Thomas A. Edison : the life-story of a great American

THOMAS A. ED1SOI \

BARON -LEVERHVLME

OF BOLTON-LE- MOORS

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

THOMAS A. EDISON

THOMAS A. EDISON

Fr.

FHOMAS A. EDISON

\\

THE LIFE-STORY OF A GREAT
AMERICAN

WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON

GEORGE G. HARRAP & COMPANY

2^3 PORTSMOUTH STREET KINGSWAY W.C.

MCMXVII

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH
GREAT BRITAIN

GONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE AMERICAN WAY — THE CHILDHOOD
OF A 'SELF-MADE MAN' — How A
NEWSPAPER is FOUNDED WITHOUT
MONEY AND WITHOUT COLLABORATORS 9

II. APPRENTICED TO MAGIC — How ELEC-
TRICITY IS TRANSFORMED INTO MONEY

— SCIENCE AND BUSINESS . . 43

III. EDISON THE NAPOLEON OF MODERN

TIMES — THE FAIRYLAND OF MENLO
PARK — EDISON AT WORK AND EDISON
AT PLAY . . . .81

IV. DISTANCE is ABOLISHED — EDISON

STARTS UPON THE CONQUEST OF THE
OLD WORLD OF EUROPE . .104

V. RECORDING THE VOICE — Is IT A VEN-
TRILOQUIST?— GLORY AND HARMONY
IMPRISONED IN A CYLINDER . .119

VI. LET THERE BE LlGHT ! AND THERE

WAS LIGHT! — AND THIS LIGHT

EMANATED FROM AMERICA , .148

5

M368123

6 THOMAS A. EDISON

CHAPTER PAGE

VII. RECORDING THE GESTURE — IN FULL
FAIRYLAND — A FEW OTHER MARVELS,
SMALL AND GREAT . . .170

VIII MR EDISON DOES NOT RECEIVE — BUT
HE WILL RECEIVE US — LLEWELYN
PARK AT ORANGE, NEW JERSEY — THE
RECIPE FOR GENIUS AND SUCCESS 184

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

THOMAS A. EDISON . . . Frontispiece

EDISON FOUND HIMSELF ON THE PLATFORM, IN

THE MIDST OF HIS BROKEN INSTRUMENTS . 32

" WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO FORTY THOUSAND

DOLLARS ? " . . .78

THE FIRST PHONOGRAPH . . .126

EDISON AND THE PHONOGRAPH . .144

THERE CAME A BREATH OF WIND, AND THERE
THE FILAMENT WAS, BROKEN LIKE ITS PRE-
DECESSOR . . . .154

EDISON THE CHEMIST . . . 182

LLEWELYN PARK 200

THOMAS A. EDISON

CHAPTER I

THE AMERICAN WAY THE CHILDHOOD OF A

'SELF-MADE MAN' — HOW A NEWSPAPER
IS FOUNDED WITHOUT MONEY AND WITH-
OUT COLLABORATORS

IF there is any one far-echoing name in-
scribed 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 progress, it is beyond question
that of Edison. He is not only one of the
master minds of his time, but the most extra-
ordinary 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
same time obtaining from them a maximum
of efficacy.
9

10 THOMAS A. EDISON

It is in this sense that Thomas Alva
Edison, this essentially American genius,
utilitarian by definition, appears as a sort
of Poet Extraordinary of the universe, a
marvellous magician of these later times.
His fertile and prodigious ingenuity, by ex-
tending 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 civilization. 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 dis-
coveries by Edison ?

Edison himself believes in effort, in work,
in fearless and persistent thinking. Chance,
no doubt, plays its part in the success of
intellectual research, just as in all other
enterprises. But it is made effective only
by prolonged reflection and unflagging toil.
It is thanks to these qualities alone that in-
spiration bears its fruit. Without a constant
expenditure of physical labour, the most
penetrating glance, the keenest insight run

HIS CHILDHOOD 11

the risk of remaining sterile. Think of the
care which must be lavished 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
Edison 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 exemplary type of the ' self-made man,'
who has succeeded in triumphing over all
the difficulties of existence, thanks to the
inexhaustible resources of his own energy.
We are constantly hearing of the importance
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 trouble being taken to define
them. In this respect there is no better
example nor a more significant one than
that of Edison. His dazzling ascent toward
fortune, toward universal and immortal
fame, has the value, equally in France and
the United States, of a lesson of the very

12 THOMAS A. EDISON

first order, we might even say a unique
lesson.

We shall see presently in what sort of an
environment and as a consequence of what
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 revealing himself to us with all
the marks of a striking originality, he has not
been simply obeying certain family traditions
of high intelligence and audacious initiative.

On his father's side he comes of Dutch
stock. His ancestors were mill-owners in
the Netherlands. Certain members of the
EJdison family, in the company of other emi-
grants, landed in North America about the
year 1737. Among them was John Edison,
the great-grandfather 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

HIS CHILDHOOD 13

age, he was forced to seek safety, with his
entire family, in Nova Scotia.

The loyalists were entitled to compensa-
tion. Accordingly, in the year 1811, John
Edison received, 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
excellent health and to have lived to a ripe
old age. John and Samuel were both up-
ward 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 dis-
tinctly useful during one memorable episode
in his career. This Samuel Edison was very
far from sharing the sentiments of his grand-
father 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

14 THOMAS A. EDISON

revolt, 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.

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 ex-
tensive traffic of the canal. On the 16th
of August, 1828, he married Miss Nancy
Elliot, who, although a Canadian by birth,
belonged to a family that originally came
from Scotland. Highly educated, 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 excep-
tional intellect.

HIS CHILDHOOD 15

It was in this little Ohio village of Milan
that Thomas Alva Edison was born, on the
llth of February, 1847. It is pleasant to
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 prosperous business, and were able to
look forward to a promising future, watched
over their son with the tenderest solicitude.

We may feel doubtful as to the pictur-
esque anecdotes which are so freely told re-
garding the precociousness of children who
later 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 inven-
tions made by Edison himself. Neverthe-
less, it is easy to understand why his admirers
love to surround with mystery even the
slightest acts and gestures of this remarkable
wizard, the inventor of the phonograph.
As a matter of fact, it is a waste of time to
try to add anything to the simple eloquence
of the bare facts of his life.

We should be equally careful not to

16 THOMAS A. EDISON

attribute an exaggerated importance to certain
pleasing childish traits, on the basis of which
the attempt is made to explain the future
man. Nevertheless, it will do no harm to
make a passing mention of the following
amusing incident, that tends to show the
earliest manifestations of an inquiring mind,
already accompanied by a practical deter-
mination to improve upon Nature by utilizing
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. Picture the
surprise of this small boy when he subse-
quently witnessed the successful hatching of
the entire brood ! How did it happen ?
And why ? The child became deeply pre-
occupied over this mystery. He asked ques-
tions and learned that the bird obtained this
happy result through the natural warmth
of her body. Shortly afterward the boy was
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
attempted since that time ! Once again we

HIS CHILDHOOD 17

must remind ourselves that the singular
activity of this great scientist extends
throughout the entire domain of Nature,
from whom he is striving 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 tireless and insatiable curiosity.
He loved to slip away from home and
wander at will through the shipyards, ex-
ploring the machinery and frequently in-
curring 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 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 number of strokes. But his hardi-
hood was in no wise lessened, for all that.
The reckless lad was as fearless of water as
he was of fire. He used to swim with
other boys of his own age, and one day

18 THOMAS A. EDISON*

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 adventures, he went in search
of them. During one of his cross-country
escapades he was attacked and 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 himself,
just as the little reasoner who wishes to inform
himself as to the how and why of everything
foreshadows the future man of thought.

These two things are never separated in
Edison, whose physical and mental endur-
ance have always been equally remarkable.
Must he not necessarily have been somewhat
foolhardy before the audacity of his first im-
pulse 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 en-
gaged his serious attention, forms an element
of fundamental importance in his success.
This is a point that cannot be too strongly
emphasized.

HIS CHILDHOOD 19

It was not long before Edison's parents
saw the downfall of their bright hopes. The
construction 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 precarious, when a financial crisis
rendered it still more alarming. But Samuel
Edison was not of the kind that allow them-
selves to be beaten down by the adverse
strokes of Fate, He removed to Michigan,
and installed himself and his family in Port
Huron, on the boundary line 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 conjunction with study and reflection.

It is pleasant to conjure up the pretty

20 THOMAS A. EDISON

picture, in its setting of that broad and sunny
farm in Michigan : Edison's mother trans-
forming herself into his one and only pre-
ceptor, a school teacher as far-seeing as she
was sympathetic. Young Thomas Edison
could not have been slow to profit by a system
of instruction which recognized the full im-
portance of the pupil's initiative, and to show
the full extent 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 documentary knowledge are
regarded by him as profitable. And how is
it possible to conceive of the present and the
future if the past remains 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 Reformation, Sear's
History of the World, The Penny Encyclo-
paedia, and Ure's Dictionary of Sciences. He

HIS CHILDHOOD 21

devoured works of all kinds, and could re-
member the precise page and position of
passages which had impressed him as especi-
ally curious. It is also related that he had
been introduced very early, 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 abundant reading, which was an
important trait to note in connexion with
Edison's early youth, has remained, no doubt,
characteristic of the man. But it is neces-
sary 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 tenacious 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 ; and he has done it in
a manner that may be defined at one and the

22 THOMAS A. EDISON

same time as extremely American and ex-
tremely, even sensationally, 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 4 train-boy ' on the
Grand Trunk Railroad, the great through
line running from Quebec to Montreal, and,
by way of Toronto and Detroit, all the way
to Chicago. His duties consisted in going
from car to car, between the two stations of
Detroit and Port Huron, and selling news-
papers, 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
library, or busied himself with sorting out
his papers in the printing office of The Detroit
Free Press. Meanwhile the energetic lad
began, little by little, to extend his business

HIS CHILDHOOD 23

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 mistrustful of hearsay and
accept only the evidence of the man himself
— by transporting two large baskets of vege-
tables from the Detroit markets to Port
Huron, where they sold to excellent advan-
tage. 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,
sweets, and tobacco.

