It  a  Ventrilo- 
quist?— Glory  and  Harmony  Imprisoned 
IN  A  Cylinder         .....     127 

VI  Let  There  Be  Light!  And  There  Was 
Light! — And  This  Light  Emanated  From 
America         ......     160 

VII  Recording  the  Gesture. — In  Full  Fairy- 
land.— A  Few  Other  Marvels,  Small 
AND  Great    .         .         .         •         •         •     184 

VIII  Mr.  Edison  Does  Not  Receive.— But  He 
He  Will  Receive  Us. — Llewelyn  Park 
at  Orange,  New  Jersey. — The  Recipe 
FOR  Genius  AND  Success  .,        .         •     200 

PHOTOGRAPHS  BY  BROWN  BROS.   (NEW   YORK),    COSMIA,    DELIUS,     HARLINGUE 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THOMAS  A.  EDISON    ....    Frontispiece 


FACING 
PAGE 


EDISON  AT  VARIOUS  AGES 

Above:  Edison  as  a  child. — At  the  age  of 
fourteen,  a  train-boy  on  the  Grand  Trunk 
Railway.  Below :  At  the  age  of  twenty-four, 
when  he  was  occupied  in  perfecting  the 
telegraph. — At  twenty-eight,  when  he  was 
inventing  the  phonograph   .         .         .        .        16 

EDISON,  AND  THE  PHONOGRAPH 

Above:    Edison  at  his  phonograph,   after 
several   days   and   nights   of   toil.     Below: 
.    Edison  engaged   in  perfecting  his  phono- 
graph         .        48 

EDISON,  THE  CHEMIST 

The  great  inventor  has  always  had  a  marked 
predilection  for  chemistry    .         .         .        .        80 

THE  EDISON  ELECTRIC  BATTERY 

Above:  Recharging  the  cells  placed  be- 
neath the  seats.  Below:  Edison  on  the 
front  platform  of  his  car      .         .         .        .       112 

THE  EDISON  FAMILY 

Two  photographs  of  Edison  in  the  midst  of 

his  family  circle  .         .         .         .        .       160 

LLEWELYN  PARK 

Edison  prefers  his  home  to  all  the  attractions 

of  the  outside  world     .....      208 


TTHOMAS   a.    EDISON 


EDISON 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  AMERICAN  WAY — THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  A 
"self-made  man'' — HOW  TO  START  A  NEWS- 
PAPER WITHOUT  MONEY  AND  WITHOUT  COL- 
LABORATORS 

IF  there  is  any  one  far-echoing  name  inscribed 
in  the  full  light  of  day  above  the  portals 
of  the  temple  of  fame  in  this  first  half  of  the 
twentieth  century,  so  fertile  in  human  pro- 
gress, it  is  beyond  question  that  of  Edison.  He 
is  not  only  one  of  the  master  minds  of  his  tiine, 
but  the  most  extraordinary  type  of  the  modern 
inventor.  This  he  is  to  the  full  extent  of  his 
creative  power,  devoted  wholly  to  the  needs  of 
real  and  practical  life.  No  one  before  him  and 
no  one  since  has  equalled  him  in  placing  the 
unknown  forces  of  nature  at  the  service  of 

society,  subduing  them"  to  our  use,  and  at  the 

1 


2  EDISON 

same  time  obtaining  from  them  a  maximum  of 
efficacy* 

It  is  in  this  sense  that  Thomas  Alva  Edison, 
this  essentially  American  genius,  utilitarian  by 
definition,  appears  as  a  sort  of  Poet  Extraordi- 
nary of  the  universe,  a  marvellous  magician  of 
these  later  times.  His  fertile  and  prodigious 
ingenuity,  by  extending  the  domain  of  our 
senses,  has  opened  up  vast  and  unlimited  fields 
to  our  activity. 

We  are  witnessing  the  beneficent  and  at  the 
same  time  formidable  reign  of  mechanism  and 
industry,  which  are  the  characteristic  elements 
of  civilisation.  It  is  the  reign  of  speed,  it  is 
the  reign  of  electricity,  it  is  the  reign  of  Edison. 

What  is  the  secret  of  these  famous  discover- 
ies by  Edison?  How  has  he  attained  a  glory 
that  is  accompanied — a  far  commoner  occur- 
rence in  America  than  in  the  older  countries  of 
Europe — by  a  legitimate  prosperity  and  an  ap- 
preciable number  of  dollars? 

Edison  himself  believes  in  effort,  in  work,  in 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  3 

fearless  and  persistent  thinking.  Chance,  no 
doubt,  plays  its  part  in  the  success  of  intel- 
lectual research,  just  as  in  all  other  enterprises. 
But  it  is  made  effective  only  by  prolonged  re- 
flection and  unflagging  toil.  It  is  thanks  to 
these  qualities  alone  that  inspiration  bears  its 
fruit.  Without  a  constant  expenditure  of  phys- 
ical labour,  the  most  penetrating  glance,  the 
keenest  perspicacity  run  the  risk  of  remaining 
sterile.  Think  of  the  care  which  must  be  lav- 
ished upon  a  beautiful  plant,  in  order  to  bring 
it  to  its  full  flowering!  And  is  it  not  the  same 
with  human  genius,  in  spite  of  lucky  chances 
and  the  gifts  of  nature? 

In  this  respect  the  life  of  Thomas  Alva  Edi- 
son serves  as  an  admirable  lesson. 

We  have  said  that  Edison  is  the  type  of 
American  genius;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he 
appears  at  first  sight  as  the  finished  and  ex- 
emplary type  of  the  "self-made  man,"  who  has 
succeeded  in  triumphing  over  all  the  difficulties 
of  existence,  thanks  to  the  inexhaustible  re- 
sources of  his  own  energy.    We  are  constantly 


4  EDISON 

hearing  of  the  hnportance  of  putting  one's 
heart  into  one's  work ;  it  is  the  favourite  advice 
given  to  the  young  who  are  eagerly  preparing 
to  enter  the  struggle  for  life.  But  formulas  are 
employed  far  too  often  without  taking  the 
trouble  to  define  them.  In  this  respect  there 
is  no  better  example  nor  a  more  significant  one 
than  that  of  Edison.  His  dazzKng  ascension 
towards  fortune,  towards  universal  and  immor- 
tal fame,  has  the  value,  equally  in  France  and 
the  United  States,  of  a  lesson  of  the  very  first 
order,  we  might  even  say,  a  unique  lesson. 

We  shall  see  presently  in  what  sort  of  an 
environment  and  as  a  consequence  of  w^hat 
events  Edison  unhesitatingly  sought  and  found 
himself.  But,  without  attributing  an  excessive 
influence  to  heredity  in  shaping  the  destinies 
of  great  men,  it  is  only  fair  that  we  should  ask 
in  the  first  place  what  were  the  antecedents  of 
Thomas  Alva  Edison,  and  whether,  in  reveal- 
ing himself  to  us  with  all  the  marks  of  a  striking 
originaUty,  he  has  not  been  simply  obeying 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  S 

certain  family  traditions  of  high  intelligence 
and  audacious  initiative. 

On  his  father's  side  he  comes  of  Holland 
stock.  His  ancestors  were  mill-owners  in  the 
Netherlands.  Certain  members  of  the  Edison 
family,  in  the  company  of  other  emigrants, 
landed  in  North  America  about  the  year  1737. 
Among  them  was  John  Edison,  the  great-grand- 
father of  the  inventor,  who  before  long  achieved 
distinction  and  became  a  banker  of  repute  in 
New  York.  But  when  war  broke  out  between 
England  and  the  colonies  he  openly  took  sides 
with  the  mother  country  and  declared  himself 
an  implacable  foe  to  separation.  In  spite  of 
his  advanced  age,  he  was  forced  to  seek  safety, 
with  his  entire  family,  in  Nova  Scotia. 

The  loyalists  were  entitled  to  compensation. 
Accordingly,  in  the  year  1811  John  Edison  re- 
ceived, as  the  price  of  his  fidelity,  six  hundred 
acres  of  land  for  himself,  four  hundred  for  his 
son  Samuel,  and  two  hundred  for  each  of  his 
grandchildren. 

All  of  the  Edisons  seem  to  have  enjoyed  ex- 


6  EDISON 

cellent  health  and  to  have  lived  to  a  ripe  old 
age.  John  and  Samuel  were  both  upward  of  a 
hundred  years  old  at  the  time  of  their  death. 
A  son  of  the  latter,  the  second  Samuel  Edison, 
lived  in  Bayfield,  on  the  shore  of  Lake  Erie.  It 
is  said  that  he  was  six  feet  in  height,  that  he  had 
the  suppleness  of  an  Indian  and  the  strength 
of  an  athlete,  and  that  there  was  no  one  who 
could  outrun  him.  These  advantages  proved 
to  be  distinctly  useful  during  one  memorable 
episode  in  his  career.  This  Samuel  Edison  was 
very  far  from  sharing  the  sentiments  of  his 
grandfather  in  regard  to  England.  The  flame 
of  rebellion  leaped  up  among  the  Canadians, 
fanned  by  the  sustaining  sympathy  of  the 
United  States.  Samuel  Edison,  who  had  been 
one  of  the  most  important  leaders  of  the  re- 
volt, was  forced  to  flee,  and,  in  order  to  save 
his  life,  accomplished  a  journey  of  almost  a 
hundred  and  eighty  miles  without  food  or 
sleep!  He  did  not  feel  that  he  was  safe  until 
he  had  reached  United  States  territory,  after 
crossing  the  St.  Clair  River, 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  7 

We  must  not  forget  that  this  energetic  man, 
capable  of  such  prodigious  efforts,  was  the 
father  of  Thomas  Edison. 

After  a  short  stay  in  Detroit  he  removed  to 
Milan,  a  small  village  in  Ohio,  where  he  opened 
up  a  business  in  grain  and  lumber,  which  was 
greatly  stimulated  by  the  extensive  traffic  of 
the  canal.  On  the  sixteenth  of  August,  1828, 
he  married  Miss  Nancy  Elliot,  who,  although 
a  Canadian  by  birth,  belonged  to  a  family  that 
originally  came  from  Scotland.  Highly  edu- 
cated, with  refined  manners  and  unusual 
strength  of  character,  she  appears  to  have  been 
an  exceptional  woman  as  well  as  a  teacher  of 
rare  ability.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  had  held 
a  position  in  a  high  school.  Possessing  some 
of  the  rarest  qualities  of  heart  and  mind,  she 
was  destined  to  exercise  a  peculiarly  beneficent 
influence  over  the  awakening  of  an  exceptional 
intellect. 

It  was  in  this  little  Ohio  village  of  Milan 
that  Thomas  Alva  Edison  was  born  on  the 
eleventh  of  February,  1847.    It  is  pleasant  to 


V:- 


8  EDISON 

imagine  his  free,  happy  childhood,  in  and  out 
among  the  big  grain  elevators  or  along  the 
lively  shores  of  the  little  lake,  near  the  banks 
of  the  canal.  His  parents,  who  at  that  time 
were  in  easy  circumstances,  thanks  to  a  pros- 
perous business,  and  were  able  to  look  forward 
to  a  promising  future,  watched  over  their  son 
with  the  tenderest  solicitude. 

We  may  be  mildly  sceptical  as  to  the  pic- 
turesque anecdotes  which  are  so  freely  hawked 
about  regarding  the  precociousness  of  children 
who  are  predestined  to  become  celebrated. 
Here  is  a  point  where  legend  blends  so  easily 
with  history.  We  do  not  see  any  necessity  for 
adding  a  few  little  useless  inventions  to  the 
great  inventions  made  by  Edison  himself. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  easy  to  understand  why  his 
admirers  love  to  surround  with  extraordinary 
and  fantastic  mystery  even  the  slightest  acts 
and  gestures  of  this  prodigious  wizard,  the  in- 
ventor of  the  phonograph.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  is  a  waste  of  time  to  try  to  add  any- 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  9 

thing  to  the  simple  eloquence  of  the  bare  facts 
of  his  life. 

We  should  be  equally  careful  not  to  attribute 
an  exaggerated  importance  to  certain  pleasing 
childish  traits,  on  the  basis  of  which  the  at- 
tempt is  made  to  explain  the  future  man. 
Nevertheless,  it  will  do  no  harm  to  make  a  pass- 
ing mention  of  the  following  amusing  incident 
that  tends  to  show  the  earliest  manifestations 
of  an  inquiring  mind,  already  accompanied  by 
a  practical  determination  to  improve  upon  na- 
ture by  utilising  her  own  methods.  The  story 
runs  that  little  Edison,  at  the  age  of  five,  was 
astonished  to  see  a  duck  engaged  in  the  long 
and  patient  process  of  hatching  her  eggs.  Pic- 
ture the  stupefaction  of  this  small  boy  when 
he  subsequently  witnessed  the  successful  hatch- 
ing of  the  entire  brood!  How  did  it  happen? 
And  why?  The  child  became  deeply  preoccu- 
pied over  this  phenomenon.  He  asked  ques- 
tions and  learned  that  the  bird  obtained  this 
happy  result  through  the  natural  warmth  of 
her  body.     Shortly  afterwards  the  boy  was 


10  EDISON 

sought  for  and  could  not  be  found.  But  at  last 
he  was  discovered  in  a  barn,  sitting  upon  a 
number  of  eggs,  waiting  confidently  for  them 
to  hatch. 

What  countless  experiments  Edison  has  at- 
tempted since  that  time !  Once  again  we  must 
remind  ourselves  that  the  singular  activity  of 
this  great  scientist  extends  throughout  the  en- 
tire domain  of  Nature,  from  whom  he  is  striv- 
ing to  wrest  her  most  treasured  secrets.  As  a 
small  boy  he  astonished  not  only  his  father  but 
all  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  as  well  by  his 
questions,  his  avid  and  insatiable  curiosity. 
He  loved  to  slip  away  from  home  and  wander 
at  will  through  the  shipyards,  exploring  the 
machinery  and  frequently  incurring  some  rather 
grave  dangers.  On  one  occasion  he  lost  part 
of  a  finger  through  the  indiscreet  use  of  an 
axe;  and  more  than  once  he  barely  escaped 
being  crushed  while  examining  too  closely  the 
workings  of  certain  apparatus  that  had  aroused 
his  wonder. 

At  another  time  he  set  fire  to  a  barn,  and  it 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  11 

was  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  he 
himself  was  rescued  from  the  flames.  As  an 
exemplary  punishment  he  was  publicly  whipped 
in  the  village  square,  receiving  a  goodly  num- 
ber of  strokes.  But  his  hardihood  was  in  no 
wise  lessened,  for  all  that.  The  reckless  lad 
was  as  fearless  of  water  as  he  was  of  fire.  He 
used  to  go  in  swimming  with  other  boys  of  his 
own  age,  and  one  day  one  of  his  companions 
disappeared  beneath  the  surface.  On  several 
occasions  Edison  himself  narrowly  escaped 
drowning.  He  was  blessed  with  splendid 
health;  and,  far  from  shrinking  from  adven- 
tures, he  went  in  search  of  them.  It  is  told 
that  during  one  of  his  cross-country  escapades 
he  was  attacked  and  quite  badly  injured  by  a 
ram. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  in  passing  that  this 
brave  little  dare-devil  already  foreshadows  the 
future  man  of  action,  who  never  spares  him- 
self, just  as  the  little  reasoner  who  wishes  to 
inform  himself  as  to  the  how  and  why  of  every- 
thing foreshadows  the  future  man  of  thought, 


12  EDISON 

These  two  things  are  never  separated  in 
Edison,  whose  physical  and  mental  endurance 
have  always  been  equally  remarkable.  Must  he 
not  necessarily  have  been  somewhat  foolhardy 
before  the  audacity  of  his  first  impulse  was 
tempered  by  more  judicious  second  thoughts? 
His  ability  to  dismiss  all  thought  of  fear,  when 
he  undertakes  to  explore  the  possibilities  of 
any  problem  that  has  engaged  his  serious  at- 
tention, forms  an  element  of  fundamental  im- 
portance in  his  success.  This  is  a  point  that 
cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasised. 

It  was  not  long  before  Edison's  parents  saw 
the  downfall  of  their  bright  hopes.  The  con- 
struction of  a  railway  along  the  shore  of  Lake 
Erie  dealt  a  fatal  blow  to  Samuel  Edison's 
business,  in  spite  of  all  that  he  could  do  to 
save  it.  The  situation  had  already  become  pre- 
carious, when  a  financial  crisis  rendered  it  still 
more  alarming.  But  Samuel  Edison  was  not 
of  the  kind  that  allow  themselves  to  be  beaten 
down  by  the  adverse  strokes  of  fate.  He  re- 
moved to  Michigan,  and  installed  himself  and 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  13 

his  family  in  Port  Huron,  on  the  boundary  Hne 
between  Canada  and  the  United  States. 

Little  Thomas  was  at  this  time  seven  years  ' 
old  and  had  been  attending  school  for  only 
two  months.  Partly  as  a  matter  of  economy, 
partly  also  because  she  wished  to  direct  per- 
sonally the  development  of  an  intellect  that 
was  so  near  and  dear  to  her,  his  mother  decided 
that  she  herself  would  give  him  his  grounding 
in  the  first  principles  of  the  sciences,  striving 
always  to  keep  the  child's  eager  curiosity  on  the 
alert  and  to  keep  a  watchful  eye  over  these 
first  efforts  of  the  imagination  made  in  con- 
junction with  study  and  reflection. 

It  is  pleasant  to  conjure  up  the  pretty  pic- 
ture, in  its  setting  of  that  broad  and  sunny 
farm  in  Michigan :  Edison's  mother  transform- 
ing herself  into  his  one  and  only  preceptor,  a 
school-teacher  as  far-seeing  as  she  was  sympa- 
thetic. Young  Thomas  Edison  could  not  have 
been  slow  to  profit  by  a  system  of  instruction 
which  recognised  the  full  importance  of  the 
pupil's  initiative,  and  to  show  the  full  extent 


14  EDISON 

of  his  courage  and  originality.  In  spite  of  his 
precocious  astonishment  in  the  presence  of  the 
phenomena  of  nature  and  his  swiftly  kindled 
love  of  experimenting,  the  child  showed  the 
keenest  desire  to  acquire  a  broad  grounding  in 
the  theoretical  branches.  For  that  matter, 
Edison  has  never  at  any  time  been  disdainful 
of  the  mental  culture  that  is  derived  from 
books.  Even  now,  all  the  sources  of  docu- 
mentary knowledge  are  regarded  by  him  as 
profitable.  And  how  is  it  possible  to  conceive 
of  the  present  and  the  future  if  the  past  re- 
mains unknown  to  us? 

At  the  age  of  ten  this  son  of  a  vigorous  race, 
in  his  keen  desire  to  know  and  to  do,  had  read 
Gibbon  and  Montesquieu,  d'Aubigne's  History 
of  the  Reformatio7i,  Sear's  History  of  the 
World,  the  Penny  Encyclopoedia,  and  Ure's 
Dictionary  of  Sciences.  He  devoured  works 
of  all  kinds,  and  could  remember  the  precise 
page  and  position  of  passages  which  had  im- 
pressed him  as  especially  curious.  It  is  also 
related  that  he  had  been  introduced  very  early, 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  15 

no  doubt  too  early,  to  Newton's  Principia, 
and  that,  being  discouraged  by  the  obscure 
reasoning  from  axiom  to  axiom,  he  was  destined 
to  preserve  a  certain  degree  of  aversion  for 
everything  pertaining  to  mathematics. 

This  determination  to  enrich  his  mind  by 
eager  and  multifarious  reading,  which  was  an 
important  trait  to  note  in  connection  with  Edi- 
son's early  youth,  has  remained,  no  doubt,  char- 
acteristic of  the  man.  But  it  is  necessary  to 
see  him  at  work,  actively  engaged  in  his  tasks, 
in  the  midst  of  life  which  was  forced  to  smile 
upon  him  because  he  did  not  fear  to  confront 
it  with  the  marvellous  resources  of  a  most  tena- 
cious energy,  united  to  a  faculty  which  from  the 
start  was  amazing  and  soon  became  miraculous, 
the  faculty  of  creating,  through  means  that 
were  exactly  adapted  to  present  needs,  or  to 
the  exigencies  of  real  life. 

It  is  in  this  aspect  that  Thomas  Edison  has 
revealed  himself,  from  his  adolescence  down- 
ward; and  he  has  done  it  in  a  manner  that 
may  be  defined  at  one  and  the  same  time  as 


16  EDISON 

extremely  American  and  extremely,  even  sen- 
sationally, individual. 

At  Port  Huron  the  Edisons  continued  to  live 
in  a  very  modest  fashion.  But  the  reports  that 
their  financial  condition  was  disastrous  are 
quite  unfounded. 

At  the  age  of  twelve,  as  a  result  of  his  own 
initiative,  the  lad  succeeded  in  obtaining  the 
profitable  privilege  of  ^'train-boy'^  on  the  Grand 
Trunk  Railroad,  the  great  through  line  run- 
ning from  Quebec  to  Montreal,  and  by  way 
of  Toronto  and  Detroit,  all  the  way  to  Chi- 
cago. His  duties  consisted  in  going  from  car 
to  car,  between  the  two  stations  of  Detroit  and 
Port  Huron,  and  selling  newspapers,  fruit  and 
various  other  articles  to  the  passengers,  whom 
he  delighted  by  his  quick  wit  and  engaging 
manners.  He  put  so  much  energy  and  ability 
into  this  small  business  venture  that  it  is 
said  that  his  profits  rose  to  something 
over  forty  dollars  a  month,  to  the  great 
delight  of  his  family.  He  passed  the 
hours  between   trains  in  the  Detroit  public 


.    t 


i 


EDISON  AT  VARIOUS  AGES 

Abooe:     Edison  as  a  Child. — At  the  Age  of  Fourteen,  a  Train-Boy 
on  vhe  Grand  Trunk  Railway.     Below:     At  the  age  of  twenty-four, 
when  he  was  occupied  in  perfecting  the  Telegraph. — At   twenty- 
eight,  when  he  was  inventing  the  Phonograph. 


^  THE  iNiiW  YORK  I 
~     LIBRARY 


ASTOK,  LENOX  AN» 
T1LSEM  F«UN»ATI»Nt. 

%.ll«*M«"iiii"ii«Piii"^"«"^«""'""^"* 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  17 

library,  or  busied  himself  with  sorting  out  his 
papers  in  the  printing  office  of  the  Detroit  Free 
Press.  Meanwhile  the  indefatigable  lad  began 
little  by  little  to  extend  his  business  operations 
in  various  ingenious  directions,  notably,  as  the 
celebrated  inventor  himself  revealed  later  on, — 
and  for  these  far-off  years  it  is  well  to  be  mis- 
trustful of  hearsay  and  accept  only  the  evidence 
of  the  man  himself, — by  transporting  two  large 
baskets  of  vegetables  from  the  Detroit  markets 
to  Port  Huron,  where  they  sold  to  excellent 
advantage.  Along  the  line  he  bought  butter 
from  the  farmers  and  blackberries,  which  he 
sold  at  a  low  price  to  wives  of  engineers  and 
to  the  employees  on  the  train.  When  a  special 
emigrant  train  of  from  seven  to  ten  cars  was 
put  on  he  hired  an  assistant  to  sell  bread, 
candies  and  tobacco. 

In  these  ways  his  profits  began  to  multiply, 
and,  thanks  to  his  far-sighted  business  activity, 
they  increased  to  the  point  of  between  eight 
and  ten  dollars  a  day.  Out  of  this  he  regularly 
sent  one  to  his  mother ;  but  the  greater  part  of 


18  EDISON 

his  savings  were  devoted  to  the  purchase  of 
technical  works,  and  more  especially  to  his  ex- 
periments in  chemistry.  For  this  purpose  he 
actually  went  so  far  as  to  install  a  sort  of  labo- 
ratory, with  flasks  and  test  tubes,  in  a  car  that 
was  intended  for  baggage. 

This  determined  young  chap,  whom  every- 
body liked  for  his  ready  wit  and  self-assur- 
ance, this  veritable  young  devil,  as  he  was 
freely  called,  made  sport  of  difficulties.  Be- 
fore long  his  natural  gifts  for  taking  the  initi- 
ative and  for  making  inventions  were  revealed 
in  a  still  more  conspicuous  manner.  The  civil 
war  had  broken  out.  Passengers  were  eager 
for  news.  Young  Edison  straightway  recog- 
nized the  advantage  that  he  might  derive  from 
these  circumstances,  which  gave  special  im- 
portance to  the  sale  of  his  papers.  In  Detroit 
he  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  type-setters 
on  the  Detroit  Free  Press.  By  running  his  eye 
over  a  proof  sheet  of  the  paper,  he  could  in- 
form himself  of  anything  that  it  contained  of 
special  interest.     It  was  in  this  way  that  on 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  19 

a  certain  day  in  April,  1862,  he  was  one  of  the 
first  to  read  the  absolutely  sensational  news  re- 
lating to  the  battle  of  Shiloh,  which  lasted  for 
two  days,  in  which  Grant  won  a  victory  over 
the  Southern  forces,  Johnston  was  killed,  and 
the  dead  and  wounded  were  estimated  at 
25,000.  But  after  the  first  reports  the  issue  of 
the  battle  remained  uncertain  and  there  were 
rumors  of  from  fifty  to  sixty  thousand  victims. 
It  was  a  matter  of  vital  interest  to  the  public. 
Thomas  Alva — "Al,"  as  he  was  familiarly 
known  on  the  Grand  Trunk  Railroad — ^-in- 
stantly  saw  an  opportunity  for  putting  through 
a  neat  little  business  deal.  As  he  happened  to 
know  the  telegraph  operator  at  the  Detroit  rail- 
way station,  he  lost  no  time  in  making  the  fol- 
lowing proposition  to  him  over  the  wire:  ^Tele- 
graph every  station  master  the  latest  news  of 
the  battle  and  number  killed,  and  ask  them  to 
write  the  same  on  the  blackboard  used  for  an- 
nouncing the  time  of  arrival  and  departure  of 
trains;  in  return,  I  will  give  you  a  free  sub- 
scription to  the  newspaper,  as  well  as  to  Har- 


20  EDISON 

per's  Weekly  and  Harper's  Monthly,  for  six 
months."  The  telegraph  operator  accepted  the 
offer.  Thanks  to  this  unusual  publicity,  the 
sale  promised  to  be  an  exceptional  one.  But 
how  was  young  Edison  to  rise  to  the  heights 
of  the  situation?  He  did  not  have  money 
enough  to  buy  more  than  the  customary  limited 
number  of  copies  of  the  Detroit  Free  Press, 
What  could  be  done?  How  many  boys  are 
there  who  would  not  have  given  up  in  the  face 
of  such  an  obstacle?  But  this  venturesome 
youth  did  not  hesitate  to  employ  big  methods. 
He  insisted  upon  seeing  the  editor  upon  a 
matter  of  important  business.  At  all  events,  it 
was  a  matter  of  importance  to  him.  He  was 
shown  into  an  office  where  two  men  were  talk- 
ing. One  of  these  men,  the  younger  one,  after 
hearing  Edison's  plan  of  having  the  latest  bul- 
letin telegraphed  ahead,  and  his  request  for 
credit  for  a  thousand  copies,  in  place  of  three 
hundred,  curtly  refused.  But  the  older  man, 
who  was  none  other  than  Wilbur  F.  Storey, 
who  subsequently  founded  the  Chicago  Times, 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  21 

intervened  in  favour  of  this  lad  with  the  de- 
cided manner.  With  the  aid  of  another  boy, 
Edison  transported  the  thousand  copies  to  the 
train  and,  as  it  pulled  out,  set  himself  to  the 
task  of  folding  them. 

At  this  point  let  us  allow  Edison  to  tell  in 
his  own  spirited  way  this  characteristic  ad- 
venture of  his  adolescence:  "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  realised  that  the  telegraph  was  a  great 
invention.  I  sold  thirty-five  papers  there.  The 
next  station  was  Mount  Clemens,  now  a  water- 
ing-place, but  then  a  town  of  about  one  thou- 
sand. 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 


22  EDISON 

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  out- 
skirts of  the  town  I  was  met  by  a  large  crowd. 
I  then  yelled.  ^Twenty-five  cents  apiece,  gen- 
tlemen! I  haven't  enough  to  go  round!'  I 
sold  all  out,  and  made  what  to  me  then  was 
an  immense  sum  of  money."  *  " 

In  spite,  however,  of  all  the  pleasing  results 
that  he  achieved,  this  business  of  selling  news- 
papers failed  to  satisfy  young  Edison.  He  de- 
termined to  have  a  paper  of  his  own,  of  which 
he  should  be  the  editor.  And  he  did  it.  He 
bought  a  font  of  type  and  a  little  press  which 
was  intended  for  printing  billheads  and  cata- 
logues. And  there  he  was,  installed  as  editor, 
type-setter  and  reporter,  all  of  which  in  no  way 

♦  From  Dyer  and  Martin's  "Life  of  Edison," 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  23 

interfered  with  his  continuing  his  business  of 
selling  newspapers.  It  was  in  his  baggage-car 
laboratory,  while  making  the  daily  run,  that 
he  compiled  and  set  up  the  Weekly  Herald, 
single  copies  of  which  were  sold  for  three  cents, 
while  the  monthly  subscription  was  to  be  had 
for  eight.  Let  us,  out  of  curiosity,  cast  a  glance 
over  a  copy  of  this  Weekly  Herald,  which  must 
be  remembered  by  the  inventor  as  one  of  the 
earliest  and  most  picturesque  products  of  his 
creative  spirit.  The  leading  article,  under  the 
headline  "Local  News,"  is  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  a  respectful  recommendation  calling 
the  attention  of  the  company's  officials  to  the 
merits  of  a  certain  engineer.  Every  six  months 
a  prize  was  given  to  the  one  who  had  been 
most  economical  in  the  use  of  wood  and  oil 
during  his  daily  run,  and  a  certain  E.  L.  North- 
rop was  recommended  to  the  consideration  of 
the  company  as  one  of  the  most  deserving. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  this  young  "Al,"  this 
irrepressible  young  imp  who  amused  every- 
body by  the  variety  of  his  ideas  and  the  rapid- 


24  EDISON 

ity  of  his  movements,  had  a  true  journalist's 
instinct  for  the  art  of  profitable  advertisement. 
Thanks  to  this  instinct,  he  secured  for  himself 
much  valuable  co-operation.  He  never  was 
above  inserting  a  friendly  paragraph,  in  tribute 
to  the  humblest  of  the  railway's  employees,  and 
he  secured  their  good-will  in  return. 

Another  article  of  thirty-six  lines  is  devoted 
to  the  misadventure  of  a  certain  Mr.  Watkins, 
who  claimed  damages  to  a  large  amount  from 
the  company,  on  the  ground  that  it  had  lost 
his  valise.  Now,  the  said  valise  was  finally 
discovered  in  the  possession  of  the  claimant 
himself.  His  friends  were  endeavouring  to  hush 
the  matter  up,  but  against  this  the  journalist 
protested  with  lively  indignation. 

On  the  second  page  of  the  Weekly  Herald 
we  find  information  relative  to  the  schedule  of 
trains;  with  the  hours  of  arrival  and  departure, 
commendatory  notes  such  as  this,  ^'S.  A.  Frink. 
Mr.  Frink  is  one  of  the  most  prudent  drivers 
in  the  United  States,"  and  news  items  such  as 
the  following:   '^Cassius  M.  Clay  will  enter  the 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  25 

army  on  his  return  home,"  ^The  thousandth 
birthday  of  the  Empire  of  Russia  will  be  cele- 
brated at  Novgorod  in  August."  Then  follow 
announcements  of  lost  articles  and  a  list  of 
the  current  market  prices  in  Baltimore, — for 
butter,  eggs,  lard,  beans,  potatoes,  chickens, 
geese,  turkeys  and  wild  ducks. 

Last  of  all,  advertisements  occupy,  quite 
properly,  considerable  space.  Here  are  some 
specimens: 

"Railroad  Exchange.  At  Baltimore  Station. 
The  above  named  hotel  is  now  open  for  the 
reception  of  travellers.  The  bar  will  be  supplied 
with  the  best  of  liquors,  and  every  effort  will 
be  made  to  promote  the  comfort  of  guests. 
S.  Davis,  Proprietor." 

"Ridgeway  Refreshment  Rooms.  I  would  in- 
form my  friends  that  I  have  opened  a  refresh- 
ment room  for  the  accommodation  of  the  trav- 
elling public.    R.  Allen,  Proprietor." 

"To  the  Railroad  Men.  Railroad  men,  send 
in  your  orders  for  butter,  eggs,  lard,  cheese, 


26  EDISON 

turkeys,  chickens  and  geese.  W.  C.  Hulets, 
New  Baltimore  Station." 

This  singular  journal,  unique  of  its  kind, 
published  and  sold  upon  a  moving  train,  to 
the  extent  of  several  hundred  copies,  brought 
in  a  monthly  profit  of  between  thirty  and  forty 
dollars.  It  was  this  Weekly  Herald,  published 
by  Edison,  that  made  his  name  known  to  the 
readers  of  the  London  Times,  when  the  Eng- 
lish engineer,  Stephenson,  while  inspecting  the 
Grand  Trunk  system,  was  struck  by  the  inge- 
nuity of  this  enterprise  by  a  young  lad  of 
barely  fifteen  years. 

Meanwhile,  a  slight  incident  was  destined  to 
change  the  whole  course  of  his  existence.  At 
the  same  time  that  he  discovered  an  absorbing 
interest  in  fiction  and  in  manifestations  of 
poetic  genius,  to  such  an  extent  that  he  was 
nicknamed  '^Victor  Hugo  Edison,"  he  con- 
tinued, in  his  compartment  in  the  baggage  car, 
his  experiments  in  physics  and  chemistry,  by 
the  aid  of  more  or  less  perfected  apparatus. 

One  fine  day,  or,  more  accurately  speaking, 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  27 

one  very  evil  day,  the  train,  while  running  at 
high  speed,  gave  a  sudden  and  violent  lurch. 
A  piece  of  phosphorus  fell  to  the  floor  and 
burst  into  flame.  The  car  caught  fire.  The 
young  experimenter,  with  the  aid  of  the  con- 
ductor, succeeded  in  putting  out  the  blaze. 
This  conductor,  a  brutal  and  vindictive  indi- 
vidual, did  not  hesitate,  at  the  very  next  sta- 
tion, to  fling  out  upon  the  platform  the  con- 
tents of  poor  Edison's  laboratory  and  his  en- 
tire printing  outfit  besides. 

When  the  train  started  again  Edison  found 
himself  on  the  platform,  in  the  midst  of  his 
broken  instruments  and  ruined  hopes!  Two 
trustworthy  American  writers,  Mr.  F.  L.  Dyer 
and  T.  C.  Martin,  who  are  the  authors  of  the 
authoritative  life  of  Edison,  add  that  the  angry 
conductor  had,  in  addition,  boxed  the  boy's  ears 
so  vigorously  that  his  ill-considered  violence 
was  the  cause  of  the  famous  inventor's  perma- 
nent deafness. 

This  incident  amounted  at  the  time  to  a 
veritable  disaster.    But,  like  his  father,  young 


28  EDISON 

Edison  was  incapable  of  being  discouraged,  or 
of  yielding  to  circumstances.  Accgrdingly,  he 
removed  his  laboratory  to  his  parent's  home, 
promising  that  he  would  observe  the  greatest 
possible  prudence. 