In these ways his profits began to multi-
ply, and, thanks to his far-sighted business
activity, they increased to the point of be-
tween eight and ten dollars a day. Out of this
he regularly sent one dollar to his mother ;
but the greater part of his savings was devoted
to the purchase of technical works, and more
especially to his experiments in chemistry.
For this purpose he actually went so far as to
install a sort of laboratory, with flasks and test
tubes, in a car that was intended for baggage.

This determined young fellow, whom every-

24 THOMAS A. EDISON

body liked for his ready wit and self-assurance
— this veritable young scamp, as he was
freely called — made sport of difficulties. Be-
fore long his natural gifts for taking the
initiative 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 straight-
way recognized the advantage that he might
derive from these circumstances, which gave
special importance 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 inform himself of anything that it
contained of special interest. It was in this
way that on a certain day in April 1862 he
was one of the first to read the absolutely
sensational news relating to the battle of
Shiloh, which lasted for two days, in which
General Grant won a victory over the
Southern forces, General Johnston was
killed, and the dead and wounded were
estimated at 25,000. But after the first
reports the issue of the battle remained un-
certain and there were rumours of from fifty
to sixty thousand victims. It was a matter

HIS CHILDHOOD 25

of vital interest to the public. Thomas Alva
— ' Al,' as he was familiarly known on the
Grand Trunk Railroad — instantly saw an
opportunity for putting through a neat little
business deal. As he happened to know the
telegraph operator at the Detroit railway
station, he lost no time in making the follow-
ing proposition to him over the wire : " Tele-
graph every stationmaster the latest news of
the battle and number killed, and ask them
to write the same on the blackboard used for
announcing the time of arrival and departure
of trains ; in return, I will give you a free
subscription to the newspaper, as well as
to Harpers 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 excep-
tional one. But how was young Edison to
rise to the heights of the situation? He
had not 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.

26 THOMAS A. EDISON

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
talking. One of these men, the younger one,
after hearing Edison's plan of having the
latest bulletin telegraphed ahead, and his
request for credit for a thousand copies, in
place of three hundred, curtly refused. But
the older man, Mr Wilbur F. Storey, who
subsequently founded The Chicago Times,
intervened in favour of this lad with the
decided manner. With the aid of another
boy, Edison transported the thousand copies to
the train, and, as it started out of the station,
set himself to the task of folding them.

At this point let us allow Edison to relate
in his own spirited way this characteristic
adventure : " The first station, called Utica,
was a small one where I generally sold two
papers. I saw a crowd ahead on the plat-
form, and thought it some excursion, but the
moment I landed there was a rush for me ;
then I realized that the telegraph was a great
invention. I sold thirty-five papers there.
The next station was Mount Clemens, now a
watering-place, but then a town of about one

HIS CHILDHOOD 27

thousand. I usually sold six to eight papers
there. I decided that, if I found a corre-
sponding crowd there, the only thing to do to
correct my lack of judgment in not getting
more papers was to raise the price from five
cents to ten. The crowd was there, and I
raised the price. At the various towns there
were corresponding crowds. It had been my
practice at Port Huron to jump from the
train at a point about one-fourth of a mile
from the station, where the train generally
slackened speed. I?had drawn several loads
of sand to this point to jump on, and had
become quite expert. The little Dutch boy
with the horse met me at this point. When
the wagon approached the outskirts of the
town I was met by a large crowd. I then
yelled. ' Twenty-five cents apiece, gentle-
men ! 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
determined to have a paper of his own, of
which he should be the editor. And he did

1 From Dyer and Martin's Life of Edison.

28 THOMAS A. EDISON

it. He bought a fount of type and a little
press which was intended for printing bill-
heads and catalogues. And there he was,
installed as editor, type-setter, and reporter,
all of which in no way interfered with his
continuing his business of selling newspapers.
It was in his luggage-van 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 remem-
bered by the inventor as one of the earliest
and most picturesque products of his creative
spirit. The leading article, under the head-
line '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. Northrop was recommended to the con-
sideration of the company as one of the most
deserving.

It is easy to see that this young ' Al,' this

HIS CHILDHOOD 29

irrepressible young imp who amused every-
body by the variety of his ideas and the
rapidity of his movements, had a true
journalist's instinct for the art of profit-
able 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 goodwill in return.

Another article of thirty-six lines is de-
voted 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 de-
parture, 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

30 THOMAS A. EDISON

M. Clay will enter the army on his return
home," "The thousandth birthday of the
Empire of Russia will be celebrated at Nov-
gorod in August." Then follow announce-
ments 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 Sta-
tion. 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."

" Ridge way Refreshment Rooms. I would
inform my friends that I have opened a re-
freshment room for the accommodation of
the travelling public. R. Allen, Proprietor."

" To the Railroad Men. Railroad men,
send in your orders for butter, eggs, lard,
cheese, turkeys, chickens, and geese. W. C.
Hulets, New Baltimore Station."

This singular journal, unique of its kind5
published and sold upon a moving train, to

HIS CHILDHOOD 31

the extent of several hundred copies, brought
in a monthly profit of between £6 and £8.
It was this Weekly Herald, published by
Edison, that made his name known to the
readers of The Times, the English engineer
Stephenson, while inspecting the Grand
Trunk system, being much struck by the
ingenuity 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 developed an
absorbing interest in fiction and exhibited
manifestations of poetic genius to such an
extent that he was nicknamed c Victor Hugo
Edison,' he continued, in his compartment
in the luggage- van, his experiments in
physics and chemistry, by the aid of more
or less perfected apparatus.

One fine day, or, more accurately speaking,
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 conductor, succeeded in putting out the
blaze. This conductor, a brutal and vindictive

32 THOMAS A. EDISON

individual, did not hesitate, at the very next
station, to fling out upon the platform the
contents of poor Edison's laboratory and his
entire printing outfit besides.

When the train started again Edison found
himself on the platform, in the midst of
his broken instruments and ruined hopes !
Messrs F. L. Dyer and T. C. Martin, the
authors of the authoritative Life of Edison,
add that the angry conductor had, in addi-
tion, boxed the boy's ears so vigorously that
his ill-considered violence was the cause of
the famous inventor's permanent deafness.

This incident amounted at the time to
a veritable disaster. But, like his father,
young Edison was incapable of being dis-
couraged, or of yielding to circumstances.
Accordingly, he removed his laboratory to
his parents' 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 pro-
ceeded to lampoon with a good deal of
freedom the doings and peculiarities of their
fellow-citizens. One of the latter, smarting

EDISON FOUND HIMSELF ON THE PLATFORM, IN THE
MIDST OF HIS BROKEN INSTRUMENTS "

32

HIS CHILDHOOD 33

from the sting of their satire, laid violent
hands upon the impertinent 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 aptitudes were drawing him in another
direction. Accordingly, he renounced jour-
nalism, notwithstanding that it was a pro-
fession which appealed to his adventurous
spirit and might have procured him some
new and pleasurable experiences. Who
knows whether Edison, in the full flowering
of his glory and his fortune, does not look
back longingly to his profession of long ago,
even while he dreams of replacing paper,
upon which thought is materialized, 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
messages could be transmitted, and more
especially what were the fundamental
principles of telegraphy. Since his mother
had allowed him to install his laboratory in

34 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 neighbourhood. 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 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 purchase 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, are seldom apt to leave the
beaten track ; they are afraid of ridicule.
And they are readily induced to consider
tendencies of this sort as clear proofs of weak-
mindedness, instead of recognizing them as
the first manifestations of a forceful nature.
Consequently, people who are too much

HIS CHILDHOOD 35

afraid of appearing foolish in the eyes of the
multitude of frivolous critics with whom we
are always surrounded will never reap any
profit themselves and will never profit any
one else through their discoveries — and for
the very 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
another been regarded as dreamers, not to
say insane. It has been only too often their
sad fate to have ridicule heaped upon 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
collaborator of Edison, has made a very
sensible comment in this connexion : " 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, not-
withstanding that his own reasoning has not
only not encouraged him, but even tended
to prove to him their utter futility. This is

36 THOMAS A. EDISON

precisely why he now stands at the head of
those who succeed in making observations
and inventions of which the majority of
mankind are incapable." When we study in
detail the history of Edison's inventions, we
recognize how much truth and profound in-
sight is contained in such an appreciation as
the foregoing.

Edison's inventive spirit revealed itself
in more ways than one, in connexion 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 sold. The latter
would read them before going to bed. But
one evening the wily lad pretended 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 this young
Edison made his earliest inventions serve his

HIS CHILDHOOD 37

own personal needs. For, with the father's
willing co-operation, the two chums con-
tinued 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
amateur telegraphist was dreaming of sup-
plementing, 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 incident which did him honour, and which
furthermore 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 excellent sort of man by the name of
Mackenzie. 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

38 THOMAS A. EDISON

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,
fling himself upon Jimmy, and 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
burdened with a large family, so that a pre-
sent worthy of such an act of devotion was
out of the question. Accordingly he offered
to teach Edison not only how to operate
a telegraph key, but whatever else he him-
self 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
of telegraphic instruments which worked to
perfection, to the great amazement of the
station-master.

Edison gave himself up to these new
studies with extraordinary ardour. He
sometimes spent as much as ten hours at a

HIS CHILDHOOD 39

stretch manipulating the instruments, seeking
to perfect himself or to discover some new
way of utilizing 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 utilizing circumstances 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 connexion between the two.
An office was installed in a chemist's shop.
In this little venture Edison took Mac-
kenzie's brother-in-law, Paul Benner, into
partnership. The price of a message was
fixed at twelve and a half cents. The toy
apparatus that Edison had himself con-
structed served the purposes of this line.
The line itself was of common iron wire,
fastened to posts with ordinary two-inch nails.
The wire worked all right in dry weather, but
could not be used when it rained. During
the first month three dispatches 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

40 THOMAS A. EDISON

initiative, sometimes more fertile than at
others, but always interesting because of the
unexpectedness of his ideas and even his
smallest efforts. It happened that the tele-
graph operator at Port Huron, wishing to
resign in order to join the army, recom-
mended Edison to his brother-in-law, named
Walker, as his successor. It should be re-
membered that the telegraph lines were
not controlled by the Government, but by
private companies. The office was situated
in the shop of a jeweller, who also sold news-
papers and magazines. The ingenious and
persevering boy spent his entire days and
nights in the office, and before long had made
himself useful through various innovations,
notably the completion of the line from Port
Huron to Sarnia.

Nevertheless Edison did not at this time
flatter 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 watch-
maker's outfit ; at another, he has reverted
to his chemical experiments, or is deep in the
pages of some new scientific work. It is

HIS CHILDHOOD 41

necessary to dwell upon the very personal
character of these miscellaneous pursuits,
this strange capacity for giving a maximum
of attention successively to most widely
different subjects. Such was Edison at this
early epoch, and such he still impresses one
as being at the present day.

Accordingly it is easy to understand that,
while he had in him great creative genius,
his originality and intellectual independence
did not predispose him to become a model
servant. He did not stay long at Port
Huron. His ambition was to become a tele-
graph operator on the Grand Trunk Railroad.
He obtained the position of night operator
at Stratford, in Canada, a station not far dis-
tant from Bayfield, where the Edison family
still had friends. His salary was twenty-five
dollars a month.

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

42 THOMAS A. EDISON

Henceforth he is launched upon the full
tide of life. Pie is proceeding to multiply his
efforts. 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 shines out with all the
brilliance of electric light itself, over the New
World and the Old, he has traversed a vast
number of intermediate stages. But we
have already seen that he was fashioned to
fight victoriously against all obstacles, and
to triumph little by little, thanks to the
innumerable resources of courage, of perse-
verance, and of that indefinable something
which, in the last analysis, spells genius.

CHAPTER II

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC — HOW ELECTRICITY
IS TRANSFORMED INTO MONEY — SCIENCE
AND BUSINESS

EDISON, telegraph operator at Strat-
ford, still impresses us as the same
independent young fellow, little in-
clined to submit to any sort of yoke, save
that of his own thoughts and the strong sug-
gestions 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 operators worked from seven o'clock
in the evening until seven in the morning.
Their principal duty was to send dispatches
announcing the passing of the trains. The
management of the railway was naturally
43

44 THOMAS A. EDISON

anxious to know whether their dispatchers
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
punctually. 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 manner 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 was not able to congratulate him-
self for long upon his neat contrivance.
Unfortunately for him, the manager soon
discovered that even immediately after the
transmission of the signal, messages addressed
to Edison remained without response. An
investigation followed. The trick was dis-

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 45

covered and the young operator was repri-
manded, although without great severity.
As a matter of fact, this contrivance which
permitted him to evade a necessary regulation
could be utilized 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
adventure which might have led to very
serious consequences. One night he received
a telegraphic 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
goods station near by where the trains were
in the habit of stopping. As he ran he
stumbled and fell into 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-
drivers had happened to see each other in
time to avert a tragedy.

46 THOMAS A. EDISON

Young Edison, however, was held to be
none the less negligent. He was promptly
suspended from his duties and summoned
to appear before the general manager at
Toronto. The latter censured him unspar-
ingly 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 disappeared.
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
occasion, during the winter of 1863-64, to
bring himself 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 dispatches ? We should note that
the river is more than half a mile wide.

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 47

Edison climbed into the cab of a locomotive
and began to blow the whistle at longer and
shorter intervals, imitating the established
alphabet of the Morse Code. His message
was understood and he received a reply by
the same method. In this way messages
were exchanged without waiting for the
cable to be repaired.

This fertility of resource won for Edison
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 un-
known, and also a sort of irresponsible delight
in practical jokes, made it hardly possible for
him to undertake any regular and systematic
duties. Consequently we find this seventeen-
year-old inventor constantly on the move,
seeking one position 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 mis-
trusted his defects, and regretfully allowed
him to depart, contenting themselves with
more modest but safer talents.

We find him successively at Adrian, at Fort

48 THOMAS A. EDISON

Wayne, at Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and
Memphis. 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
multiplying by actual experience his practical
knowledge of the instruments employed and
the utilization of electric currents.

It was during his stay in Indianapolis that
he invented the automatic repeater, which
rendered possible the transmission of a dis-
patch from one line to another, without the
intervention of an operator. Edison's task
was to transmit dispatches 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 subsequently famous. Consequently,
in spite of his good intentions, neither he
nor his colleagues were able, because of the
rapidity of the transmission, to write out
with sufficient swiftness the dispatches re-
ceived. Hence the delays of which the
newspapers complained and which wounded
young Edison's self-esteem. Accordingly, he
invented a method of connecting two Morse
instruments. The speed with which the

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 49

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 method
— which was also an exceedingly interesting
contrivance — Edison and his companions
had all the time they needed for taking down
in luxurious ease whatever dispatches were
received. As may 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 dispatches handled by them,
no matter how complicated the nature of the
matter might be. But it happened that there
were some extremely important debates in
connexion with a certain new law. The
telegraphic report of these debates was sent
off in hot haste. Thanks to the slowing-up
action of the automatic repeater, Edison and
his accomplices 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 news-
papers. They hastened to enter a bitter and
indignant complaint with the general manager,
who promptly made an investigation. The

50 THOMAS A. EDISON

secret contrivance was discovered and the
over-clever inventor forthwith discharged.

Edison was forced to leave Indiana. He
betook himself to Cincinnati, where he found
employment 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 adventur-
ous 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.1
" 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 sym-
pathised with him and we became close com-
panions. As an operator he had no superiors
and very few equals. He was all the time
inventing one thing and another to relieve
the monotony of the office work." And Mr

1 Life of Edison.

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 51

Adams goes on to describe the tricks that
Edison used to play upon his companions
with the aid of electricity, 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 experi-
ments, and an occasional visit to the theatre.
Edison had a passion for Othello, but this
in no wise diminished 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 salary was increased to one
hundred and five dollars, and he was entrusted
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 Edison 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 and more
advantageous situation and one in keeping
with his qualifications as a telegraph operator.

52 THOMAS A. EDISON

Accordingly, he betook himself to Memphis,
Tennessee, where operators were receiving a
hundred and twenty- five dollars a month.

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
invention. But in spite of all his efforts he
could not arrive at any practical result.
Edison very quickly found the required
solution. But the manager, jealous of such
exceptional ability, discharged a collaborator
who was so little likely to add new glory to
his own merits.

A dramatic, not to say melodramatic,
account has been given of the young man's
arrival in Louisville, half dead from cold and
hunger, dressed in rags, and without a penny
in his pockets. There is, no doubt, some
exaggeration in all this, just as there is in
the much too gloomy picture drawn of his
parent's modest 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.
Foley, was a distressing experience : in short,

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 58

it was a good specimen of what the famous
inventor calls his hard years. His health
had been undermined by the countless sleep-
less nights devoted to toil, his purse was
sadly empty as a result of many an unpro-
fitable experience, and the two young men
had been forced to make the journey on foot,
in spite of 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 mani-
fold 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 contact. None the less, he com-
pelled 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

54 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 be-
coming excited, Edison calmly proceeded to
repair the wires as best he could, and settled
down, single-handed, to perform the double
task.

The equipment of telegraph offices in those
days was at best rudimentary, and the in-
struments were in deplorable condition. But
his residence in Louisville offered all sorts of
compensations. By the very nature of his
duties Edison was now brought into con-
tinual relations with the members of .the
Press. He made the acquaintance of journal-
ists and of poets. He loved to listen to
their discussions. At the same time, while
becoming an almost unequalled operator,
capable of sending his forty-five words a
minute, Edison continued to pursue his
studies and passed his nights devouring
articles in The North American Review. There
is a significant and picturesque anecdote
related in this connexion. The young man
had succeeded in buying at a bargain a
certain number of issues of this magazine.

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 55

Some time afterward, leaving the office at
three o'clock in the morning, he happened to
carry a pile of them upon his shoulder. An
alert policeman thought that he had discovered
a thief and ordered him to halt. Edison,
who is deaf, continued tranquilly 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. Some one had
talked with him, as well as with two of his
companions, of the dazzling opportunities
offered to telegraph men by the Government
of Brazil ; while Mexico and all the countries
of South America were made to appear like
a veritable Eldorado. Filled with the ad-
venturous 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 southern countries, and who

56 THOMAS A. EDISON

vigorously urged him to give up such a sense-
less enterprise. Edison certainly had no
cause to regret having abandoned the pro-
ject. 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
offices had been installed in fine, roomy
quarters in a new building. Here the young
man was fortunate enough to win the friend-
ship and confidence 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 office of treasurer of a common fund, his
duty being to determine the quantity of
liquor to be allowed to each of them, accord-
ing to their several duties and individual
capacity for drinking. The treasurer's de-
cision was to be accepted without argument

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 57

and followed to the letter. A new-comer
in the office accepted these conditions
without demur. Edison had the right to
refuse to give out money deposited in the
common fund for libations that were judged
to be dangerous. This right he exercised
one day against the new arrival in question.
The latter rebelled, but could find no better
argument to advance against an authority
that was recognized 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,
appeals were made all too often to his purse ;
sometimes they even stole his books. And
there was one evening when he found his
bed occupied by two of his companions, who
had so singularly abused his hospitality as
to have retired completely dressed, without
even so much as removing their shoes ! This
also was a result of alcohol ; and accordingly

58 THOMAS A. EDISON

they were ejected without mercy upon the
floor.

In Louisville, as elsewhere, Edison found
occasion to display his peculiar aptitudes,
his marvellous quality of endurance, and
that extraordinary adaptation of his mind
to the needs of the moment which has given
to many of his actions an indefinable air of
lofty and simple heroism.

It was he who received Johnson's Presi-
dential 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 after-
noon until the following morning at half-past
four. With great ingenuity he divided it
into little paragraphs of three lines each,
which were distributed in rotation to the
compositors. In this manner the readers of
the Louisville papers were enabled to read
this important communication, 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
himself so abundantly equal to his difficult
task, the editors of the Louisville papers gave

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 59

a banquet in his honour, a high compliment
to his youthful 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 love of travel, his pursuit of success
across the length and breadth of the United
States. At this time he still continued to
devote his spare time to his experiments.
But one night he had the misfortune to upset
a carboy of sulphuric acid. It ran out upon
the floor, went through to the manager's
office below, spattered 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 oppor-
tunity to study the mechanism and speed of
locomotives. The problem of rapid loco-
motion in all its forms had always haunted
him — a subject to which we shall have

60 THOMAS A. EDISON

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
inspector of the Cincinnati and Indianapolis
Railroad, he was enabled to pursue a number
of interesting 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.