Meanwhile  he  did  not  abandon  journalism. 
On  the  contrary,  he  joined  forces  with  the  son 
of  a  printer,  and  between  them  they  founded 
the  Paul  Pry,  in  which  they  proceeded  to  lam- 
poon with  a  good  deal  of  impertinence  the 
doings  and  peculiarities  of  their  fellow  citizens. 
One  of  the  latter,  smarting  from  the  sting  of 
their  satire,  laid  violent  hands  upon  the  im- 
pertinent editor-in-chief  and  flung  him  into  the 
St.  Clair  River. 

This  incident  caused  little  concern  to  the 
youthful  adventurer,  for  he  knew  how  to  swim. 
But  he  felt  that  his  dominant  tastes  and  apti- 
tudes were  drawing  him  in  another  direction. 
Accordingly,  he  renounced  journalism,  notwith- 
standing that  it  was  a  profession  which  ap- 
pealed to  his  adventurous  spirit  and  might  have 
procured  him  some  new  and  pleasurable  ex- 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  29 

periences.  Who  knows  whether  Edison,  in  the 
full  flowering  of  his  glory  and  his  fortune,  does 
not  look  back  to  his  ephemeral  profession  of 
long  ago,  even  while  he  dreams  of  replacing 
paper,  upon  which  thought  is  materialised,  by 
some  better  and  more  durable  substance? 

But  at  that  period  young  "Al"  was  already 
experiencing  a  passionate  curiosity  regarding 
the  extraordinary  phenomena  of  electricity.  He 
asked  himself  how  it  was  that  telegraphic  mes- 
sages could  be  transmitted,  and  more  especially 
what  were  the  fundamental  principles  of  teleg- 
raphy. Since  his  mother  had  allowed  him  to 
install  his  laboratory  in  the  cellar,  he  decided 
to  run  a  wire  from  this  somewhat  primitive 
workshop  to  the  home  of  one  of  his  friends, 
John  Ward  by  name,  in  the  immediate  neigh- 
bourhood. The  two  collaborators  set  to  work. 
They  constructed  their  line  out  of  ordinary  iron 
wire.  Bottles  served  as  insulators.  And  they 
used  a  piece  of  cable,  fished  out  of  the  river. 
All  this  was  very  good,  so  far  as  it  went.    But 


30  EDISON 

how  were  they  to  produce  electricity?  That 
was  the  question! 

Edison  set  himself  energetically  to  work, 
stroking  the  back  of  a  cat,  in  order  to  produce 
a  current.  The  story  is  an  amusing  one,  but 
it  has  its  significance.  However,  by  uniting 
their  resources,  the  two  boys  were  able  to  pur- 
chase the  needed  supplies,  and  before  long  had 
completed  their  apparatus. 

Minds  that  are  too  narrowly  precise  and  men 
of  limited  attainment,  as  has  been  very  justly 
observed  by  Mr.  F.  Mundell,  are  seldom  apt 
to  leave  the  beaten  track;  they  are  afraid  of 
ridicule.  And  they  are  readily  induced  to  con- 
sider tendencies  of  this  sort  as  clear  proofs  of 
weak-mindedness,  instead  of  recognising  them 
as  the  first  manifestations  of  a  forceful  nature. 
Consequently,  people  who  are  too  much  afraid 
of  appearing  foolish  in  the  eyes  of  the  multi- 
tude of  frivolous  critics  with  whom  we  are  al- 
ways surrounded  will  never  reap  any  profit 
themselves  and  will  never  profit  any  one  else 
through   their  discoveries, — and  for  the  very 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  31 

good  reason  that  they  are  totally  incapable  of 
doing  so,  even  by  accident. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  great  discoverers 
worthy  of  the  name  have  at  one  time  or  an- 
other been  regarded  as  dreamers,  not  to  say 
insane.  It  has  been  only  too  often  their  sad 
and  cruel  privilege  to  hear  a  concert  of  ironic 
voices  raised  around  them;  for,  in  order  to 
create  an  unknown  order  of  ideas  or  of  things, 
is  it  not  necessary,  in  many  cases,  to  act  in 
defiance  of  common  sense? 

Mr.  Johnson,  who  was  for  a  long  time  a  col- 
laborator of  Edison,  has  made  a  very  sensible 
comment  in  this  connection:  ^'He  strokes  the 
back  of  his  cat.  Well,  that  is  an  act  that  is 
characteristic  of  his  temperament.  Even  to- 
day he  still  continues  to  undertake  experiments 
and  to  multiply  them  with  infinite  care  and 
marvellous  patience,  notwithstanding  that  his 
own  reasoning  has  not  only  not  encouraged 
him,  but  even  tended  to  prove  to  him  their 
utter  futility.  This  is  precisely  why  he  now 
stands  at  the  head  of  those  who  succeed  in 


32  EDISON 

making  observations  and  inventions  of  which 
the  majority  of  mankind  are  incapable."  When 
we  study  in  detail  the  history  of  Edison's  in- 
ventions, we  recognise  how  much  truth  and 
profound  insight  is  contained  in  such  an  ap- 
preciation as  the  foregoing. 

Edison's  inventive  spirit  revealed  itself  in 
more  ways  than  one,  in  connection  with  his 
early  attempts  at  telegraphy.  His  father  had 
given  him  permission  to  sit  up  at  night  until 
half-past  eleven,  but  no  later.  This  by  no 
means  suited  his  purpose,  because  the  business 
of  selling  papers,  which  he  still  continued,  took 
up  a  great  deal  of  his  time.  It  was  his  habit, 
when  he  came  home  in  the  evening,  to  turn 
over  to  his  father  such  papers  as  had  not  been 
soldo  The  latter  would  read  them  before  going 
to  bed.  But  one  evening  the  wily  lad  pre- 
tended that  he  had  left  the  papers  at  his  friend's 
house  by  mistake.  But  that  did  not  matter, 
because  his  telegraph  line  could  immediately 
put  his  father  in  possession  of  all  the  latest 
news !    It  was  in  such  ways  as  this  that  young 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  33 

Edison  made  his  earliest  inventions  serve  his 
own  personal  needs.  For,  with  the  father's 
willing  co-operation,  the  two  chums  continued 
to  carry  on  a  telegraphic  conversation  up  to 
one  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

Before  long,  however,  the  line  was  wrecked 
by  a  cow  which  had  broken  loose  and  con- 
ceived the  unfortunate  idea  of  taking  a  short 
cut  through  the  orchard.  Meanwhile  our  ama- 
teur telegraphist  was  dreaming  of  supplement- 
ing, by  practical  and  serious  study,  his  few 
vague  notions  of  electricity,  which  he  had 
nevertheless  already  used  to  advantage.  He 
found  his  opportunity,  as  the  sequel  to  an  inci- 
dent which  did  him  honour,  and  which  further- 
more gave  his  life  a  new  and  definite  bent,  that 
was  soon  destined  to  become  permanent. 

The  train  which  Edison  was  in  the  habit  of 
taking  for  Port  Huron,  where  he  bought  his 
papers  and  other  supplies,  used  to  make  quite 
a  long  stop  at  Mount  Clemens.  There  he  had 
made  friends  with  the  station  master,  an  ex- 
cellent sort  of  man  by  the  name  of  Mackenzie. 


34  EDISON 

One  morning,  in  the  month  of  August,  1862,  he 
discovered  Mackenzie's  son,  Jimmy,  a  child  of 
two  and  a  half,  playing  with  pebbles  and  sand, 
in  the  middle  of  the  railway  track,  oblivious  of 
the  fact  that  a  moving  car,  uncoupled  from  the 
rest  of  the  train,  was  only  a  few  yards  away. 
Edison  barely  had  time  to  drop  his  bundle  of 
papers  and  fling  himself  upon  Jimmy,  to  snatch 
him  away  from  certain  death.  The  two  rolled 
over  and  over  on  the  ground,  escaping  with 
only  a  few  scratches. 

Mackenzie  was  eager  to  show  his  gratitude 
for  the  brave  deed.  But  he  was  poor  and  bur- 
dened with  a  family,  so  that  a  present  worthy 
of  such  an  act  of  devotion  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. Accordingly  he  offered  to  teach  Edison 
not  only  how  to  operate  a  telegraph  key,  but 
whatever  else  he  himself  knew  of  electricity. 
The  boy  joyfully  accepted  the  offer,  and  made 
arrangements  with  one  of  his  comrades  so  that 
he  could  spend  the  longest  possible  time  at 
Mount  Clemens.  It  is  told  that  within  ten  days 
he  had  constructed  a  complete  miniature  set 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  35 

of  telegraphic  instruments  which  worked  to 
perfection,  to  the  great  amazement  of  the  sta- 
tion master. 

Edison  gave  himself  up  to  these  new  studies 
with  extraordinary  ardour.  He  sometimes  spent 
as  much  as  ten  hours  at  a  stretch  manipulating 
the  instruments,  seeking  to  perfect  himself  or 
to  discover  some  new  way  of  utilising  their 
various  different  parts.  From  this  period  we 
may  date  Edison's  development  of  his  truly 
American  gift  of  perceiving,  in  clear  and  rapid 
fashion,  the  best  method  of  utilising  circum- 
stances in  order  to  obtain  practical  results. 
Since  the  town  of  Port  Huron  was  about  a 
mile  from  the  station,  he  constructed  a  short 
telegraph  line,  to  establish  connection  between 
the  two.  An  office  was  installed  in  a  drug 
store.  In  this  little  venture  Edison  took  Mac- 
kenzie's brother-in-law,  Paul  Benner,  into  part- 
nership. The  price  of  a  message  was  fixed  at 
twelve  and  one-half  cents.  The  toy  apparatus 
that  Edison  had  himself  constructed  served  the 
purposes  of  this  line.    The  line  itself  was  of 


36  EDISON 

common  iron  wire,  fastened  to  posts  with  ordi- 
nary two-inch  nails.  The  wire  worked  all  right 
in  dry  weather,  but  could  not  be  used  when  it 
rained.  During  the  first  month  three  des- 
patches were  sent.  After  that  the  enterprise 
was  abandoned. 

By  this  time  young  Edison  had  begun  to  be 
the  talk  of  the  neighbourhood,  because  of  his 
precocious  talents  and  his  surprising  initiative, 
sometimes  more  fertile  than  at  others,  but  al- 
ways interesting  because  of  the  unexpectedness 
of  his  ideas  and  even  his  smallest  efforts.  It 
happened  that  the  telegraph  operator  at  Port 
Huron,  wishing  to  resign  in  order  to  join  the 
army,  recommended  Edison  to  his  brother-in- 
law,  named  Walker,  as  his  successor.  It  should 
be  remembered  that  the  telegraph  lines  were 
not  controlled  by  the  government,  but  by  pri- 
vate companies.  The  office  was  situated  in  a 
jewellery  shop,  which  also  included  the  sale  of 
newspapers  and  magazines.  The  ingenious  and 
persevering  boy  spent  his  entire  days  and 
nights  in  the  office,  and  before  long  had  made 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  *      37 

himself  useful  through  various  innovations, 
notably  the  completion  of  the  line  from  Port 
Huron  to  Sarnia. 

Nevertheless,  Edison  did  not  at  this  time  flat- 
ter himself  that  he  was  either  a  model  operator 
or  a  model  employee.  He  turned  deliberately, 
at  the  beck  and  call  of  a  passing  fancy,  from 
one  line  of  research  to  another ;  at  one  time  we 
find  him  handling  the  watchmaker's  outfit;  at 
another,  he  has  reverted  to  his  chemical  experi- 
ments, or  is  deep  in  the  pages  of  some  new 
scientific  work.  It  is  necessary  to  dwell  upon 
the  very  personal  character  of  these  miscel- 
laneous pursuits,  this  strange  capacity  for  giv- 
ing a  maximum  of  attention  successively  to 
most  widely  different  subjects.  Such  was  Edi- 
son at  this  early  epoch,  and  such  he  still  im- 
presses one  as  being  at  the  present  day. 

Accordingly  it  is  easy  to  understand  that, 
while  he  had  in  him  the  making  of  a  prodigious 
creator,  his  gifts  of  audacious  spontaneity  and 
intellectual  independence  did  not  predispose 
him  to  become  a  model  functionary.    He  did 


38  EDISON 

not  stay  long  at  Port  Huron.  His  ambition 
was  to  become  a  telegraph  operator  on  the 
Grand  Trunk  Railroad.  He  obtained  the  posi- 
tion of  night  operator  at  Stratford,  in  Canada, 
a  station  not  far  distant  from  Bayfield,  where 
the  Edison  family  still  had  friends.  His  sal- 
ary was  twenty-five  dollars  a  month. 

This  brings  us  to  the  year  1863.  Young 
Thomas  Alva  Edison  was  at  that  time  sixteen 
years  old.  He  had  already  given  most  remark- 
able proofs  of  his  energy,  and  of  a  knowledge 
which  his  peculiar  education  had  adapted  in 
an  astonishing  degree  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
moment.  Also,  he  had  already  acquired  a 
rather  extensive  experience. 

Henceforth  he  is  launched  upon  the  full  tide 
of  life.  He  is  proceeding  to  multiply  his  ef- 
forts. He  is  definitely  upon  the  road  to  fame 
and  fortune.  From  Stratford  to  Menlo  Park 
and  to  his  laboratory  at  Orange,  from  which  his 
renown  irradiates  with  all  the  brilliance  of  elec- 
tric light  itself,  over  the  new  world  and  the  old, 
he  has  traversed  a  vast  number  of  intermediate 


HIS  CHILDHOOD  39 

stages.  But  we  have  already  seen  that  he  was 
fashioned  to  fight  victoriously  against  all  ob- 
stacles, and  to  triumph  little  by  little,  thanks 
to  the  innumerable  resources  of  intrepidity,  of 
perseverance,  and  of  that  indefinable  something 
which,  in  last  analysis,  spells  genius. 


CHAPTER   II 

APPRENTICED    TO    MAGIC — HOW    ELECTRICITY    IS 
TRANSFORMED  INTO  DOLLARS — SCIENCE  AND 

BUSINESS 

EDISON,  telegraph  operator  at  Stratford, 
still  impresses  us  as  the  same  independ- 
ent young  chap,  little  inclined  to  submit  to  any 
sort  of  yoke,  save  that  of  his  own  thoughts 
and  the  strong  suggestions  of  what  may  be 
called  his  creative  imagination. 

His  stay  in  Stratford,  which  by  the  way  was 
a  brief  one,  is  an  essential  date  in  the  course 
of  this  life  of  incredible  intensity  and  more 
than  American  keenness.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  was  at  Stratford  that  young  Edison  revealed 
himself  for  the  first  time  and  very  decidedly 
in  the  aspect  of  an  inventor.  The  night  opera- 
tors worked  from  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening 
until  seven  in  the  morning.  Their  principal 
duty  was  to  send  despatches  announcing  the 

40 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC         41 

passing  of  the  trains.  The  management  of  the 
road  was  naturally  anxious  to  know  whether 
their  despatchers  were  awake  and  at  their  posts. 
As  proof  of  their  presence  and  watchfulness, 
they  were  required  to  telegraph  every  half  hour 
on  the  minute  the  number  six  to  the  manager 
of  the  section. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  that  this  require- 
ment was  not  at  all  to  the  taste  of  our  young 
scientist,  perpetually  absorbed  in  his  experi- 
ments and  his  dreams.  That  is  why  he  gave 
more  thought  to  a  means  of  escaping  from  this 
interruption  than  to  fulfilling  his  duties  punc- 
tually. Accordingly  he  constructed  a  wheel  the 
circumference  of  which  contained  certain 
notches,  and  he  connected  this  wheel  by  wires 
with  the  telegraphic  apparatus  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  he  was  able  to  turn  over  his  duty  to 
the  office  clock  and  trust  it  to  telegraph  in  his 
stead  the  required  number  six  at  even  half- 
hour  intervals. 

But  he  could  not  congratulate  himself  for 
long  upon  his  clever  subterfuge.    Unfortunately 


42  EDISON 

for  him,  the  manager  soon  discovered  that  even 
immediately  after  the  transmission  of  the  sig- 
nal, messages  addressed  to  Edison  remained 
without  response.  An  investigation  followed. 
The  trick  was  discovered  and  the  young  opera- 
tor was  reprimanded,  although  without  great 
severity.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  contrivance 
which  permitted  him  to  evade  a  necessary  regu- 
lation could  be  utilised  in  a  legitimate  manner 
under  other  circumstances;  it  was  destined,  at 
a  later  date,  to  be  patented  and  sold  to  the 
American  District  Telegraph  Company. 

Not  long  after  this  Edison  had  another  ad- 
venture which  might  have  led  to  very  serious 
consequences.  One  night  he  received  a  tele- 
graphic order,  instructing  him  to  stop  a  certain 
train,  in  order  to  prevent  a  collision.  As  he 
was  not  expecting  any  such  order,  he  let  the 
train  go  by.  Horrified  with  the  thought  of  the 
danger  facing  the  passengers  in  the  two  trains, 
he  started  on  a  run  for  a  nearby  freight  sta- 
tion where  the  trains  were  in  the  habit  of 
stopping.    As  he  ran  he  stumbled  and  fell  into 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC  43 

a  ditch.  When  he  picked  himself  out  he  was 
too  late.  He  returned  to  his  post  in  hot  haste, 
determined  at  any  cost  to  send  a  warning  which, 
late  as  it  was,  could  not  possibly  do  any  good. 
By  good  fortune,  however,  the  two  engine  driv- 
ers had  happened  to  see  each  other  in  time  to 
avert  a  tragedy. 

Young  Edison,  however,  was  held  to  be  none 
the  less  negligent.  He  was  promptly  suspended 
from  his  duties  and  summoned  to  appear  be- 
fore the  general  manager  at  Toronto.  The  lat- 
ter censured  him  unsparingly  and  even  let  fall 
a  threat  of  exemplary  punishment:  five  years 
in  prison.  At  this  moment  some  visitors  were 
introduced  into  the  manager's  office.  They 
were  strangers,  and  the  manager  received  them 
affably.  Edison  seized  his  opportunity  and  dis- 
appeared. A  few  minutes  later  he  had  boarded 
a  train  for  Sarnia,  where  he  caught  the  steamer 
that  landed  him  safe  and  sound  on  the  shore 
of  Michigan.  Mr.  Edison  has  not  preserved  an 
altogether  pleasant  memory  of  Toronto. 

After  his  return  to  Port  Huron  he  had  occa- 


U  EDISON 

sion,  during  the  winter  of  1863-64,  to  bring  him- 
self into  prominence,  under  quite  memorable 
circumstances.  Enormous  cakes  of  ice  had 
broken  the  telegraph  cable  which  connected 
Sarnia  with  Port  Huron.  What  was  to  be  done? 
Was  there  any  way  of  dispensing  with  the 
cable  and  maintaining  communication  by  some 
other  method  of  sending  despatches?  W"e 
should  note  that  the  river  is  more  than  half  a 
mile  wide.  Edison  climbed  into  the  cab  of  a 
locomotive  and  began  to  blow  the  whistle  at 
longer  and  shorter  intervals,  imitating  the  es- 
tablished alphabet  of  the  Morse  Code.  His 
message  was  understood  and  he  received  a  re- 
ply by  the  same  method.  In  this  way  messages 
were  able  to  be  exchanged  without  waiting  for 
the  cable  to  be  repaired. 

This  fertility  of  resource  w^on  him  a  certain 
kind  of  popularity.  But  his  restless  spirit,  his 
desire  to  find  new  solutions  for  the  problems 
which  haunted  him,  his  love  of  experimenting, 
of  seeking  the  new,  the  unknown,  and  also  a 
sort  of  irresponsible  delight  in  practical  jokes, 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC         45 

made  it  hardly  possible  for  him  to  undertake 
any  regular  and  systematic  duties.  Conse- 
quently, we  find  this  seventeen-year-old  in- 
ventor constantly  on  the  move,  seeking  one  po- 
sition after  another  as  a  telegraph  operator. 
Wherever  he  went  he  impressed  people  with 
his  gift  of  observation  and  his  lively  fertility 
in  expedients.  But,  while  they  admired  his 
qualities,  they  mistrusted  his  defects,  and  re- 
gretfully allowed  him  to  depart,  contenting 
themselves  with  more  modest  but  safer  talents. 

We  find  him  successively  at  Adrian,  at  Fort 
Wayne,  at  Indianapolis,  Cincinnati  and  Mem- 
phis. And  he  is  not  yet  at  the  end  either  of 
his  troubles  or  of  his  journeyings.  At  all 
events,  he  is  all  the  time  continuing  his  self- 
instruction,  making  observations  and  multiply- 
ing by  actual  experience  his  practical  knowledge 
of  the  instruments  employed  and  the  utilisation 
of  electric  currents. 

It  was  during  his  stay  in  Indianapolis  that 
he  invented  the  Automatic  Repeater,  which 
rendered  possible  the  transmission  of  a  des- 


46  EDISON 

patch  from  one  line  to  another,  without  the 
intervention  of  an  operator.  Edison's  task  was 
to  transmit  despatches  to  the  newspapers  with 
the  utmost  promptness  and  perfect  accuracy. 
Now  at  this  time  he  had  not  yet  acquired  that 
rapid  handwriting  for  which  he  was  subse- 
quently famous.  Consequently,  in  spite  of  his 
good  intentions,  neither  he  nor  his  colleagues 
were  able,  because  of  the  rapidity  of  the  trans- 
mission, to  write  out  with  sufficient  swiftness 
the  despatches  received.  Hence  the  delays  of 
which  the  newspapers  complained  and  which 
wounded  young  Edison's  self-esteem.  Accord- 
ingly, he  invented  a  method  of  connecting  two 
Morse  instruments.  The  speed  with  which  the 
telegrams  were  received  upon  the  first  was  from 
forty  to  fifty  words  per  minute.  On  the  second 
the  rate  was  reduced  to  between  twenty  and 
thirty.  Thanks  to  this  subterfuge, — which  was 
also  an  exceedingly  interesting  contrivance, — 
Edison  and  his  companions  had  all  the  time 
they  needed  for  taking  down  in  luxurious  ease 
whatever  despatches  were  received.     As  may 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC         47 

well  be  imagined,  they  had  all  sworn  not  to 
reveal  this  efficacious  method  of  working  in 
peace.  The  manager  was  delighted  with  the 
unusual  clearness  and  accuracy  of  the  des- 
patches handled  by  them,  no  matter  how  com- 
plicated the  nature  of  the  matter  might  be. 
But  it  would  seem  as  though  the  devil  took 
a  hand  in  the  game.  It  happened  that  there 
were  some  extremely  important  debates  in  con- 
nection with  a  certain  new  law.  The  tele- 
graphic report  of  these  debates  was  sent  off  in 
hot  haste.  Thanks  to  the  slowing-up  action 
of  the  automatic  repeater,  Edison  and  his  ac- 
complices finished  their  share  of  the  task  after 
a  delay  of  more  than  two  hours. 

This  was  very  far  from  being  satisfactory  to 
the  publishers  and  editors  of  the  newspapers. 
They  hastened  to  enter  a  bitter  and  indignant 
complaint  with  the  general  manager,  who 
promptly  made  an  investigation.  The  secret 
contrivance  was  discovered  and  the  over-clever 
inventor  forthwith  discharged. 

Edison  was  forced  to  leave  Indiana.    He  be- 


48  EDISON 

took  himself  to  Cincinnati,  where  he  found  em- 
ployment as  an  operator  at  a  monthly  salary 
of  sixty  dollars.  It  was  here  that  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  another  operator  of  some 
twenty  years  of  age,  whose  adventurous  and 
picturesque  career  in  America  and  Africa  would 
make  a  veritable  romance, — Mr.  Milton  F. 
Adams.  He  was  one  of  Edison's  earliest  friends. 
Messrs.  Dyer  and  Martin  have  recorded  his 
comments  and  impressions  regarding  Edison, 
which  it  is  worth  while  to  repeat  here  as  being 
a  bit  of  authentic  testimony  of  great  interest. 
"He  was,''  said  Mr.  Adams,  '^a  young  man  of 
about  eighteen  years  and  rather  uncouth  in 
manner.  He  was  quite  thin  and  his  nose  was 
very  prominent,  giving  a  Napoleonic  look  to 
his  face.  .  .  .  He  was  lonesome.  I  sympa- 
thised with  him  and  we  became  close  compan- 
ions. As  an  operator  he  had  no  superiors  and 
very  few  equals.  He  was  all  the  time  invent- 
ing one  thing  and  another  to  relieve  the  monot- 
ony of  the  office  work."  And  Mr.  Adams  goes 
on  to  describe  the  tricks  that  Edison  used  to 


EDISON  AND  THE  PHONOGRAPH 

Above:     Edison  at  his  Phonograph,  after  several  Days  and  Nights 
of   toil.     Below:     Edison    engaged    in    perfecting   his   Phonograph. 


THFNv^i^ 


MHy  I 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC  49 

play  upon  his  companions  with  the  aid  of  elec- 
tricity, and  how  he  once  arranged  a  battery  in 
the  cellar  for  the  purpose  of  electrocuting  the 
rats. 

The  chief  amusements  of  the  two  friends  in 
Cincinnati  were  reading,  scientific  experiments, 
and  an  occasional  visit  to  the  theatre.  Edison 
had  a  passion  for  Othello,  but  this  in  no  wise  di- 
minished the  remarkable  ardour  that  he  showed 
in  the  practice  of  his  own  duties.  Although  he 
was  now  a  day  operator,  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  take  night  work  also,  which  brought  him 
considerable  extra  pay.  Furthermore,  his  sal- 
ary was  increased  to  one  hundred  and  five  dol- 
lars, and  he  was  intrusted  with  the  important 
wire  that  connects  New  York  with  Louisville, 
by  way  of  Cincinnati.  The  operator  in  this 
last-named  city  was  celebrated  for  his  speed 
and  accuracy.  It  was  in  this  school  that  Edi- 
son acquired  an  ability  of  the  first  order.  But 
he  evidently  found  it  impossible  to  remain  in 
any  one  place.  He  was  eager  for  new  scenes; 
and,  besides,  he  was  anxious  to  secure  a  more 


50  EDISON 

and  more  advantageous  situation  and  one  in 
keeping  with  his  qualifications  as  a  telegraph 
operator.  Accordingly,  he  betook  himself  to 
Memphis,  Tennessee,  where  operators  were  re- 
ceiving a  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars  a 
month. 

We  see  no  reason  why  we  should  not  pause  a 
moment  for  the  purpose  of  emphasising  this 
desire  for  a  fair  equivalent  in  dollars  as  a  recom- 
pense for  superior  ability.  It  is  a  desire  which 
Edison  shared  with  the  Carnegies  and  the 
Rockefellers,  with  the  majority  of  eminent  citi- 
zens, the  most  enlightened  and  public-spirited 
minds  in  the  United  States.  The  king  of  elec- 
tricity, like  the  king  of  petroleum,  could  not 
reign  without  the  power  of  the  dollar. 

Fortune,  however,  was  chary  of  her  smiles, 
and  our  conquering  hero  found  little  else  in 
Memphis  than  trouble  and  disappointment. 
The  manager  there  had  for  some  time  past  been 
seeking  to  perfect  a  repeater  of  his  own  inven- 
tion. But  in  spite  of  all  his  efforts  he  could 
not  arrive  at  any  practical  result.    Edison  very 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC  51 

quickly  found  the  required  solution.  But  the 
manager,  jealous  of  such  exceptional  ability, 
discharged  a  collaborator  who  was  so  little  like- 
ly to  add  new  glory  to  his  own  merits. 

A  dramatic,  not  to  say  melodramatic,  ac- 
count has  been  given  of  the  young  man^s  ar- 
rival in  Louisville,  half  dead  from  cold  and 
hunger,  dressed  in  rags,  and  without  a  penny 
in  his  pockets.  There  is,  no  doubt,  some  exag- 
geration in  all  this,  just  as  there  is  in  the  much 
too  gloomy  picture  drawn  of  his  parents'  mod- 
est pecuniary  situation. 

It  is  none  the  less  true  that  this  journey  in 
the  company  of  a  comrade  who  had  himself 
been  unkindly  dealt  with  by  fate,  Mr.  W.  Fo- 
ley, was  a  distressing  experience:  in  short,  it 
was  a  good  specimen  of  what  the  famous  in- 
ventor calls  his  hard  years.  His  health  had 
been  undermined  by  the  countless  sleepless 
nights  devoted  to  toil,  his  purse  was  sadly 
empty  as  a  result  of  many  an  unprofitable  ex- 
perience, and  the  two  young  men  had  been 
forced  to  make  the  journey  on  foot,  in  spite  of 


52  EDISON 

bitterly  inclement  weather  that  accompanied 
them  the  greater  part  of  the  way. 

Although  his  outward  appearance  scarcely 
spoke  in  his  favour,  Edison  promptly  found  a 
position  in  a  telegraph  office  in  Louisville, 
where, .  curiously  enough,  after  all  his  manifold 
wanderings,  he  was  destined  to  remain  for  two 
years.  During  the  early  part  of  this  stay  in 
Louisville  he  could  by  no  means  congratulate 
himself  upon  the  character  and  behaviour  of 
the  people  with  whom  he  was  thrown  in  con- 
tact. None  the  less,  he  compelled  esteem  by 
his  loyalty,  his  industry,  his  fidelity,  and  the 
perfect  dignity  of  his  manners. 

It  is  related  that  one  night,  when  Edison  was 
on  duty,  another  operator  in  the  same  office, 
who  was  usually  very  skilful,  arrived  in  a  state 
of  absolute  intoxication.  In  a  sort  of  alcoholic 
frenzy  he  amused  himself  by  demolishing  the 
stove  and  proceeded  to  turn  the  whole  place 
upside  down,  including  the  entire  telegraphic 
apparatus.  Far  from  becoming  excited,  Edison 
cahnly  proceeded  to  repair  the  wires  as  best  he 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC  53 

could,  and  settled  down,  single-handed,  to  per- 
form the  double  task. 

The  equipment  of  telegraph  offices  in  those 
days  was  at  best  rudimentary,  and  the  instru- 
ments were  in  deplorable  condition.  But  his 
residence  in  Louisville  offered  all  sorts  of  com- 
pensations. By  the  very  nature  of  his  duties, 
Edison  was  now  brought  into  continual  rela- 
tions with  the  members  of  the  press.  He  made 
the  acquaintance  of  journalists  such  as  Mr.  Ty- 
ler, and  of  poets  such  as  George  D.  Prentice. 
He  loved  to  listen  to  their  discussions.  At  the 
same  time,  while  becoming  an  almost  un- 
equalled operator,  capable  of  sending  his  forty- 
five  words  a  minute,  Edison  continued  to  pur- 
sue his  studies  and  passed  his  nights  devouring 
articles  in  the  North  American  Review.  There 
is  a  significant  and  picturesque  anecdote  re- 
lated in  this  connection.  The  young  man  had 
succeeded  in  buying  at  a  bargain  a  certain  num- 
ber of  issues  of  this  magazine.  One  night,  when 
he  left  the  ofiice  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, he  happened  to  carry  a  pile  of  them  upon 


54  EDISON 

his  shoulder.  An  alert  policeman  thought  that 
he  had  discovered  a  thief  and  ordered  him  to 
halt.  Edison,  who  is  deaf,  continued  tran- 
quilly on  his  way.  The  policeman  fired  a  shot 
at  this  suspicious  character,  but  with  such  bad 
aim  that  he  failed  to  hit  him,  and  the  two 
ended  by  making  explanations  and  coming  to 
an  understanding. 

Nevertheless,  even  in  Louisville,  where  he 
ended  by  enjoying  himself,  Edison  was  all  the 
time  dreaming  that  he  would  achieve  fame  and 
happiness  somewhere  else.  Someone  had  talked 
with  him,  as  well  as  with  two  of  his  compan- 
ions, of  the  dazzling  opportunities  offered  to 
telegraph  men  by  the  government  of  Brazil; 
while  Mexico  and  all  the  countries  of  South 
America  were  painted  in  the  aspect  of  a  veri- 
table Eldorado.  Filled  with  the  adventurous 
spirit,  they  betook  themselves  to  New  Orleans, 
in  order  to  take  the  steamer ;  but,  doubtless  for 
his  own  best  good  and  that  of  humanity  at 
large,  Edison  chanced  to  fall  in  with  an  aged 
Spaniard  who  had  long  resided  in  those  south- 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC         55 

ern  countries,  and  who  vigorously  urged  him  to 
give  up  such  a  senseless  enterprise.  Edison 
certainly  had  no  cause  to  regret  having  aban- 
'  doned  the  project.  It  was  only  a  few  years 
later  that  he  learned  of  the  death  of  both  of 
his  companions,  victims  of  yellow  fever  in 
Mexico. 

He  very  wisely  hastened  to  return  to  his 
former  post  in  Louisville,  where  he  was  cor- 
dially received.  Meanwhile  the  telegraph  offi- 
ces had  been  installed  in  fine,  roomy  quarters 
in  a  new  building.  Here  the  young  man  was 
fortunate  enough  to  win  the  friendship  and  con- 
fidence of  his  colleagues.  It  is  a  familiar  fact 
that  Americans  are  engaged,  to  an  even  greater 
extent  than  the  English,  in  a  constant  fight 
against  intemperance.  We  have  already  seen 
that  strict  sobriety  was  not  always  the  rule 
even  among  the  most  experienced  of  telegraph 
operators.  Because  of  his  known  sobriety  and 
irreproachable  conduct,  Edison  received  from 
his  companions  the  title  of  treasurer,  his  duty 
being  to  determine  the  quantity  of  liquor  to  be 


56  EDISON 

allowed  to  each  of  them,  according  to  their  sev- 
eral duties  and  individual  capacity  for  drink- 
ing. The  treasurer's  decision  was  to  be  ac- 
cepted without  argument  and  followed  to  the 
letter.  A  newcomer  in  the  office  accepted  these 
conditions  without  demurring.  Edison,  by  the 
way,  had  the  right  to  refuse  to  give  out  money 
— deposited  in  the  common  fund — for  liba- 
tions that  were  judged  to  be  dangerous.  This 
right  he  exercised  one  day  against  the  new  ar- 
rival in  question.  The  latter  rebelled,  but  could 
find  no  better  argument  to  advance  against  an 
authority  that  was  recognised  by  all  the  others 
than  to  fling  himself  upon  this  spoil-sport  with 
the  intention  of  "knocking  him  out.''  But  the 
others  intervened  with  so  much  energy  that  the 
rebellious  one  had  to  resign  himself  to  a  lengthy 
stay  in  the  hospital,  to  recover  from  his  many 
bruises. 

In  many  respects  this  honourable  office  of 
treasurer  was  lacking  in  attraction.  Since  the 
others  knew  that  he  was  saving  money,  ap- 
peals were  made  all  too  often  to  his  purse; 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC  57 

sometimes  they  even  stole  his  books.  And  there 
was  one  evening  when  he  found  his  bed  occu- 
pied by  two  of  his  companions,  who  had  so 
singularly  abused  his  hospitality  as  to  have  re- 
tired completely  dressed,  without  even  so  much 
as  removing  their  shoes!  This  also  was  a  re- 
sult of  alcohol;  and  accordingly  they  were 
ejected  without  mercy  upon  the  floor. 