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 two 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

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 61

practically solved a short time later. Mean-
while 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 re-
cognized. This 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 in-
ventors 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 bliz-
zard, was held up for twenty-four hours,
and finally reached Montreal four days behind-
hand. It was a rough experience. But it
was soon banished from his mind by other

62 THOMAS A. EDISON

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
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 commenced 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 together to do it properly, in a
thoroughly artistic manner. They told him
to sit down at a particular table and receive a
special report for The Boston Herald. Edison
took his seat without 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 dispatch with dis-
concerting speed, in order to ' salt ' the new
man. The New York sender did his best.
He began fairly fast, but continued to send

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 63

faster and faster. Edison adapted himself
without the least trouble to this increasing
speed ; he employed a form of vertical hand-
writing, in which he excelled and which
permitted him to transcribe 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 accomplices were watching
over his shoulder, with a growing amaze-
ment at the speed of his pen and the clearness
of his writing. He understood the trick,
and pursued his task unconcernedly, 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 con-
tented himself with telegraphing : " Listen,
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 won his fight for the esteem and
confidence of his colleagues. Thereupon he

64 THOMAS A. EDISON

returned to work with all the greater courage
and with that amazing power of endurance
which is decidedly one of his most character-
istic traits. At night he fulfilled his routine
duties, which no longer contained unsolved
problems. In the daytime he buried him-
self in Faraday's Experimental Researches
in Electricity. Faraday, whose works were
then far too little known or understood,
opened up new horizons. Edison gave him-
self up to this line of reading and to his own
reflections with such passionate absorption
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 pro-
blems did not prevent him from living wholly
in the midst of reality ; and the reason why
he became a devoted admirer of Faraday was
precisely because Faraday did not employ
the methods of mathematicians, but that of
experimenters, which, according to Edison, is
the only true one. He continued to amaze
all who knew him by his extreme ingenuity,
which was always ready to be called into
action, and in the most widely diverse fields.

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 65

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 exterminate 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 1st of
June, 1869 — that he took out his first patent,
for a voting machine, on which he had been
working for several months. The object of
this machine, which was never put into use,
was to obtain a practically instantaneous
vote, accurate beyond the possibility of con-
test, in any deliberative assembly. The
oscillation of a needle to the right or to the
left recorded the 6 aye ' or ' no ' of the member
voting. An electric current registered this
vote by discolouring a paper impregnated
with a certain chemical composition. Thanks
to this same current, the number of ayes and
noes was displayed automatically upon a
bulletin board. This device was intended
for use in Parliament and Congress. But,
apart from the fact that it prevented fraud,
it had a number of inconveniences. In fact,

66 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 regarding
this curious machine,1 record the significant
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 fili-
bustering on votes, and this instrument would
prevent it." Such was the verdict of a
professional politician, which the young in-
ventor must have pondered over, not without
some bitterness, while he promised himself
that he would henceforth adapt himself more
and more, better and better, to the clearly
expressed needs of the public.

We shall see that Edison continued to
prosecute his experiments in chemistry and
electricity, 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 them-
selves by manufacturing chemical compounds.

1 Life of Edison.

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 67

Thus it happened that, having found the
formula for making mtro-glycerine, 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 re-
garding Edison's life in Boston, in company
with his friend Adams, a singular individual,
richer in ideas than in money. A well-known
public man who knew Edison at this period
pictures him as fertile in ideas, but of uncouth
manners and lacking in all niceties of dress.
Without stopping to comment upon those
characteristics, we must not fail to relate 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

68 THOMAS A. EDISON

was delighted at the chance of augmenting
his salary from outside sources, which would
permit him to indulge himself more exten-
sively 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 remind
him, Edison was found on the roof, busily
engaged in putting up a telegraph wire. It
would be rash to guarantee the absolute
authenticity 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. Imagine 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 em-
barrassed silence he began to speak, and,
thanks to his thorough knowledge and perfect
clearness, he obtained a genuine triumph.

The main point in connexion with this
anecdote is that it proves what a well-
established reputation this experienced young
operator already enjoyed in such a city as

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 69

Boston. It also serves to show in what
direction Edison's thoughts were tending.
In spite of his manifold projects, his diverse
inventions suggested by reflection and by
circumstances, it was not in vain that he had
bestowed minute and persistent 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 Baltimore 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 realized the extreme value of
discovering a way to send two dispatches,
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
together the sum of eight hundred dollars, he
made his first attempt at duplex telegraphy

70 THOMAS A. EDISON

with an apparatus of his own construction,
over the telegraph line connecting Rochester
and New York. The attempt was unsuc-
cessful because 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 en-
deavours, seems determined to favour. He
had exhausted his resources. When he took
the boat for New York he was literally with-
out a remaining penny, besides having to
leave behind him in Boston his instruments,
his books and his few other modest posses-
sions. His first thought when he landed in
New York was to get breakfast. An operator
whom he knew lent him a dollar. The problem

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 71

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. Mr Edison is
a moderate eater, for he has suffered from
stomach troubles ; but he is not averse to
the delicacies of the table. In the midst of
his superbly appointed home at Llewelyn 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 opportunity 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 pro-
longing them over a period of several weeks
and then, at a single throw of the dice, trans-
forming him into a veritable Pactolus.1 The

1 A river in Asia Minor in which King Midas bathed in order
to remove the unwelcome power of the * golden touch ' with
which he was afflicted; Since that time " Pactolus singeth over
golden sands,"

72 THOMAS A. EDISON

simple truth is quite sufficiently interesting
and dramatic to be adhered to, just as Edison
himself relates it, without any useless em-
bellishments. In New Yor.k he had applied
without delay at the offices of the Western
Union for a position as telegraphist. Mean-
while, by a stroke of luck that was destined
to bear most happy results, he obtained
employment with the Gold Reporting Com-
pany.

The same Dr Laws who afterward became
president of the University of Missouri, and
was distinguished as an engineer and elec-
trician, had patented an instrument of his
own invention, the Gold Reporting Telegraph,
a patent which he was then successfully ex-
ploiting. During the Civil War the national
debt had greatly increased and the price of
gold had risen to a high premium ; conse-
quently the value of all other commodities
varied according to its fluctuations. 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-
changers. The commercial life of the big
city was subordinated to this rise and fall,
and to the information sent out from the

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 73

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 dispatches
all over the city, and which made a deafening
noise in doing so, suddenly stopped working,
with an ominous crash. The tumult that
resulted was indescribable : three hundred
brokers' 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 examined 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 on the point of giving
the necessary instructions to the man in
charge of the machine, who had completely
lost his head. But at that moment Dr Laws
himself made his appearance in a state of
the greatest imaginable excitement. When

74 THOMAS A. EDISON

questioned, the man in charge only stared in
open-mouthed silence. Edison then spoke
briefly, giving the explanations 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 diffi-
culties and asked him to call at his private
office the following 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 hundred dollars.

Three hundred dollars ! At that time it
seemed a fortune to the young man. The
bargain was profitable to them both, for
Edison made some advantageous improve-
ments, and at the same time had abundant
opportunity for pursuing his personal re-
searches. 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 un-
paralleled, although it could hardly be said
to have been unforeseen, because his courage,

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 75

his energy, his extreme cleverness in taking
advantage of circumstances and seizing the
opportune moment give to Edison's creative
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 ;
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-
ments that were taking place in the United
States, and especially in such a centre 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 indispens-
able equipment of the inventor, whose ex-
penses 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 assumed to be indispens-
able necessities in a state of society that is
eager to enjoy all the benefits of civilization.
Besides, that period of financial crisis was

76 THOMAS A. EDISON

favourable for the development of new ideas
that answered to the immediate needs of
banks and commercial houses. And it is
well known what formidable intensity they
assume in the land of dollars, where fortunes
are built up and lost again with dizzy
rapidity.

Thanks to the improvements made by
Edison in the gold indicator, and in a
measure to the position he now occupied, he
was brought into continual relations with a
young engineer of the highest merit, Mr
Franklin L. Pope, who later became Presi-
dent of the American Institute of Electrical
Engineers. The two men were quick to
understand and measure each other. To-
gether with a publisher, Mr J. N. Ashley,
they formed a firm known as " Pope, Edison
and Company, Electrical Engineers and
General Telegraphic Agency." They opened
their office in New York in October 1869.
They offered their services to all persons
desirous of applying electricity to the arts
and sciences, and of learning what instru-
ments were necessary and how to use them.
The company undertook the construction,
maintenance and repair of wires, cables,

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 77

batteries, etc., in short, of all forms of tele-
graphic apparatus, and would also furnish
all necessary drawings, engravings and cata-
logues.

Meanwhile the Gold Reporting Company
had undergone considerable development
and had been merged with another company
and become the Gold and Stock Telegraph
Company, under the direction of General
Lefferts. Edison was entrusted with the
installation of various private lines. Mean-
while he had been seeking methods for
obtaining the more rapid transmission of
dispatches, and these improvements had
brought about an important change in the
order of things. He also invented a new
telegraphic printer, or ' stock ticker,5 to
record the current price of gold and stock
quotations — and this invention also was
taken over by the company.

After this he proceeded to multiply his
inventions of contrivances to be applied to
telegraphy, and obtained patents of them
which secured him in his rights. One day
General Lefferts summoned the young in-
ventor to his office.

" See here, young man," he said, " I want

78 THOMAS A. EDISON

the entire lot of your inventions. What will
you take for them ? "

Edison, who had previously made a cal-
culation based upon the time he had spent,
and also upon his desire to be at liberty to
occupy himself exclusively with his personal
researches, was vaguely dreaming of an out-
side 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
consider it."

" What would you say to forty thousand
dollars ? "

At this point Edison, who has himself
narrated the incident with much humorous
appreciation, admits that he came very near
fainting. His heart began to beat with such
violence that he was almost afraid that
the General would hear it. He contented
himself with replying 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

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO FORTY THOUSAND
DOLLARS ? '"

78

APPRENTICED TO MAGIC 79

and that he should receive the money at the
same time. In spite of all his self-possession,
Edison could not help feeling thai; he was
taking part in a dream — a very beautiful
one, but none the less only a dream. How-
ever, 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 in-
toxication as he made his way to the Bank
of New York.

At the paying teller's window, where he
presented his cheque — the first, as a matter
of fact, that he had ever received — a brief
remark was addressed to him which his deaf-
ness prevented him from understanding. In
some anxiety he returned to find General
Lefferts, 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 paying teller's window.

80 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 included.

Without being a miser, Edison found him-
self unable to sleep, because of the thought
that he might be robbed. For did not this
money mean freedom from drudgery, a soar-
ing flight opening 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,
finding 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
parlance is called his ' second wind.' Hence-
forth, thanks to an intense, inexhaustible,
miraculous activity, this great conqueror of
modern times was destined to speed onward
from victory to victory.

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 content-
ing himself with a gilded mediocrity.
His good fortune did not intoxicate him, but
it augmented his audacity 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 hired a shop, bought
machinery, installed a laboratory containing
all the apparatus necessary for his experi-
ments in physics, chemistry and electricity.
This shop soon became too small. He found
another in Newark, New Jersey, a large four-
story building situated in Ward Street, that
is to say, in the business centre. The rent of
F 81

82 THOMAS A. EDISON

such a building was, as may be imagined,
considerable. But men like Edison 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 economize, 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
manager 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 com-
mands no less admiration. If he has
promised to deliver certain apparatus within
a brief space of time, he will easily remain
twenty-four hours consecutively at the
breech, in the midst of his subordinates.
Two or three half-hours of sleep suffice to

NAPOLEON OF MODERN TIMES 83

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 something like
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
electricians in America have served their
apprenticeship 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
others who have had a share in it, we must
nevertheless recognize 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

84 THOMAS A. EDISON

1870 onward, to follow Edison step by step,
from discovery to discovery, from business
venture to business venture, because of the
vastness and complexity of his activity and
the diversity of his occupations and pre-
occupations. It is his habit to carry for-
ward simultaneously a number of different
tasks in his varied capacity of physicist,
chemist, and business man. He invents an
instrument, then abandons it in order to give
his attention to some other project which
haunts his thoughts, then presently reverts
to the instrument in question, transforming
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 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 organizations, such as the Auto-

NAPOLEON OF MODERN TIMES 85

matic Telegraph Company and the Western
Union, applied to him for new and improved
telegraphic apparatus. These profitable con-
tracts, 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 pro-
fessional 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 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
powerful New York companies, by the terms
of which he agreed, in consideration of a
considerable sum, to give them the first
option on all his new telegraphic appliances.

86 THOMAS A. EDISON

This contract was a veritable source of life
and prosperity for his enterprises. His shop
became a manufactory which, from 1873
onward, employed three hundred workmen.
His character at that time as director-in-
chief was extremely original. He broke with
all customs and traditions, and manifested an
independence which gave a flavour of indi-
viduality to all his words and actions. For
instance, he discovered one day that his head
book-keeper had credited the concern with
$7000, when, as a 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 book-keeping was a useless
luxury and accordingly discontinued it.

Like all geniuses, Edison recognizes the
value of impulse, and he has persistently mis-
trusted, for others as well as for himself, the
influence of rules and conventions which so
easily lead to inertia and routine. That 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

NAPOLEON OF MODERN TIMES 87

master mind. Through contact with him
the humblest workman conceives a passion-
ate 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
obtains from them a heroic degree of effort
which results in a most efficacious harmony.

In order to understand the power of this
wizard it is worth while, even at the risk of
repetition, to dwell emphatically upon his
ability to win the admiration and devotion of
his assistants. In this connexion a number
of significant instances might be cited. There
is one to which we must not fail to draw
attention, because it is sufficient in itself to
prove the authority which this extraordinary
director of men already possessed, notwith-
standing his youth, as well as the strange,
almost alarming, vigour of his physical and
moral nature. He had received an order
for stock printers amounting to the sum of
$30,000. The instruments, when finished,
for some unknown reason, failed to work.
Yet they had to be delivered within a given
time, or the contract would be void.

Edison had the defective instruments

88 THOMAS A. EDISON

brought into his laboratory, summoned his
collaborators 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 ! "

There was no complaint, not even a
murmur. They fell to work, and continued
at it for sixty consecutive hours, hardly
stopping long enough to take food. As for
Edison himself, 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, except under the command of such a
chief ? It is said, by the way, that Edison
recuperated 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, Mr Frank Mundell, is equally enter-
taining. 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
irt 1873, two years after the death of Edison's

NAPOLEON OF MODERN TIMES 89

mother, who had watched with great solici-
tude the ripening of 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
interrupted 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
certain 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 of Miss Stillwell before deciding
to make her the partner of his hard and

90 THOMAS A. EDISON

laborious life. Yet we could not forgive our-
selves if we failed to relate the sequel to this
picturesque recital, notwithstanding that
Mr Mundell himself admits that his version
rests upon hearsay evidence.

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 mid-
night. 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 to-day.
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 enthusi-
astic admirer of his ideas and achievements
and wholly devoted to his gigantic enter-
prises. It could not, indeed, have been
otherwise, for Mr Edison could never have
endured to live outside his own sphere and

NAPOLEON OF MODERN TIMES 91

apart from the occupations to which he had
wholly given himself up from the beginning.
In seeing Ther husband 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 necessarily precede their
final ripening into deeds. She died in 1884,
profoundly regretted by all.

After his marriage Edison endeavoured to
conform a little more closely to the require-
ments 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 succeed in resigning himself to
abandoning his experiments when they deeply
engrossed his attention. At the moment when
he grasped the key to a problem, Edison
ceased to belong to that social order which
he has so magnificently placed in his
debt.

Three children were born of the marriage,
Thomas Alva, William Leslie, and Marion
Estelle. He was an excellent and affection-
ate father, and had the habit of calling the
two elder children Dot and Dash, in memory

92 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 establish-
ment 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 pro-
founder and keener gaze the great problem
of the utilization of electric force. He passed
from one question to another, with unerr-
ing glance and method, speeding ever faster
along the road that leads to wealth and
fame.

Surrounded as he was by an admiring
public which too often sought to satisfy its
curiosity 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 possessed of an activity surpassing
that, not of one, but of several ordinary men,

NAPOLEON OF MODERN TIMES 93

he had realized the necessity of securing to
himself a certain 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 a sufficient
return to meet the needs of an inventor.
Hence the rapid extension which he succeeded
in giving to his manufactures within a sur-
prisingly short time. A German writer, Herr
Pahl, who has devoted an extremely inter-
esting study to Edison, has remarked with
good reason that the inventor's comprehen-
sion of modern necessities was one of his most
precious possessions. In point of fact, it is
thanks to his manufactures 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
devoted 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 re-
solved to transfer his family residence and
his laboratory to Menlo Park, New Jersey,
twenty miles from New York on the line to

94 THOMAS A. EDISON

Philadelphia. Edison himself has given a
clear and entertaining explanation of this
change. His words have been accurately
reported by his friends and brilliant inter-
preters, Mr F. L. Dyer, the lawyer, who has
full charge of all his legal interests, and Mr
T. C. Martin, former president of the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers, who furnish
us, in the course of their study, with all sorts
of enlightenments of inestimable value.

Edison relates that he had occasion to rent
by the month a small office situated in a huge
building used for the manufacture of pad-
locks. He gave notice, at the end of a certain
month, and, having paid his rent, went off,
leaving the keys behind him. Shortly after-
ward he received 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
that the great inventor found all sorts of
advantages in transferring himself to Menlo
Park. Before choosing this particular site
he had made excursions for a number of

NAPOLEON OF MODERN TIMES 95

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 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, unparalleled maturity ; and he
was destined before long to .be known as the
Great Wizard of Menlo Park.

To-day that famous laboratory and those
machine shops which the master had ani-
mated with his intense ardour and prodigious
will-power have fallen into silence. They are
buildings without a name and seem to have
retained no memory of their former glory.
Edison, to be sure, has since chosen another
battle-field for his peaceful victories.

Nevertheless it was at Menlo Park that his

96 THOMAS A. EDISON

fertile genius brought into existence a, horde
of amazing productions, ranging from the
carbon transmitter to the phonograph, from
the incandescent 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 instruments for multiplex transmission,
he laid the foundation for wireless telegraphy,
thus uniting 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 made
use of 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.
Edison was at last going to have a laboratory
worthy of him, equipped with all the neces-
sary appliances and all the innumerable
substances which a wizard of science might
want. It is said that he spent one hundred
thousand dollars just for the physical and
chemical apparatus.

There were seven buildings. Edison in-

NAPOLEON OF MODERN TIMES 97

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
woodens tructure, but was afterward trans-
ferred 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 wide. 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
phonograph is a great lover of music.

There were, in addition, separate rooms
devoted to the galvanometer, the photometer,
the electrometer, a carpenter shop and a vast
hall for machines of various dimensions. The
lighting system, which wras originally gas, was
destined 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,

08 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 intelligence as alert as his fingers are
dexterous.

Mr Francis Upton, another of his principal
collaborators, was a mathematician and
scientist of considerable distinction, who had
completed his studies under one of the great-
est of all masters, Helmholtz. Edison, who
before all else is a practical worker, whose
starting-point is experience and experiment-
ing, while sincerely admiring Mr Upton,
freely laughed at some of his fine theories
and did not hesitate to replace his calcula-
tions with actual facts that were more
directly helpful.

Conspicuous among the other pioneers of
the New World created by electricity were

NAPOLEON OF MODERN TIMES 99

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 enter-
tainment of his comrades; S. L. Griffin,
Edison's old telegraph friend, who now acted
as his secretary, and Professor Maclnry, who
with two assistants undertook to make the
necessary public demonstrations of the new
inventions and their manipulation, etc.