In  Louisville,  as  elsewhere,  Edison  found  oc- 
casion to  display  his  peculiar  aptitudes,  his 
marvellous  quality  of  endurance,  and  that  ex- 
traordinary adaptation  of  his  mind  to  the  needs 
Df  the  moment  which  has  given  to  many  of 
his  actions  an  indefinable  air  of  lofty  and  sim- 
ple heroism. 

It  was  he  who  received  Johnson^s  presiden- 
tial message  for  the  press.  He  remained  at  his 
post  for  thirteen  consecutive  hours,  taking 
down  the  text  of  that  sensational  telegram, 
From  half-past  three  in  the  afternoon  until  the 
Following  morning'  at  half-past  four.  With 
?reat  ingenuity  he  divided  it  into  little  para- 
graphs of  three  lines  each,  which  were  distrib- 


58  EDISON 

uted  in  rotation  to  the  compositors.  In  this 
manner  the  readers  of  the  Louisville  papers 
were  enabled  to  read  this  important  communi- 
cation, properly  printed  in  its  entirety,  only  a 
few  minutes  after  the  last  words  of  it  had  been 
transmitted. 

As  an  evidence  of  their  appreciation  of  the 
services  of  this  operator  who  had  proved  him- 
self so  abundantly  equal  to  his  difl&cult  task, 
the  editors  of  the  Louisville  papers  tendered 
him  a  banquet,  a  high  compliment  to  his  youth- 
ful reputation. 

It  seems  probable  that  Edison  would  have 
continued  to  live  quite  happily  in  Louisville  if 
an  accident  had  not  reopened  a  phase  in  his 
life  that  was  undoubtedly  rich  in  results,  that 
of  his  wanderlust,  his  pursuit  of  success  across  1 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  United  States. 
At  this  time  he  stiU  continued  to  devote  his 
spare  time  to  his  experiments.  But  one  night 
he  had  the  misfortune  to  upset  a  carboy  of  sul- 
phuric acid.  It  ran  out  upon  the  floor,  went 
through  to  the  manager's  office  below,  spat- 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC  59 

tered  over  his  desk  and  ruined  his  carpet.  It 
was  a  veritable  disaster,  comparable  only  to 
that  of  setting  fire  to  the  baggage  car  of  the 
Grand  Trunk  Railroad.  The  following  morning 
Edison  was  thanked  for  his  services,  with  the 
parting  comment  that  what  they  needed  was 
an  operator  and  not  an  experimental  chemist. 

After  this  Edison  returned  for  a  short  time 
to  Cincinnati,  and  while  there  found  opportu- 
nity to  study  the  mechanism  and  speed  of  loco- 
motives. The  problem  of  rapid  locomotion  in 
all  its  forms  had  always  haunted  him, — a  sub- 
ject to  which  we  shall  have  occasion  to  revert 
later.  To  this  day  Edison  remains  the  man  of 
miracles  in  the  matter  of  speed. 

Thanks  to  the  kindness  of  the  telegraph  in- 
spector of  the  Cincinnati  &  Indianapolis  Rail- 
road, he  was  enabled  to  pursue  a  number  of  in- 
teresting experiments,  and  to  evolve  the  idea 
for  a  contrivance  which  he  was  destined  to  use 
much  later,  in  his  laboratory  at  Menlo  Park, 
where  we  shall  find  him  in  the  full  expansion 
of  his  genius. 


60  EDISON 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  an  invention  is  not 
merely  a  discovery,  a  distinction  that  Edison 
himself  has  freely  discussed  in  personal  inter- 
views :  it  is  a  result,  its  value  depending  upon 
long  and  laborious  thought  and  a  series  of  more 
or  less  obscure  efforts. 

While  at  Port  Huron,  where  he  once  again 
stayed  for  a  time  with  his  family,  he  furnished 
the  Grand  Trunk  Railroad  with  a  means  of 
using  a  single  cable  for  two  currents.  One  of 
the  tw^o  submarine  cables  which  passed  under 
the  river  had  been  destroyed,  and  the  problem 
was  to  find  a  means  of  doing  the  work  of  both 
cables  with  the  remaining  one.  It  was  the 
same  problem  as  that  of  his  duplex  telegraphy, 
which  he  definitely  and  practically  solved  a 
short  time  later.  Meanwhile,  he  profited  by 
the  occasion,  and  the  service  he  had  rendered, 
to  obtain  free  transport  to  Boston. 

He  had  written  to  his  staunch  friend,  Adams, 
who  was  in  Boston  at  the  time,  and  had  learned 
that  there  were  openings  there  and  a  better 
chance  to  have  his  talents  recognised.     This 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC  61 

prediction  was  fulfilled.  Like  a  new  Franklin, 
Edison  was  destined  to  accomplish  in  Boston 
that  definite  forward  step  which  would  allow 
him  henceforth  to  follow  his  chosen  path  with 
comparative  security.  The  road  traversed  by- 
great  inventors  and  great  creators,  no  matter 
who  they  are,  is  always  full  of  stumbling-blocks. 
How  many  small  successes  they  must  achieve 
before  arriving  at  the  fulfilment  of  their 
dreams ! 

The  journey  from  Port  Huron  to  Boston  was 
a  most  unpleasant  one.  Edison  suffered  from 
both  cold  and  hunger.  The  train  made  slow 
and  difficult  progress  through  a  blizzard  of 
snow,  was  stalled  for  twenty-four  hours,  and 
finally  reached  Montreal  four  days  behindhand. 
It  was  a  rough  experience.  But  it  was  soon 
banished  from  his  mind  by  other  experiences 
of  a  very  different  order  which  awaited  the 
young  inventor  in  Boston.  This  was  in  the 
year  1868. 

Milton  Adams  welcomed  him  like  a  brother. 
He  had  found  him  a  place  as  operator  in  the 


62  EDISON 

office  of  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Com- 
pany. When  Edison  presented  himself,  the 
manager  asked  him : 

^'When  will  you  be  ready  to  go  to  work?" 
^'Now,"  answered  Edison.  A  few  hours  later 
he  had  started  in  and  was  assigned  to  night 
duty.  His  future  colleagues  in  the  telegraph 
office  decided  to  have  some  sport  with  this  ill- 
clad  "Western  guy,"  and  put  their  heads  to- 
gether to  do  it  properly,  in  a  thoroughly  artis- 
tic manner.  They  told  him  to  sit  down  at  a 
particular  table  and  receive  a  special  report  for 
the  Boston  Herald.  Edison  took  his  seat  with- 
out the  least  suspicion. 

In  later  years  Edison  enjoyed  relating  this 
amusing  story,  which  turned  singularly  to  his 
own  advantage.  The  conspirators  had  ar- 
ranged with  one  of  the  most  skilful  operators  in 
New  York  to  send  the  despatch  with  discon- 
certing speed,  in  order  to  "salt"  the  new  man. 
The  New  York  sender  did  his  best.  He  began 
fairly  fast,  but  continued  to  send  faster  and 
faster.     Edison  adapted  himself  without  the 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC         63 

least  trouble  to  this  increasing  speed;  he  em- 
ployed a  form  of  vertical  handwriting,  in  which 
he  excelled  and  which  permitted  him  to  trans- 
cribe with  a  maximum  of  rapidity  that  was 
unknown  in  Boston.  His  dexterity  at  first 
served  only  to  increase  the  efforts  of  the  New 
York  sender,  but  with  no  different  result. 
Hereupon  Edison  became  aware  that  the  ac- 
complices were  watching  over  his  shoulder, 
with  a  growing  amazement  at  the  speed  of  his 
pen  and  the  clearness  of  his  writing.  He  un- 
derstood the  trick,  and  pursued  his  task  uncon- 
cernedly, giving  no  sign.  Then  the  man  in 
New  York  began  to  run  the  words  together, 
and  confuse  the  signals,  but  all  to  no  purpose. 
Edison  was  in  the  habit  of  interpreting  the 
most  defective  messages  as  well  as  any  others. 
He  contented  himself  with  telegraphing :  "Lis- 
ten, my  young  friend,  change  off  and  use  your 
other  foot."  The  other,  much  chagrined,  had 
to  abandon  the  joke. 

In  this  way,  by  being  quicker  with  his  fists, 
in  both  the  literal  and  figurative  sense,  Edison 


64  EDISON 

won  his  fight  for  the  esteem  and  confidence  of 
his  colleagues.  Thereupon  he  returned  to  work 
with  all  the  greater  courage  and  with  that 
amazing  power  of  endurance  which  is  decidedly 
one  of  his  most  characteristic  traits.  At  night 
he  fulfilled  his  routine  duties,  which  no  longer 
contained  unsolved  problems.  In  the  daytime 
he  buried  himself  in  The  Experimental  Re- 
searches in  Electricity,  by  Faraday.  Faraday, 
whose  works  were  then  far  too  little  known  or 
understood,  opened  up  new  horizons.  Edison 
gave  himself  up  to  this  line  of  reading  and  to 
his  own  reflections  with  such  passionate  absorp- 
tion that  he  forgot  to  eat,  drink  or  sleep.  He 
said  to  his  friend  Adams,  who  roomed  with 
him,  "Adams,  I  have  so  much  to  do  and  life 
is  so  short!    I  am  going  to  hustle!" 

Edison^s  long  reflections  on  scientific  prob- 
lems did  not  prevent  him  from  living  wholly  in 
the  midst  of  reality;  and  the  reason  why  he 
became  a  devoted  admirer  of  Faraday  was  pre- 
cisely because  Faraday  did  not  employ  the 
methods  of  mathematicians,  but  that  of  experi- 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC         65 

menters,  which,  according  to  Edison,  is  the  only- 
true  one.  He  continued  to  amaze  all  who  knew 
him  by  his  extreme  ingenuity,  which  was  al- 
ways ready  to  be  called  into  action,  and  in  the 
most  widely  diverse  fields.  Thus,  for  instance, 
when  he  found  that  the  walls  of  the  Boston 
offices  were  infested  with  cockroaches  in  spite 
of  all  that  could  be  done,  he  proceeded  to  ex- 
terminate them  by  means  of  electric  batteries. 
This  feat  earned  him  a  publicity  which  he  was 
more  anxious  to  acquire  by  a  different  order  of 
exploits,  more  worthy  of  fame  and  fortune. 

It  was  precisely  at  this  epoch, — the  first  of 
June,  1869, — that  he  took  out  his  first  patent, 
for  a  voting  machine,  on  which  he  had  been 
working  for  several  months.  The  dbject  of  this 
machine,  which  was  never  put  into  use,  was  to 
obtain  a  practically  instantaneous  vote,  accu- 
rate beyond  the  possibility  of  contest,  in  any 
deliberative  assembly.  The  oscillation  of  a 
needle  to  the  right  or  to  the  left  recorded  the 
"aye''  or  "no"  of  the  member  voting.  An  elec- 
tric current  registered  this  vote  by  discolouring 


66  EDISON 

a  paper  impregnated  with  a  certain  chemical 
composition.  Thanks  to  this  same  current,  the 
number  of  ayes  and  nos  was  displayed  auto- 
matically upon  a  bulletin  board.  This  device 
was  intended  for  use  in  Parliament  and  Con- 
gress. But,  aside  from  the  fact  that  it  pre- 
vented fraud,  it  had  a  number  of  inconve- 
niences. In  fact,  by  permitting  each  member 
to  vote  privately,  it  did  away  with  discussions 
before  the  vote  was  taken.  Messrs.  Dyer  and 
Martin,  who  give  some  valuable  details  re- 
garding this  curious  machine,  record  the  signifi- 
cant remark  made  by  an  important  member  of 
the  committee  to  which  it  was  referred,  at 
Washington :  ''If  there  is  any  invention  on  earth 
that  we  don't  want  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." 
Such  was  the  verdict  of  a  professional  poli- 
tician, which  the  young  inventor  must  have 
pondered  over,  not  without  some  bitterness,  ^ 
while  he  promised  himself  that  he  would  hence- 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC         67 

forth  adapt  himself  more  and  more,  better  and 
better,  to  the  clearly  expressed  needs  of  the 
public. 

We  shall  see  that  Edison  continued  to  prose- 
cute his  experiments  in  chemistry  and  electric- 
ity, and  that,  from  this  time  onward,  he  was 
marvellously  successful  in  making  the  former 
come  to  the  aid  of  the  latter.  He  and  one  of 
his  associates  amused  themselves  by  manufac- 
turing chemical  compounds.  Thus  it  hap- 
pened that,  having  found  the  formula  for  mak- 
ing nitroglycerin,  they  undertook  one  day  to 
make  some.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  were 
so  frightened  to  find  themselves  in  possession 
of  an  explosive  of  such  a  dangerous  nature  that 
they  hastened  to  put  their  product  into  a 
bottle,  wrap  their  bottle  in  a  paper  and  throw 
the  whole  very  cautiously  into  a  sewer. 

There  are  several  amusing  anecdotes  regard- 
ing Edison's  life  in  Boston,  in  company  with 
his  friend  Adams,  a  singular  individual,  richer 
in  ideas  than  in  dollars.  A  well-known  pub- 
licist  who  knew  Edison  at  this  period  pictures 


68  EDISON 

him  as  fertile  in  ideas,  but  of  uncouth  man- 
ners and  lacking  in  all  niceties  of  dress.  The 
same  authority  adds  that  the  young  inventor 
was  "a  chewer  rather  than  a  smoker."  With- 
out stopping  to  make  a  useless  inquiry  into  this 
question,  we  must  not  fail  to  relate  in  our  turn 
an  episode  that  is  not  without  its  humorous 
side. 

A  good  deal  of  interest  was  being  taken  in 
Boston  in  the  life  and  inventions  of  Morse. 
The  principal  of  a  certain  school  applied  to  the 
offices  of  the  Western  Union  for  a  lecturer  well 
versed  in  the  subject  and  capable  of  holding 
the  interest  of  an  audience  of  young  people. 
Edison,  being  recommended,  accepted  with 
pleasure,  all  the  more  because  he  was  delighted 
at  the  chance  of  augmenting  his  salary  from 
outside  sources,  which  would  permit  him  to  in- 
dulge himself  more  extensively  in  experiments 
and  in  his  taste  for  books.  It  is  said,  however, 
that  he  was  so  absorbed  in  his  various  problems 
that  he  forgot  the  hour  of  the  lecture,  and  that 
when  his  friend  Adams  looked  for  him  to  re- 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC  69 

mind  him,  Edison  was  found  on  the  roof,  busily 
engaged  in  putting  up  a  telegraph  wire.  It 
would  be  rash  to  guarantee  the  absolute  authen- 
ticity of  this  statement.  But  however  that 
may  be,  without  changing  his  clothes,  Edison, 
accompanied  by  Adams,  who  helped  him  to 
carry  the  apparatus  necessary  for  illustrating 
the  lecture,  took  his  way  to  the  school.  Im- 
agine his  stupefaction  when  he  found  himself 
in  the  presence  of  a  score  of  young  girls,  all 
dressed  in  their  very  prettiest  frocks!  But 
after  a  few  moments  of  embarrassed  silence  he 
began  to  speak,  and,  thanks  to  his  thorough 
knowledge  and  perfect  clearness,  he  obtained  a 
genuine  triumph. 

The  main  point  in  connection  with  this  an- 
ecdote is  that  it  proves  what  a  well-established 
reputation  this  experienced  young  operator  al- 
ready enjoyed  in  such  a  city  as  Boston.  It  also 
serves  to  show  in  what  direction  Edison's 
thoughts  were  tending.  In  spite  of  his  mani- 
fold projects,  his  diverse  inventions  suggested 
by  reflection  and  by  circumstances,  it  was  not 


70  EDISON 

in  vain  that  he  had  bestowed  minute  and  per- 
sistent attention  upon  the  manipulation  of  the 
telegraph.  He  had  in  his  hands  an  instrument 
the  possibilities  of  which  seemed  to  him  to  be 
marvellous,  but  which  he  judged  to  be  still  in  a 
very  rudimentary  state.  Morse  had  constructed 
the  first  telegraph  line  in  1843,  between  Balti- 
more and  Washington.  In  1869  Edison  felt 
sure  that  he  had  discovered  the  improvements 
necessary  to  perfect  it.  It  was  not  a  question 
of  interfering  with  the  fundamental  principle 
of  telegraphy,  but  simply,  given  this  principle, 
of  deducing  from  it  all  the  practical  results. 
Now,  Edison  had  immediately  realised  the  ex- 
treme value  of  discovering  a  way  to  send  two 
despatches,  or  even  four,  in  place  of  one  over 
the  same  wire  at  one  and  the  same  time. 

This  idea  was  the  origin  of  his  duplex  and 
quadruplex  telegraphy.  Having  gathered  to- 
gether the  sum  of  eight  hundred  dollars,  he 
made  his  first  attempt  at  duplex  telegraphy 
with  an  apparatus  of  his  own  construction,  over 
the  telegraph  line  connecting  Rochester  and 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC  71 

New  York.  The  attempt  was  unsuccessful  be- 
cause his  assistant  had  failed  to  understand  and 
follow  out  his  instructions.  This  set-back  did 
not  in  the  least  discourage  the  inventor,  but  he 
saw  the  necessity  of  removing  to  New  York, 
where  he  would  have  far  greater  opportunities 
of  exploiting  his  discovery.  Would  it  not  be 
worth  millions  to  the  telegraph  companies  of 
the  new  world,  and  quite  as  much  to  those  of 
the  old  world  as  well?  And  was  it  not  quite 
legitimate  that  his  labours  should  bring  him 
the  necessary  means  for  pursuing  his  researches 
in  peace? 

But  Edison  had  not  yet  climbed  his  Calvary, 
the  Calvary  of  all  inventors,  even  those  whom 
chance,  aided  by  their  own  endeavours,  seems 
determined  to  favour.  He  had  exhausted  his  re- 
sources. When  he  took  the  boat  for  New  York 
he  was  literally  without  a  remaining  penny, 
besides  having  to  leave  behind  him  in  Boston 
his  instruments,  his  books  and  his  few  other 
modest  possessions.  His  first  thought  when  he 
landed  in  New  York  was  to  get  breakfast.    An 


72  EDISON 

operator  whom  he  knew  lent  him  a  dollar. 
The  problem  which  he  then  confronted  seemed 
for  the  moment  more  important  than  all  others, 
for  he  was  famished:  what  should  he  eat?  He 
decided  to  take  an  apple  dumpling  and  a  cup 
of  coffee, — a  repast  which  tasted  at  the  time 
absolutely  delicious.  IMr.  Edison  is  a  moderate 
eater,  for  he  has  suffered  from  stomach  trou- 
bles; but  he  is  not  averse  to  the  delicacies  of 
the  table.  In  the  midst  of  his  superbly  ap- 
pointed  home  at  Llewehm  Park  does  he  ever 
look  back,  we  wonder,  to  that  first  feast  of  his 
after  arriving  in  New  York? 

After  finding  a  tolerable  lodging,  his  next 
need  was  some  immediate  occupation  by  which 
to  support  himself  while  waiting  for  an  oppor- 
tunity to  make  his  discovery  known  and  reap 
a  substantial  benefit  from  it.  Once  again  there 
has  been  no  lack  of  attempts  to  exaggerate  the 
straitened  circumstances  of  this  young  inventor 
of  twenty-two,  by  prolonging  them  over  a 
period  of  several  weeks  and  then,  at  a  single 
throw  of  the  dice,  transforming  him  into  a 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC  73 

veritable  Pactolus.  The  simple  truth  is  quite 
sufficiently  interesting  and  dramatic  to  be  ad- 
hered to,  just  as  Edison  himself  relates  it,  with- 
out any  useless  embellishments.  In  New  York 
he  had  applied  without  delay  at  the  offices  of 
the  Western  Union  for  a  position  as  telegraph- 
ist. Meanwhile,  by  a  stroke  of  luck  that  was 
destined  to  bear  most  happy  results,  he  ob- 
tained employment  with  the  Gold  Reporting 
Company. 

The  same  Dr.  Laws  who  afterwards  became 
president  of  the  University  of  Missouri,  and 
was  distinguished  as  an  engineer  and  electrician, 
had  patented  an  instrument  of  his  own  inven- 
tion, the  Gold  Reporting  Telegraph,  a  patent 
which  he  was  then  successfully  exploiting.  Dur- 
ing the  civil  war  the  national  debt  had  greatly 
increased  and  the  price  of  gold  had  risen  to  a 
high  premium;  consequently  the  value  of  all 
other  commodities  varied  according  to  its  fluc- 
tuations. The  telegraphic  device  of  Dr.  Laws 
had  for  its  object  the  transmission  of  the  price 
of  gold  to  the  offices  of  all  brokers  and  money 


74  EDISON 

changers.  The  commercial  life  of  the  big  city 
was  subordinated  to  this  rise  and  fall  and  to 
the  information  sent  out  from  the  office  of  Dr. 
Laws.  The  least  disturbance  of  the  machine 
meant  business  and  financial  stagnation.  Let 
us  follow  the  story  as  told  by  Edison  himself: 
On  the  third  day  after  his  arrival  in  New 
York,  while  he  was  sitting  in  the  office,  this 
extremely  complicated  instrument,  which  was 
responsible  for  the  transmission  of  despatches 
all  over  the  city,  and  which  made  a  deafening 
noise  in  doing  so,  suddenly  stopped  working, 
with  an  ominous  crash.  The  tumult  that  re- 
sulted was  indescribable:  three  hundred  brok- 
ers' clerks  burst  into  the  room,  which  was 
hardly  capable  of  holding  one  hundred,  every 
one  of  them  adding  to  the  hubbub,  and  every 
one  of  course  wasting  his  breath.  Edison  ex- 
amined the  instrument  and  quickly  saw  what 
the  trouble  was:  a  contact  spring  had  broken 
and  had  dropped  down  between  the  two  gear 
wheels,  thus  preventing  them  from  turning. 
There  was  nothing  serious  the  matter.    He  was 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC  75 

on  the  point  of  giving  the  necessary  instruc- 
tions to  the  man  in  charge  of  the  machine,  who 
had  completely  lost  his  head.  But  at  that  mo- 
ment Dr.  Laws  himself  made  his  appearance 
in  a  state  of  the  greatest  imaginable  excitement. 
When  questioned,  the  man  in  charge  only 
stared  in  open-mouthed  silence.  Edison  then 
spoke  briefly,  giving  the  explanation  asked  and 
pointing  out  the  repairs  to  be  immediately 
made.  Two  hours  later  the  precious  instru- 
ment was  once  more  working  to  perfection.  Dr. 
Laws  questioned  this  well-informed  operator 
who  had  saved  him  from  his  difficulties  and 
asked  him  to  call  at  his  private  office  the  fol- 
lowing morning. 

Edison  did  so ;  and  before  the  interview  was 
over  it  had  been  agreed  that  he  should  have 
the  superintendence  of  all  the  machines  in  the 
establishment,  at  a  monthly  salary  of  three  hun- 
dred dollars. 

Three  hundred  dollars!  At  that  time  it 
seemed  a  fortune  to  the  young  man.  He  ac- 
cepted, and  gave  in  exchange  twenty  hours  ^ 


76  EDISON 

day  of  fierce,  unremitting  toil.  The  bargain 
was  profitable  to  them  both,  for  Edison  made 
some  advantageous  improvements,  and  at  the 
same  time  had  abundant  opportunity  for  pur- 
suing his  personal  researches.  Furthermore,  he 
was  now  relieved  from  poverty  and  anxiety. 
He  was  free  to  follow  his  chosen  path  to  fame 
and  progress.  The  rapidity  of  his  advance  was 
almost  unparalleled,  although  it  could  hardly 
be  said  to  have  been  unforeseen,  because  his 
courage,  his  energy,  his  extreme  cleverness  in 
taking  advantage  of  circumstances  and  seizing 
the  opportune  moment  give  to  Edison's  crea- 
tive genius  a  prodigious  advantage  which  easily 
explains  his  most  astonishing  results. 

Henceforth  Edison  was  no  longer  content 
merely  to  solve  the  problems  that  ceaselessly 
presented  themselves  to  his  ever-alert  mind, 
but  he  wanted,  in  solving  them,  to  benefit 
largely  by  the  results.  And  since  he  applied 
himself  to  questions  that  most  directly  con- 
cerned the  big  industrial  and  financial  move- 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC         77 

ments  that  were  taking  place  in  the  United 
States,  and  especially  in  such  a  center  as  New 
York,  he  was  able  within  a  few  months  to  bear 
off  the  proud  trophies  of  reputation  and  money. 
Money,  above  all,  is  the  indispensable  equip- 
ment of  the  inventor,  whose  expenses  are,  one 
may  almost  say,  as  limitless  as  his  conceptions, 
in  which  dreams  must  constantly  play  a  part 
until  such  time  as  they  are  transformed  into 
realities, — realities  that  often  are  promptly  as- 
sumed to  be  indispensable  necessities  in  a  state 
of  society  that  is  eager  to  enjoy  all  the  bene- 
fits of  civilisation.  Besides,  that  period  of 
financial  crisis  was  favourable  for  the  develop- 
ment of  new  ideas  that  answered  to  the  imme- 
diate needs  of  banks  and  commercial  houses. 
And  it  is  well  known  what  formidable  inten- 
sity they  assume  in  the  land  of  dollars,  where 
fortunes  are  built  up  and  lost  again  with  dizzy 
rapidity. 

Thanks  to  the  improvements  made  by  Edi- 
son in  the  Gold  Indicator,  and  in  a  measure  to 
the  position  he  now  occupied,  he  was  brought 


78  EDISON 

into  continual  relations  with  a  young  engineer 
of  the  highest  merit,  Mr.  Franklin  L.  Pope, 
who  later  became  President  of  the  American 
Institute  of  Electrical  Engineers.  The  two  men 
were  quick  to  understand  and  measure  each 
other.  Together  with  a  pubhsher,  Mr.  J.  N. 
Ashley/ they  formed  a  firm  known  as  "Pope, 
Edison  &  Company,  Electrical  Engineers  and 
General  Telegraphic  Agency.''  They  opened 
their  office  in  New  York  in  October,  1869. 
They  offered  their  services  to  all  persons  de- 
sirous of  applying  electricity  to  the  arts  and 
sciences,  and  of  learning  what  instruments 
were  necessary  and  how  to  use  them.  The 
company  undertook  the  construction,  main- 
tenance and  repairs  of  wires,  cables,  batteries, 
etc.,  in  short,  of  all  forms  of  telegraphic  ap- 
paratus, and  would  also  furnish  all  necessary 
drawings,  engravings  and  catalogues. 

Meanwhile,  the  Gold  Reporting  Company 
had  undergone  considerable  development  and 
had  been  merged  with  another  company  and 
become  the  Gold  and  Stock  Telegraph  Com- 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC         79 

pany,  under  the  direction  of  General  Lefferts. 
Edison  was  entrusted  with  the  installation  of 
various  private  lines.  Meanwhile,  he  had  been 
seeking  methods  for  obtaining  more  rapid  trans- 
mission of  despatches,  and  these  improvements 
had  brought  about  an  important  change  in  the 
order  of  things.  He  also  invented  a  new  tele- 
graphic printer,  or  "stock  ticker,"  to  record  the 
current  price  of  gold  and  stock  quotations, — and 
this  invention  also  was  taken  over  by  the  com- 
pany. 

After  this  he  proceeded  to  multiply  his  in- 
ventions of  contrivances  to  be  applied  to  teleg- 
raphy, and  obtained  patents  of  them  which  se- 
cured him  in  his  rights.  One  day  General  Lef- 
ferts  summoned  the  young  inventor  to  his  of- 
fice: 

"See  here,  young  man,"  he  said,  "I  want  the 
entire  lot  of  your  inventions.  What  will  you 
take  for  them?" 

Edison,  who  had  previously  made  a  calcula- 
tion based  upon  the  time  he  had  spent,  and 
also  upon  his  desire  to  be  at  liberty  to  occupy 


80  EDISON 

himself  exclusively  with  his  personal  researches, 
was  vaguely  dreaming  of  an  outside  sum  of  five 
thousand  dollars,  and  a  minimum  of  three 
thousand.  But,  brave  as  he  usually  was,  he 
did  not  dare  to  put  such  a  sum  into  words,  so 
he  contented  himself  with  replying: 

"Make  me  an  offer,  General,  and  I  will  con- 
sider it." 

'What  would  you  say  to  forty  thousand  dol- 
lars?'' 

At  this  point  Edison,  who  has  himself  nar- 
rated the  incident  with  much  humorous  appre- 
ciation, admits  that  he  came  very  near  fainting. 
His  heart  started  in  to  beat  with  such  violence 
that  he  was  afraid  that  the  General  would 
surely  hear  it.  He  contented  himself  with  re- 
plying that  he  thought  the  offer  was  a  fair  one 
and  that  he  would  accept  it.  With  a  satisfied 
"All  right,''  General  Lefferts  assured  him  that 
the  contract  should  be  prepared  and  signed 
within  three  days  and  that  he  should  receive 
the  money  at  the  same  time.  In  spite  of  all 
his  self-possession,  Edison  could  not  help  feel- 


EDISON  THE  CHEMIST 

'he  great   Inventor   has   always    had   a   marked   Predilection   for 

Chemistry. 


i  THE  NEW  YORkI 
PUBLIC     LIBRARY  I 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC         81 

ing  that  he  was  taking  part  in  a  dream, — a  very- 
beautiful  one,  but  none  the  less  only  a  dream. 
However,  the  contract  was  duly  presented  to 
him  and  he  signed,  without  even  looking  at  it. 
How  many  authors  have  celebrated,  with  all 
the  magic  of  their  loftiest  style,  the  memory  of 
their  first  love!  Should  there  not  also  be  a 
place,  in  the  positivism  of  our  present  century, 
for  glorifying  the  memory  of  the  first  cheque 
received?  At  all  events,  young  Edison  was  in 
a  state  bordering  upon  intoxication  as  he  made 
his  way  to  the  Bank  of  New  York. 

At  the  paying  teller's  window,  where  he  pre- 
sented his  cheque, — the  first,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  that  he  had  ever  received, — a  brief  remark 
was  addressed  to  him  which  his  deafness  pre- 
vented him  from  understanding.  In  some  anx- 
iety he  returned  to  find  General  Lefierts,  who, 
after  enjoying  a  good  laugh,  instructed  the 
young  scientist  in  the  art  of  endorsing  cheques. 
Accompanied  this  time  with  a  clerk  instructed 
to  identify  him,  he  once  more  sought  the  pay- 


82  EDISON 

ing  teller's  window.  After  a  little  good-natured 
joking  the  entire  sum  was  handed  over  to  him 
in  a  mass  of  bills  which  he  had  great  trouble 
in  stowing  away,  with  infinite  precautions,  in 
his  various  pockets,  those  of  his  overcoat  in- 
cluded. 

Without  being  a  miser,  Edison  found  himself 
unable  to  sleep,  because  of  the  thought  that  he 
might  be  robbed.  For  did  not  this  money  mean 
freedom  from  drudgery,  a  soaring  flight  open- 
ing before  his  genius,  which  had  decreed  the 
advent  of  a  new  era,  thanks  to  the  fairy  power 
of  electricity? 

Once  again  the  General  came  to  his  aid,  find- 
ing much  amusement  in  the  trials  of  a  man  of 
science  who  was  so  unfamiliar  with  banking 
operations,  and  he  gave  Edison  the  friendly 
and  wise  advice  to  deposit  his  money  and  open 
an  account. 

We  shall  soon  see  that  Edison  was  no  more 
capable  of  sleeping  upon  his  laurels  than  upon 
his  money.    He  had  got  what  in  sporting  par- 


APPRENTICED  TO  MAGIC         83 

lance  is  called  his  "second  wind."  Henceforth, 
thanks  to  an  intense,  inexhaustible,  miraculous 
activity,  this  great  conqueror  of  modern  times 
was  destined  to  speed  onward  from  victory  to 
yictory. 


CHAPTER   III" 

EDISON  THE  NAPOLEON  OF  MODERN  TIMES — THE 
FAIRYLAND  OF  MENLO  PARK — EDISON  AT 
WORK  AND  EDISON  AT  PLAY 

EDISON  was  incapable  by  nature  of  stifling 
the  interior  flame  and  contenting  himself 
with  a  gilded  mediocrity.  His  good  fortune  did 
not  intoxicate  him,  but  it  augmented  his  audac- 
ity and  increased  his  energy. 

The  hour  had  struck  when  he  was  to  act  for 
himself,  following  his  natural  bent.  At  last  he 
could  work  as  he  pleased,  elsewhere  than  in  a 
blacksmith's  shop,  a  cellar,  the  corner  of  a  bed- 
chamber !  Eager  to  exploit  his  new  inventions, 
he  hi  .*ed  a  shop,  bought  machinery,  installed  a 
lab;.ratory  containing  all  the  apparatus  neces- 
Sd.ry  for  his  experiments  in  physics,  chemistry 
and  electricity.  This  shop  soon  became  too 
smaU.  He  found  another  in  Newark,  New  Jer- 
sey, a  large  four-storey  building  situated  in 

84 


NAPOLEON  OF  MODERN  TIMES    85 

Ward  Street,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  business  cen- 
tre. The  rent  of  such  a  building  was,  as  may- 
be imagined,  considerable.  But  men  like  Edi- 
son do  not  care  to  play  for  small  stakes;  they 
are  so  constructed  that  they  take  no  interest 
unless  the  game  runs  high.  Since  he  had  not 
tried  to  economise,  he  was  not  surprised  to  see 
his  money  disappear  little  by  little.  He  was 
sowing  in  order  to  reap,  and  the  harvest  proved 
most  bountiful.  General  Lefferts  gave  him  big 
orders  for  stock  tickers,  and  before  very  long 
he  was  employing  over  fifty  workmen. 

It  should  be  observed  at  once  that  Edison, 
like  all  great  conquerors,  is  an  admirable  man- 
ager of  men.  He  is  able  to  communicate  his 
enthusiastic  ardour  to  all  who  surround  him,  or 
who  are  in  touch  with  him,  whether  from  near 
or  far.  His  power  of  persuasion  is  fully  equal 
to  his  power  of  work.  He  is  astonishing  as  a 
great  inventor;  but  as  a  great  manufacturer 
and  director  he  commands  no  less  admiration. 
If  he  has  promised  to  deliver  certain  apparatus 
within  a  brief  space  of  time,  he  will  easily  re- 


/ 


86  EDISON 

main  twenty-four  hours  consecutively  at  the 
breech,  in  the  midst  of  his  subordinates.  Two 
or  three  half-hours  of  sleep  suffice  to  leave  him 
once  more  fresh  and  alert.  His  mental  vigour 
is  supplemented  by  a  physical  vigour  of  a  rare, 
not  to  say  unique,  character. 

From  the  year  1869  down  to  the  present  date 
Edison  has  taken  out  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
fourteen  hundred  patents  in  the  United  States 
alone !  Yet,  with  characteristic  caution,  he  has 
refrained  from  patenting  all  of  his  inventions. 

Unquestionably  he  has  a  gift  for  surround- 
ing himself  with  chosen  men,  of  picking  out 
those  of  special  promise,  and  it  may  be  safely 
asserted  that  a  majority  of  the  eminent  elec- 
tricians in  America  have  served  their  appren- 
ticeship under  Edison  before  going  forth  in 
their  turn  to  teach  the  theory  and  practice  of 
their  science. 