At Menlo Park there was a constant com-
ing and going of visitors from every country
of the Old World as well as of the New.
Artists there met and mingled with scientists,
professors, engineers and mechanics, all eager
to draw inspiration from this same mighty
fountain-head.

Edison continued to set an example of
dogged 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 improvised bed satisfied him admir-

100 THOMAS A. EDISON

ably, 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
enjoyed a hearty laugh, and he was de-
lighted when he drew an answering laugh
from men who were ordinarily so serious
and so profoundly absorbed in their common
task.

Among his visitors, in addition to intimate
friends like Mr Johnson and the learned
Professor 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
organized the Italian company, and Herr
Rathenau and Herr Fodor, who came re-
spectively 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

NAPOLEON OF MODERN TIMES 101

came to enjoy the spectacle of his son's glory ;
and MacKenzie, the former station-master
at Mount Clemens, 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 an electric railway in order to
facilitate enjoyable trips through the neigh-
bouring woodlands.

Here was the scene, here was the stage-
setting 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 dissimilar phenomena the secret
laws which govern 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,

102 THOMAS A. EDISON

fatigue, or nerve strain. On the contrary,
while he was the first to begin work and
the last to leave it, he had, nevertheless, no
equal in his appreciation of a funny story,
and was largely responsible for the bursts of
hilarity in winch the staff indulged from time
to time, becoming for the moment so many
grown-up children, during intervals of respite
and recreation.

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

We are beginning to see and know the
inventor, 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 visualize him in the appropriate setting
which he himself created with all his energy
and all his faith.

NAPOLEON OF MODERN TIMES 103

The next step is to cast a glance at
his discoveries, and attempt to estimate
their value as well as their influence upon
the grateful generations of to-day and to-
morrow.

CHAPTER IV

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

WE have mentioned Edison's first
successes 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 discovered so many
and such diverse improvements to it that he
remains, in this regard, a pioneer of the first
rank.

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

Edison and E. H. Johnson introduced
modifications, the value of which was proved
by practical tests. In 1872 the automatic
telegraph was installed between New York

104

DISTANCE ABOLISHED 105

and Washington. An English company soon
afterward offered to apply his methods to
their submarine cables to Brazil. Edison was
summoned to London and his ideas were
adopted, but without his having secured any
benefit for himself.

He was more fortunate in regard to his
duplex and quadruplex telegraph, to which
we have already made more than one passing
allusion. The purpose of both these inven-
tions 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 recog-
nized, thanks to the essential 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 same direction. This change in direc-
tion 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

106 THOMAS A. EDISON

the same time over a single wire, two in
each direction. This method of simultane-
ous transmission, which has been continually
made more and more practical, thanks to
Edison's prolonged efforts, constituted a most
important improvement. The use of the
quadruplex could not fail to constitute a
saving to the companies 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 experi-
ments. In fact, the achievement of a quad-
ruplex capable of realizing his dream became
a sort of obsession. It was in consequence
of this preoccupation that he experienced the
following 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 importance to
him, but he even forgot to pay his taxes.
Consequently, like any other free and equal
citizen, he received a notice one day to call

DISTANCE ABOLISHED 107

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 presented 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,
66 pay attention. What is your name ? "

But Edison was paying such profound
attention — to his own thoughts — that he
looked the questioner calmly in the face and
answered :

" 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 addi-
tion to the above-mentioned inventions, we
also owe to Edison the multiplex harmonic

108 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 instrument for use
upon railway trains in motion. The instru-
ment is installed in one of the cars of the
train, and is so constructed that the electric
current passes from it to a wire suspended
above the lines. In this manner messages
have been transmitted from trains in motion,
even when the telegraph wire was at some
little distance from the lines. The practical
importance of this instrument was promptly
recognized ; 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
wonderful efficacy, thanks to the speed with
which it has made it possible to transact the
business and financial relations of the entire
world.

The r&le that he has played in regard to
the telephone is quite similar. This marvel-

DISTANCE ABOLISHED 109

lous 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 dis-
tance, was invented by Bell in 1875. Bour-
seul and Reis had previously conceived the
same idea, but it was reserved for Edison to
develop its full resources.

He had already conducted some very im-
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 tele-
phone. It consisted of the present-day re-
ceiver and transmitter. The problem was
to make it practical for current use ; but, as
a matter of fact, the sounds could not be
heard excepting very faintly, and were inter-
rupted by all sorts of strange noises. In a
short time Edison produced his carbon trans-
mitter, and the problem was solved. Experi-
ments 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

110 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 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, how-
ever, that the sum should be paid in annual
instalments of $6000. Accordingly the pay-
ments would extend over seventeen years, or
throughout the entire period covered by the
patent. Edison himself has since given the
explanation of this clause. He knew himself
only too well, and realized 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 instruments depending upon the same

DISTANCE ABOLISHED 111

principle : such as the water telephone, the
condenser telephone, the chemical telephone,
the mercury 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 current, is the principle of the
motograph. 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 cylinder, being drawn for-
ward by the friction and drawn back again
into position by the employment of the
electric current. It is asserted that, thanks
to the oscillation of this pen, Edison has
succeeded, through this application of the
principle of diminished friction, in sending
a dispatch with the speed of twelve thousand
words a minute.

112 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 instal-
ments for seventeen years. Consequently
he had an assured income from the Western
Union Telegraph Company 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,
beginning with England. Thanks to its
separate transmitter and receiver, it had an
unquestionable superiority. One of Edison's
former associates — namely, Colonel Gouraud —
who had worked with him in connexion with
the automatic telegraph, now undertook to
look after his interests in England. A com-
pany was formed, and a large number of
machines emanating from the workshops of
Menlo Park were forwarded to London.

Edison organized a corps of twenty young

DISTANCE ABOLISHED 113

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 pre-
parations for the conquest of the O14 World,
adds that at this period he received a most
agreeable surprise. The Bell Company,
established in England, had not witnessed
without genuine alarm this American
incursion into the United 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 methods ?
Consequently Edison one day received a
cablegram from Colonel Gouraud transmit-
ting the offer made by the English company
— namely, ' 30,000.' Edison cabled back his

114 THOMAS A. EDISON

acceptance. 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 set-backs, notwith-
standing 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,
wholly devoted to their inimitable chief,
and looking upon Graham Bell as a sort of
second 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
writer, was in his younger days an employee
of the Edison Telephone Company. He gave
public demonstrations which were certainly
not lacking in liveliness and picturesque

DISTANCE ABOLISHED 115

colouring. With his characteristic and
humorous fashion of seeing and describing
things, Mr Shaw gave the following amusing
definition of Edison's telephone : " A much
too ingenious invention, being nothing less
than a telephone of such stentorian efficiency
that it bellowed your most private communi-
cations all over the house, instead of whisper-
ing them with some sort of discretion ! " l

In addition to Colonel Gouraud, several
men of prominence undertook to spread
abroad Edison's well-earned fame in a manner
worthy of him. One of these, Mr Samuel
Insull, testifies to the great interest taken
by many of the most distinguished men and
women of England regarding this great
curiosity, the loud-speaking telephone. Mrs
Gladstone, the wife of the famous statesman,
spoke into the receiver, probably with con-
siderable energy, and asked the operator at
the other end whether a man or a woman was
speaking, and the answer came back un-
hesitatingly in loud, clear tones that it was a
man.

Mr Charles Edison, a nephew of the
inventor, who died prematurely at Paris in

1 From Dyer and Martin's Life of Edison*

116 THOMAS A. EDISON

1874, had also undertaken to popularize his
uncle's methods in Europe. He was received
by King Edward, 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 tele-
phone, Edison had observed the diverse and
variable degrees of resistance offered by
carbon to the passage of an electric current.
This phenomenon afforded him a basis on
which to create his microphone, the purpose
of which was to give back sound in an in-
tensified form. The microphone reproduced
the faintest murmurs greatly magnified. The
sensitiveness of this instrument is so great
that the walking of a fly can produce the
effect of soldiers on the march, and a mere
rustling 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 pheno-
mena for his starting-point, but there was a
certain analogy between the two conceptions.
Meanwhile the microphone gave rise to a

DISTANCE ABOLISHED 117

very keen rivalry and prolonged controversy
between Edison and the English professor,
Hughes, 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
the smallest perceptible differences of pres-
sure. 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 con-
ductor, the slightest relative displacement
of these conductors is sufficient 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 pressure 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

118 THOMAS A. EDISON

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

But, even aside from astronomical obser-
vations, it is easy to realize the many impor-
tant uses to which this instrument could be
put ; such, for instance, as that of detecting
a sudden outbreak of fire in a building, or of
determining the position of an iceberg at sea.

But it is impossible to dwell in turn upon
each and all of Edison's remarkable inven-
tions. The more important have over-
shadowed the lesser ones, which nevertheless
retain their own interest and value and
would have been sufficient 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 Edison's genius. We may also say, one of
the most flamboyant manifestations, since it
proclaimed 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 VENTRILO-
QUIST ? — GLORY AND HARMONY IMPRI-
SONED 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 in-
stalled 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, either at meals, or in the street, or
in his laboratory. Consequently, this ' M.
Eddison ' was a greater slave than the worst
of criminals. He could not devote a single
instant to his private affairs without one
of his guards immediately calling him to
order. He was the inventor of an instrument
which would make the human voice audible
119

120 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 the
phonograph, a unique and prodigious instru-
ment, well fitted to arouse throughout the
entire world the greatest surprise and ad-
miration.

The phonograph ! The talking machine,
which records sounds and preserves them in
their integrity for the benefit of to-morrow,
the day after to-morrow, and the future
centuries ! Was there not an abundance in
this thought to stir the heart and the brain,
and to open up immense and infinite horizons
to the dreams and ideals of all future genera-
tions ?

The phonograph ! Henceforth the secret
contained in words which translate the
thought, whether that thought be poetic,
religious, social, or musical, could be taken

RECORDING THE VOICE 121

prisoner by this impassive and unerring
witness. By creating the phonograph, by
perfecting it, by adapting it to the needs of
science, Edison had made himself more than
ever an object of profound interest 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 inebria-
tion. For, if the phonograph records our
voice, our eloquence, the most intimate ex-
pression 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
instance, the Sermon on the Mount, or the
Apology of Socrates, 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 !