The  co-operation  which  he  thus  secured, 
thanks  to  his  extreme  clairvoyance,  has  en- 
abled him  to  build  up  a  vast  organization. 
Without  detracting  from  the  merit  of  all  the 


NAPOLEON  OF  MODERN  TIMES   87 

others  who  have  had  a  share  in  it,  we  must 
nevertheless  recognise  that  it  remains  the  fruit 
of  his  own  unequalled  initiative.  It  is  like  the 
limbs  of  the  body  which  act  in  obedience  to  the 
commands  of  the  brain. 

It  is  very  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  from 
1870  onward,  to  follow  Edison  step  by  step, 
from  discovery  to  discovery,  from  business  ven- 
ture to  business  venture,  because  of  the  vast- 
ness  and  complexity  of  his  activity  and  the 
diversity  of  his  occupations  and  preoccupations. 
It  is  his  habit  to  carry  forward  simultaneously 
a  number  of  different  tasks  in  his  varied  capac- 
ity of  physicist,  chemist  and  business  man.  He 
invents  an  instrument,  then  abandons  it  in 
order  to  give  his  attention  to  some  other  pro- 
ject which  haunts  his  thoughts,  then  presently 
reverts  to  the  instrument  in  question,  trans- 
forming and  perfecting  it.  Then  he  seems  once 
more  to  forget  it,  but  only  to  come  back  to  it, 
ten  or  twenty  times,  without  ever  becoming 
tired  of  seeking  and  finding. 

His  success  as  a  manufacturer  was  rapid  and 


88  EDISON 

continuous.  Circumstances  favoured  him  quite 
as  much  as  his  audacity  and  perseverance. 
Fluctuations  on  the  Stock  Exchange  and  the 
fever  of  speculation  in  New  York  brought  a 
steadily  increasing  profit  from  the  manufacture 
of  his  Stock-Printers. 

Following  the  example  of  the  Gold  and  Stock 
Telegraph  Company,  other  equally  powerful  or- 
ganisations, such  as  the  Automatic  Telegraph 
Company  and  the  Western  Union,  applied  to 
him  for  new  and  improved  telegraphic  appa- 
ratus. These  profitable  contracts,  the  due  and 
timely  fulfilment  of  which  required  much  care 
and  forethought,  did  not  prevent  Edison  from 
devoting  himself  especially  to  the  problem  of 
double  and  quadruple  transmission,  as  well  as 
to  the  automatic  telegraph.  Before  long  he  had 
achieved  practical  results  which  the  profes- 
sional operators  were  quick  to  appreciate,  and 
which  the  public  press  of  New  York  seized 
upon  as  an  occasion  for  singing  the  praises  of 
this  young  and  talented  inventor.  The  former 
newsboy  and  fruit  vendor  of  Port  Huron  had 


NAPOLEON  OF  MODERN  TIMES    89 

not  needed  to  await  even  his  twenty-fifth  year 
before  he  found  himself  rich  and  widely 
known. 

It  was  these  same  famous  researches  of  his 
in  the  field  of  electricity  as  applied  to  teleg- 
raphy^ — a  field  which,  up  to  that  time,  had 
been  little  explored, — which  in  1873  enabled 
Edison  to  make  a  contract  with  the  two  power- 
ful New  York  companies,  by  the  terms  of 
which  he  agreed,  in  consideration  of  a  consider- 
able sum,  to  give  them  the  first  option  on  all 
of  his  new  telegraphic  appliances.  This  con- 
tract was  a  veritable  source  of  life  and  pros- 
perity for  his  enterprises.  His  shop  became  a 
manufactory  which,  from  1873  onward,  em- 
ployed three  hundred  workmen.  His  charac- 
ter at  that  time  as  director  in  chief  was  ex- 
tremely original.  He  broke  with  all  customs 
and  traditions,  and  manifested  an  independ- 
ence which  gave  a  flavour  of  individuality  to 
all  his  words  and  actions.  For  instance,  he  dis- 
covered one  day  that  his  head  bookkeeper  had 
credited  the  concern  with  $7,000,  when,  as  a 


90  EDISON 

matter  of  fact,  they  had  incurred  a  loss  of 
$15,000.  On  the  strength  of  this  experience 
the  great  inventor  made  up  his  mind  that 
bookkeeping  was  a  useless  luxury  and  accord- 
ingly discontinued  it. 

Like  all  geniuses,  Edison  recognises  the  value 
of  impulse,  and  he  has  persistently  mistrusted, 
for  others  as  well  as  for  himself,  the  influence 
of  rules  and  conventions  which  so  easily  lead 
to  inertia  and  routine.  This  is  why  his  entire 
staff  is  modelled  after  his  own  pattern.  In 
those  workrooms  where  the  chief  object  is  to 
capture  and  subdue  the  mysterious  force  of 
electricity  it  seems  as  though  every  engineer 
and  every  mechanic  were  united  by  unseen 
currents  with  the  master  mind.  Through  con- 
tact with  him  the  humblest  workman  conceives 
a  passionate  devotion  to  the  common  task.  He 
stimulates  them  by  appealing  to  the  heart 
quite  as  much  as  to  the  purse.  He  amazes 
them  with  his  technical  knowledge,  and  he  ob- 
tains from  them  a  heroic  degree  of  effort  which 
results  in  a  most  efficacious  harmony. 


NAPOLEON  OF  MODERN  TIMES   91 

In  order  to  understand  the  power  of  this 
wizard  it  is  worth  while,  even  at  the  risk  of 
repetition,  to  dwell  emphatically  upon  his  abil- 
ity to  win  the  admiration  and  devotion  of  his 
assistants.  In  this  connection  a  number  of  sig- 
nificant instances  might  be  cited.  There  is 
one  to  which  we  must  not  fail  to  draw  atten- 
tion, because  it  is  sufficient  in  itself  to  prove 
the  authority  which  this  extraordinary  direc- 
tor of  men  already  possessed,  notwithstanding 
his  youth,  as  well  as  the  strange,  almost  alarm- 
ing vigour  of  his  physical  and  moral  nature. 
He  had  received  an  order  for  Stock-Printers 
amounting  to  the  sum  of  $30,000.  The  instru- 
ments, when  finished,  for  some  unknown  rea- 
son failed  to  work.  Yet  they  had  to  be  de- 
livered within  a  given  time,  or  the  contract 
would  be  void. 

Edison  had  the  defective  instruments 
brought  into  his  laboratory,  summoned  his  col- 
laborators and  mechanics,  locked  the  door,  and 
said:  "Now,  boys,  let's  get  busy;  we  don't  go 
out  of  here  until  this  work  is  done!" 


92  EDISON 

There  was  no  complaint,  not  even  a  mur- 
mur. They  fell  to  work,  and  continued  at  it 
for  sixty  consecutive  hours,  hardly  stopping 
long  enough  to  take  food.  As  for  Edison  him- 
self, he  did  not  waste  a  single  moment  in  rest 
or  sleep.  But  at  the  end  of  the  sixty  hours  the 
instruments  were  in  working  order. 

Where  in  the  world  could  such  workmen  be 
found,  excepting  under  the  command  of  such  a 
chief?  It  is  said,  by  the  way,  that  Edison  re- 
cuperated his  strength  by  a  sleep  of  thirty-six 
hours. 

The  story  of  his  first  marriage,  which  has 
been  very  pleasantly  related  by  an  English 
writer,  Frank  Mundell,  is  equally  entertaining. 
While  we  cannot  rigorously  and  scientifically 
guarantee  its  absolute  accuracy,  it  does  not 
seem  to  be  at  variance  with  the  greater  part  of 
the  deeds  and  actions  of  the  illustrious  king  of 
electricity.  It  took  place  in  1873,  two  years 
after  the  death  of  Edison^s  mother,  who  had 
watched  with  great  solicitude  the  ripening  of 


NAPOLEON  OF  MODERN  TIMES   93 

his  intellectual  powers,  and  had  lived  to  witness 
only  the  earliest  manifestations  of  his  genius. 

One  day  he  paused  behind  one  of  his  young 
women  assistants,  who  was  quite  absorbed  in 
her  task,  before  an  electric  writing  machine. 
He  stood  there  a  long  time,  so  long,  in  fact, 
that  the  young  girl  became  nervous  and  inter- 
rupted her  work.  Was  she  doing  it  wrong,  she 
wondered,  and  was  it  the  machine  which  had 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  great  inventor, — 
or  was  it  the  operator?  He  asked  her  whether 
he  had  startled  her.  Then  he  perceived  that 
what  she  felt  was  not  fear,  but  a  more  tender 
sentiment. 

"Well,"  he  continued,  "will  you  be  my  wife?" 
And  that  was  how  Mr.  Edison  came  to  marry 
Miss  Mary  E.  Stillwell. 

Far  from  assuming  a  share  of  responsibility 
for  this  pleasant  and  quite  electric  idyll,  our 
own  belief  is  that  the  inventor  required  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  premeditation  in  the  case  of  this 
discovery,  just  as  in  all  his  others,  and  that  he 
had  assured  himself  of  the  charming  qualities 


94  EDISON 

of  Miss  Stillwell  before  deciding  to  make  her 
the  partner  of  his  hard  and  laborious  hfe.  Yet 
we  could  not  forgive  ourselves  if  we  failed  to 
relate  the  sequel  to  this  picturesque  recital, 
notwithstanding  that  Mr.  Mundell  himself  ad- 
mits that  his  version  rests  upon  hearsay  evi- 
dence. 

At  all  events,  the  story  goes  that  on  the 
evening  of  his  wedding,  at  a  very  late  hour,  a 
friend  of  Edison's  passed  by  his  laboratory. 
To  his  great  surprise,  he  perceived  gleams  of 
light  filtering  through  the  window  blinds.  He 
entered  the  isolated  building,  and  found  the 
scientist  absorbed  as  usual  over  an  experiment. 

"Look  here,  Tom,"  he  said  familiarly,  "what 
are  you  thinking  of?  It  is  past  midnight. 
Aren't  you  going  home?" 

"What,  is  it  as  late  as  that  already?  Past 
midnight!  how  extraordinary!  And,  now  that 
I  think  of  it,  I  was  married  today.  Bless  me, 
yes,  I  really  ought  to  go  home!" 

One  thing  that  is  certain  is  that  he  found  in 
his  wife  a  companion  who  was  an  enthusiastic 


NAPOLEON  OF  MODERN  TIMES   95 

admirer  of  his  ideas  and  achievements  and 
wholly  devoted  to  his  gigantic  enterprises.  It 
could  not,  indeed,  have  been  otherwise,  for 
Mr.  Edison  could  never  have  endured  to  live 
outside  of  his  own  sphere  and  apart  from  the 
occupations  to  which  he  had  given  himself  up 
whoUy  from  the  beginning.  In  seeing  her  hus- 
band at  work,  his  wife  could  not  do  otherwise 
than  esteem  and  respect  him  more  and  more, 
while  leaving  him  the  liberty  required  for  that 
sort  of  fermentation  of  ideas  which  must  neces- 
sarily precede  their  final  ripening  into  deeds. 
She  died  in  1884,  profoundly  regretted  by  all. 
After  his  marriage,  Edison  endeavoured  to 
conform  a  little  closer  to  the  requirements  of 
society  by  returning  home  at  fixed  hours  for 
the  purpose  of  eating,  drinking  and  sleeping 
after  the  fashion  of  the  rest  of  humanity.  He 
did  his  best,  but  could  never  altogether  suc- 
ceed in  resigning  himself  to  abandoning  his  ex- 
periments when  they  deeply  engrossed  his  at- 
tention. At  the  moment  when  he  grasped  the 
key  to  a  problem,  Edison  ceased  to  belong  to 


96  EDISON 

that  social  order  which  he  has  so  magnificently 
placed  in  his  debt. 

Three  children  were  born  of  this  marriage, 
Thomas  Alva,  William  Leslie,  and  Marion 
Estelle.  He  was  an  excellent  and  affectionate 
father,  and  had  the  habit  of  calling  the  two 
oldest  children  Dot  and  Dash,  in  memory  of 
that  telegraphic  language  whose  secrets  he  had 
so  rapidly  made  his  own. 

During  the  years  in  Newark,  from  1873  to 
1876,  Edison  came  into  full  possession  of  his 
formidable  omnipotence,  due  to  his  energy,  his 
knowledge  and  his  creative  genius.  It  seems  as 
though  throughout  those  three  years  during 
which  he  was  directing  his  establishment 
and  consecrating  long  days  and  long  nights  to 
perfecting  his  new  apparatus,  he  became  able, 
after  many  and  oft-repeated  experiments,  to 
contemplate  with  a  profounder  and  keener 
gaze  the  great  problem  of  the  utilisation  of 
electric  force.  He  passed  from  one  question  to 
another,   with   unerring  glance   and  method, 


NAPOLEON  OF  MODERN  TIMES   97 

speeding  ever  faster  along  the  road  that  leads 
to  wealth  and  fame. 

Surrounded  as  he  was  by  an  admiring  pub- 
lic which  too  often  sought  to  satisfy  its  curios- 
ity at  the  expense  of  his  time  and  liberty, — 
both  of  which  he  has  always  sought  to  protect 
against  the  mounting  tide  of  idle  intruders, — 
Edison  dreamed  of  seeking  a  more  sheltered 
asylum  for  his  personal  work.  Although  pos- 
sessed of  an  activity  surpassing  that,  not  of 
one,  but  of  several  ordinary  men,  he  had  real- 
ised the  necessity  of  securing  to  himself  a  cer- 
tain measure  of  isolation. 

Far-sighted  business  man  that  he  was,  he 
had  clearly  foreseen  that  the  sale  of  patent 
rights  alone  would  not  bring  in  ^  sufficient  re- 
turn to  meet  the  needs  of  an  inventor.  Hence 
the  rapid  extension  which  he  succeeded  in  giv- 
ing to  his  manufactures  within  a  surprisingly 
short  time.  A  German  writer,  Herr  Pahl,  who 
has  devoted  an  extremely  interesting  study  to 
Edison,  has  remarked  with  good  reason  that 
'1]\e  inventor's  comprehension  of  modern  neces- 


98  EDISON 

sities  was  one  of  his  most  precious  possessions. 
In  point  of  fact,  it  is  thanks  to  his  manufac- 
tures and  business  interests  that  it  has  been 
possible  for  him  continually  to  supply  his  many 
needs  as  an  inventor. 

Nevertheless,  since  he  had  been  able  to 
gather  around  him  a  sufficient  number  of  de- 
voted collaborators  of  assured  ability,  there  was 
no  longer  any  real  objection  to  shifting  part  of 
his  burden. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  1876  that  he  resolved 
to  transfer  his  family  residence  and  his  labo- 
ratory to  Menlo  Park,  New  Jersey,  twenty 
miles  from  New  York  on  the  line  to  Philadel- 
phia. Edison  himself  has  given  a  clear  and 
entertaining  explanation  of  this  change.  His 
words  have  been  accurately  reported  by  his 
friends  and  brilliant  interpreters,  Mr.  F.  L. 
Dyer,  the  lawyer,  who  has  full  charge  of  all  his 
litigations,  and  Mr.  T.  C.  Martin,  former  presi- 
dent of  the  American  Institute  of  Electrical 
Engineers,  who  furnish  us,  in  the  course  of 


NAPOLEON  OF  MODERN  TIMES    99 

their  study,  with  all  sorts  of  enlightenments  of 
inestimable  value. 

Edison  relates  that  he  had  occasion  to  hire 
by  the  month  a  small  office  situated  in  a  huge 
building  used  for  the  manufacture  of  padlocks. 
He  gave  notice,  at  the  end  of  a  certain  month, 
and,  having  paid  his  rent,  went  off,  leaving  the 
keys  behind  him.  Shortly  afterwards  he  re- 
ceived a  legal  notice  requiring  him  to  pay  an 
additional  nine  months'  rent.  It  may  have 
been  in  accordance  with  the  law,  but  it  seemed 
to  him  so  unjust  that  he  made  up  his  mind  to 
leave  a  locality  in  which  such  an  outrage  was 
tolerated. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  doubt  but 
what  the  great  inventor  found  all  sorts  of  ad- 
vantages in  transferring  himself  to  Menlo 
Park.  Before  choosing  this  particular  site  he 
had  made  excursions  for  a  number  of  successive 
Sundays.  He  wanted  to  be  quite  sure  that  he 
had  a  certain  number  of  conveniences  within 
easy  reach. 

It  proved  to  be  a  happy  choice.    During  the 


O 


100  EDISON 

period  from  1876  to  1886  Menlo  Park  was 
destined  to  be  a  unique  centre,  mysterious  and 
colossal,  animated  by  the  astounding  genius  of 
this  American  whose  fame  had  radiated 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  old 
world  with  a  brilliance  unsurpassed  by  his  own 
electric  light  and  dazzling  all  eyes  as  it  shone 
through  the  surrounding  shadows.  For  Edison 
is  a  sort  of  modern  Faust  who  has  passed  into 
legend  not  merely  during  his  lifetime,  but  in 
the  fullness  of  youth  and  in  his  singular,  un- 
paralleled maturity;  and  was  destined  before 
long  to  be  known  as  the  Great  Wizard  of 
Menlo  Park. 

Today  that  famous  laboratory  and  those 
machine-shops  which  the  master  had  animated 
with  his  intense  ardour  and  prodigious  will 
power  have  fallen  into  silence.  They  are  build- 
ings without  a  name  and  seem  to  have  re- 
tained no  memory  of  their  former  glory.  Edi- 
son, to  be  sure,  has  since  chosen  another  battle- 
field for  his  peaceful  victories. 

Nevertheless  it  was  at  Menlo  Park  that  his 


NAPOLEON  OF  MODERN  TIMES  101 

fertile  genius  brought  into  existence  a  horde  of 
amazing  productions,  ranging  from  the  carbon! 
transmitter  to  the  phonograph,  from  the  in- 
candescent lamp  to  the  apparatus  for  electrical 
distribution,  to  the  megaphone,  the  taximeter, 
and  the  electric  street-car.  It  was  also  in 
Menlo  Park  that,  while  perfecting  his  instru- 
ments for  multiplex  transmission,  he  laid  the 
foundation  for  wireless  telegraphy,  thus  unit- 
ing the  past  with  the  future. 

Just  as  he  unhesitatingly  transformed  his 
first  cheque  for  forty  thousand  dollars  into  an 
establishment  where  he  would  be  free  to  work 
as  he  chose,  so  at  a  later  period  he  metamor- 
phosed the  four  hundred  thousand  dollars  of 
net  profits  resulting  from  the  three  years  spent 
in  Newark. 

Before  long  the  new  buildings,  of  modern 
and  comfortable  design,  had  begun  to  rise.  Edi- 
son was  at  last  going  to  have  a  laboratory 
worthy  of  him,  equipped  with  all  the  necessary 
appliances  and  all  the  innumerable  substances 
which  a  wizard  of  science  might  want.    It  is 


102  EDISON 

said  that  he  spent  one  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars  just  for  the  physical  and  chemical  ap- 
paratus. 

There  were  seven  buildings.  Edison  in- 
stalled himself  in  one  of  them,  while  three  of 
the  others  were  occupied  by  his  assistants  and 
their  families.  The  rest  were  reserved  for  the 
laboratory  and  machine  shops.  The  office  was 
originally  installed  in  a  two-story  wooden 
structure,  but  was  afterwards  transferred  to 
the  library  building,  which  was  built  of  brick. 

The  laboratory,  from  which  issued  all  the 
marvels  begotten  by  Edison's  daring,  yet  at 
the  same  time  patient,  genius,  was  situated  in 
a  sort  of  hall  about  one  hundred  feet  long  by 
thirty-five  feet  v/ide.  Here  one  might  see 
tables  covered  over  with  phials  and  test-tubes 
and  instruments  of  the  greatest  variety,  and, 
further  on,  a  collection  of  the  rarest  metals, — 
also  an  organ,  for  the  inventor  of  the  phono- 
graph is  a  great  lover  of  music. 

There  were,  in  addition,  separate  rooms  de- 
voted to  the  galvanometer,  the  photometer,  thq 


NAPOLEON  OF  MODERN  TIMES  103 

electrometer,  a  carpenter  shop  and  a  vast  hall 
for  machines  of  various  dimensions.  The  light- 
ing system,  which  was  originally  gas,  was  des- 
tined to  be  replaced,  and  rightly  so,  by  the 
incandescent  lamp. 

It  is  no  more  than  just  to  make  mention  of 
the  names  of  Edison's  principal  collaborators, 
who  so  gladly  gave  him  the  aid  of  their  zealous 
collaboration  and  often  their  rare  and  special 
knowledge;  it  is  only  fair  that,  after  having 
had  the  toil,  they  should  now  receive  the 
credit. 

In  the  foremost  rank  should  be  mentioned 
Mr.  Charles  Batchelor,  his  chief  assistant,  who 
participated  in  many  of  his  inventions  and 
who  entered  his  service  as  early  as  1870.  Mr, 
Batchelor  is  an  Englishman,  a  mechanic  of  rare 
attainments,  loyal  hearted  and  with  an  intelli^ 
gence  as  alert  as  his  fingers  are  dexterous. 

Mr.  Francis  Upton,  another  of  his  principal 
collaborators,  was  a  mathematician  and  scien- 
tist of  considerable  distinction,  who  had  com- 
pleted his  studies  under  one  of  the  greatest  of 


104  EDISON 

all  masters,  Helmholtz.  Edison,  who  before  all 
else  is  a  practical  worker,  whose  starting  point 
is  experience  and  experimenting,  while  sincere- 
ly admiring  Mr.  Upton,  freely  laughed  at  some 
of  his  fine  theories  and  did  not  hesitate  to  re- 
place his  calculations  with  actual  facts  that 
were  more  directly  helpful. 

Conspicuous  among  the  other  pioneers  of  the 
new  world  created  by  electricity  were  Messrs. 
William  J.  Hammer,  Martin  Force,  Francis 
Jehl,  who  has  given  a  most  interesting  account 
of  his  life  and  experiences  at  Menlo  Park; 
John  Kruesi,  a  mechanic  of  rare  skill;  C.  T. 
and  S.  D.  Mott,  Dr.  E.  L.  Nichols,  Mr.  Isaacs, 
the  photographer;  Ludwig  K.  Boehm,  who 
throughout  long  and  studious  evenings  used  to 
sing  and  play  his  guitar  for  the  entertainment 
of  his  comrades;  S.  L.  Griffin,  Edison's  old  tele- 
graph friend,  who  now  acted  as  his  secretary, 
and  Professor  Maclnry,  who  with  two  assist- 
ants undertook  to  make  the  necessary  public 
demonstrations  of  the  new  inventions  and  their 
manipulation,  etc. 


NAPOLEON  OF  MODERN  TIMES  105 

At  Menlo  Park  there  was  a  constant  coming 
and  going  of  visitors  from  every  country  of 
the  old  world  as  well  as  of  the  new.  Artists 
there  met  and  mingled  with  scientists,  profes- 
sors, engineers  and  mechanics,  all  eager  to  draw 
inspiration  from  this  same  mighty  fountain- 
head. 

Edison  continued  to  set  an  example  of  dog- 
ged industry.  When  he  was  following  up  a 
course  of  experiments  he  would  not  stir  from 
his  laboratory,  but  slept  upon  a  table.  A  few 
books  served  him  for  a  pillow.  This  impro- 
vised bed  satisfied  him  admirably,  for  he  was 
able  to  sleep  at  no  matter  what  hour,  quickly 
and  soundly,  without  dreams. 

In  the  midst  of  his  comrades  he  habitually 
was  and  still  is  delightfully  good-humoured. 
At  Menlo  Park,  after  luncheon  and  a  cigar,  it 
was  the  habit  to  indulge  in  a  short  session  of 
music  and  entertaining  stories.  Edison  en- 
joyed a  hearty  laugh,  and  he  was  delighted 
when  he  drew  an  answering  laugh  from  men 


106  EDISON         X^ 

who  were  ordinarily  so  serious  a.nd  so  pro- 
foundly absorbed  in  their  common  task. 

Among  his  visitors,  in  addition  to  intimate 
friends  like  Mr.  Johnson  and  the  learned  Pro- 
fessor Barker,  there  were  strangers  who  were 
destined  later  to  carry  Edison's  processes  to 
nearly  every  country  on  the  globe:  such  men, 
for  instance,  as  M.  Louis  Rau,  a  Parisian,  the 
founder  of  the  Edison  Company  in  France, 
Professor  Colombo  and  Signor  Buzzi,  who  or- 
ganised the  Italian  company,  and  Herr  Rathe- 
nau  and  Herr  Fodor,  who  came  respectively 
from  Germany  and  Hungary.  We  might  also 
have  met  there  some  old-time  acquaintances, 
among  them  Edison's  father,  a  rugged  and 
highly  respected  patriarch  who  came  to  enjoy 
the  spectacle  of  his  son's  glory;  and  MacKen- 
zie,  the  former  station  master  at  Mount  Clem- 
ens, also  enjoying  himself  in  a  hearty  and 
jovial  way. 

Menlo  Park  developed  rapidly,  and  little  by 
little  Edison  made  it  the  centre  even  of  his 
business  transactions.    Later  on  he  constructed 


NAPOL^>ON  OF  MODERN  TIMES  107 

an  electric'j'ailroad  in  order  to  facilitate  enjoy- 
able trips  through  the  neighbouring  wood- 
lands. 

Here  was  the  scene,  here  was  the  stage-set- 
ting where  the  great  wizard  carried  on  his 
strange  communions  with  the  forces  of  nature, 
which  he  knew  how  to  control,  thanks  to  his 
power  of  penetration,  his  power  of  taking  in 
with  one  and  the  same  glance  the  most  diverse 
elements,  of  seeing  in  the  midst  of  widely  dis- 
similar phenomena  the  secret  laws  which  gov- 
ern them  and  which  must  be  subjugated  to 
the  needs  of  victorious  man. 

What  a  host  of  pleasant  memories  Menlo 
Park  must  have  left  in  the  minds  of  all  these 
eminent  collaborators  of  a  scientist  as  affable 
as  he  was  patient!  He  astounded  them  with 
his  incredible  power  of  continued  labour.  He 
never  showed  an  instant  of  weakness,  anxiety, 
fatigue  or  nerve  strain.  On  the  contrary,  while 
he  was  the  first  to  begin  work  and  the  last  to 
leave  it,  at  the  same  time  he  had  no  equal  in 


108  EDISON 

his  appreciation  of  a  funny  story,  and  was 
largely  responsible  for  the  bursts  of  hilarity  in 
which  the  staff  indulged  from  time  to  time, 
becoming  for  the  moment  so  many  grown-up 
children,  during  intervals  of  respite  and  recre- 
ation. 

His  one  mistake  was  occasionally  to  think 
that  everybody  else  was  capable  of  physical 
and  moral  endurance  such  as  his.  He  was  al- 
ways on  foot,  calm  and  sure  of  himself,  when 
even  the  most  valiant  of  the  others  were  ex- 
hausted and  sued  for  mercy,  because  they  felt 
J  the  need  of  food,  drink  and  sleep.  Yet  at 
hours  when  an  indispensable  and  final  effort 
must  be  made,  he  would  end  by  communicat- 
ing even  to  the  weariest  something  of  his  own 
energy  and  faith. 

We  are  beginning  to  see  and  know  the  in- 
ventor, such  as  he  really  is  in  his  working 
^  clothes,  greater  in  actual  life  than  any  fiction 
could  make  him.  That  is  why  we  have  tried 
to  visualise  him  in  the  appropriate  setting 


NAPOLEON  OF  MODERN  TIMES  109 

which  he  himself  created  with  all  his  energy 
and  all  his  faith. 

The  next  step  is  to  cast  a  glance  at  his  dis- 
coveries, and  attempt  to  estimate  their  value 
as  well  as  their  influence  upon  the  grateful 
generations  of  today  and  tomorrow. 


CHAPTER   IV 

DISTANCE  IS  ABOLISHED — EDISON  STARTS  UPON 
THE  CONQUEST  OF  THE  OLD  WORLD  OF 
EUROPE 

'E  have  mentioned  Edison's  first  suc- 
cesses as  a  telegraphist,  and  we  have 
shown  him  engaged  in  researches  after  other 
apparatus  adapted  to  modern  needs.  Although 
not  the  inventor  of  the  telegraph,  Edison  dis- 
covered so  many  and  such  diverse  improve- 
ments to  it  that  he  remains,  in  this  regard,  a 
pioneer  of  the  first  rank. 

It  will  sufl&ce  to  recall  that  it  was  he  who 
perfected  the  automatic  telegraph  invented  by 
an  Englishman  named  George  Little.  The  sys- 
tem had  produced  good  results  on  very  short 
lines,  but  it  proved  extremely  defective  in  the 
majority  of  cases. 

Edison  and  E.  H.  Johnson  introduced  modi- 
fications, the  value  of  which  was  proved  by 

110 


DISTANCE  ABOLISHED  111 

practical  tests.  In  1872  the  automatic  tele- 
graph was  installed  between  New  York  and 
Washington.  An  English  company  soon  after- 
wards offered  to  apply  his  methods  to  their 
submarine  cables  to  Brazil.  Edison  was  sum- 
moned to  London  and  his  ideas  were  adopted, 
but  without  his  having  secured  any  benefit  for 
himself. 

He  was  more  fortunate  in  regard  to  his  du- 
plex and  quadruplex  telegraph,  to  which  we 
have  already  made  more  than  one  passing  al- 
lusion. The  purpose  of  both  these  inventions 
was  to  modify  the  Morse  apparatus  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  it  possible  to  send  more  than 
one  message  at  a  time  over  the  same  wire.  The 
commercial  importance  of  these  new  methods 
was  immediately  recognised,  thanks  to  the  es- 
sential and  definitive  improvements  introduced 
by  Edison. 

The  duplex  telegraph  made  it  possible  to 
send  two  separate  messages  in  opposite  direc- 
tions over  the  same  wire.  Edison  showed  that 
a  double  transmission  was  also  possible  in  the 


112  EDISON 

same  direction.  This  change  in  direction  was 
accomplished  by  the  simple  device  of  varying 
the  strength  of  the  current. 

But  it  was  the  quadruplex  telegraph  which, 
in  1874,  brought  Edison  into  full  publicity. 
By  this  system  four  messages  could  be  sent  at 
the  same  time  over  a  single  wire,  two  in  each 
direction.  This  method  of  simultaneous  trans- 
mission, which  has  been  continually  made  more 
and  more  practical,  thanks  to  Edison's  pro- 
longed efforts,  constituted  a  most  important 
improvement.  The  use  of  the  quadruplex 
could  not  fail  to  constitute  a  saving  to  the  com- 
panies of  many  millions  of  dollars. 

But  before  he  had  passed  from  theory  to  a 
result  that  satisfied  his  expectations,  the  young 
inventor  was  necessarily  long  absorbed  in  his 
reflections  and  in  the  patient  working  out  of 
a  vast  number  of  attempts  and  experiments. 
In  fact,  the  achievement  of  a  quadruplex 
capable  of  realising  his  dream  became  a  sort 
of  obsession.  It  was  in  consequence  of  this 
preoccupation  that  he  underwent  the  following 


THE  EDISON  ELECTRIC  BATTERY 

Above:     Re:>harging   the    Cells  placed   beneath  the  Seats. 
Edison  on  the  front  Platform  of  his  Car. 


Below: 


nr"   -iKKj 


I  -^ 


DISTANCE  ABOLISHED  113 

amusing  little  adventure.  He  was  so  absorbed 
in  working  out  the  details  of  his  apparatus 
that  he  not  only  spent  day  after  day  in  his 
Newark  laboratory  without  eating,  drinking 
and  sleeping,  all  of  which  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  of  little  or  no  ijnportance  to  him,  but 
he  even  forgot  to  pay  his  taxes.  Consequently, 
like  any  other  free  and  equal  American  citi- 
zen, he  received  a  notice  to  call  the  following 
morning  at  the  tax  collector's  office,  in  default 
of  which  he  would  be  liable  to  a  surcharge,  like 
any  one  else  who  was  in  arrears.  Accordingly, 
the  following  morning  Edison  reluctantly  tore 
^himself  away  from  his  laboratory  and  pre- 
sented himself  at  the  City  Hall,  where  he  had 
to  take  his  place  in  a  long  line  of  people  all 
holding  similar  notices  in  their  hands.  When 
his  turn  came  he  was  once  more  absorbed  in 
the  problem  of  his  quadruplex. 

"Well,  well,  young  man,''  said  the  clerk,  "pay 
attention.    What  is  your  name?" 

But  Edison  was  paying  such  profound  at- 
tention— to  his  own  thoughts — that  he  looked 


114  EDISON 

the  questioner  calmly  in  the  face  and  an- 
swered : 

"I  don't  know!" 

Before  his  memory  had  awakened,  another 
tax-payer  had  taken  his  place.  Before  he 
worked  up  again  in  the  line  it  was  too  late,  and 
he  had  to  pay  the  surcharge.  But  the  solution 
of  the  problem  of  his  quadruplex  more  than 
compensated  him. 

But  to  return  to  the  telegraph.  In  addition 
to  the  above-mentioned  inventions,  we  also  owe 
to  Edison  the  multiplex  harmonic  telegraph, 
which  succeeds  by  the  aid  of  musical  sounds  in 
sending  sixteen  messages  simultaneously,  eight 
in  each  direction.  Furthermore,  this  magician, 
for  whom  the  word  impossible  really  does  not 
seem  to  exist,  has  invented  a  telegraph  instru- 
ment for  use  upon  railway  trains  in  motion. 
The  instrument  is  installed  in  one  of  the  cars 
of  the  train,  and  is  so  constructed  that  the 
electric  current  passes  from  it  to  a  wire  sus- 
pended above  the  tracks.  In  this  manner  mes- 
sages have  been  transmitted  from  trains  in 


DISTANCE  ABOLISHED  115 

motion,  even  when  the  telegraph  wire  was  at 
some  little  distance  from  the  tracks.  The  prac- 
tical importance  of  this  instrument  was 
promptly  recognised;  it  obviously  offered  a 
most  valuable  means  for  signalling  warnings  of 
danger  to  and  from  moving  trains,  and  thus 
preventing  accidents  in  a  great  many  cases. 

Edison  has  transformed  the  telegraph  into  a 
practical  and  commercial  instrument  of  won- 
derful efficacy,  thanks  to  the  speed  with  which 
it  has  made  it  possible  to  transact  the  business 
and  financial  relations  of  the  entire  world. 

The  role  that  he  has  played  in  regard  to  the 
telephone  is  quite  similar.  This  marvellous 
instrument,  with  which  we  should  now  hardly 
know  how  to  dispense,  and  which  makes  it 
possible,  through  the  agency  of  electricity,  to 
convey  sounds  to  a  great  distance,  was  in- 
vented by  Bell  in  1875.  Bourseul  and  Reis 
had  previously  conceived  the  same  idea,  but  it 
was  reserved  for  Edison  to  develop  its  full  re- 
sources. 

He  had  already  conducted  some  very  im- 


116  EDISON 

portant  personal  experiments,  based  upon 
some  analogous  principle,  although  just  what 
this  was  he  seems  to  have  never  been  willing 
to  reveal  fully.  But  in  1876,  while  working 
for  the  Western  Union,  he  saw  Bell's  telephone. 
It  consisted  of  the  present-day  receiver,  which 
then  served  the  double  purpose  of  receiver  and 
transmitter.  The  problem  was  to  make  it  prac- 
tical for  current  use;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  sounds  could  not  be  heard  excepting  very 
faintly,  and  were  interrupted  by  all  sorts  of 
strange  noises.  In  a  short  time  Edison  pro- 
duced his  carbon  transmitter,  and  the  problem 
was  solved.  Experiments  immediately  proved 
in  quite  a  definite  manner  the  effectiveness  of 
his  invention. 

Mr.  Orton,  the  director  of  the  Western  Union 
Telegraph  Company,  desired  to  acquire  the 
rights.  The  inventor  had  ventured  to  hope  to 
receive  a  sum  of  twenty-five  thousand  dollars. 
Less  timid  than  in  those  earlier  days  when  he 
had  sold  his  first  telegraphic  inventions  to 
General  Lefferts,  he  met  Mr.  Orton's  inquiry 


I 


DISTANCE  ABOLISHED  117 

as  to  his  price  for  his  patent  with  the  counter 
suggestion,  "Make  me  an  offer.'' 

Mr.  Orton's  offer  was  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars.  Edison  accepted,  stipulating,  however, 
that  the  sum  should  be  paid  in  annual  instal- 
ments of  $6,000.  Accordingly  the  payments 
would  extend  over  seventeen  years,  or  through- 
out the  entire  period  covered  by  the  patent. 
Edison  himself  has  since  given  the  explanation 
of  this  clause.  He  knew  himself  only  too  well, 
and  realised  that  he  would  promptly  squander 
the  entire  sum  on  further  experiments.  He 
felt  that  it  was  wiser  to  provide  himself  with 
seventeen  years  of  security. 

But  it  was  not  in  accordance  with  Edison's 
nature  to  rest  content  with  having  given  the 
telephone  its  entire  importance  and  reliability 
by  the  use  of  his  carbon  transmitter.  With  his 
magic  ingenuity,  he  proceeded  to  extract  from 
this  instrument  a  whole  series  of  other  instru- 
ments depending  upon  the  same  principle: 
such  as  the  water  telephone,   the  condenser 


118  EDISON 

telephone,  the  chemical  telephone,  the  mer- 
cury telephone  and  the  voltaic  pile  telephone. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  must  not  forget  the 
electromotograph.  Edison  had  observed  the 
following  phenomenon:  when  a  metal  pencil 
is  brought  into  contact  with  a  sheet  of  paper 
and  an  electric  current  sent  through  it,  the 
surface  of  the  paper  becomes  smooth  and  shiny 
where  the  pencil  has  passed.  This  property  of 
diminished  friction,  thanks  to  the  electric  cur- 
rent, is  the  principle  of  the  moto graph.  The 
inventor  worked  six  years  upon  this  problem. 
The  electric  motograph  consists  of  a  chalk 
cylinder,  moistened  with  a  chemical  solution, 
and  revolving  on  its  axis.  A  pen,  provided 
with  a  palladium  point,  slides  over  this  cylin- 
der, being  drawn  forward  by  the  friction  and 
drawn  back  again  into  position  by  the  employ- 
ment of  the  electric  current.  It  is  asserted 
that,  thanks  to  the  oscillation  of  this  pen,  Edi- 
son has  succeeded,  through  this  application  of 
the  principle  of  diminished  friction,  in  sending 


DISTANCE  ABOLISHED  119 

a  despatch  with  the  speed  of  twelve  thousand 
words  a  minute. 

Mr.  Orton  promptly  asked  Edison  what  his 
price  was  for  the  electromotograph.  Edison, 
who  was  acquiring  a  decided  habit  for  this  sort 
of  conversation,  once  again  replied,  ''Make  me 
an  offer."  And  once  again  the  offer  was  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  Edison  accepted, 
on  the  same  conditions  that  he  had  made  for 
his  carbon  transmitter,  that  is  to  say,  in  six- 
thousand-dollar  instalments  for  seventeen 
years.  Consequently,  he  had  an  assured  in- 
come from  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Com- 
pany of  twelve  thousand  dollars  a  year  for 
these  two  inventions,  both  covering  the  same 
number  of  years. 

On  the  other  hand,  Edison's  telephone  was 
meanwhile  making  the  conquest  of  Europe,  be- 
ginning with  England.  Thanks  to  its  separ- 
ate transmitter  and  receiver,  it  had  an  unques- 
tionable superiority.  One  of  Edison's  former 
associates,  namely.  Colonel  Gouraud,  who  had 
worked  with  him  in  connection  with  the  auto- 


120  EDISON 

matic  telegraph,  now  undertook  to  look  after 
his  interests  in  England.  A  company  was 
formed,  and  a  large  number  of  machines  ema- 
nating from  the  workshops  of  Menlo  Park  were 
forwarded  to  London. 

Edison  organised  a  corps  of  twenty  young 
electricians,  whom  he  personally  put  through  a 
severe  course  of  training.  He  chose  only  those 
whom  he  judged  capable  of  becoming  genuine 
experts.  In  testing  these  chosen  workmen  he 
would  place  them  in  front  of  an  instrument 
which  he  had  put  out  of  order  by  establishing 
a  short-circuit,  cutting  the  wires,  or  throwing 
dust  into  the  electrodes.  When  the  candidate 
succeeded  in  putting  the  apparatus  in  order 
ten  times  in  succession,  and  each  time  within 
a  space  of  five  minutes,  he  was  accepted. 

Edison,  who  himself  relates  these  great  prep- 
arations for  the  conquest  of  the  old  world,  adds 
that  at  this  period  he  received  a  most  agree- 
able surprise.  The  Bell  Company,  established 
in  England,  had  not  witnessed  without  genuine 
alarm  this  American  incursion  into  the  United 


I 


DISTANCE  ABOLISHED  121 

Kingdom.  But  how  were  they  to  contend 
against  such  dangerous  rivals?  Would  it  not 
be  better  to  enter  into  negotiations  with  them 
and  acquire  the  English  rights  to  their  meth- 
ods? Consequently  Edison  one  day  received  a 
cablegram  from  Colonel  Gouraud  transmitting 
the  offer  made  by  the  English  company,  name- 
ly, "30,000."  Edison  cabled  back  his  accept- 
ance. When  the  contract  arrived  he  was  most  '^ 
pleasantly  surprised  to  discover  that  it  was 
not  for  thirty  thousand  dollars,  but  for  thirty 
thousand  pounds  sterling,  or  approximately 
five  times  the  amount  he  had  expected. 

In  thus  sending  his  emissaries  to  Europe,  for 
the  purpose  of  introducing  his  instruments  and 
methods,  Edison  did  not  fail  to  meet  with  a 
certain  number  of  setbacks,  notwithstanding 
that  he  had  at  his  command  every  legal  and 
pecuniary  means  of  defending  his  interests. 
For  a  patent  right  is  a  fertile  source  of  losses, 
as  well  as  of  profits. 

The  Edison  telephone,  admirably  exploited 
by  his  corps  of  young  American  electricians, 


122  EDISON 

wholly  devoted  to  their  inimitable  chief,  and 
who  looked  upon  Graham  Bell  as  a  sort  of  sec- 
ond Lucifer,  did  not  fail  to  create  a  sensation. 

Mr.  Edison  himself,  as  well  as  Messrs.  Dyer 
and  Martin,  has  not  failed  to  recall  the  fact 
that  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw,  the  well-known  and 
extremely  original  English  writer,  was  in  his 
younger  days  an  employee  of  the  Edison  Tele- 
phone Company.  He  gave  public  demonstra- 
tions which  were  certainly  not  lacking  in  live- 
liness and  picturesque  colouring.  With  his 
characteristic  and  humorous  fashion  of  seeing 
and  describing  things,  Mr.  Shaw  gave  the  fol- 
lowing amusing  definition  of  Edison's  tele- 
phone: "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,  in- 
stead of  whispering  them  with  some  sort  of 
discretion!"* 

In  addition  to  Colonel  Gouraud,  several  men 
of  prominence  undertook  to  spread  abroad  Edi- 

*  From  Dyer  and  Martin's  Life  of  Edison. 


DISTANCE  ABOLISHED  123 

son^s  well-earned  fame  in  a  manner  worthy  of 
him.  One  of  these,  Mr.  Samuel  Insull,  testi- 
fies to  the  great  interest  taken  by  many  of  the 
most  distinguished  men  and  women  of  Eng- 
land regarding  this  great  curiosity,  the  loud- 
speaking  telephone.  Mrs.  Gladstone,  the  wife 
of  the  famous  statesman,  spoke  into  the  re- 
ceiver, probably  with  considerable  energy,  and 
asked  the  operator  at  the  other  end  whether  a 
man  or  a  woman  was  speaking,  and  the  an- 
swer came  back  unhesitatingly  in  loud,  clear 
tones  that  it  was  a  man. 

Mr.  Charles  Edison,  a  nephew  of  the  inven- 
tor, who  died  prematurely  at  Paris  in  1874, 
had  also  undertaken  to  popularise  his  uncle's 
methods  in  Europe,  He  was  received  by  the 
late  King  of  England,  at  that  time  Prince  of 
Wales,  also  by  the  King  of  Belgium,  with 
whom  he  discussed  the  project  of  establishing 
telephonic  communication  between  Belgium 
and  England. 

In  the  course  of  his  labours  on  the  telephone, 
Edison  had  observed  the  diverse  and  variable 


124  EDISON 

degrees  of  resistance  offered  by  carbon  to  the 
passage  of  an  electric  current.  This  phenome- 
non afforded  him  a  basis  on  which  to  create  his 
microphone,  the  purpose  of  which  was  to  give 
back  sound  in  an  intensified  form.  The  micro- 
phone reproduced  the  faintest  murmurs  greatly 
magnified.  The  sensitiveness  of  this  instru- 
ment is  so  great  that  the  walking  of  a  fly  can 
produce  the  effect  of  soldiers  on  the  march,  and 
a  mere  rusthng  becomes  transformed  into  a 
raging  tempest. 

When  in  the  course  of  time  Edison  turned  his 
attention  to  the  cinematograph,  he  was  obliged 
to  take  a  different  class  of  phenomena  for 
his  starting  point,  but  there  was  a  certain 
analogy  between  the  two  conceptions.  Mean- 
while the  microphone  gave  rise  to  a  very  keen 
rivalry  and  prolonged  controversy  between  Edi- 
son and  Professor  Hughes,  of  England,  who 
claimed  that  he  had  invented  the  instrument. 

The  tasimeter,  or  microtasimeter,  belongs  to 
the  same  series  of  inventions  as  the  micro- 
phone.   It  was  destined  primarily  to  measure 


DISTANCE  ABOLISHED  125 

the  smallest  perceptible  differences  of  pressure. 
It  depends  upon  the  same  principle  as  the 
microphone:  namely,  that  when  a  piece  of 
carbon  is  brought  into  contact  with  another 
piece  of  carbon,  or  any  other  conductor,  the 
slightest  relative  displacement  of  these  con- 
ductors is  sujQ&cient  to  change  the  degree  of 
resistance  in  a  notable  degree.  The  tasimeter 
consists  of  two  platinum  plates  separated  by 
a  carbon  disk,  against  which  they  are  held  by 
the  outside  pressure  of  pieces  of  rubber.  Heat, 
by  expanding  the  rubber,  increases  the  press- 
ure upon  the  carbon  and  thus  diminishes  the 
resistance  to  the  electric  current,  while  cold 
on  the  contrary  increases  it.  An  extremely 
sensitive  galvanometer  registers  these  changes 
in  the  current. 

The  slightest  modifications  in  temperature 
may  thus  be  registered.  The  instrument  is 
sensitive  to  the  heat  of  the  human  body  or  of  a 
cigar  at  the  distance  of  ten  feet.  On  the  9th  of 
July,  1878,  during  a  total  eclipse  of  the  sun, 
Edison  demonstrated  at  Hawling,  Wyoming,  the 


126  EDISON 

value  of  his  tasimeter  for  noting  the  differences 
in  temperature  of  the  different  rays  of  the  sun. 

But,  even  aside  from  astronomical  observa- 
tions, it  is  easy  to  realise  the  many  important 
uses  to  which  this  instrument  could  be  put; 
such,  for. instance,  as  that  of  detecting  a  sud- 
den outbreak  of  fire  in  a  building,  or  of  deter- 
mining the  position  of  an  iceberg  at  sea. 

But  it  is  impossible  to  dwell  in  turn  upon 
each  and  all  of  Edison's  remarkable  inventions. 
The  more  important  have  overshadowed  the 
lesser  ones,  which  nevertheless  retain  their  own 
interest  and  value  and  would  have  been  suffi- 
cient in  themselves  to  establish  the  fame  of 
many  another  inventor. 

The  year  which  we  have  just  mentioned, 
1878,  coincides  with  the  date  of  the  birth  of 
one  of  the  most  curious  manifestations  of  Edi- 
son's genius.  We  may  also  say,  one  of  the 
most  flamboyant  manifestations,  since  it  pro- 
claimed more  loudly  and  more  widely  than 
ever  the  name  of  Edison.  The  invention  in 
question  was  the  phonograph. 


CHAPTER  V 

RECORDING  THE  VOICE — IS  IT  A  VENTRILOQUIST  f 
— GLORY  AND  HARMONY  IMPRISONED  IN  A 
CYLINDER 

ON  a  certain  morning  all  Paris  was  informed 
that  the  extraordinary  "M.  Eddison"  had 
ceased  to  belong  to  himself  and  had  become 
the  property  of  a  certain  telegraph  company 
which  had  installed  him  in  a  magnificent  hotel 
in  New  York,  where  he  lived  in  unimaginable 
luxury,  and  that  the  aforesaid  company  paid 
him  an  enormous  salary  in  order  to  reap  the 
sole  profits  from  all  his  discoveries.  Guards 
were  hired  to  watch  over  him,  and  never  leave 
him  alone,  neither  at  meals,  nor  in  the  street, 
nor  in  his  laboratory.  Consequently,  this  "M. 
Eddison"  was  a  greater  slave  than  the  worst 
of  criminals.  He  could  not  devote  a  single  in- 
stant to  his  private  affairs  without  having  one 

of  his  guards  immediately  call  him  to  order. 

127 


128  EDISON 

He  was  the  inventor  of  an  instrument  which 
would  make  the  human  voice  audible  at  the 
distance  of  two  miles.  This  was  made  possible 
by  the  aid  of  a  jet  of  steam;  and  a  friend,  if 
notified  beforehand,  could  reply  by  the  same 
method.  It  was  after  this  fashion  that  the 
Figaro,  following  the  example  of  many  another 
quite  serious  paper,  made  sport  of  Edison  in 
the  year  1878,  in  an  ultra- American  and  quite 
misleading  manner. 

It  was  excusable,  for  this  man,  barely  thirty 
years  of  age,  had  just  invented  a  unique  and 
prodigious  instrument,  well  fitted  to  arouse 
throughout  the  entire  world  the  greatest  sur- 
prise and  admiration.  The  invention  in  ques- 
tion was  the  phonograph. 

The  phonograph!  The  talking  machine, 
which  records  sounds  and  preserves  them  in 
their  integrity  for  the  benefit  of  tomorrow,  the 
day  after  tomorrow,  and  the  future  centuries! 
Was  there  not  an  abundance  in  this  thought 
to  stir  the  heart  and  the  brain,  and  to  open 


1 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         129 

up  immense  and  infinite  horizons  to  the  dreams 
and  ideals  of  all  future  generations? 

The  phonograph !  Henceforth  the  secret  con- 
tained in  words  which  translate  the  thought, 
whether  that  thought  be  poetic,  religious,  so- 
cial or  musical,  could  be  taken  prisoner  by 
this  impassive  and  unerring  witness.  By  creat- 
ing the  phonograph,  by  perfecting  it,  by  adapt- 
ing it  to  the  needs  of  science,  Edison  had  made 
himself  an  object  of  legitimate  intei'est  to  the 
intelligent  and  the  curious  alike. 

It  seems  as  though  the  last  word  has  been 
said  in  regard  to  the  phonograph;  neverthe- 
less, we  never  tire  of  telling  it  over  again,  with 
a  sort  of  joyous  and  triumphant  inebriation. 
For,  if  the  phonograph  records  our  voice,  our 
eloquence,  the  most  intimate  expression  of  our 
joys  and  our  anxieties,  we  certainly  have  the 
right  of  recording  in  our  turn  this  wonderful 
victory  of  life  over  death  and  oblivion. 

What  a  revelation  it  would  be  to  us  (and 
why  should  not  we  express  in  our  turn  this 
oft-repeated  regret?)  if  we  could  hear,  for  in- 


130  EDISON 

stance,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  or  the 
Apology  of  Socrates,  the  Funeral  Oration  of 
Henrietta-Anne  of  England,  a  harangue  by 
Mirabeau,  or  a  Proclamation  by  Napoleon! 
What  a  dream  it  would  be  to  conjure  up  the 
personality  of  Shakespeare  or  Moliere,  while 
we  listened  to  their  rendering  of  their  own 
works,  or  tranquilly  to  compare  the  voice  of 
Talma  with  that  of  Mounet-Sully  or  of  Max! 
Let  us,  in  any  case,  return  thanks  to  Edison 
for  affording  us  the  pleasure  of  enjoying  the 
powerful  voice  of  Caruso  and  the  melodious 
sounds  that  could  emanate  from  no  other  violin 
than  that  of  Kubelik. 

Let  us  record  at  once,  in  this  connection^ 
that  almost  from  the  moment  of  this  miracu- 
lous discovery,  which  surrounded  his  whole  ex- 
istence with  an  indescribable  air  of  wizardry, 
Edison  already  foresaw  the  various  possible  ap- 
plications which  might  be  made  of  his  phono- 
graph. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  enumerated  them  in 
the  North  American  Review  as  early  as  1878, 


HECORDING  THE  VOICE         131 

and  in  view  of  what  the  closing  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century  and  the  opening  years  of 
the  twentieth  have  brought,  we  cannot  help 
feeling  that  the  list  was  singularly  prophetic, 

"Among  the  many  uses  to  which  the  phono- 
graph will  be  applied  are  the  following: 

"1.  Letter  writing  and  all  kinds  of  dictation 
without  the  aid  of  a  stenographer. 

"2.  Phonographic  books  which  will  speak  to 
blind  people  without  effort  on  their  part. 

"3.  The  teaching  of  elocution. 

"4.  Reproduction  of  music. 

"5.  The  Tamily  Record' — a  registry  of  say- 
ings, reminiscences,  etc.,  by  members  of  a  fam- 
ily in  their  own  voices,  and  of  the  last  words 
of  dying  persons. 

"6.  Music-boxes  and  toys. 

"7.  Clocks  that  should  announce  in  articu- 
late speech  the  time  for  going  home,  going  to 
meals,  etc. 

"8.  The  preservation  of  languages  by  exact 
reproduction  of  the  manner  of  pronouncing. 

"9.  Educational  purposes;  such  as  preserv- 


132  EDISON 

ing  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. 

^^10.  Connection  with  the  telephone,  so  as  to 
make  that  instrument  an  auxiliary  in  the  trans- 
mission of  permanent  and  invaluable  records, 
instead  of  being  the  recipient  of  momentary 
and  fleeting  communication." 

Edison  thought,  at  one  and  the  same  time, 
of  the  utility  and  the  entertainment  to  be  de- 
rived from  the  phonograph,  its  possibilities  for 
training  the  mind  as  well  as  for  affording  an 
unforeseen  and  agreeable  pastime.  With  the 
perfected  instrument,  we  have  made  a  vast  ad- 
vance upon  the  humble  parrot,  which  was 
Robinson  Crusoe's  sole  consolation  on  his  des- 
ert island. 

On  December  24th,  1877,  Edison  applied  to 
the  Patent  Office  at  Washington  for  a  patent, 
which  was  granted  him,  February  17,  1878. 

But  what  was  the  'origin  of  this  invention? 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         133 

Edison,  as  we  have  already  shown,  has  in  gen- 
eral more  faith  in  patient  and  methodical  re- 
search than  in  sudden  illuminations.  The  pho- 
nograph, nevertheless,  is  the  fruit  of  a  sort  of 
flash  of  inspiration,  although  naturally  Edison 
had  to  work  a  long  time  to  complete  his  first 
idea  and  little  by  little  improve  the  original 
machine.  For  instance,  in  June,  1888,  that  is 
to  say,  more  than  ten  years  subsequent  to  his 
first  patent,  we  find  him  spending  five  consecu- 
tive days  and  nights  in  perfecting  his  primi- 
tive type  of  wax  cylinder. 

But  the  idea  of  the  phonograph  itself  came 
to  him  suddenly  and  without  effort.  For,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  all  his  previous  labours  had 
formed  a  singularly  fitting  preparation  for  the 
conception  of  this  talking  machine  which  was 
destined  before  long  to  make  the  circuit  of  the 
globe,  exciting  universal  enthusiasm. 

Already,  while  working  upon  his  automatic 
telegraph  and  causing  strips  of  metal,  marked 
with  dots  and  dashes  in  relief,  to  pass  very 
swiftly  beneath  a  steel  point,  he  had  noted  the 


134  EDISON 

following  phenomenon:  the  vibration  of  the 
steel  point,  as  it  came  in  contact  with  the  dots 
and  dashes,  produced  certain  distinctive  sounds. 
On  the  other  hand,  through  his  experiments 
with  the  telephone,  Edison  had  proved  the 
power  of  the  diaphragm  to  catch  the  vibra- 
tions of  "sound.  He  said  to  himself  that  if  he 
could  find  some  practical  way  of  recording  the 
movements  of  the  diaphragm,  he  would  be  able 
to  reproduce  the  original  movements  com- 
municated to  the  diaphragm  by  the  spoken 
word,  and  consequently  would  be  able  to  re- 
cord and  reproduce  the  human  voice. 

But  we  must  go  to  Edison  himself  to  learn 
the  genesis  of  his  invention,  rather  than  trust 
to  the  more  or  less  fantastic  narratives  of  other 
writers.  Yet  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  imag- 
ination is  inclined  to  make  a  myth  out  of  this 
prodigious  creation. 

In  the  beginning,  instead  of  employing  a 
disk,  Edison  conceived  a  little  machine  con- 
sisting of  a  cylinder  with  a  narrow  spiral 
groove  covering  its  surface  like  the  thread  of 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         135 

a  screw.  With  the  aid  of  a  sheet  of  tinfoil,  he 
caught  and  recorded  the  movements  of  the 
diaphragm. 

When  a  rather  rough  design  of  the  instru- 
ment was  first  shown  to  his  assistants,  they 
could  not  restrain  their  laughter  at  the  idea 
of  this  fantastic  dream  of  building  a  machine 
that  could  talk.  Even  Edison  himself  was 
under  no  great  delusion  when  he  asked  his  col- 
laborator, John  Kruesi,  to  go  ahead  and  con- 
struct the  machine.  Kruesi,  for  his  part,  did 
not  attempt  to  hide  the  fact  that  the  whole 
project  seemed  to  him  absurd. 

But  when  this  rudimentary  machine  was 
completed,  and  the  sheet  of  tinfoil  had  been 
adjusted,  the  inventor  proceeded  to  recite  into 
it  the  familiar  nursery  rhyme,  ^^Mary  had  a 
little  lamb.''  Then  he  adjusted  the  reproducer, 
and  the  machine  promptly  proceeded  to  echo 
back  his  words.  Everybody  was  astonished. 
At  the  first  attempt  the  success  had  been  un- 
mistakable and  overwhelming.  "Gott  in  Him- 
mel!"  cried  Kruesi,  and  the  whole  night  was 


136  EDISON 

spent  in  singing,  talking  and  reciting  into  the 
instrument.  This  first  phonograph  is  now  to 
be  seen  in  the  South  Kensington  Museum,  at 
London. 

The  news  of  the  invention  spread  through- 
out America,  arousing  astonishment,  enthusi- 
asm and  scepticism,  after  which  it  proceeded  to 
encircle  the  globe.  It  was  looked  upon  as  a 
sort  of  sleight-of-hand  or  ventriloquism,  not- 
withstanding Edison's  insistence  upon  the  sim- 
plicity of  his  machine  and  the  absence  of  all 
element  of  mystery.  It  was  exhibited  by  Edi- 
son himself  before  President  Hayes  at  the 
White  House;  and  he  also  gave  exhibitions  of 
it  at  Menlo  Park. 

But  let  us  once  more  permit  Edison  to  speak 
for  himself,  as  recorded  by  Messrs.  Dyer  and 
Martin,  who  give  some  curious  details  con- 
cerning this  sensational  event  in  the  history 
of  civilisation: 

'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 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         137 

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 — and  they  didn't. 

"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  phono- 
graph to  Washington  and  exhibited  it  there. 
.  .  .  Members  of  Congress  and  notable  people 
of  that  city  came  all  day  long  until  late  in  the 


138  EDISON 

evening.     I  made  one  break.    I  recited  'Mary/ 
etc.,  and  another  ditty: 

"  '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.' 

"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  sensi- 
tive 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 
eleven  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 
gQveral  others  w^-iting.    Among  them  I  remem- 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         139 

ber  Carl  Schurz,  who  was  playing  the  piano 
when  I  entered  the  room.  The  exhibition  con- 
tinued till  about  twelve-thirty  A.  M.,  when 
Mrs.  Hayes  and  several  other  ladies,  who  had 
been  induced  to  get  up  and  dress,  appeared.  I 
left  at  three-thirty  A.  M. 

"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. 
...  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  rapid- 
ity.' ''  * 

A  company  was  immediately  organised, 
which  agreed  to  pay  Edison  a  lump  sum  of 
ten  thousand  dollars,  in  addition  to  a  royalty 
of  twenty  per  cent.    But  the  enterprise  did  not 

♦From  Dyer  and  Martin's  Life  of  Edison, 


140  EDISON 

become  a  commercial  success  on  a  large  scale 
until  ten  years  later,  when  the  inventor,  after 
long  absorption  in  his  work  upon  electric  lamps, 
again  turned  his  attention  to  the  phonograph, 
and  succeeded,  after  various  improvements,  in 
making  it  more  accurate  and  practical. 

It  was  not  until  1888  that  Edison  resumed 
his  work  upon  the  phonograph,  s  In  the  mean- 
time, however,  he  had  become  perfectly  aware 
of  the  instrument's  defects.  The  problem  was 
extremely  delicate.  A  recording  cylinder  of 
wax  had  been  substituted  for  the  sheet  of  tin- 
foil, and  the  steel  pencil  was  replaced  by  a 
little  knife  made  of  sapphire,  whose  function 
was  to  plough  a  channel  in  the  wax,  forming  a 
spiral  around  the  cylinder. 

But  Edison  was  obliged  to  prolong  and  mul- 
tiply his  efforts  before  his  phonograph  was 
brought  to  the  point  of  exactly  imitating  the 
human  voice.  It  is  told,  for  instance,  that  he 
spent  month  after  month  before  his  instru- 
ment, which  proved  to  be  a  most  backward 
pupil,  had  learned  to  utter  a  correct  s  or  an 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         141 

intelligible  p.  The  confounded  machine  ob- 
stinately persisted  in  speaking  like  a  small 
child,  and  not  at  all  like  a  well-educated  per- 
son and  an  adult  member  of  correct  society. 

But  at  last  the  improved  phonograph,  while 
not  fully  meeting  his  expectations,  consented 
to  make  a  certain  appreciable  progress.  In 
1888  a  niachine  incorporating  these  first  im- 
provements was  sent  to  the  Crystal  Palace  in 
London.  As  in  the  case  of  the  telephone,  Colo- 
nel Gouraud  undertook  to  obtain  a  public 
recognition  befitting  the  importance  of  this  new 
model,  which  was  destined  to  be  followed  by  a 
long  succession  of  others.  (For  the  list  of 
patents  granted  by  the  Patent  Office  contains 
mention  for  the  year  1888  alone  of  no  less  than 
thirty  improvements  connected  with  the  pho- 
nograph.) 

The  success  in  England  was  immense.  Colo- 
nel Gouraud  issued  invitations  to  his  friends; 
for  Edison  had  sent  to  him,  as  his  representa- 
tive in  England,  a  phonogram,  that  is  to  say, 
a  letter  recorded  upon  a  wax  cylinder.  One  of 
Edison's  assistants  in  America,  a  most  diligent 


142  EDISON 

workman,  had  formed  the  habit  of  communi- 
cating with  his  family  by  means  of  these  pho- 
nograms. They  would  place  the  wax  cylinders 
in  the  instrument,  which  would  then  promptly 
reproduce  his  words  with  more  accuracy  than 
the  most  faithful  messenger  could  have  done. 
In  one  of  his  phonograms  he  sent  a  message  to 
his  dog  and  even  called  it  with  his  customary 
whistle.  On  hearing  his  master's  voice,  the 
faithful  beast  began  to  bark  and  to  hunt  every- 
where for  him,  greatly  surprised  at  not  finding 
him  after  having  heard  the  familiar  call. 

Colonel  Gouraud's  guests  had  the  pleasure 
of  hearing  Edison  read  his  own  letter.  Further- 
more, he  had  taken  advantage  of  the  oppor- 
tunity to  express  his  thanks  to  the  members  of 
the  London  press,  who  had  devoted  some  highly 
eulogistic  articles  to  him.  Then  followed  a 
concert,  in  which  not  only  the  human  voice, 
but  the  music  of  various  instruments,  ranging 
from  the  flute  to  the  trombone,  had  their  part. 
Many  illustrious  personages  sent  their  con- 
gratulations to  Edison  in  the  form  of  phono- 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         143     . 

graphic  records.  The  enthusiasm  was  shared 
by  Queen  Victoria  herself  and  her  court,  as 
well  as  by  some  of  the  most  famous  English 
statesmen.  The  celebrated  tragedian,  Henry 
Irving,  recited  for  the  phonograph,  and  the  in- 
strument had  the  further  distinction  of  record- 
ing for  the  benefit  of  posterity  the  voice  of  ^ 
Cardinal  Manning,  of  Tennyson  and  of  Brown- 
ing, the  latter  of  whom,  when  his  memory 
failed  him,  while  reciting  one  of  his  own  poems, 
interrupted  the  harmonious  flow  of  his  verse 
with  exclamations  of  annoyance. 

Thanks  to  Edison's  genius,  these  voices  may 
still  be  heard  in  spite  of  the  silence  of  the 
tomb.  The  King  of  Greece,  when  solicited  in 
his  turn,  expressed  regrets  similar  to  those  that 
we  ourselves  just  formulated,  deploring  the  ab- 
sence of  the  phonograph  in  the  days  of  Homer. 

Shortly  afterward,  the  Paris  Exposition  of 
1889  confirmed  the  triumph  of  Edison  in 
Europe.  Forty  thousand  persons  a  day  flocked 
to  become  initiated  into  this  great  miracle.  The 
scientific  and  social  use  of  the  phonograph  was 


144  EDISON 

further  demonstrated  in  a  number  of  other 
ways.  Savorgnan  de  Brazza  was  present  at  the 
Exposition  with  a  number  of  negroes  belonging 
to  various  African  tribes.  They  consented  to 
talk  into  the  phonograph,  and  it  was  then 
realised  how  valuable  the  instrument  might 
become  for  the  comparative  study  of  these 
little  known  dialects. 

A  Sioux  chief,  belonging  to  Buffalo  Bill's 
Wild  West  Show,  was  terror-stricken  when  he 
heard  his  own  voice  reproduced  with  such  ex- 
actness, and  insisted  that  it  was  due  to  the 
intervention  of  the  Great  Spirit. 

When  perfected,  the  new  phonograph  be- 
came what  it  had  not  previously  been,  an 
article  of  commerce.  The  first  company  which 
attempted  to  put  the  machine  on  the  market 
ended  in  disaster.  Edison  took  up  the  enter- 
prise on  his  own  account  and  founded  the 
National  Phonograph  Company.  From  that 
time  forward  the  industrial  and  commercial 
success  was  complete,  since  from  the  date  of 
the  reorganisation  the  company  has  sold  a  mil- 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         145 

lion  and  a  half  of  phonographs.  At  the  pres- 
ent time  the  annual  sales  amount  to  about 
$350,000,  including  the  cylinders  and  other  sup- 
plementary apparatus. 

Without  wishing  to  detract  in  any  way  from 
Edison's  glory  as  an  inventor,  it  is  at  least 
curious  to  note  that  the  creator  of  the  phono- 
graph had  two  predecessors  in  France,  as  little 
appreciated  during  their  lives  as  after  their 
death.  The  first  of  these  was  Scott  de  Martin- 
ville,  the  second  was  Charles  Cros. 

Edouard-Leon  Scott  de  Martinville,  born  at 
Paris  in  1817,  was  a  descendant  of  a  Scotch 
family  which  had  settled  in  Brittany.  He  en- 
tered the  Didot  printing  house,  familiarised 
himself  with  works  of  science,  and,  having 
asked  himself  whether  it  would  not  be  possi- 
ble to  do  for  vibrations  of  sound  what  Da- 
guerre  had  already  done  for  light,  invented  a 
phonautograph.  Pouillet  was  informed  of  this 
invention,  in  which,  as  M.  Siry  has  set  forth 
in  an  interesting  notice,  application  was  made 
of   natural    acoustic   means   for    obtaining   a 


146  EDISON 

graphic  record  of  the  voice,  of  music,  and  of 
any  kind  of  sound. 

Pouillet  raised  the  sum  needed  to  cover  the 
expense  of  the  first  annual  payment  for  a 
patent-right.  Thereafter,  a  manufacturer  of 
acoustic  instruments,  Koenig  by  name,  also  in- 
terested himself  in  the  discovery  made  by  this 
journeyman  printer.  And,  at  a  congress  held 
in  Aberdeen,  the  Abbe  Moigne  demonstrated 
that  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  auto- 
matic recording  of  sounds  had  been  found. 

In  1857  Scott  had  deposited  a  sealed  com- 
munication with  the  secretary  of  the  French 
Academy  of  Sciences.  It  was  opened  July  15, 
1861,  and  was  entitled  "The  Principles  of  Pho- 
nautography." 

What  Scott  had  written  ran  in  part  as  fol- 
lows: 

"Is  it  possible  to  obtain,  in  regard  to  sound, 
a  result  analogous  to  what  is  being  done  to- 
day in  regard  to  light,  by  means  of  photogra- 
phy? May  we  hope  that  the  day  is  near  at 
hand  when  a  musical  phrase,  emanating  from 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         147 

the  lips  of  a  singer,  will  record  itself  of  its  own 
accord  and  without  the  musician's  knowledge 
upon  an  obedient  sheet  of  paper,  leaving  an 
imperishable  record  of  those  fugitive  melodies, 
for  which  memory  might  afterwards  have 
searched  in  vain?  Will  it  be  possible  to  place 
between  two  men,  brought  together  in  a  silent 
chamber,  an  automatic  stenographer,  which 
will  preserve  the  interview  down  to  the  most 
minute  details,  adapting  itself  at  the  same  time 
to  the  speed  of  the  conversation?  Will  it  be 
possible  to  preserve  for  the  benefit  of  future 
generations  some  records  of  the  manner  of 
speech  of  certain  of  our  eminent  men,  our  great 
actors,  who  die  without  leaving  behind  them  the 
faintest  trace  of  their  genius? 

"It  is  my  belief  that  the  principle  has  been 
found.  There  remain  only  the  difiiculties  of 
its  application,  great,  no  doubt,  but  not  insur- 
mountable, thanks  to  the  present  state  of  the 
physical  and  mechanical  arts." 