122 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 connexion,
that almost from the moment of this miracu-
lous discovery, which invested his personality
with a mantle of wizardry, Edison already
foresaw the various possible applications
which might be made of his phonograph.

As a matter of fact, he enumerated them
in The North American Review as early as
1878, and in view of what the closing years
of the nineteenth century and the opening
years of the twentieth have brought, we can-
not help feeling that the list was singularly
prophetic.

" Among the many uses to which the
phonograph will be applied are the following :

" 1. Letter- writing and all kinds of dicta-
tion without the aid of a stenographer.

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

46 3. The teaching of elocution.

44 4. Reproduction of music.

" 5. The ' Family Record '—a registry of

RECORDING THE VOICE 123

sayings, reminiscences, etc., by members of
a family 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 pro-
nouncing.

" 9. Educational purposes ; such as pre-
serving 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. Connexion with the telephone, so as
to make that instrument an auxiliary in the
transmission of permanent and invaluable
records, instead of being the recipient of
momentary and fleeting communication."

Edison thought, at one and the same time,
of the utility and the entertainment to be
derived 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

124 THOMAS A. EDISON

vast advance upon the humble parrot, which
was Robinson Crusoe's sole consolation on
his desert island !

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

But what was the origin of this invention ?
Edison, as we have already shown, has in
general more faith in patient and methodical
research than in sudden illuminations. The
phonograph, 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 consecutive days and nights in
perfecting his primitive 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 wonderful talking
machine.

Already, while working upon his automatic
telegraph and causing strips of metal, marked

RECORDING THE VOICE 125

with dots and dashes in relief, to pass very
swiftly beneath a steel point, he had noted
the 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 vibrations 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 communicated to the diaphragm
by the spoken word, and consequently would
be able to record 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 imagination 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
a screw. With the aid of a sheet of tinfoil

126 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 enter-
tained no great hope of success when he
asked his collaborator, John Kruesi, to go
ahead and construct 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 pro-
ceeded to echo back his words. Everybody
was astonished. At the first attempt the
success had been unmistakable and over-
whelming. " Gott in Himmel ! " cried Kruesi,
and the whole night was 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 FIRST PHONOGRAPH

126

RECORDING THE VOICE 127

The news of the invention spread throughout
America, arousing astonishment, enthusiasm
and scepticism, after which it proceeded
to encircle the globe. It was looked upon
as a sort of sleight-of-hand or ventrilo-
quism, notwithstanding Edison's insistence
upon the simplicity of his machine and the
absence of all element of mystery. It was
exhibited by Edison 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
concerning this sensational event in the
history of civilization :

" That morning I took it over to New York
and walked into the office of The Scientific
American, went up to Mr Beach's desk, and
said I had something to show him. He
asked what it was. I told him I had a
machine that would record and reproduce
the human voice, I opened the package, set
up the machine and recited, ' Mary had a
little lamb,' etc. Then I reproduced it so
that it could be heard all over the room.
They kept me at it until the crowd got so

128 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 sur-
prising 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
phonograph to Washington and exhibited it
there. . . . Members of Congress and notable
people of that city came all day long until
late in the evening. I made one break. I
recited ' Mary,' etc., and another ditty :

" 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

RECORDING THE VOICE 129

was very sensitive about the subject. When
he came in he was introduced ; but, being
rather deaf, I didn't catch his name, but sat
down and started the curl ditty. Everybody
tittered, and I was told that Mr Conkling was
displeased. About 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 several
others waiting. Among them I remember
Carl Schurz, who was playing the piano when
I entered the room. The exhibition con-
tinued till about 12.30 A.M., when Mrs Hayes
and several other ladies, who had been
induced to get up and dress, appeared. I
left at 3.30 A.M.

" 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

130 THOMAS A. EDISON

man in the United States who could recite
those names with the same rapidity.5 " 1

A company was immediately organized,
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 become a commercial success on a large
scale until ten years later, when the in-
ventor, 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 in 1888 that Edison resumed his
work upon the phonograph. In the mean-
time, however, he had become perfectly
aware of the instrument's defects. The prob-
lem was extremely delicate. A recording
cylinder of wax had been substituted for the
sheet of tinfoil, and the steel pencil was re-
placed by a little knife made of sapphire,
whose function was to plough a channel in
the wax, forming a spiral around the cylinder.

Edison was obliged to prolong and multiply
his efforts before his phonograph was brought
to the point of exactly imitating the human

1 From Dyer and Martin's Life of Edison.

RECORDING THE VOICE 131

voice. It is told, for instance, that he spent
month after month before his instrument,
which proved to be a most backward pupil,
had learned to utter a correct s or an in-
telligible p. The confounded machine ob-
stinately persisted in speaking like a small
child, and not at all like a well-educated
person 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 machine incorporating
these first improvements was sent to the
Crystal Palace in London. As in the case of
the telephone, Colonel Gouraud undertook to
obtain a public recognition befitting the im-
portance 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 phonograph.)

The success in England was immense.
Colonel Gouraud issued invitations to his
friends ; for Edison had sent to him, as
his representative in England, a phonogram

132 THOMAS A. EDISON

— that is to say, a letter recorded upon a
wax cylinder. One of Edison's assistants
in America, a most diligent workman, had
formed the habit of communicating with his
family by means of these phonograms. They
would place the wax cylinders in the instru-
ment, 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
everywhere 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.
Furthermore, he had taken advantage of the
opportunity to express his thanks to the
members of the London Press, who had de-
voted 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 congratulations to

RECORDING THE VOICE 133

Edison in the form of phonographic records.
The enthusiasm was shared by Queen
Victoria herself and her Court, as well as by
some of the most famous English states-
men. The celebrated tragedian Henry Irving
recited for the phonograph, and the instru-
ment had the further distinction of record-
ing for the benefit of posterity the voice
of Cardinal Manning, of Tennyson, and of
Browning. The last-named, 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 so-
licited in his turn, expressed regrets similar
to those that we ourselves just formulated,
deploring the absence of the phonograph in
the days of Homer.

Shortly afterward the Paris Exhibition 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 further demonstrated in a
number of other ways. Savorgnan de Brazza

134 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 realized how valuable the
instrument might become for the compara-
tive 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
exactness, 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 enterprise on his own account and founded
the National Phonograph Company. From
that time forward the industrial and com-
mercial success was complete, since from the
date of the reorganization the company has
sold over a million and a half phonographs.
At the present time the annual sales amount
to about £70,000, including the cylinders and
other supplementary apparatus.

Without wishing to detract in any way
from Edison's glory as an inventor, it is at

RECORDING THE VOICE 135

least curious to note that the creator of the
phonograph had two predecessors in France,
as little appreciated during their lives as after
their death. The first of these was Scott de
Martinville, 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
entered the Didot printing house, familiarized
himself with works of science, and, having
asked himself whether it would not be possible
to do for vibrations of sound what Daguerre
had already done for light, invented a phon-
autograph. 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
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 interested himself in the discovery made
by this journeyman printer. And, at a con-
gress held in Aberdeen, the Abbe Moigne
demonstrated that the solution of the

136 THOMAS A. EDISON

problem of the automatic 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 15th
July, 1861, and was entitled " The Principles
of Phonautography."

What Scott had written ran in part as
follows :

"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
photography ? May we hope that the day is
near at hand when a musical phrase, eman-
ating from 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 afterward 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

RECORDING THE VOICE 137

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 difficulties of
its application, great, no doubt, but not in-
surmountable, thanks to the present state of
physical and mechanical arts."

Here followed a theoretical exposition of
Scott's discovery and a description of his
apparatus consisting of four principal parts :

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

2. A tympanum or inner drum of gold-
beater'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 lamp-
black and below with paper covered with a
scale of millimetric 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

138 THOMAS A, EDISON

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
phonautograph. But it seemed necessary
here, while rendering to Caesar the things that
are Caesar'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, 3rd April, 1887, de-
scribed 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 Coffret de
Santal and Hareng Saur, " consists in the
main of a process for obtaining a tracing of
the movements of a vibrating membrane,
and afterward using this tracing for the

RECORDING THE VOICE 139

purpose of reproducing the same vibrations
with their intrinsic relations of duration and
intensity, either by means of the same mem-
brane or some other one equally adapted
to reproduce the sounds and noises resulting
from this series of movements.

" Accordingly, the whole problem is to
transform 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 reliefs or indentations sufficiently
rigid to serve as a guide for a flexible spring
that will communicate 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
attached to a disk capable of the double
movement of rotation and rectilinear pro-
gression. 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 represent all the

140 THOMAS A. EDISON

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

" This undulating spiral, traced upon a
transparent 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
movement as that previously given to the
recording 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 reproduce 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, receiving impulses exactly
similar in duration and intensity to those
which the recording membrane previously
received.

RECORDING THE VOICE 141

" 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
portion 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
central surface is lost.

" In any case, a spiral tracing around a
cylinder is preferable, and I am at present
endeavouring 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 precursor of Edison. Cros never had
sufficient material resources to achieve a
successful 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 photography. In 1877, only a few
months before Edison's discovery, the Abbe
Leblanc called attention to Charles Cros's
discovery in the following terms, the import-
ance of which cannot fail to be recognized :

"It is no longer a question of simple

142 THOMAS A. EDISON

transmission of sounds, as in the case of the
telephone, 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
extent. 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 re-
ceived and, as it were, taken down in short-
hand your words, your song, your music,
retains a record which may be transferred
to metal by the electroplating process, and
which, when set in motion, will reproduce
your voice, your articulation, 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.

" By means of this instrument which, if
we were called upon to serve as godfather, we
should christen phonograph, it will be possible
to take photographs of the voice as we now
take them of the face ; and these photo-
graphs, which ought to receive the name of
phonograms, will enable us to hear men and
women speak and sing and declaim centuries
after they have passed away, precisely as

RECORDING THE VOICE 143

they spoke and sang and declaimed while
they were alive. Undoubtedly the phono-
graph will never be used to reproduce all the
declamations and conversations and songs of
any human being throughout 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 will be
preserved as specimens.