Here   followed   a   theoretical   exposition    of 


148  EDISON 

Scott's  discovery  and  a  description  of  his  ap- 
paratus consisting  of  four  principal  parts: 

1.  An  acoustic  shell,  designed  to  collect  and 
condense  the  vibrations; 

2.  A  tympanum  or  inner  drum  of  gold-beat- 
er's skin,  besides  an  external  membrane,  the 
tension  or  relaxation  of  the  membranes  being 
controlled  by  two  rings; 

3.  An  index-point  for  tracing  the  record; 

4.  A  glass  table  moving  according  to  certain 
laws  and  coated  above  with  lampblack  and  be- 
low with  paper  covered  with  a  scale  of  milli- 
metric  divisions. 

The  scientific  societies,  impressed  chiefly 
with  its  errors  and  imperfections,  gave  Scott's 
invention  a  rather  ironical  reception.  At  the 
time  of  a  conference  on  acoustics,  held  in  1860, 
Scott's  phonautograph  was  seen  in  operation, 
and  recorded  the  sounds  of  two  organ-pipes 
connected  with  a  single  bellows,  at  a  distance  of 
about  three  feet  from  the  sound  receiver. 

Lack  of  influence,  and  more  especially  of 
money,   prevented   Scott  from  perfecting  his 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         149 

phonautograph.  But  it  seemed  necessary  here, 
while  rendering  to  Caesar  the  things  that  are 
Csesar^s,  to  pay  a  sincere  tribute  also  to  the 
obscure,  but  none  the  less  remarkable,  efforts 
of  Edouard-Leon  Scott  de  Martinville. 

As  a  matter  of  fairness,  we  ought  also  to 
make  brief  mention  of  a  compatriot  of  Scott's, 
the  poet  and  imaginative  writer,  Charles  Cros, 
who  in  a  communication  deposited  with  the 
Academy  of  Sciences  April  3,  1877,  described 
the  main  principles  of  an  instrument  for  the 
reproduction  of  speech  by  means  of  tracings 
recorded  on  a  prepared  disk. 

''My  invention,''  wrote  Charles  Cros,  who,  as 
this  goes  to  prove,  was  something  more  than 
the  picturesque  author  of  the  C  off  ret  de  San- 
tal  and  Hareng  Saur,  "consists  in  the  main 
of  a  process  for  obtaining  a  tracing  of  the 
movements  of  a  vibrating  membrane,  and  af- 
terwards using  this  tracing  for  the  purpose  of 
reproducing  the  same  vibrations  with  their  in- 
trinsic relations  of  duration  and  intensity, 
either  by  means  of  the  same  membrane  or  some 


150  EDISON 

other  one  equally  adapted  to  reproduce  the 
sounds  and  noises  resulting  from  this  series  of 
movements. 

"Accordingly,  the  whole  problem  is  to  trans- 
form an  extremely  delicate  tracing  such  as  can 
be  obtained  with  the  lightest  sort  of  an  index 
point  grazing  a  surface  coated  with  lampblack, 
• — to  transform  such  a  tracing,  I  say,  into  re- 
liefs or  indentations  sufficiently  rigid  to  serve  as 
a  guide  for  a  flexible  spring  that  will  communi- 
cate its  movements  to  a  sonorous  membrane. 

"A  light  index  is  attached  to  the  centre  of 
the  surface  of  the  vibrating  membrane  and 
terminates  in  a  point  (a  metallic  wire,  a  pen- 
point,  or  the  like)  which  rests  upon  a  glass 
plate  blackened  by  a  flame.  This  plate  is  at- 
tached to  a  disk  capable  of  the  double  move- 
ment of  rotation  and  rectilinear  progression.  If 
the  membrane  is  in  a  state  of  rest,  the  point 
will  trace  a  simple  spiral;  if  the  membrane  is 
vibrating,  the  spiral  traced  by  the  index  point 
will  undulate,  and  its  undulations  will  exactly 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         151 

represent  all  the  vibrations  of  the  membrane, 
with  their  relative  duration  and  intensity. 

^This  undulating  spiral,  traced  upon  a  trans- 
parent plate,  must  now  be  reproduced,  by 
means  of  photographic  processes,  such  as  are 
at  present  quite  familiar,  by  a  line  of  similar 
dimensions  traced  in  a  series  of  indentations  or 
raised  points,  on  some  rigid  material,  such,  for 
example,  as  tempered  steel. 

^When  this  has  been  done,  the  rigid  record 
is  placed  in  the  machine,  which  sets  it  turning 
and  moving  forward  with  the  same  speed  and 
m^ovement  as  that  previously  given  to  the  re- 
cording surface.  A  metallic  point,  in  case  the 
tracing  is  a  furrow,  or  a  notched  index,  if  the 
tracing  is  in  relief,  is  held  by  a  spring  against 
the  tracing,  while  the  opposite  end  of  the  rod 
which  holds  this  point  or  notch  is  fastened  to 
the  middle  of  the  membrane  designed  to  re- 
produce the  sounds.  Under  these  conditions 
the  membrane  will  be  set  in  motion,  not  by  the 
vibrations  of  the  air,  but  by  the  tracing  which 
controls  the  pointed  or  notched  index,  receiv- 


152  EDISON 

ing  impulses  exactly  similar  in  duration  and 
intensity  to  those  which  the  recording  mem- 
brane previously  received. 

^This  special  tracing  represents  successive 
and  equal  periods  of  time,  while  its  length 
slightly  increases  at  each  revolution.  This 
does  not  present  any  difficulties  if  only  the  por- 
tion near  the  margin  of  the  revolving  disk  is 
used,  since  the  turns  of  the  spiral  are  very 
close  together;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  cen- 
tral surface  is  lost. 

^'In  any  case,  a  spiral  tracing  around  a  cylin- 
der is  preferable,  and  I  am  at  present  endeav- 
ouring to  find  a  practical  application  of  it." 

There  seems  to  have  been  good  reason  for 
M.  Siry  to  cite  Charles  Cros,  as  well  as  Scott, 
as  a  precurser  of  Edison.  Cros  never  had  suf- 
ficient material  resources  to  achieve  a  success- 
ful result  for  his  enterprise.  And  in  the  end 
this  ingenious  discoverer  fell  a  victim  to  the 
hardships  of  life.  It  is  known, — or  rather, 
hardly  any  one  knows, — that  he  also  advanced 
some  very  definite  ideas  regarding  colour  pho- 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         153 

tography.  In  1877,  only  a  few  months  before 
Edison's  discovery,  the  Abbe  Leblanc  called  at- 
tention to  Charles  Cros's  discovery  in  the  fol- 
lowing terms,  the  importance  of  which  cannot 
fail  to  be  recognised: 

"It  is  no  longer  a  question  of  simple  trans- 
mission of  sounds,  as  in  the  case  of  the  tele- 
phone, at  the  moment  when  they  are  pro- 
duced ;  it  is  a  question  of  no  less  a  miracle  than 
that  of  recording  and  storing  up  sounds  and 
reproducing  them  at  will  to  an  unlimited  ex- 
tent. Thus,  if  you  take  M.  Cros's  invention 
and  sing  into  it,  let  us  say,  a  little  song  or  make 
a  speech,  the  instrument  which  has  received 
and,  as  it  were,  taken  down  in  shorthand  your 
words,  your  song,  your  music,  retains  a  record 
which  may  be  transferred  to  metal  by  the  elec- 
troplating process,  and  which,  when  set  in  mo- 
tion, will  reproduce  your  voice,  your  articula- 
tion, your  very  tone,  in  short,  the  speech  that 
you  delivered  or  the  song  that  you  sang  exactly 
as  though  you  yourself  were  repeating  the  one 
or  the  other  in  your  natural  voice. 


154  EDISON 

I 

"By  means  of  this  instrument  which,  if  we 

were  called  upon  to  serve  as  godfather,  we  j 
should  christen  phonograph,  it  will  be  possible 
to  take  photographs  of  the  voice  as  we  now 
take  them  of  the  face;  and  these  photographs,  j 
which  ought  to  receive  the  name  of  phono- 
grams, will  enable  us  to  hear  men  and  women 
speak  and  sing  and  declaim  centuries  after  they 
have  passed  away,  precisely  as  they  spoke  and 
sang  and  declaimed  while  they  were  alive.  Un- 
doubtedly the  phonograph  will  never  be  used 
to  reproduce  all  the  declamations  and  conver- 
sations and  songs  of  any  human  being  through- 
out his  life ;  but  it  will  reproduce  such  portions 
of  his  discourse,  songs  and  other  sounds  as  he 
has  chosen  to  record.  The  records  thus  made 
wdll  be  preserved  as  specimens. 

"Will  that  not  be  one  of  the  most  curious  i 
things  that  can  possibly  be  imagined?  To  sit 
for  a  while  and  listen,  for  example,  to  the  sing- 
ing of  some  song  which  has  rendered  such-and- 
such  a  singer  famous,  and  to  hear  this  song 
rendered  with  the  same  identical  voice  by  ^ 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         155 

simple  physical  instrument  named  the  phono- 
graph, which  mechanically  makes  use  of  a  plate 
made  for  the  purpose  and  which  can  be  pre- 
served forever,  just  as  the  plates  of  wood  or 
steel  engraving  can  be  preserved?" 

Was  not  this  clear  and  was  it  not  really 
prophetic?  And  was  it  not  quite  legitimate 
that  we  should  remember  to  make  mention  of 
Scott  and  Charles  Cros  in  this  connection? 

Edison  is  extraordinary  in  his  ability  to 
achieve  his  fundamental  ideas  and  day  by  day 
to  render  them  more  complete  and  better 
adapted  to  our  desires  and  our  needs.  And  he 
is  no  less  astonishing  for  his  gift  of  extracting 
from  his  inventions  a  host  of  other  inventions 
of  all  sorts,  every  one  of  which  possesses  its 
own  special  interest  and  bears  the  imprint  of 
his  mind,  and  of  his  unique  and  unsurpassed 
ingenuity.  In  this  way,  for  example,  among 
other  masterpieces  born  of  the  union  of  elec- 
tricity and  mechanics,  we  have  the  telephono- 
graph,  which  is  a  combination  of  the  phono- 
graph and  the  telephone.    It  was  tried  experi- 


156  EDISON 

mentally  between  New  York  and  Philadelphia 
for  the  first  time  in  February,  1889. 

We  may  cite  further  the  megaphone  and  the 
aerophone.  The  megaphone  serves  to  make 
sounds  audible  when  they  come  from  a  long 
distance  and  consequently  have  lost  their  in- 
tensity. It  consists  of  two  huge  acoustic  tubes 
or  horns  about  six  feet  long  and  tapering  from 
a  diameter  of  two  and  one-half  feet  to  a  small 
aperture  provided  with  ear-tubes,  and  they  are 
mounted  on  a  tripod  of  about  the  height  of  a 
man.  Thanks  to  this  apparatus,  and  in  spite 
of  its  simplicity,  it  is  possible  to  carry  on  a 
conversation  at  a  distance  of  more  than  two 
miles. 

The  purpose  of  the  aerophone  is  to  amplify 
sound.  It  consists  of  a  diaphragm  whose  vi- 
brations serve  to  open  and  close  the  valves  of 
a  huge  steam  whistle  or  organ  pipe.  By  means 
of  this  apparatus  the  ordinary  sound  of  the 
voice  is  magnified  two  hundred  fold.  In  this 
manner  the  astute  wizard  of  Menlo  Park,  who 
is  before  all  else  a  calm  and  unemotional  sci- 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         157 

entist,  has  succeeded  in  transforming  the  hu- 
man voice  into  a  terrible  voice,  the  voice  of  a 
giant,  and  in  this  way  he  has  once  again  intro- 
duced an  element  of  dreams  and  nightmares 
into  the  realities  of  life. 

But  without  attempting  to  draw  up,  here 
and  now,  even  an  approximate  list  of  all  of 
Edison's  inventions  pertaining  to  the  phono- 
graph, it  will  suffice  if  we  merely  point  out  that 
a  good  many  of  them  very  pleasantly  combine 
utility  and  entertainment.  In  his  spare  mo- 
ments the  great  American  sorcerer  amuses  him- 
self with  this  odd  and  surprising  type  of  crea- 
tion. He  is  the  first  to  laugh  over  them,  and 
they  serve  to  divert  his  friends. 

It  is  told,  for  instance,  that  one  night  one 
of  his  guests,  comfortably  installed  in  a  large, 
well-ventilated  bedroom,  was  suddenly  awak- 
ened by  a  deep,  grave  voice  pronouncing  the 
following  words: 

"Midnight  has  struck;  prepare  to  meet  your 
God!'' 

But  a  few  moments  later  the  same  voice 


158  EDISON 

added :  '^Don't  be  frightened,  old  man,  it  is 
only  the  clock!" 

Edison,  however,  had  it  in  his  power  to  give 
his  guests  an  emotion  of  quite  a  different  sort 
and  of  a  far  higher  order.  He  had  asked  his 
friend.  Colonel  Gouraud,  to  send  him  a  record 
of  Gladstone's  far-famed  voice.  One  evening, 
after  Gladstone  had  listened,  thanks  to  the 
phonograph,  to  ^'Israel  in  Egypt"  exactly  as  it 
was  given  at  the  Handel  Festival  in  1888,  that 
is  to  say,  with  a  full  orchestra,  a  chorus  of 
four  thousand  voices  and  an  immense  organ, 
he  sent  his  thanks  to  Edison  in  the  following 
terms,  recorded  by  Mr.  Mundell  and  repro- 
duced by  the  obedient  machine : 

"I  am  profoundly  grateful  to  you,  not  only 
for  a  highly  artistic  entertainment,  but  for  an 
initiation  into  the  possibilities  of  a  scientific 
marvel  which  has  given  me  one  of  the  most 
delightful  evenings  of  my  life.  Yours  is  the 
nation  which  shows  us  the  road  to  discoveries. 
And  it  is  with  all  my  heart  that  I  take  the 
liberty  of  offering  you,  who  are  one  of  Amer- 


RECORDING  THE  VOICE         159 

ica^s  greatest  glories,  my  warmest  congratula- 
tions and  sincerest  good  wishes.  May  you  long 
be  spared  to  continue  your  work  for  your  coun- 
try's higher  honour  and  the  greater  good  of 
humanity." 


o^iXne   i/T^ 


OA-ncJrrrg   i^c3\t  one.    of  rv»^  -pholuc|Vxif»^ji.^ 


>o^9uCi.  eld  vd>CtV 

EDISON'S  HANDWRITING 


CHAPTER  VI 

LET  THERE  BE  LIGHT !  AND  THERE  WAS  LIGHT ! — 
AND  THIS  LIGHT  EMANATED  FROM  AMERICA 

T  X  THEN  Edison  is  asked  which  among  all 
V  V  his  inventions, — and  they  are  so  many 
that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  enumerate 
them, — is  the  one  that  he  prefers,  he  an- 
swers readily:  "My  lamp  and  my  system  of 
lighting/' 

The  incandescent  electric  lamp,  invented  by 
Edison,  continued  in  use  for  a  period  of  twenty 
years.  In  this  order  of  ideas  he  was  and  still 
remains  the  great  inventive  genius;  it  was  he 
who  conceived  the  modern  method  of  lighting. 

We  can  no  longer  imagine  what  life  and  civil- 
isation would  be  without  electricity  and  with- 
out electric  light.  Nevertheless,  our  parents 
contented  themselves  with  the  more  modest 

gas  jet.    We,  having  become  more  pretentious, 

160 


LET  THERE  BE  LIGHT!  161 

demand  that  we  shall  see  as  well  at  night  as  in 
the  day,  and  even  better. 

At  the  outset  of  the  nineteenth  century  it 
had  begun  to  be  asked  whether  a  substitute 
could  not  be  found  for  the  kerosene  lamp  and 
the  tallow  candle.  The  first  gas  company  was 
organised  in  London  in  1804.  Davy  and  Watt 
called  the  attention  of  the  public  to  the  neces- 
sity of  improvements  in  lighting.  In  1866  the 
discovery  of  the  dynamo  made  it  possible  to 
transform  the  energy  of  steam  engines  and  tur- 
bine wheels  into  electric  current.  In  this  man- 
ner a  source  of  electric  power  was  obtained  at 
moderate  cost.  How  was  this  pov/er  to  be  em- 
ployed for  the  purpose  of  lighting? 

In  order  to  place  the  problem  clearly  before 
us,  we  need  only  call  to  mind  the  fact  that  there 
were  two  methods  by  which  the  properties  of 
the  electric  current  could  be  used  to  this  end. 
It  was  possible  either  to  take  advantage  of 
Davy's  discovery  and  utilise  the  arc  light  ob- 
tained by  passing  a  powerful  electric  current 
between  two  carbon  points;  or  else  to  follow 


162  EDISON 

Grove's  method  for  little  incandescent  lamps 
(1840),  by  passing  the  electric  current  through 
conductors  formed  of  exceedingly  fine  filaments. 

But  a  thousand  technical  difficulties  were  en- 
countered. 

In  Germany  the  city  streets  were  lighted  by 
means  of  arc  lamps.  But  this  form  of  light  was 
not  adapted  for  small,  enclosed  spaces.  In  Eng- 
land and  America  attempts  were  being  made 
to  perfect  the  incandescent  lamp  on  account  of 
its  moderate  cost  and  numerous  other  advan- 
tages. The  stumbling  block,  in  the  first  type  of 
lamp,  was  the  burning  out  of  the  carbon,  and, 
in  the  second  type,  the  burning  out  of  the  fila- 
ments, whether  of  carbon  or  of  metal.  How 
was  an  incandescent  lamp  adapted  to  practical 
purposes  to  be  obtained? 

And  this  question  necessarily  included  a  sec- 
ond question;  how  was  a  complete  system  of 
electric  lighting  to  be  created  capable  of  taking 
the  place  of  gas  by  combining  all  the  advan- 
tages of  gas  with  those  offered  by  electricity? 

In  1877,  in  the  full  height  of  his  powers, 


LET  THERE  BE  LIGHT!  163 

Edison,  without  losing  sight  of  his  talking  ma- 
chine, turned  his  attention  to  the  incandescent 
lamp.  He  began  his  experiment  with  filaments 
of  platinum,  then  substituted  carbon,  then  re- 
turned to  platinum,  and  then  once  again  to 
carbon. 

Day  after  day  and  night  after  night,  with  a 
dogged  determination  that  before  long  had  in- 
volved an  expense  of  more  than  forty  thousand 
dollars,  Edison  devoted  himself  to  the  solution 
of  this  problem.  It  seemed  to  depend  upon  just 
one  little  detail;  but  he  foresaw — and  before 
long  all  America  foresaw  with  him — that  the 
results  would  be  most  impressive.  For  what 
might  not  be  expected  from  the  inventive  ge- 
nius of  the  famous  wizard  of  Menlo  Park?  Yet 
there  were  other  able  scientists  who  were  work- 
ing toward  the  same  goal. 

But  a  sort  of  feverish  expectancy  had  been 
awakened  within  the  best  informed  circles;  they 
put  their  trust  in  Edison,  in  spite  of  the  doubts 
and  the  incredulous  smiles  of  many  theorists; 
and  in  1878,  notwithstanding  that  his  lamp  was 


164  EDISON 

very  far  from  giving  him  satisfaction,  a  num- 
ber of  financiers  came  together  and  formed  a 
company.  They  placed  enormous  sums  at  the 
inventor's  disposal.  The  shares  in  the  company 
rose  in  value  and  became  one  of  the  best  invest- 
ments in  the  New  York  market. 

From  that  time  onward  a  formidable  activity 
reigned  throughout  the  laboratories  of  Menlo 
Park.  To  manufacture  filaments,  to  raise  them 
to  the  point  of  incandescence,  and  to  note  the 
length  of  their  endurance,  was  now  the  whole 
object  of  the  investigation  conducted  by  Edison 
and  his  assistants.  All  the  resources  of  the  in- 
telligence and  will  power  of  this  Titan  of  mod- 
ern science  and  civilisation  were  consecrated  to 
the  creation  of  a  lamp  that  would  consent  to 
burn  for  forty-eight  hours. 

Little  by  little  he  had  acquired  the  conviction 
that  the  fibres  of  plants  were  the  only  substance 
that  would  offer  sufficient  resistance.  After 
long  research  he  came  down  to  employing  a 
filament  of  cotton.  His  achievement,  in  col- 
laboration with  Batchelor,  from  the  18th  to 


LET  THERE  BE  LIGHT!  165 

the  21st  of  October,  1879,  deserves  to  be  related 
at  full  length  upon  the  honour  page  of  the 
golden  book  of  modern  invention,  on  which  is 
proclaimed  the  patient  energy  of  the  modern 
scientist  who,  through  his  struggle  with  the  ele- 
ments of  nature,  is  destined  by  aid  of  new  com- 
binations to  enrich  the  patrimony  of  civilisa- 
tion. 

Beginning  on  the  18th,  Edison  and  Batchelor 
succeeded  in  carbonising  a  filament  of  cotton. 
Their  delight  may  be  imagined.  But  when 
they  attempted  to  test  it  by  connecting  it  with 
the  electric  current,  it  broke. 

This  did  not  disturb  the  experimenters,  whose 
business  it  is  to  expect  all  sorts  of  mishaps, 
even  the  most  deplorable,  and  to  remedy  them 
forthwith.  On  the  contrary,  this  set-back 
stimulated  their  intrepidity.  The  goal  was 
near  at  hand.  They  swore  that  they  would  not 
sleep  again  until  they  had  conquered  the  hos- 
tility of  inanimate  things.  By  the  20th  of  the 
month  they  had  succeeded  in  making  a  second 
filament  of  carbonised  cotton.  Picture  their 
anxiety  when  they  undertook  to  attach  it  to  the 


166  EDISON 

conducting  wire!  And  their  joy  when  they 
succeeded ! 

Unfortunately,  when  poor  Batchelor  crossed 
the  hall  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  their 
product  with  a  glass  bulb,  there  came  a  breath 
of  wind  and  there  the  filament  was,  broken  like 
its  predecessor.  Conscience-stricken,  he  re- 
turned to  Edison,  who,  unperturbed,  began  the 
task  over  again. 

On  October  21st  the  lamp,  the  famous  lamp, 
was  an  accomplished  fact.  It  was  placed  under 
observation  before  the  vigilant  eyes  of  a  num- 
ber of  engineers.  And  while  the  good  news 
was  being  flashed  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  United  States,  Edison  was  stiU 
sleeping  a  well-earned  sleep. 

When  he  awoke,  the  lamp  was  still  burning, 
and  it  continued  to  burn  for  more  than  forty- 
eight  hours.  The  filament  had  shown  an  ex- 
cellent resistance  to  the  heat. 

By  producing  a  more  perfect  vacuum  in  the 
bulb,  a  greater  length  of  endurance  was  ob- 
tained.    At  the  same   time   the   search   was 


LET  THERE  BE  LIGHT!  167 

continued  for  some  better  method  of  producing 
filaments. 

The  public  hailed  with  delight  this  new  and 
dazzling  manifestation  of  the  great  wizard  of 
Menlo  Park,  without,  however,  even  beginning 
to  realise  the  prodigious  qualities  of  his  inven- 
tive genius.  It  was  easy  enough,  without  such 
realisation,  to  admire  the  daylight  brilliance 
of  the  seven  hundred  lamps  installed  in  the 
laboratory  and  various  other  buildings  and 
workrooms  of  Menlo  Park.  This  demonstra- 
tion was  certainly  as  decisive  as  it  was  im- 
pressive. It  became  necessary  to  revise  the 
schedule  of  railway  trains,  in  order  to  give 
every  one  a  chance,  engineers,  scientists,  busi- 
ness men,  and  simple  sight-seers,  to  marvel 
over  the  Edison  lighting  system. 

Straightway  the  shares  of  the  Edison  Com- 
pany soared  from  $106  to  $3,000.  Within  the 
year  and  with  equal  success  an  electric  lighting 
plant  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  lamps  was 
installed  on  board  the  steamship  Colombia. 

Edison,  however,  was  not  satisfied  with  these 


168  EDISON 

achievements.  He  established  a  manTifactory 
of  lamps,  the  first  of  its  kind.  Still  engrossed 
with  the  idea  of  perfecting  an  instrument  that 
was  destined  to  play  so  important  a  role 
throughout  all  civilised  nations,  he  abandoned 
the  cotton  filament  in  favour  of  one  obtained 
from  bamboo.  The  latter,  when  carbonised, 
exhibited  remarkable  elasticity  and  resistance. 
Thanks  to  such  improvements  and  to  various 
other  modifications  of  detail,  the  inventor  suc- 
ceeded in  producing  an  incandescent  lamp 
which  would  last  from  a  thousand  to  fifteen 
hundred  hours. 

The  Edison  lamps,  exhibited  at  the  Paris 
Electrical  Exposition  of  1881,  came  as  a  revela- 
tion, no  less  to  the  specialists  than  to  the  gen- 
eral public,  of  a  new  and  imposing  order  of 
things.  In  Edison's  exhibit  it  was  possible  to 
follow  all  the  phases  of  manufacture,  from  the 
first  treatment  of  the  raw  materials  down  to 
the  final  achievement  of  incandescence.  It  was 
a  spectacle  as  instructive  as  it  was  picturesque, 
and  it  produced  a  sensation  throughout  all 


LET  THERE  BE  LIGHT!  169 

Paris.  It  has  been  said,  with  good  reason,  that 
Paris  is  the  City  of  Light.  At  that  period 
Paris  was  the  City  of  Edison  Light. 

Consequently  the  inventor  was  well  repaid 
for  having  sought  this  second  recognition  of  his 
great  and  superb  accomplishment.  His  lighting 
system  was  hailed  with  veritable  transport. 
Five  gold  medals  and  a  diploma  of  honour  were 
awarded  him;  and  the  telegram  announcing 
this  award  said  further:  ^'Complete  success. 
The  committee  had  nothing  more  at  its  dis- 
posal to  give  you."  And  his  success  was  no 
less  marked  at  subsequent  expositions;  it  was 
quite  as  notable  at  Philadelphia  in  1884  as  at 
Munich  in  1882  and  at  Vienna  in  1883. 

According  to  his  custom,  Edison  now  pro- 
ceeded to  busy  himself  with  the  commercial 
extension  befitting  a  business  opportunity  of 
such  magnitude.  And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
was  a  colossal,  world-wide  opportunity. 

Electric  lighting  plants  in  which  Edison  had 
an  interest  began  to  multiply  first  of  all  in 
America.    Then  in  all  the  capitals  of  Europe 


170  EDISON 

Edison  companies  were  founded:  in  London, 
in  Paris,  and  in  Berlin,  where  the  Allgemeine 
Electricitdt-Gesellschaft  became  the  most  ex- 
tensive of  any  in  the  world. 

By  1891  more  than  1,300,000  Edison  lamps 
proclaimed  his  glory  and  universal  sovereignty. 
Meanwhile  he  had  continued  his  experiments 
indefatigably,  and  had  replaced  the  bamboo 
filament  by  other  materials,  among  them  by  a 
substance  obtained  from  cellulose. 

In  the  sciences  and  industries  there  is  a  cease- 
less evolution.  Edison's  creation,  transformed 
and  adapted  to  every  need,  surpassed  itself. 
He  had  opened  an  immense,  an  infinite  field, 
into  which  other  gifted  inventors  might  follow 
him,  to  their  greater  glory  and  profit. 

In  the  case  of  the  incandescent  lamp,  just  as 
in  that  of  his  other  inventions,  Edison  was 
obliged  to  scatter  gold  with  a  free  hand,  and 
the  outlay  may  be  estimated  at  upward  of 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Wishing  to  ob- 
tain a  peculiar  species  of  bamboo,  which  he 
deemed  essential  to  the  success  of  his  incan- 


LET  THERE  BE  LIGHT!  171 

descent  lamp,  he  began  by  sending  Mr.  William 
H.  Moore  to  China  and  Japan.  This  adroit 
emissary  and  able  diplomat  left  New  York  in 
the  summer  of  1880,  and  forwarded  to  Menlo 
Park  various  specimens  of  bamboo.  Further- 
more, he  made  arrangements  with  a  Japanese 
farmer  for  a  continuous  supply  of  certain 
species.  Edison  still  remained  dissatisfied  with 
the  results.  In  December,  1880,  Mr.  Brauner 
set  forth  in  his  turn.  But  the  bamboos  which 
he  found  in  the  southern  regions  of  Brazil  were 
judged  to  be  no  better  than  those  of  Japan. 
Accordingly  a  small  expedition  was  next  organ- 
ised for  the  purpose  of  ransacking  Cuba  and 
Jamaica,  in  quest  of  this  same  famous  and  ideal 
bamboo.    But  this  also  proved  to  be  in  vain. 

In  1887,  with  his  extraordinary  and  inde- 
fatigable persistence,  and  remembering  perhaps 
a  description  given  by  Humboldt  of  a  bamboo 
growing  on  the  banks  of  the  Amazon,  Edison 
commissioned  Messrs.  McGowan  and  Haning- 
ton  to  undertake  an  exploring  trip  in  South 
America. 


172  EDISON 

McGowan  made  his  way  up  the  Amazon 
River,  sometimes  on  foot,  sometimes  in  a 
canoe,  constantly  in  the  face  of  great  danger. 
His  adventures  were  most  dramatic,  and  his 
end  was  no  less  so,  because  after  having  re- 
turned home,  bringing  with  him  some  very 
curious  specimens  of  bamboo,  he  subsequently 
disappeared,  without  it  ever  being  known  what 
became  of  him. 

The  public  press  published  dithyrambic  ar- 
ticles upon  his  fifteen  months'  explorations, 
through  districts  infested  with  fevers,  Indians 
and  snakes.  He  passed  one  hundred  and  ninety 
of  these  days  without  food,  and  one  hundred 
without  change  of  clothing.  It  was  a  singular 
destiny  to  have  escaped  so  many  perils,  only 
to  meet  a  mysterious  fate  in  the  very  heart  of 
American  civilisation! 

Here,  for  example,  is  what  the  New  York 
Evening  Sun  said,  in  the  course  of  a  sensational 
interview  with  McGowan: 

"In  pursuit  of  a  substance  that  should  meet 
the  requirements  of  the  Edison  incandescent 


LET  THERE  BE  LIGHT!  173 

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. 

"No  hero  of  mythology  or  fable  ever  dared 
such  dragons  to  rescue  some  captive  goddess 
as  did  this  dauntless  champion  of  civilisation. 
Theseus,  or  Siegfried,  or  any  knight  of  the  fairy 
books,  might  envy  the  victories  of  Edison's 
irresistible  lieutenant. 

"As  a  sample  story  of  adventure,  Mr.  Mc- 
Gowan'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  scien- 
tific purpose.  The  mysterious  bamboo  was  dis- 
covered, and  large  quantities  of  it  were  pro- 
cured 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." 

Even  after  making  allowance  for  the  element 


174  EDISON 

of  exaggeration  which  is  inherent  in  all  news- 
paper accounts,  and  especially  in  American 
newspapers,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  there 
is  something  marvellous  and  epic  in  all  that 
relates,  either  from  near  or  far,  to  Edison. 

Mr.  James  Ricalton  was  still  another  of  his 
emissaries.  He  was  principal  of  a  school  at 
Maplewood,  New  Jersey,  and  was  known  for 
his  researches  in  natural  history.  The  account 
of  his  first  interview  with  the  famous  inventor 
is  quite  characteristic.    Edison  said  to  him: 

''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 
jobr 

Mr.  Ricalton  replied: 

^^That  would  suit  me." 

Then  ensued  the  following  brief  dialogue: 

'^Can  you  go  tomorrow?" 

"Certainly,  but  I  must  arrange  for  a  substi- 
tute. Can  you  tell  me  how  long  the  trip  will 
take?" 


LET  THERE  BE  LIGHT!  175 

'^How  can  I  tell?  Maybe  six  months  and 
maybe  five  years;  no  matter  how  long,  find  it.'' 

This  interview  is  equalled  only  by  that  which 
took  place  more  than  a  year  later  between  the 
same  two  persons.  Mr.  Ricalton  had  returned 
from  India  and  Ceylon,  where  he  had  discov- 
ered that  even  the  humblest  of  donkey  drivers 
were  familiar  with  the  name  of  Edison.  He 
brought  back  to  Menlo  Park  upward  of  one 
hundred  species  of  bamboo,  which  he  had  col- 
lected under  great  difficulties;  two  of  them 
gave  more  satisfactory  results  than  any  of  the 
others.  At  this  period,  however,  Edison  was 
striving  to  perfect  a  filament  of  artificial  car- 
bon which  promised  to  prove  far  superior  to 
bamboo. 

Discovering  the  presence  of  Mr.  Ricalton,  he 
advanced  to  meet  him,  shook  hands,  and  asked : 

'^Did  you  find  it?" 

"Yes,"  answered  the  returned  traveller. 

And  the  inventor  passed  on,  troubling  him- 
self no  further  about  a  great  expense  and  a 
great  effort  which  had  proved  futile. 


176  EDISON 

As  early  as  1881  Edison  had  exhibited,  at  the 
Paris  Electrical  Exposition,  a  huge  steam  dy- 
namo of  twenty-seven  tons,  of  which  the  arma- 
ture alone  weighed  six.  From  the  outset  of 
his  work  upon  the  incandescent  lamp  he  had 
concerned  himself  with  the  problem  relating 
to  currents  of  great  intensity  and  to  machines 
capable  of  producing  these  strong  currents.  His 
discoveries  and  inventions  pertaining  to  the 
utilisation  of  electrical  power  were  supple- 
mented and  perfected  by  those  of  the  Hopkin- 
son  brothers. 

It  was  not  long  before  Edison  built  a  ma- 
chine of  140  horse  power,  generating  sr  suffi- 
cient current  to  supply  1,300  lamps,  and  in 
which  90%  of  the  mechanical  energy  was  trans- 
formed into  electrical  energy.  Here  again  the 
great  American  engineer  showed  the  way  along 
which  the  technicians  of  the  old  and  the  new 
world  alike  must  follow  him,  sustained  by  his 
example  and  glorious  initiative. 

The  installation  of  this  kind  of  power  house 
for  the  supply  of  electrical  power  was  at  that 


I 


LET  THERE  BE  LIGHT!  177 

time  an  entirely  new  thing.  Edison  was  obliged 
to  redouble  his  activity  and  give  unremitting 
attention  to  the  New  York  power  houses  which 
had  invited  his  co-operation. 

Experience  on  all  points  was  lacking.  Edi- 
son, who  had  made  the  plans  for  the  tube- 
conductors,  did  not  disdain,  as  the  phrase  goes, 
to  put  his  hand  to  the  plough  and  work  per- 
sonally, like  any  journeyman,  at  the  task  of 
laying  the  underground  wires. 

Little  by  little  Edison's  earlier  ideas  regard- 
ing the  sale  and  utilisation  of  electricity  be- 
came amplified.  It  proved,  indeed,  to  be  not 
merely  a  matter  of  using  the  current  for  public 
and  private  lighting,  but  also  for  electric  mo- 
tors and  arc-lights.  He  took  out  numerous 
patents  relating  to  these  instruments,  as  well 
as  to  accumulators  for  the  storage  of  electric 
energy. 

In  these  various  applications  of  his  system 
he  gave  proof  of  a  more  and  more  surprising 
ingenuity,  both  in  certain  details  regarding  the 
placement  of  the  dynamos  and  in  the  measure- 


178  EDISON 

ment  of  the  currents.  His  electrolytic  meter 
and  his  various  apparatus  designed  for  meas- 
uring the  quantity  of  amperes  and  volts  bear 
overwhelming  testimony  to  this. 

In  the  same  connection,  and  with  the  same 
fertility  of  resources,  he  asked  himself  the  same 
questions  that  he  had  previously  asked  in  re- 
lation to  telegraphy,  and  arrived  at  analogous 
practical  solutions. 

Thus,  with  his  extraordinary  aptitude  for 
utilising  certain  given  elements  and  obliging 
them  to  furnish  a  maximum  of  return,  he  con- 
tributed towards  the  extension  of  the  field  of 
action  of  electric  power  plants.  This  result  he 
achieved,  not  by  multiplying  the  number  of 
dynamos  or  increasing  the  diameter  of  the 
wires,  but  by  a  system  of  division  of  currents. 

This  electrical  power,  which  he  succeeded  in 
distributing  so  widely,  was  destined  to  be  ap- 
plied to  an  ever-increasing  extent  to  our  daily 
needs.  Electricity  furnished  a  motor  power. 
The  problem  of  electrical  locomotion  was 
squarely  raised. 


LET  THERE  BE  LIGHT!  179 

By  way  of  experiment^  Edison  hastened  to 
construct  an  electric  railway  at  Menlo  Park, 
and  after  various  accidents  due  to  defects  in 
the  methods  of  construction,  he  finally  suc- 
ceeded in  overcoming  all  difficulties  by  means 
of  his  series  of  resistance-boxes. 

The  Electric  Railway  Company  was  founded 
in  1883.  There  is  no  need  of  dwelling  here 
upon  the  vast  development  which  this  means 
of  locomotion  has  undergone  in  all  parts  of  the 
world.  But  it  is  worth  while  to  call  to  mind  the 
new  tour  de  force  accomplished  by  Edison,  af- 
ter the  organisation  of  this  company. 

It  was  decided  to  make  a  public  demonstra- 
tion of  the  advantages  of  the  electric  railway. 
A  first-class  opportunity  occurred  for  making 
such  a  demonstration  in  a  practical  and  decisive 
way.  In  spite  of  all  sorts  of  difficulties,  Edi- 
son succeeded,  in  a  surprisingly  short  time,  in 
constructing  one-third  of  a  mile  of  electric  rail- 
way and  putting  it  into  operation,  at  the  Chi- 
cago Railway  Exposition.  It  continued  in 
operation  for  thirteen  days,  during  which  time 


180  EDISON 

it  carried  no  less  than  twenty-eight  thousand 
passengers. 

America  today  owes  to  this  same  great  in- 
ventor her  superiority  in  electrical  transporta- 
tion and  the  construction  of  all  the  various 
machuiery  relating  to  it. 

"But  electricity  was  capable  of  other  things 
besides  competing  with  other  methods  of  loco- 
motion; she  was  destined  to  afford  a  driving 
power  for  the  various  forms  of  mechanical 
work.  This,  indeed,  was  one  of  the  vastest  of 
all  the  problems  which  haunted  the  brain  of 
this  modern  wizard,  forever  labouring  to  revo- 
lutionise society  through  the  transforming 
power  of  science  and  industry. 

In  default  of  natural  electric  power,  steam- 
engines  are  employed  to  transform  the  solar 
heat  stored  up  in  coal  into  mechanical  energy, 
in  the  form  of  electricity.  Now,  even  under 
favourable  conditions,  90%  of  the  energy  con- 
tained in  the  coal  is  lost.  To  avoid  this  loss 
would  in  itself  amount  to  a  revolution  in  our 
economic  and  social  conditions. 


LET  THERE  BE  LIGHT!  181 

Edison  had  pondered  a  great  deal  over  this 
problem,  seeking  to  develop  the  electric  current 
directly  from  the  coal,  so  as  to  do  away  with 
boilers  and  everything  connected  with  steam- 
driven  machinery.  He  sought  to  solve  this 
problem  by  constructing  a  machine  operated 
by  a  pyromagnetic  motor.  These  two  inven- 
tions depend  upon  the  principle  that  iron  loses 
its  magnetic  properties  through  the  application 
of  heat. 

But  while  awaiting  those  better  days  when 
nature  will  no  longer  succeed  in  keeping  con- 
cealed from  us  any  of  those  forces  which  we 
would  be  glad  to  turn  to  our  advantage,  Edi- 
son applied  his  processes  to  metallurgy,  and  by 
means  of  his  electro-magnetic  separator  for  iron 
ore  opened  up  still  another  avenue  for  industry. 

The  separation  of  iron  ore  from  the  elements 
with  which  it  is  associated  is  not  by  any  means 
one  of  the  least  interesting  of  Edison's  discov- 
eries. The  story  is  told  that  one  day,  when 
passing  along  a  wharf,  he  saw  a  pile  of  black 
sand.    With  his  habitual  curiosity,  he  promptly 


182  EDISON 

put  some  specimens  of  this  sand  in  his  pockets. 
On  returning  to  his  laboratory  he  put  the  sand 
on  his  table;  at  this  moment  a  workman  en- 
tered, stumbled,  and,  striking  against  the  table, 
let  fall  a  large  magnet  which  he  was  carrying 
in  his  hand;  the  magnet  dropped  upon  the 
little  pile  of  sand,  and  when  it  was  picked  up 
Edison  observed  that  it  was  covered  with  tiny 
black  grains,  and  consequently  that  the  sand 
must  contain  iron.  Immediately  his  inventive 
mind  conceived  the  idea  of  extracting  iron  from 
even  the  lowest  grades  of  ore  by  means  of  mag- 
netic attraction. 

Edison  decided  to  put  his  electric  separator 
into  operation  on  a  commercial  scale.  He 
built  enormous  machines  and,  with  his  usual 
habit  of  doing  everything  on  a  huge  scale,  ac- 
quired a  tract  of  land  on  which  building  after 
building  was  erected  until  the  result  was  a 
veritable  little  village,  which  was  christened 
Edison.  The  inventor  and  his  associates  lost, 
in  the  course  of  this  experiment,  a  great  deal 
of  time  as  well  as  money.    He  was  forced  to 


LET  THERE  BE  LIGHT!  183 

abandon  the  entei^rise,  and  he  did  so  quite 
serenely,  in  spite  of  his  enormous  losses,  for, 
while  he  regretted  that  he  had  spoiled  a  good 
business  venture,  he  was  happy  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  his  discovery,  and,  confident  in  the 
future,  scarcely  gave  himself  time  to  regret  it. 

As  he  left  this  battlefield  where  he  had  for 
once  been  beaten,  he  merely  frowned  a  little 
and  contented  himself  with  saying :  "Well,  the 
money  is  all  gonp,  but  we  had  a  hell  of  a  good 
time  spending  it!'^ 

Is  there  not  something  quite  admirable  in 
this  phrase,  when  we  remember  that  Edison 
had  furnished  the  company  engaged  in  this 
enterprise  with  almost  all  the  money  that  he 
had  derived  from  his  previous  labours  and  in- 
ventions? In  this  instance,  we  are  no  longer 
in  the  presence  of  a  magician,  a  wizard,  an 
amazing  experimenter,  a  scientist  unique  of  his 
kind,  but  one  of  the  rarest  and  noblest  of  char- 
acters produced  by  humanity,  victorious  even 
in  his  defeats  and  sublime  in  his  duel  with  the 
forces  of  implacable  nature. 


1 


CHAPTER  VII 

RECORDING   THE   GESTURE — IN    FULL   FAIRYLAND 
— A  FEW  OTHER  MARVELS  SMALL  AND  GREAT 

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  in- 
stantly. 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."  * 

We  see  from  this  anecdote,  related  by  Edi- 

•From  Dyer  and  Martin's  Life  of  Edison. 

184 


1 


RECORDING  THE  GESTURE      185 

son  himself,  that  Ke  had  good  reason  to  be- 
come more  circumspect  towards  visitors,  and 
also  that  he  delights  in  exercising  his  ingenuity 
according  to  the  needs  of  the  hour  and  in  rela- 
lation  to  the  most  diverse  necessities. 

A  business  man  was  complaining  one  day,  in 
his  presence,  of  the  precious  time  that  he  lost 
at  his  office  because  of  the  volume  of  his  cor- 
respondence. 

"You  really  ought  to  invent  something,'^  he 
said,  "to  save  me  from  this  loss  of  time.'^ 

Shortly  afterwards  Edison  sent  to  this  same 
harassed  man  of  business  his  electric  pen  which, 
by  aid  of  a  small  motor  and  the  rapid  move- 
ment of  a  tiny  plunger,  the  point  of  which  is 
projected  a  bare  hundredth  of  an  inch  at  each 
vibration,  forms  letters  composed  of  minute 
holes  in  the  paper.  It  is  quite  easy  thereafter 
to  make  manifold  copies  of  such  a  letter  by 
means  of  a  roller  and  ink. 

In  the  mimeograph,  which  serves  the  same 
purpose,  the  paper  is  pierced  by  means  of  a 
steel  plate,  whose  surface  is  studded  over  with 


186  EDISON 

a  multitude  of  tiny  point's,  while  the  words 
are  traced  upon  the  paper  with  a  pencil,  also 
of  steel. 

Without  stopping  here  to  examine  the  many 
wonderful  electrical  contrivances  invented  by 
Edison,  and  notably  his  accumulator,  we  gladly 
pass  on  to  linger  over  another  of  his  greatest 
wonders,  another  miracle  of  this  amazing  pres- 
tidigitator. 

The  triumph  of  the  phonograph  had  encour- 
aged Edison  to  do  for  the  eyes  what  he  had  j 
succeeded  in  doing  for  the  ears.  But  it  is  only 
within  the  last  fifteen  years  that  he  has  slowly 
perfected,  in  his  Orange  workshops,  an  ap- 
paratus conceived  as  early  as  1887.  Here  again 
the  glorious  inventor  has  proved  worthy  of 
himself.  His  science  has  succeeded  in  achiev- 
ing the  most  intense  and  artistic  reproductions, 
thanks  to  a  series  of  extremely  ingenious  com- 
binations. From  day  to  day  they  adapt  them- 
selves better  and  better  to  the  lofty  concep- 
tions of  a  physicist  who  is  able  to  imprison 
light,  just  as  he  previously  imprisoned  sound, 


RECORDING  THE  GESTURE      187 

and  to  record  and  preserve,  in  a  halo  of  radi- 
ance, plastic  grace  and  beauty,  as  well  as  all 
the  varying  spectacles  borrowed  from  nature, 
and  from  the  life  of  individuals  and  of  races. 

After  the  discovery  of  instantaneous  photog- 
raphy, due  to  the  gelatine-bromide  plate,  which 
required  an  exposure  of  only  a  fraction  of  a 
second,  attempts  were  made  to  obtain  a  more 
exact  reproduction  of  reality,  that  is  to  say,  to 
photograph  moving  objects  at  intervals  of  frac- 
tions of  a  second. 

Edison,  king  of  electricity  and  of  speed, 
naturally  considered  as  coming  within  his  prov- 
ince this  delicate  research,  this  complex  prob- 
lem which  proved  to  be  subdivided  into  many 
problems,  the  successive  solution  of  which  was 
necessary  before  a  satisfactory  result  could  be 
achieved. 

He  employed  an  adjustment  which  enabled 
him  to  expose  the  sensitised  plate  forty-six 
times  to  the  second.  In  this  way  he  obtained 
forty-six  images  to  the  second,  or  2,760  to  the 
minute.    He  succeeded  in  projecting  them  upon 


188  EDISON 

a  screen  at  the  rate  of  14,000  separate  images 
to  every  five  minutes. 

Then  came  another  question:  it  was  neces- 
sary to  group  and  arrange  these  images  in  their 
proper  sequence  in  some  sort  of  a  carrier.  Since 
the  images  were  very  small,  they  were  seen  at 
first  through  a  powerful  magnifying-glass,  and 
then  exhibited  by  the  aid  of  a  magic-lantern. 
Now,  the  difficulty  which  presented  itself  was 
to  find  some  way  of  moving  the  plates  fast 
enough  to  secure  images  that  would  be  instan- 
taneous, successive  and  separate. 

Edison,  with  characteristic  patience,  pro- 
ceeded from  the  glass  plate  to  the  sheet  of  gela- 
tine, rolled  in  the  form  of  a  long  strip  around 
a  drum  and  from  that  to  the  celluloid  film  in 
an  endless  ribbon.  He  adjusted  his  play  of 
light  so  as  to  be  exactly  timed  with  the  unroll- 
ing of  the  film. 

Eager,  as  always,  to  follow  up  his  investi- 
gations as  far  as  possible,  he  built  a  small 
theatre  at  Orange,  which  had  black  walls  and 
was  capable  of  revolving  on  its  axis.     The 


RECORDING  THE  GESTURE      189 

pieces  to  be  taken  by  the  cinematograph  are 
enacted  upon  the  stage,  the  actors  being  illu- 
minated either  by  the  direct  rays  of  the  sun  or 
by  magnesium  lights.  Everyone  knows  that 
the  cinematograph  has  become  one  of  the  fa- 
vourite amusements  of  the  crowd,  which  flocks 
to  these  exhibits  that  are  as  amusing  as  they 
are  instructive.  According  to  his  habit,  and  ex- 
actly as  in  the  case  of  his  phonograph,  Edison 
simultaneously  kept  in  mind  the  entertainment 
of  the  spectacle  and  the  utility  of  the  inven- 
tion for  scientific  and  educational  purposes. 

Thus,  for  instance,  he  employed  the  cinemat- 
ograph for  the  clear  and  precise  study  of  mi- 
croscopic phenomena,  by  showing  the  forms 
and  the  movements  of  infusoria  developing  in 
a  single  drop  of  water,  which  was  their  world. 
These  comedies  and  dramas  of  the  infinitely 
small  assume  an  importance  of  their  own  when 
it  is  made  possible  for  anyone  and  everyone  to 
become  initiated  into  the  profoundest  mys- 
teries of  nature. 

It  is  needless  to  dwell  upon  the  medical  in- 


190  EDISON 

terest  of  inventions  of  this  kind  which  provide 
students  with  means  of  following  the  actions 
and  movements  of  bacteria  with  as  much  ease 
as  they  might  those  of  a  chicken  or  a  lap-dog. 

After  succeeding  in  reproducing,  very  nearly 
to  his  own  satisfaction,  the  effects  of  sound  and 
light,  Edison  could  not  have  been  expected  to 
remain  content  with  the  silence  of  his  motion 
pictures;  besides  he  was  logically  the  one  best 
fitted  to  preside  over  the  union  of  the  cine- 
matograph with  the  phonograph,  and  the  happy 
birth  of  the  phono-cinematograph.  In  this 
completed  system  the  words  and  necessary 
sounds  accompany  the  movements,  and  the 
whole  magical  illusion  is  complete. 

Edison  had  at  once  foreseen  what  interest  his 
new  invention  would  have  as  a  source  of  popu- 
lar entertainment.  Henceforward  the  most 
sumptuous  opera,  choruses,  ballets  and  all, 
could  be  offered  to  the  public  for  a  few  cents, 
placing  within  reach  of  the  humblest  an  end- 
less series  of  new  pleasures,  as  weU  as  a  liber- 


RECORDING  THE  GESTURE      191 

al  education,  clear,  precise  and  diverting,  of 
harmonious  and  radiant  beauty. 

Is  •  not  this  steadfast  and  kindly  desire  to 
place  his  long  and  persevering  efforts  at  the 
service  of  essentially  humane  causes  one  of 
Edison's  best  claims  to  fame?  Is  it  not  an 
enviable  role  to  have  strewn  the  world  and 
brightened  our  fragile  terrestrial  life  with  so 
many  pleasures  unknown  to  our  fathers? 

Yet  this  great  magician  who  gives  us  so 
many  treats,  who  permits  us  to  hear  the  voices 
of  the  dead,  who  has  found  means  to  unite  the 
past  with  the  present  and  the  present  with  the 
future  by  his  almost  miraculous  evocations, 
must  not  make  us  forget  the  erudite  man  of 
science  wholly  absorbed  by  his  task.  For  it  is 
above  all  the  physicist  and  chemist,  the  great 
worker  in  the  laboratory,  whom  we  must  see, 
first,  last  and  always,  in  Edison. 

At  the  same  time,  however,  in  pursuance  of 
his  principle  never  to  abandon  to  others  the 
commercial  development  of  his  processes,  but 
always  to  seek  for  new  sources  of  revenue  to 


192  EDISON 

swell  the  fund  needed  for  further  inventions, 
Edison  has  built  up  quite  an  important  busi- 
ness out  of  his  Motion  Pictures. 

Besides  the  theatre  in  Orange,  there  are  two 
Edison  theatres,  or  "Pantomime  Studios,''  in 
New  York.  The  larger  of  these  is  a  three-story 
building,  containing  on  the  one  hand  offices, 
storerooms  for  costumes  and  scenery,  and  a  li- 
brary, and  on  the  other  hand  a  theatre.  The 
ceiling  and  walls  are  of  glass,  the  floor-space 
is  sufficiently  large  to  permit  of  six  simulta- 
neous rehearsals,  with  all  the  necessary  stage 
settings  for  the  drama  or  comedy  in  course  of 
enactment. 

A  very  large  stock-company  is  employed  at 
these  two  studios,  including  painters,  photog- 
raphers, actors,  electricians,  costumers  and 
other  specialists.  After  having  proved  satisfac- 
tory to  a  committee  of  competent  judges,  the 
films  are  placed  on  sale.  In  spite  of  the  enor- 
mous competition,  the  affairs  of  the  company 
appear  to  be  most  prosperous,  and  all  the  more 
so  because  the  sale  of  all  the  various  apparatus 


:l 


RECORDING  THE  GESTURE      193 

needed  for  exhibiting  the  films  goes  to  swell 
the  receipts. 

A  number  of  skilled  experimenters  are  work- 
ing with  unwearying  persistence,  on  lines  laid 
down  by  Edison,  at  various  improvements  of 
the  cinematograph  in  all  its  various  forms, 
which  day  by  day  are  being  rendered  more 
complete,  whether  for  the  purpose  of  study  and 
instruction  or  as  machines  adapted  to  the  en- 
tertainment of  the  crowd. 
~  Edison  sometimes  enjoys  attending  these 
public  performances  and  criticising  them,  while 
he  dreams  of  a  still  intenser  degree  of  reality. 
But,  instead  of  lingering  longer  over  these 
dazzling  marvels,  we  must  pass  on  to  cast  a 
wondering  eye  at  still  other  inventions  of  this 
unparalleled  creator. 

Nothing  could  be  more  striking  than  his 
method  of  construction  which  makes  it  possible 
to  erect  a  ten-room  house  in  four  days.  And 
at  the  same  time  this  little  miracle  seems,  after 
all,  perfectly  natural!  A  steel  mould  is  set  up, 
into  which  the  concrete  is  poured  and  allowed 


194  EDISON 

to  harden.  The  mould  is  removed,  and  an  en- 
tire dwelling,  foundations,  walls,  cellars,  every 
detail  down  to  the  smallest  window,  appears  as 
if  by  enchantment. 

But  Edison's  audacious  initiative  does  not 
stop  at  that.  He  has  perfected  a  method  for 
converting  stone  into  cement.  The  stone  is 
blasted  out  and  then  removed  by-  gigantic 
ninety-ton  cranes,  which  lift  up  six-ton  frag- 
ments of  rock  as  easily  as  a  child  picks  up  a 
ball.  Locomotives  convey  the  rock  to  some 
distance,  where  it  is  broken  up  between  enor- 
mous cylinders.  When  pulverized,  it  passes 
under  a  roller,  where  the  mixture  of  limestone 
and  cement  rock  is  completed. 

Without  having  the  least  intention  of  at- 
tempting to  enumerate  all  of  Edison's  countless 
inventions,  we  may  call  to  mind  the  fact  that 
he  was  the  author  of  the  first  fluoroscope,  after 
the  discovery  of  the  X-rays.  And  without  stop- 
ping to  examine  all  his  lamps,  and  all  his  pho- 
nographic apparatus,  we  may  content  our- 
selves  with   mentioning,    in   addition   to   his 


RECORDING  THE  GESTURE      195 

motors  and  magnetos  and  manifold  telephones, 
his  batteries  and  regulators,  his  pyromagnetic 
generator,  his  models  for  syrens  and  musical 
instruments,  an  audiphone  for  deafness,  his 
odoroscope,  his  method  for  distilling  liquids, 
etc. 

As  may  easily  be  imagined,  Edison  has  not 
failed  to  follow  with  intense  interest  the  prog- 
ress of  aviation.  At  the  request  of  James  Gor- 
don Bennett,  he  experimented  with  a  number 
of  motors  designed  to  serve  for  the  ^'heavier 
than  air"  type  of  machine.  He  invented  one 
motor,  to  be  run  with  gun-cotton,  but  after  an 
explosion  he  gave  up  this  line  of  experiments, 
deciding  to  confine  himself  to  tasks  that  made 
a  more  direct  appeal  to  his  activities. 

At  the  time  of  his  last  visit  to  France  Edison 
did  not  forget  to  express  his  admiration  for  the 
magnificent  daring  of  the  French  aviators  and 
for  the  remarkable  success  which  has  been 
made  of  the  aeroplane  industry  in  that  country. 

As  the  inventor  of  a  storage  battery  which 
facilitates  economical  electric  locomotion,  un- 


196  EDISON 

der  conditions  hitherto  regarded  as  impossible, 
Edison  plays  a  leading  role  in  the  essentially 
modern  and  already  extraordinarily  developed 
industry  of  tramways  and  automobiles.  What 
is  not  so  generally  known  is  that,  although  far 
from  interested  in  engines  ot  death,  because  he 
is  opposed  to  war  and  its  atrocities,  he  never- 
theless conceived  an  electric  submarine  tor- 
pedo, in  collaboration  with  Mr.  W.  S.  Sims. 
Several  models  of  this  have  been  constructed. 
He  also  gave  some  useful  advice  during  the 
Spanish-American  war  of  1898. 

But  that  is  not  his  province.  He  has  given 
himself  up  entirely  to  those  industries  of  peace 
which  promote  the  well-being  of  civilised  na- 
tions. And  if  we  realise  the  peaceful  revolu- 
tion in  our  manners  and  customs  which  elec- 
tricity has  wrought  in  less  than  half  a  century, 
just  as  the  steam-engine  and  the  printing-press 
did  at  earlier  epochs,  we  shall  continue  to  place 
Edison  in  the  foremost  rank  of  those  who  are 
working  for  the  establishment  of  a  new  social 


RECORDING  THE  GESTURE      197 

order  based  upon  the  revelations  of  modern 
science. 

When  the  readers  of  the  New  York  Herald 
were  called  upon  to  express  their  opinions,  it 
was  also  in  the  foremost  rank  that  they  placed 
Edison,  among  the  most  distinguished  person- 
alities in  America.  And  although  inventors 
and  business  men  have  only  too  often  found  it 
to  their  interest  to  quarrel  with  him  and  to 
appropriate  rights  which  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  have  not  always  adequately  protected, 
no  one  is  under  any  misapprehension  as  to  his 
genius. 

And  what  if  the  world  could  know  all  of  his 
secrets!  But  he  reveals  them  only  one  by  one 
and  at  his  own  good  pleasure  How  many  in- 
complete inventions,  half  realised  in  some 
corner  of  his  laboratory  at  Orange,  are  destined 
to  live  only  in  the  recesses  of  his  brain! 

Edison  pursues  his  work  without  useless 
worry.  He  consoles  himself  for  the  brevity  of 
existence  by  rendering  his  own  as  intense  as 
possible.     In  many  cases  we  may  well  regret 


^/ 


198  EDISON 

that  his  industrial  interests  oblige  him  to  fix 
his  attention  outside  of  his  researches.  But, 
besides  the  fact  that  his  prodigious  activity 
enables  him  to  pass  easily  from  one  task  to 
another  as  though  he  found  the  change  restful, 
his  chief  strength  lies  in  his  ability  to  utihse 
the  power  of  the  dollar  simultaneously  with 
that  of  his  daring  thought  and  prolonged 
effort. 

In  order  really  to  understand  Edison,  we 
must  picture  him  in  his  coarse  chemical-spotted 
mechanic's  garb,  throwing  a  friendly,  humor- 
ous word  to  the  humblest  man  on  the  staff, 
rather  than  in  the  austere  frock-coat  more  be- 
fitting a  gentleman  of  professorial  manner. 
There  is  no  doubt  about  it.  But  at  the  same 
time  we  must  never  forget  to  see  him  from  the 
standpoint  of  his  practical  Americanism,  full 
of  inexhaustible  initiative.  The  king  of  elec- 
tricity maintains  his  sovereignty  only  because 
he  is  also  a  monarch  of  commerce  and  industry. 

It  is  impossible  to  calculate  mathematically 
the  commercial  value  of  Edison's  work.  Never- 


RECORDING  THE  GESTURE      199 

theless,  we  may  cite  a  few  figures  for  the 
United  States  alone. 

Central  stations  for  the  distribution  of  elec- 
tricity: The  capitalisation  is  a  billion  dollars, 
the  annual  earnings  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  million,  the  number  of  employees  fifty 
thousand,  the  expenses  forty  million.  For  the 
incandescent  lamp,  the  figures  are:  Capital, 
twenty-five  million;  earnings,  twenty  million; 
number  of  employees,  fourteen  thousand;  ex- 
penses, eight  million. 

In  short,  more  than  half  a  million  workmen 
are  employed  for  the  exploitation  of  these  great 
inventions  of  Edison's,  which  have  transformed 
the  world  and  have  created  one  of  the  most 
formidable  currents  of  social  and  industrial  life 
that  the  history  of  civilisation  has  had  to 
record. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

MR.  EDISON  DOES  NOT  RECEIVE — BUT  HE  WILL 
RECEIVE  US — LLEWELYN  PARK,  AT  ORANGE, 
NEW  -JERSEY — THE  RECIPE  FOR  GENIUS  AND 

SUCCESS 

IN  his  ^ve  Future,  Villiers  de  I'lsle  Adam, 
a  poet  of  noble  and  picturesque  verse,  and 
of  adventurous  and  at  times  bizarre  imagina- 
tion, shows  us,  in  a  fantastic  tale,  "not  Mr.  Edi- 
son the  engineer,  but  the  magician  of  the 
century,  the  Wizard  of  Menlo  Park,  the  father 
of  the  phonograph." 

He  compares  the  countenance  of  this  man, 
who  has  made  echo  a  prisoner,  to  that  of  Ar- 
chimedes on  a  Syracusan  medal.  Here  is  the 
portrait  which  he  has  traced  with  no  little  art 
of  that  symbolic  Edison  of  dreamland : 

"He  seemed  lost  in  intense  meditation.  On 
his  right,  a  high  window,  wide  open  to  the 
west,  let  in  the  day  upon  the  vast  pandemo- 

200 


LLEWELYN  PARK  201 

nium,  letting  a  haze  of  reddish  gold  invade 
and  overspread  all  objects.  Here  and  there, 
encumbering  the  tables,  appeared  the  faint  out- 
lines of  delicate  measuring  instruments,  the 
wheels  and  gearings  of  unknown  mechanisms, 
electric  apparatus,  telescopes,  reflectors,  enor- 
mous magnets,  flasks  filled  with  enigmatic  sub- 
stances, and  blackboards  completely  covered 
over  with  equations." 

What  strikes  us  as  curious  in  all  this  is  the 
ease  with  which  fantasy  blends  with  reality, 
and  hardly  succeeds  in  surpassing  it.  Let  us 
listen  further  to  the  following  lamentations  of 
Edison,  recorded  in  a  manner  as  strange  as  it 
is  profound  by  this  original  writer  of  the  de- 
cadent school: 

"From  among  the  noises  of  past  ages,  how 
many  mysterious  sounds  were  perceived  by  our 
predecessors  which,  through  lack  of  any  ap- 
paratus adapted  to  preserve  them,  have  passed 
forever  into  oblivion!  Who,  indeed,  at  the 
present  day,  can  form  any  exact  notion, — for 
example,  of  the  trumpets  of  Jericho,  of  the 


202  EDISON 

roar  of  the  bull  of  Phalaris,  of  the  laughter  of 
the  Augurs,  of  the  sigh  of  Memnon  before  the 
dawn?" 

But  we  must  not  delay  any  longer  over  such 
purely  imaginative  fiction  if  we  wish  really  to 
know  and  understand  Edison,  although  in  pass- 
ing we  may  well  recognise  its  interest  and  the 
considerable  truth  which  it  contains  in  a  gen- 
eral sense.  The  newspaper  accounts  which 
have  appeared  from  time  to  time  in  both  hemi- 
spheres, especially  when  copy  was  scarce,  are 
hardly  more  exact.  Edison,  the  most  widely 
known  man  in  the  universe,  is,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  for  the  most  part  greatly  misunderstood. 
Let  us  add  at  once  that  it  is  a  decided  advan- 
tage to  get  a  somewhat  magnified  view  of  him, 
if  we  wish  to  see  him  clearly.  Accordingly,  we  j 
should  do  wrong  if  we  failed  to  recall  the  im- 
pression made  by  the  most  famous  of  modem 
enchanters  upon  the  most  celebrated  enchant- 
ress of  our  own  day. 

"His  marvellous  blue  eyes,''  writes  Mme. 
Sarah  Bernhardt  in  her  Memoirs,  "more  lumi- 


LLEWELYN  PARK  203 

nous  than  his  own  incandescent  lamps,  per- 
mitted me  to  read  his  every  thought.  ...  I 
followed  him  rapidly,  climbing  up  stairs  as 
straight  and  narrow  as  ladders,  and  crossing 
bridges  suspended  above  veritable  furnaces; 
and  he  explained  everything  to  me  as  we  went. 

"I  understood  it  all;  and  I  admired  him  more 
and  more,  for  he  was  both  simple  and  charm- 
ing, this  King  of  the  Realm  of  Light. 

'While  we  leaned  side  by  side  over  the  fragile 
bridge  that  trembled  above  the  frightful  abyss 
in  which  immense  wheels,  carrying  large  driv- 
ing belts,  whirled  and  spun  and  roared,  he  gave 
various  commands  in  a  clear  voice,  and  light 
burst  forth  on  all  sides,  sometimes  in  crackling, 
greenish  jets,  sometimes  in  rapid  flashes,  and 
then  again  in  serpentine  trails  like  rivulets  of 
fire. 

"...  I  looked  at  this  man  of  medium  height, 
with  a  head  slightly  too  large  and  a  profile  full 
of  nobility,  and  I  thought  of  Napoleon  I.  There 
certainly  is  a  strong  physical  resemblance  be- 
tween these  two  men,  and  I  am  sure  that  it  is 


204  EDISON 

a  case  where  the  two  brains  would  be  found  to 
be  identical. 

".  .  .  The  bewildering  noise  of  the  machin- 
ery, the  blinding  rapidity  of  the  changing  light 
set  my  head  to  whirling ;  and,  forgetting  where 
I  was,  I  leaned  over  the  fragile  railing  which 
alone  protected  me  from  the  depths  below,  with 
such  complete  unconsciousness  of  the  danger 
that  even  before  I  had  recovered  from  my  sur- 
prise Edison  had  drawn  me  into  an  adjoining 
room  and  placed  me  in  an  easy-chair,  without 
my  having  the  slightest  memory  of  his  doing 
so.  He  told  me  presently  that  I  had  had  a 
slight  touch  of  vertigo.  .  .  . 

"I  was  carried  away  by  my  admiration  for 
this  man's  inventions.  I  was  also  charmed  by 
his  modest  manner  and  gracious  courtesy,  as 
well  as  by  his  profound  love  for  Shakespeare.'^ 

Following  the  example  of  Mme.  Sarah  Bern- 
hardt, let  us  also  visit  Edison,  that  is  to  say, 
let  us  visit  simultaneously  the  inventor,  the 
engineer  and  the  Faust  of  modern  times,  who, 
in  spite  of  his  name  and  his  fortune,  is  in  real- 


LLEWELYN  PARK  205 

ity  a  simple  man,  sincere  and  cordial,  although 
terribly,  even  formidably,  busy. 

But  who  would  not  willingly  pardon  him  for 
wishing  to  guard  himself  from  importunate 
visitors?  It  is  no  more  than  right  that  his 
laboratory  should  be  protected  from  inquisitive 
glances  behind  the  shelter  of  high  walls,  and 
that  the  main  entrance  should  bear  the  follow- 
ing notice:  ^'On  account  of  his  work,  Mr.  Edi- 
son finds  it  absolutely  impossible  to  grant  any 
personal  interviews.  No  visitors  will  receive 
permission  to  enter  here." 

A  general  prohibition  of  this  sort  can  always 
be  excused  in  the  case  of  an  inventor,  and 
more  particularly  so  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Edison. 
But  since,  in  spite  of  our  indiscretion,  our  in- 
tentions are  honourable,  we  will  take  the  liberty 
of  disregarding  the  injunction. 

We  must  not  resent  the  attitude  of  the  gate- 
keeper, a  veritable  Cerberus,  who  looks  us  up 
and  down,  and  keeps  us  waiting  until  we  have 
been  identified  beyond  question.  For  is  he  not 
the  self -same  gate-keeper  who  subjected  Mr. 


206  EDISON 

Edison  himself  to  a  like  examination  and  de- 
lay before  he  could  be  convinced  that  this  clean- 
shaven personage  with  an  energetic  face  was 
possessed  of  the  proper  credentials? 

Let  us  take  advantage  of  this  momentary 
delay  to  ask  where  we  are.  We  have  come  to 
Orange,  New  Jersey.  An  electric  tramway,  a 
street-car,  whose  economical  motor,  which 
makes  it  possible  to  cover  a  considerable  dis- 
tance without  recharging  the  batteries,  is  an- 
other oi  Edison's  inventions,  has  brought  us  to 
Llewelyn  Park,  the  site  of  the  Edison  labora- 
tory and  of  the  residence  in  which  he  leads  his 
peaceful  family  life. 

We  cannot  help  feeling  a  little  surprised  to 
think  that  all  this  power  of  human  genius 
emanates  from  this  tranquil  and  verdant  coun- 
try district,  in  the  midst  of  charming  homes 
and  wooded  hillsides. 

It  was  in  the  year  1886  that  Edison  removed 
from  his  far-famed  habitation  at  Menlo  Park. 
He  had  need  of  vaster  space,  both  for  his  own 
personal  work  and  for  the  extensive  manufac- 


LLEWELYN  PARK  207 

tories  of  which  he  was  to  remain  the  head.  He 
felt  the  need  of  a  more  scientific  organisation 
and  system  of  management.  After  ten  years 
of  occupation  and  progress,  Menlo  Park  had 
become  obviously  inadequate. 

His  ambition  was  to  make  this  picturesque 
Orange  valley  the  site  of  his  manufactories  and 
of  a  laboratory — the  famous  laboratory  of  his 
life-long  dreams — that  would  be  worthy  to 
meet  their  requirements  and  augment  their 
power.  Consequently,  Orange  is  not  merely 
the  home  of  the  great  inventor's  laboratory, 
over  which  we  are  about  to  cast  a  glance;  it  is 
also  a  manufacturing  centre,  representing  an 
invested  capital  of  four  million  dollars  and 
consisting  of  a  whole  group  of  enterprises,  in- 
cluding: the  Edison  Manufacturing  Company, 
the  Bates  Manufacturing  Company,  the  Edi- 
son Storage  Battery  Company,  the  Edison 
Phonograph  Works,  the  National  Phonograph 
Company,  and  the  Edison  Business  Phono- 
graph Company. 


208  EDISON 

But  it  is  the  scientist  and  the  unsurpassed 
wizard  whom  we  wish  primarily  to  visit. 

The  laboratory,  which  has  become,  year  by 
year,  more  spacious,  more  practical,  more  mag- 
nificently comfortable  in  the  American  sense, 
comprises  one  principal  building, — no  sky- 
scraper, but  a  four-story  structure,  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  feet  in  length, — and  four  one- 
story  buildings,  each  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  feet  long.  We  find  ourselves  first  of  all  in 
the  library,  an  almost  square  hall,  whose  di- 
mensions are  roughly  a  hundred  feet  by  forty 
in  height.  Two  galleries  extend  around  the 
sides,  and  cabinets  of  various  sizes  contain 
superb  collections  of  mineral  and  precious 
stones.  The  library  itself  comprises  more  than 
sixty  thousand  volumes  ranged  upon  the 
shelves,  not  to  speak  of  the  scientific  reviews, 
and  all  the  technical  pubhcations  in  connection 
with  every  art,  science  and  craft. 

In  this  agreeably  and  harmoniously  propor- 
tioned room  we  observe  four  electric  chande- 
liers and  a  number  of  chaii's  and  tables.    The 


LLEWELYN     PARK 

Edison  prefers  his  Home  to  all  the  Attractions  of  the  outside  World. 


THE  NEW  YORkI 
PUBLIC     U88ARY  I 


LLEWELYN  PARK  209 

boards  of  directors  frequently  hold  their  meet- 
ings around  one  of  these  tables.  Edison  pre- 
sides over  them  with  his  clear,  ardent,  compel- 
ling, electric  personality,  communicating  faith 
and  energy  to  all  his  assistants. 

Near  to  Edison's  office,  where  he  arrives 
punctually  every  morning,  a  sort  of  alcove  has 
been  contrived,  which  is  furnished  with  a  table 
and  a  chair.  Here  Edison  takes  his  meals  on 
the  days  when  he  cannot  spare  the  time  to 
return  home. 

Facing  the  principal  entrance  is  a  group  ac- 
quired at  the  Exposition  of  1889,  a  work  by 
Bordiga,  representing  the  triumph  of  electric- 
ity and  electric  light.  On  an  adjacent  table 
we  perceive  a  pretty  model  in  miniature  of  the 
poured-cement  house  invented  by  Edison.  Por- 
traits of  scientists  and  celebrated  men  adorn 
the  galleries.  A  bust  of  Humboldt  and  a 
statuette  of  Sandow  especially  attract  our  at- 
tention. 

Adjoining  the  library  is  situated  the  cele- 
brated stockroom,  with  its  accumulation  of  the 


210  EDISON 

greatest  variety  of  substances  which  the  in- 
ventor may  need  to  have  immediately  at  hand. 
Sovereign  experimenter  that  he  is,  he  must 
always  take  nature  as  his  starting-point  and 
ceaselessly  collaborate  with  her. 

This  stockroom  contains  an  enormous  col- 
lection, and  at  first  sight  a  very  strange  one, 
including  the  simplest  as  well  as  the  rarest  ele- 
ments of  the  animal,  vegetable  and  mineral 
kingdoms.  It  ranges  from  teeth  and  horns  to 
macaroni,  oils  and  salts  of  every  kind,  and  from 
every  country,  and  even  to  pearls  and  dia- 
monds. 

Many  a  joke  has  been  made  at  the  expense 
of  this  stockroom,  with  its  enormous  assort- 
ment of  substances.  Mr.  T.  A.  Ebdell,  the 
director  of  this  department,  has  compiled  two 
catalogues  containing  the  lists  of  specimens. 
Side  by  side  with  silk  and  the  barks  of  trees, 
mention  is  made  of  many  deadly  poisons,  as 
well  as  of  fish  scales  and  camel's  hair.  M. 
Emile  Durer,  who  has  recorded  some  rather 
humorous  memories  of  his  visit  to  the  labora- 


LLEWELYN  PARK  211 

tory  at  Orange,  relates  the  following  conver- 
sation with  Mr.  Ebdell,  its  erudite  and  prac- 
tical organiser.  The  latter  had  been  boasting 
that  he  could  satisfy,  within  a  few  moments, 
any  need  of  the  illustrious  inventor.  If  he 
should  send  in  a  slip  of  paper  demanding  a 
plant  growing  thousands  of  miles  from  Orange, 
a  rose  of  Jericho,  for  instance,  it  would  be  sent 
to  him  within  a  few  moments.  If  he  should 
next  require  some  ginseng,  a  precious  plant 
which  grows  in  China,  and  has  the  virtue  of 
prolonging  human  life,  it  would  be  forth- 
coming. 

"You  see,''  concluded  Mr.  Ebdell,  "that  I 
have  everything  that  could  be  asked  for." 

"Really,  you  have  everything?" 

"Yes,  everything.  You  can  ask  me  for  the 
rarest  herb,  the  scarcest  metal,  and  you  shall 
have  it  in  a  moment." 

"Very  well,  give  me  some  paprika." 

"I  beg  your  pardon?" 

"Paprika." 

"You  write  it  pa-pri-cahf' 


212  EDISON 

"Not  at  all.  The  word  is  neither  Japanese 
nor  Chinese.'^ 

M.  Durer  found  himself  obliged  to  give  a 
detailed  explanation  regarding  Hungarian  red 
pepper,  alias  paprika,  and  even  to  furnish  an 
address  from  which  it  could  be  procured.  And 
Mr.  Ebdell  acknowledged  that  he  did  not  pos- 
sess quite  everything,  since  this  particular  kind 
of  pepper  was  lacking. 

It  would  be  possible  to  make  quite  a  lengthy- 
list  of  pleasantries  of  this  kind,  and  it  is  quite 
likely  that  there  are  still  some  gaps  in  the 
stockroom  catalogue.  But  it  is  none  the  less 
true  that  Edison  is  able,  in  response  to  the 
inspiration,  the  happy  hazard  of  the  moment, 
to  obtain  any  material  whatever  that  he  may 
need  for  his  investigations.  He  can  do  this  at 
any  hour  of  the  day  or  night,  without  appre- 
ciable delay. 

We  come  next  to  the  rooms  devoted  to  ma- 
chinery and  mechanical  experiments ;  they  con- 
tain the  models  of  various  kinds  of  apparatus 
and  of  improvements  connected  with   them. 


LLEWELYN  PARK  213 

They  occupy  one  half  of  the  whole  vast  struc- 
ture. 

On  the  second  storey  we  come  to  the  rooms 
set  aside  for  experimenting.  Let  us  stop  in 
the  X-ray  room,  and  take  a  look,  as  we  pass,  at 
the  machine  which  was  forwarded  to  Buffalo  at 
the  time  when  Edison  learned  of  the  assassina- 
tion of  President  McKinley. 

Room  No.  12  is  of  still  more  special  interest, 
for  it  is  Edison's  own  room.  It  contains  every 
variety  of  apparatus  that  might  be  required 
successively  by  a  physicist,  a  chemist  or  a  ma- 
chinist, according  to  the  needs  of  the  day  and 
the  hour.  Let  us  contemplate  almost  devoutly 
this  place  of  retirement,  in  which  a  human 
intellect  of  almost  universal  capacity  wrestles 
with  inorganic  matter. 

But  at  this  point  Mr.  Edison  rejoins  us  in 
person,  and  we  find  ourselves  in  doubt  as  to 
which  is  the  greater,  our  liking  for  him  or  our 
admiration.  He  smiles  upon  us  with  that 
charming  good  humour  which  at  times  expands 
into  hearty  merriment  at  the  recital  of  some 


214  EDISON 

particularly  amusing  anecdote,  some  one  of 
those  occurrences  which  he  delights  in  among 
his  ^^boys,"  the  devoted  family  circle  of  his 
assistants. 

In  physique,  Edison  is  tall,  strong  and  at  the 
same  time -energetic  and  gentle.  He  looks  ex- 
actly as  he  has  been  described,  with  a  high 
forehead,  frank  blue  eyes,  a  swift,  clear  glance, 
and  a  straight  nose.  His  hair  is  quite  grey. 
Yet  he  gives  an  impression  of  youth  and  health 
and  strength.  He  leans  towards  us  in  order  to 
hear  us  better,  and,  because  of  his  deafness, 
holds  his  hand  behind  his  ear.  This  deafness 
he  has  accepted  with  remarkable  philosophy, 
and  he  freely  declares  that  it  has  been  a  great 
advantage  to  him,  particularly  in  connection 
with  his  prolonged  labours  upon  the  telephone 
and  phonograph,  because  he  found  it  impos- 
sible to  satisfy  himself,  so  long  as  the  sounds 
were  at  all  weak  or  indistinct. 

We  will  continue  on  our  tour  of  inspection. 
On  the  third  floor  we  enter  a  hall  which  ex- 
tends ahTLOst  the  entire  length  of  the  building; 


LLEWELYN  PARK  215 

its  walls  are  lined  with  cabinets  containing  all 
sorts  of  apparatus,  motors,  telegraph  machines, 
phonographs,  etc. 

Above  the  library  we  pass  through  still  other 
rooms  devoted  to  experiments  with  the  pho- 
nograph, also  the  private  ofl&ce  in  which  the 
personal  business  affairs  of  Mr.  Edison  are  con- 
ducted under  the  direction  of  Mr.  H.  F.  Miller. 

Since  we  have,  unfortunately,  no  time  for 
prolonging  our  sojourn  at  Orange,  we  must  now 
leave  this  building,  in  which  there  are  such  a 
host  of  assiduous  toilers,  calm  and  yet  at  the 
same  time  feverishly  active;  for  there  are  still 
four  more  buildings  at  which  we  must  take  a 
passing  glance. 

The  first  of  these,  known  as  the  galvanometer 
room,  was  especially  designed  for  the  purpose 
of  making  electric  measurements  requiring  the 
greatest  precision  and  delicacy.  Accordingly,  in 
order  to  guard  it  from  all  magnetic  influence, 
iron  and  steel  were  both  discarded  in  its  con- 
struction. But  after  all  these  wise  precautions 
had  been  taken  an  electric  trolley  line  was  in- 


216  EDISON 

stalled  directly  beneath  its  windows!  Conse- 
quently, all  the  instruments  had  to  be  rele- 
gated to  a  useless  inactivity  on  walls,  tables 
and  shelves. 

Without  pausing  at  a  small  outhouse  used 
by  the  inventor  for  his  experiments  in  concrete 
houses,  we  enter  the  second  of  the  four  single- 
storey  structures.  We  soon  perceive  that  it  is 
an  admirably  equipped  chemical  laboratory.  A 
large  corps  of  experimenters  are  employed 
there,  and  Edison  often  joins  them  when  some 
question  arises  which  he  wishes  to  solve  by 
manipulations  of  special  delicacy. 

The  third  structure  contains  more  apparatus 
and  utensils,  as  well  as  models,  while  the  fourth 
is  a  supplementary  stockroom,  besides  contain- 
ing photographic  and  cinematographic  appa- 
ratus. 

At  Orange,  just  as  formerly  at  Menlo  Park, 
Edison  is  constantly  besieged  with  more  or  less 
legitimate  demands  upon  his  time,  and  not- 
withstanding his  courtesy,  which  turns  to  af- 
fability w^hen  he  has  to  do  with  brother  scien- 


LLEWELYN  PARK  217 

tists  or  artists  or  anyone  earnestly  striving  to 
make  the  most  of  his  talent,  he  is  often  obliged 
to  deny  himself  to  visitors. 

It  sometimes  happens  also  that  he  forgets 
them,  just  as  he  one  day  forgot  a  gentleman 
who  had  been  delegated  to  present  him  with  a 
medal  that  was  a  mark  of  very  high  distinction 
from  some  society,  the  name  of  which  escapes 
our  memory,  and  who  waited  for  hours  in  the 
laboratory,  and  all  in  vain. 

Edison  is  so  busy  and  so  absorbed  that  he 
may  easily  be  pardoned  such  moments  of  ab- 
sent-mindedness, from  which  the  whole  human 
race  reaps  a  benefit. 

At  Orange,  Edison  remains  the  master-mind 
of  the  whole  immense  organisation,  although 
he  is  still  obliged,  just  as  at  Menlo  Park  and 
throughout  his  life,  to  invite  the  co-operation 
of  the  most  distinguished  specialists.  For  ex- 
ample, he  has  entrusted  all  questions  of  liti- 
gation to  Mr.  F.  L.  Dyer,  an  eminent  lawyer, 
learned  and  far-sighted,  whom  we  have  had 
frequent  occasion  to  quote  in  these  pages.    Mr. 


218  EDISON 

Dyer  has  no  sinecure,  for  it  is  he  who  takes 
out  the  patents  for  Edison's  inventions,  and 
their  number  is  known  to  mount  up  into  the 
hundreds,  both  in  the  United  States  and  in 
foreign  countries.  They  range  from  the  quad- 
ruplex  telegraph  to  the  manufacture  of  window- 
glass,  from  electric  locomotion  to  a  method  of 
preserving  fruit,  from  compressed  air  appa- 
ratus to  a  machine  for  writing  addresses,  etc. 
Not  to  mention  that  Mr.  Dyer's  duties  involve 
the  continual  defence  of  the  inventions,  for  the 
infringements  of  them  are  innumerable,  and 
consequently  so  also  are  the  law-suits.  Lastly, 
some  of  Edison's  engineers,  and  even  some  of 
the  assistant  workmen,  eager  to  prove  their 
ability  and  personal  ingenuity,  make  occasional 
discoveries,  which  Edison  himself  is  the  first  to 
applaud.  And  patents  for  these  are  also  taken 
out  by  Mr.  Dyer. 

By  this  time  we  are  moving  away  from  the 
laboratory,  and  as  we  walk  along  Mr.  Edison 
speaks  of  his  recent  visit  to  France,  where  he 
was  received,  just  as  in  1889,  with  the  utmost 


LLEWELYN  PARK  219 

enthusiasm.  He  bestows  special  praise  upon 
the  French  automobile  roads,  French  aviation 
and  French  cookery. 

Before  long  we  arrive  at  Mr.  Edison's  beau- 
tiful residence  at  Glenmont.  In  1886  he  was 
remarried,  this  time  to  a  Miss  Mina  Miller, 
daughter  of  Louis  Miller,  a  rich  manufacturer 
and  an  inventor  of  agricultural  machines;  by 
this  devoted  wife,  brave-hearted,  simple  in 
tastes  and  extremely  attached  to  her  home,  he 
has  had  three  children:  Charles,  Madeleine 
and  Theodore.  This  home,  situated  in  the  at- 
tractive setting  of  the  Orange  Mountains,  is  a 
delightful  one.  It  is  built  in  English  style,  of 
stone  and  brick,  and  ornamented  with  bal- 
conies, terraces  and  verandas.  It  is  all  very 
pleasing  and  in  charming  taste. 

The  ground  floor  comprises  a  number  of  par- 
lours and  reception  rooms,  a  dining-room  and 
a  large  lounging-room,  known  familiarly  as  the 
"den.^'  It  is  here  that  Edison's  various  medals 
and  decorations  may  be  seen.  In  1889,  after 
his  magnificent  contribution  to  the  Paris  Ex- 


220  EDISON 

position,  costing  him  personally  more  than  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  Edison  was  ap- 
pointed Commander  of  the  Legion  of  Honour. 
Other  souvenirs  of  the  same  period  are  also 
preserved  in  the  "den,'^  among  them  a  letter 
from  Mrae.  Sadi-Carnot  placing  the  presiden- 
tial box  at  the  service  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Edison, 
the  original  designs  for  the  invitations  issued 
by  the  Figaro  in  Edison^s  honour,  etc.  There 
is  also  quite  a  collection  of  photographs,  orna- 
ments and  presents  offered  to  the  noted  scien- 
tist, conspicuous  among  them  being  the  marble 
statues  sent  by  the  Czar,  vases  given  by  the 

Japanese  Society  of  Engineers,  and  a  desk  set 
of  steel  made  expressly  for  Mr.  Edison  at  the 
Krupp  Works.  And  we  must  not  fail  to  men- 
tion the  fact  that,  in  addition  to  all  these  other 
objects,  the  "den"  also  contains  ...  a  pho- 
nograph ! 

Edison  retires  by  preference  to  the  second 
storey.  In  addition  to  the  bedrooms  and  a  bil- 
liard room,  it  contains  a  splendid  library,  com- 
prising  technical   works   and   standard   liter- 


LLEWELYN  PARK  221 

ature,  scientific  periodicals  and  popular  maga- 
zines. Here,  when  not  detained  in  his  labora- 
tory, Edison  spends  his  evenings  by  preference 
in  the  company  of  his  family  and  intimate 
friends.  He  surprises  everyone  by  his  easy 
manners,  his  unaffected  humour,  his  thousand 
and  one  inventions  and  ideas,  large  and  small, 
always  novel,  often  diverting,  yet  with  a  hid- 
den depth  of  serious  import.  These  evenings 
are  prolonged  to  a  late  hour.  It  no  more  oc- 
curs to  Mr.  Edison  that  he  is  in  need  of  rest 
than  it  did  in  the  days  when  he  was  working 
at  his  first  telegraph  instrument  at  Port  Hu- 
ron. His  great  diversion  is  to  let  his  pencil 
run  over  the  surface  of  a  sheet  of  paper,  draw- 
ing countless  sketches,  and  absent-mindedly 
interweaving  his  signature  into  all  sorts  of  or- 
namental designs,  and  at  the  same  time  con- 
tinuing to  talk  and  argue. 

Without  having  active  connection  with  any 
religious  sect,  Mr.  Edison  is  not  one  of  those 
who  deny  the  existence  of  God.  He  does  not 
hesitate  to  assert  that  it  would  be  impossible 


222  EDISON 

to  come  into  intimate  contact  with  the  mys- 
teries of  nature,  and  more  particularly  to  study 
chemistry,  without  being  convinced  of  the  exist- 
ence of  a  supreme  intelligence.  Yet  at  the 
same  time  Edison  has  never  given  himself  up 
to  the  pursuit  of  hazy  and  sterile  metaphysics. 
He  remains,  in  the  full  acceptation  of  the  word, 
— and  this  is  a  point  on  which  it  is  worth  while 
to  dwell, — an  American  genius,  of  incomparable 
lucidity,  who  will  not  be  satisfied  with  mere 
words  and  vague  ideas,  but  insists  upon  going 
directly  to  the  facts. 

Accordingly,  we  need  not  be  surprised  at  his 
ideas  regarding  education.  They  are  very  clear 
and  uncompromising:  "What  we  need,"  he 
says,  "is  men  capable  of  working.  I  would  not 
give  a  penny  for  young  men  armed  with  col- 
lege degrees,  excepting  for  those  who  come  from 
the  technical  schools.''  He  prefers  those  who 
rise  from  the  ranks  to  those  who  have  been 
crammed  with  Latin,  philosophy  and  a  mass  of 
other  absurdities.  And,  although  his  view  does 
not  meet  the  approval  of  everybody,  even  in 


LLEWELYN  PARK  223 

America,  he  hazards  the  assertion  that  "in 
three  or  four  centuries  we  shall  have  reached 
the  epoch  of  men  of  letters.  At  present  what 
we  need  is  engineers,  and  men  of  practical  abil- 
ity in  manufacturing,  commerce,  railroading, 
etc.'' 

All  of  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  does  not 
prevent  Edison  from  having  a  profound  admi- 
ration for  the  arts  and  artists,  especially  for 
musicians.  How  could  a  genius  such  as  his 
fail  to  sympathise  with  a  Beethoven,  whose 
gigantic  art  is  also  made  up  of  constant  and 
manifold  combinations  and  inventions,  in  pur- 
suit of  dreams  and  ideals?  And  this  is  why 
Edison  is  passionately  fond  of  the  Symphonies. 

Among  the  most  agreeable  memories  of  his 
sojourn  in  Paris  in  1889,  Edison  recalls  not  only 
his  interviews  with  scientists  such  as  Pasteur 
and  Jansen,  his  visits  to  the  galleries  of  the 
Louvre  and  the  Luxembourg,  the  latter  of 
which  he  preferred,  but  also  a  musical  seance 
which  Gounod  offered  to  give  for  him  and  Mrs. 
Edison  alone  at  the  top  of  the  Eiffel  Tower. 


224  EDISON 

Do  not  let  us  exaggerate  the  importance  of 
details  which,  without  amounting  to  a  profes- 
sion of  faith,  bear  witness  to  the  need  felt  by 
this  remarkable  self-made  man  for  a  certain 
element  of  the  empirical  and  utilitarian. 

In  any  case,  if  rightfully  or  wrongfully  we 
are  partisans  of  the  old  classic  training  and  re- 
sent Edison's  partiality  for  the  hard  discipline 
of  life  and  experience,  we  cannot  help  sur- 
rendering ourselves  more  and  more  to  the 
charm  of  the  man  himself  in  private  life.  This 
famous  wizard  wears  quite  the  same  clothes  as 
anyone  else,  without  a  touch  of  dandyism,  and 
with  a  secret  preference  for  his  everyday,  much- 
worn  working  clothes.  He  is  fond  of  good  liv- 
ing and  a  varied  menu,  but  decidedly  prefers 
fruit  to  meat.  Far  from  disdaining  a  variety 
of  courses,  he  is  the  exponent  of  an  original 
theory  that  the  great  nations  are  the  nations 
which  partake  of  the  greatest  variety  of 
dishes.  In  support  of  this  assertion,  he  de- 
lights in  making  a  comparative  examination  of 
the  different  races.     ^The  nations  which  eat 


LLEWELYN  PARK  225 

rice/'  he  says,  "never  make  any  progress.  They 
never  make  anything  excepting  rice,  rice,  al- 
ways rice ! "  We  may  observe  in  this  connection 
that  China  seems  to  be  awakening  from  her 
lethargy  of  centuries.  Does  this  mean  that, 
after  discarding  their  queues,  the  Chinese  will 
cease  to  be  eaters  of  rice?  We  should  note  also 
that  Mr.  Edison's  opinion  regarding  French 
cookery  is  an  extremely  flattering  tribute  to  the 
intelligence  of  the  race. 

Mr.  Edison,  however,  is  far  from  being  an 
over-indulgent  eater,  or  even  a  gourmand  such 
as  Balzac  or  the  elder  Dumas.  He  avoids  alco- 
hol, but  he  does  not  recoil  from  a  cup  of  coffee 
or  a  good  cigar.  He  has  no  time  to  waste  upon 
sports  nor  even  upon  exercise.  Yet  his  health 
suffers  in  no  way  from  this  lack.  In  short,  he 
lives  a  most  secluded  and  peaceful  life  at  Glen- 
mont,  in  spite  of  the  occasional  inevitable  visi- 
tors who  must  be  received.  This  eminently 
family  life  is  enlivened  by  the  coming  and  go- 
ing of  Mr.  Edison's  children  and  by  the  an- 
nual winter  trip  to  Fort  Myers,  Florida,  where 


226  EDISON 

he  has  an  attractive  house,  a  garden  of  luxuri- 
ous vegetation,  and  a  laboratory.  He  spends  a 
few  weeks  there  each  year,  without  interrup- 
tion to  his  labours,  for  this  laboratory,  although 
less  complete  than  the  one  at  Orange,  contains 
all  the  equipment  necessary  to  enable  him  to 
carry  on  his  personal  experiments. 

Supposing  now,  at  the  risk  of  committing  an 
indiscretion,  but  urged  on  by  a  profound  de- 
sire to  solve  the  marvellous  secret  of  this  super- 
man, that  we  should  venture  to  question  him 
as  to  his  methods  of  work  and  research? 

Mr.  Edison  would  begin  by  replymg  that  it 
is  usually  a  mistake  to  attribute  inventions  to 
accident  or  chance.  But  rather  serious  blun- 
ders have  been  made  in  regard  to  this  very 
point.  A  few  of  his  inventions,  to  be  sure,  may 
have  been  the  result  of  a  lucky  find,  but  the 
great  majority  have  been  born  of  enormous  and 
patient  labour,  and  are  due  to  an  innumerable 
series  of  experiments  all  directed  towards  a  well- 
defined  goal.  Hence  arises  a  distinction  which 
this  scientist,  this  experimenter  loves  to  make, 


LLEWELYN  PARK  227 

and  which  causes  us  a  certain  mild  regret,  be- 
cause we  have  employed  successively  the  two 
words  in  question  without  stopping  to  differ- 
entiate them. 

"A  discovery,"  says  he,  "is  not  an  invention. 
For  my  own  part,  I  hate  this  confusion  of 
meaning.  A  discovery  is  something  which  hap- 
pens more  or  less  accidentally.  A  man  is  fol- 
lowing a  certain  road.  He  is  going,  for  in- 
stance, from  his  home  to  the  railway  station, 
intending  to  take  a  train.  All  of  a  sudden,  his 
foot  strikes  against  some  object.  He  stops, 
bends  down  and  searches.  He  finds  a  gold 
bracelet,  buried  in  the  dust.  Well,  he  has  made 
a  discovery,  but  he  certainly  has  not  made  an 
invention.  He  has  gone  to  no  trouble  to  find 
this  bracelet;  and  yet,  its  value  to  him  is  pre- 
cisely as  though  after  long  years  of  study  he 
had  invented  a  machine  for  the  manufacture  of 
gold  bracelets." 

Edison's  favourite  definition  of  a  discovery 
as  a  "nail-scratch"  belongs  to  precisely  the 
same  order  of  ideas  and  metaphors.     An  in- 


228  EDISON 

vention,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  fruit  of  assidu- 
ous care,  of  long  and  methodical  effort,  and 
God  knows  that  it  is  never  a  fruit  easy  to 
gather  and  that  frequently  remains  green,  or 
else  at  last  ripens  in  spite  of  its  inclement  sur- 
roundings, thanks  to  the  knowledge  and  un- 
wearied vigilance  of  the  attentive  gardener. 

What  is  the  secret  of  his  genius?  That  is 
the  question  which  we  still  ask  ourselves  after 
leaving  Mr.  Edison, — after  having  studied  his 
life  and  his  works,  to  the  end  of  determining 
those  principal  features  of  his  physiognomy 
which  belong  to  humanity  as  a  whole. 

Yes,  what  is  the  why  and  the  wherefore  of 
his  glory,  of  his  colossal  success,  the  mark  of 
which  is  borne  to  some  extent  by  the  whole 
universe?  We  have  not  failed  to  insist,  in 
passing,  upon  the  dominant  character  of  this 
powerful  and  intense  personality,  which  incar- 
nates the  American  spirit  in  its  greatest  free- 
dom and  fertility,  its  most  positive  and  auda- 
cious aspect. 

In  order  to  guard  against  any  mistake,  in 


LLEWELYN  PARK  229 

attempting  to  solve  this  problem,  and  to  ar- 
rive at  a  reasonable  conclusion,  it  is  wisest  to 
appeal  to  those  fellow-countrymen  of  Edison's 
who  have  enjoyed  a  prolonged  and  close  inti- 
macy with  him  throughout  the  chief  periods  of 
struggle  and  of  victory,  namely,  Mr.  Frank 
Lewis  Dyer  and  Mr.  Thomas  Commerford 
Martin,  whose  close  observation  nothing  per- 
taining to  Mr.  Edison  seems  to  have  escaped, — 
excepting,  no  doubt,  such  details  as  escaped  Mr. 
Edison  himself  and  such  as  no  one  on  earth 
could  have  been  expected  to  catch. 

Edison,  they  say,  combines  with  a  physically 
robust  constitution  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  vigour  who  have  not 
achieved  a  tithe  of  his  accomplishment.  What 
other  factors  are  there  to  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration, to  explain  this  phenomenon? 

First  a  stolid,  almost  phlegmatic  nervous  sys- 
tem, which  takes  absolutely  no  notice  of  en- 


230  EDISON 

nui, — "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.''  Here  is  one  example  out  of 
a  thousand.  In  order  to  complete  one  of  his 
batteries,  he  spent  five  years  in  experimenting 
with  nickel  tubes,  and  these  experiments,  al- 
ways apparently  the  same,  cost  him  more  than 
a  million  dollars.  To  anyone  else  this  research 
would  have  become  odious  after  the  lapse  of  a 
few  hours.  But,  at  the  end  of  these  five  years, 
Edison  still  showed  just  as  much  enthusiasm  as 
though  this  problem  of  completing  his  battery 
with  a  single  insignificant  detail  had  just  been 
brought  freshly  before  him. 

But  on  other  occasions  Edison  has  shown  in 
a  thousand  ways  the  fertility  of  his  resources. 
And  how  many  times  he  has  had  occasion  to 
take  a  hand  in  enterprises  that  have  been  given 
up  as  hopeless  by  his  assistants  I  On  one  occa- 
sion he  had  need  of  a  new  machine  to  perform 
a  specified  kind  of  work.  He  turned  the  mat- 
ter over  to  his  engineers  and  gave  them  the 


LLEWELYN  PARK  231 

necessary  specifications.  After  a  certain  lapse 
of  time  they  brought  him  three  plans  for  ma- 
chines that  in  their  opinion  would  be  capable 
of  performing  the  required  work.  Edison  ex- 
amined them  and  found  that  none  would  an- 
swer. "Do  you  mean  to  say/'  he  asked,  "that 
these  drawings  represent  the  only  way  to  do 
this  work?'' 

"We  are  sure/'  replied  the  assistants  in 
chorus.  No  one  can  be  expected  to  do  the  im- 
possible.   But  Edison  insisted : 

"You  are  absolutely  sure?" 

"Absolutely/'  came  the  simple  and  unani- 
mous reply. 

This  happened  on  a  Saturday.  The  follow- 
ing Monday,  when  Edison  came  to  the  ofl&ce, 
he  handed  his  assistants,  without  comment, 
forty-eight  plans  for  machines  based  upon 
analogous  principles.  What  was  the  use  of 
comments?  He  relied  upon  results,  always  re- 
sults, nothing  but  results. 

Here,  parenthetically,  we  may  lay  our  finger, 
in  a  measure,  upon  the  essence  of  genius.    It  is 


232  EDISON 

all  in  vain  that  Edison  modestly  disputes  it  and 
talks  of  a  great  aptitude  for  toil  and  research. 
It  is  quite  useless  for  him  to  compute  in- 
vention as  composed  of  l^o  inspiration  and 
99%  perspiration,  to  quote  his  humorous  and  ^' 
yet  significant  definition.  The  exceptional  ele- 
ment does  not  consist  in  mere  labour,  even 
compulsory  labour,  prolonged  to  the  humour 
of  human  endurance,  but  in  inventive  labour, 
if  one  may  be  permitted  to  use  this  new  term. 
Edison  makes  discoveries  where  others,  en- 
dowed with  keen  intelhgence  and  a  rare  meas- 
ure of  energy,  discover  nothing.  Furthermore, 
let  us  note  that  this  faculty  is  employed  quite 
as  often  for  trifling  matters  as  it  is  for  those 
that  are  of  far  greater  importance.  He  is  con- 
vinced that  in  the  whole  realm  of  invention 
insignificant  details  are  frequently  of  infinite 
importance.  This  is  the  reason  of  his  innumer- 
able laboratory  notes,  in  which  he  follows,  day 
by  day,  the  progress  of  an  experiment  con- 
ducted with  the  aid  of  the  greatest  variety  of 


LLEWELYN  PARK  233 

elements, — and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
Edison  spends  reckless  sums  of  money  in  order 
to  succeed  in  producing  a  maximum  result 
through  the  simplest  and  most  economical 
means. 

Let  us  pass  on  to  the  second  factor :  a  posi- 
tive, complete  and  invincible  optimism,  forti- 
fied by  forty  or  fifty  years  of  experience,  an 
optimism  which  has  never  been  shaken  by  any 
set-backs,  independent  of  his  science  and  his 
will.  Far  from  fearing  toil  and  difficulties,  he 
delights  in  them.  Fighting  a  feeble  enemy,  con- 
quered in  advance,  is  not  fighting  at  all! 

Let  us  take  still  another  characteristic  trait. 
Edison  consecrated  more  than  five  years  of 
superhuman  activity  to  the  exploitation  of  his 
electro-magnetic  separator  for  iron  ore,  and  the 
commercial  enterprise  ended  in  disaster.  At 
the  age  of  fifty  he  had  lost  a  fortune.  Never- 
theless, he  left  the  scene  of  his  defeat  calm 
and  light  of  heart,  satisfied  in  having  proved 
the  success  of  an  invention,  even  though  he 


234  EDISON 

had  made  a  business  failure.  And  later,  when 
he  revisited  the  site  of  his  lengthy  struggles, 
he  declared  serenely:  "I  never  felt  better  in 
my  life  than  during  the  five  years  I  worked 
here.  Hard  work,  nothing  to  divert  my 
thoughts,  -clear  air  and  simple  food  made  my 
life  very  pleasant.  We  learned  a  great  deal.  It 
will  be  of  benefit  to  someone  some  time." 

We  realise,  upon  reflection,  how  disinterested 
and  stoical  his  conduct  has  been,  how  it  has 
placed  all  his  business  relations  upon  a  higher 
plane,  and  how  it  is  the  natural  outcome  of  an 
uncommon  strength  of  will,  coupled  with  the 
in-born  forces  of  his  temperament  and  his  race. 

From  childhood  up,  it  seems  as  though  Edi- 
son had  flung  a  glance  of  defiance  at  all  ob- 
stacles which  barred  his  path  or  that  of  others, 
including  the  whole  human  race.  Consequent- 
ly he  acted  without  vain  declamation  or  idle 
posing,  but  with  the  implacable  resolve  to  tri- 
umph, thanks  to  a  higher  understanding  of  the 
means  at  our  disposal,  whether  through  sud- 


LLEWELYN  PARK  235 

den  and  salutary  action  or  through  slow,  de- 
tailed, and  progressive  observation. 

Whether  it  is  a  question  of  making  a  news-  ^ 
paper  or  a  telegraph  instrument  out  of  nothing, 
of  sending  a  despatch  without  the  aid  of  in- 
struments, of  forcing  sound  to  transmit  itself 
and  be  preserved  intact,  of  forcing  light  to  be-    \ 
come  concentrated  in  a  given  lamp  during  a 
specified  time  and  with  a  specified  brilliance,    j 
Edison  is  the  man  who  succeeds  in  eliminating    J 
hindrances  and  solving  the  enigma. 

And  this  is  how  Edison  appears  to  us  in  final 
analysis.  The  seeker,  the  inventor  has  achieved 
his  object  in  full  measure,  because  his  immense 
knowledge  and  his  prodigious  skill  as  a  prac- 
tical mechanic,  who  refuses  to  be  rated  as  a 
scientist,  hampered  by  theories,  but  works 
steadily  towards  a  definite  goal  with  dogged 
determination,  have  been  inspired  by  the  un- 
quenchable and  joyous  energy  of  a  hero. 

Thomas  Alva  Edison,  the  king  of  electricity, 
the  physicist,  the  chemist,  the  American  manu-   ^ 
facturer,  the  modern  enchanter,  the  master  of 


236  EDISON 

creative  thought,  who  has  the  gift  of  subjugat- 
ing the  most  mysterious  forces  of  nature  and 
placing  them  at  our  service,  remains  for  us,  as 
for  posterity,  first  and  foremost  a  great  con- 
queror. 


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IC  LIBRARY 
RTMENT 

mstances  to  be 
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