" Will that not be one of the most curious
things that can possibly be imagined ? To
sit for a while and listen, for example, to the
singing of some song which has rendered such-
and-such a singer famous, and to hear this
song rendered with the same identical voice
by a simple physical instrument named the
phonograph, which mechanically makes use
of a plate made for the purpose and which
can be preserved for ever, 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 connexion ?

Edison is extraordinary in his ability to
achieve his fundamental ideas and day by
day to render them more complete and better

144 THOMAS A. EDISON

adapted to our desires and our needs. And
he is no less astonishing for his gift of ex-
tracting 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 electricity and mechanics, we
have the telephonograph, which is a com-
bination of the phonograph and the tele-
phone. It was tried experimentally 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 intensity. 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.

EDISON AND THE PHONOGRAPH

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

144

RECORDING THE VOICE 145

The purpose of the aerophone is to amplify
sound. It consists of a diaphragm whose
vibrations 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-hundredfold.
In this manner the astute Wizard of Menlo
Park, who is before all else a calm and un-
emotional scientist, has succeeded in trans-
forming the human voice into a terrible
voice, the voice of a giant, and in this way
he has once again introduced an element of
dreams and nightmares into the realities of
life.

But without attempting to draw up even
an approximate list of all of Edison's inven-
tions pertaining to the phonograph, it will
suffice if we merely point out that a good
many of them very pleasantly combine utility
and entertainment. In his spare moments
the great American sorcerer amuses himself
with this odd and surprising type of creation.
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

146 THOMAS A. EDISON

awakened 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
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 " ex-
actly 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 im-
mense organ — he sent his thanks to Edison
in the following terms, recorded by Mr Mundel
and reproduced 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

RECORDING THE VOICE

liberty of offering you, who

147

are one of
America's greatest glories, my warmest con-
gratulations and sincerest good wishes. May
you long be spared to continue your work for
your country's higher honour and the greater
good of humanity."

LI

for

ouQuCL id <

EDISON'S HANDWRITING

CHAPTER VI

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

WHEN Edison is asked which among
all his inventions — and they are so
many that it is almost impossible
to enumerate them — is the one that he pre-
fers, he answers 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
civilization would be without electricity and
without electric light. Nevertheless our
parents contented themselves with the more
modest gas jet. We, having become more
pretentious, demand that we shall see as well
at night as in the day, and even better.

148

LET THERE BE LIGHT ! 149

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
organized 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
turbine wheels into electric current. In this
manner a source of electric power was ob-
tained at .moderate cost. How was this power
to be employed for the purpose of lighting ?

In order to place the problem clearly be-
fore 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
utilize the arc light obtained by passing a
powerful electric current between two car-
bon points ; or else to follow Grove's method
for little incandescent lamps (1840), by pass-
ing the electric current through conductors
formed of exceedingly fine filaments.

But a thousand technical difficulties were
encountered.

150 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 England and America attempts
were being made to perfect the incandescent
lamp on account of its moderate cost and
numerous other advantages. The stumbling-
block, in the first type of lamp, was the burn-
ing out of the carbon, and, in the second type,
the burning out of the filaments, whether of
carbon or of metal. How was an incandes-
cent lamp adapted to practical purposes to be
obtained ?

And this question necessarily included a
second question : How was a complete system
of electric lighting to be created capable of
taking the place of gas by combining all
the advantages of gas with those offered by
electricity ?

In 1877, in the full height of his powers,
Edison, without losing sight of his talking
machine, turned his attention to the incan-
descent lamp. He began his experiment
with filaments of platinum, then substituted
carbon, then returned to platinum, and then
once again to carbon.

Day after day and night after night, with a

LET THERE BE LIGHT ! 151

dogged determination that before long had
involved 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. Yet there were other able scien-
tists who were working toward the same goal.

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 very far from giving him satis-
faction, a number of financiers came together
and formed a company. They placed enor-
mous sums at the inventor's disposal. The
shares in the company rose in value and
became one of the best investments 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

152 THOMAS A. EDISON

conducted by Edison and his assistants. All
the resources of the intelligence and will-power
of this Titan of modern science and civiliza-
tion were consecrated to the creation of a
lamp that would consent to burn for forty-
eight hours.

Little by little he had acquired the con-
viction that the fibres of plants were the only
substance that would offer sufficient resist-
ance. After long research he came down to
employing a filament of cotton. His achieve-
ment, in collaboration with Batchelor, from
the 18th to 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 elements of nature, is destined by aid
of new combinations to enrich the patrimony
of civilization.

Beginning on the 18th, Edison and Bat-
chelor succeeded in carbonizing a filament
of. cotton. Their delight may be imagined.
But when they attempted to test it by con-
necting it with the electric current, it broke.

This did not disturb the experimenters,
whose business it is to expect all sorts of

LET THERE BE LIGHT ! 153

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 hostility of inanimate things.
By the 20th of the month they had succeeded
in making a second filament of carbonized
cotton. Picture their anxiety when they
undertook to attach it to the 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 returned to Edison, who, unper-
turbed, began the task over again.

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

When he awoke the lamp was still burning,

154 THOMAS A. EDISON

and it continued to burn for more than
forty-eight hours. The filament had shown
an excellent resistance to the heat.

By producing a more perfect vacuum in
the bulb, a greater length of endurance was
obtained. At the same time the search was
continued for some better method of pro-
ducing filaments.

The public hailed with delight this new
and dazzling manifestation without, however,
even beginning to realize the prodigious
qualities of Edison's inventive genius. It
was easy enough, without such realization, to
admire the daylight brilliance of the seven
hundred lamps installed in the laboratory
and various other buildings and workrooms
of Menlo Park. This demonstration was
certainly as decisive as it was impressive.
It became necessary to revise the schedule
of railway trains, in order to give every one
a chance, engineers, scientists, business men,
and simple sightseers, to marvel over the
Edison lighting system.

Straightway the shares of the Edison Com-
pany soared from $106 to $3000. Within
the year and with equal success an electric
lighting plant of one hundred and twenty

THERE CAME A BREATH OF WIND AND THERE THE FILAMENT

WAS, BROKEN LIKE ITS PREDECESSOR

154

LET THERE BE LIGHT ! 155

lamps was installed on board the steamship
Colombia.

Edison, however, was not satisfied with
these achievements. He established a manu-
factory of lamps, the first of its kind. Still
engrossed with the idea of perfecting an
instrument that was destined to play so im-
portant a role throughout all civilized nations,
he abandoned the cotton filament in favour
of one obtained from bamboo. The latter,
when carbonized, exhibited remarkable elasti-
city and resistance. Thanks to such improve-
ments and to various other modifications
of detail, the inventor succeeded in pro-
ducing 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
revelation, no less to the specialists than to
the general public, of a new and imposing
order of things. In Edison's exhibit it was
possible to follow all the phases of manu-
facture, 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

156 THOMAS A. EDISON

produced a sensation throughout all 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 tele-
gram announcing this award said further :
" Complete success. The committee had
nothing more at its disposal to give you."
And his success was no less marked at subse-
quent 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 Edison companies were founded : in
London, in Paris, and in Berlin, where the

LET THERE BE LIGHT ! 157

Allgemeine Electricitat-Gesellschaft became
the most extensive 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
ceaseless evolution. Edison's creation, trans-
formed 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
twenty thousand pounds. Wishing to obtain
a peculiar species of bamboo, which he
deemed essential to the success of his incan-
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.
Furthermore, he made arrangements with a

158 THOMAS A. EDISON

Japanese farmer for a continuous supply of
certain species. Edison still remained dis-
satisfied 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 ex-
pedition was next organized 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, per-
haps, a description given by Humboldt of a
bamboo growing on the banks of the Amazon,
Edison commissioned Messrs McGowan and
Hanington to undertake an exploring trip in
South America.

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 subse-
quently disappeared, without it ever being
known what became of him.

LET THERE BE LIGHT ! 159

The public Press published dithyrambic
articles upon his fifteen months' explorations,
through districts infested with fevers, Indians,
and snakes. He passed a hundred and ninety
of these days almost without food, and a
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 civilization !

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

" In pursuit of a substance that should
meet the requirements of the Edison incan-
descent 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 civilization.
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

160 THOMAS A. EDISON

McGowan's narrative is a marvel fit to be
classed with the historic journeyings of the
greatest travellers. But it gains immensely
in interest when we consider that it succeeded
in its scientific purpose. The mysterious
bamboo was discovered, and large quantities
of it were procured and brought to the
Wizard's laboratory, there to suffer another
wondrous change and then to light up our
pleasure haunts and our homes with a gentle
radiance."

Even after making allowance for the
element of exaggeration which is inherent
in all newspaper 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
Maple wood, 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

LET THERE BE LIGHT! 161

or bamboo family. How would you like
that job ? "

Mr Ricalton replied :

" That would suit me."

Then ensued the following brief dialogue :

" Can you go to-morrow ? "

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

" 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 discovered 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 collected under great
difficulties ; two of them gave more satis-
factory results than any of the others. At
this period, however, Edison was striving to
perfect a filament of artificial carbon which
promised to prove far superior to bamboo.

Discovering the presence of Mr Ricalton,

162 THOMAS A. EDISON

he advanced to meet him, shook hands, and
asked :

" Did you find it ? "

" Yes," answered the returned traveller.

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

As early as 1881 Edison had exhibited, at
the Paris Electrical Exposition, a huge steam
dynamo of twenty-seven tons, of which the
armature alone weighed six. From the out-
set 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 inven-
tions pertaining to the utilization of electrical
power were supplemented and perfected by
those of the Hopkinson brothers.

It was not long before Edison built a
machine of 140 horse-power, generating a
sufficient current to supply 1300 lamps, and
in which 90 per cent, of the mechanical energy
was transformed 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

LET THERE BE LIGHT ! 163

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 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.
Edison, 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 personally, like any journeyman,
at the task of laying the underground wires.

Little by little Edison's earlier ideas regard-
ing the sale and utilization of electricity
became amplified. It proved, indeed, to be
not merely a matter of using the current
for public and private lighting, but also for
electric motors and arc lights. He took out
numerous patents relating to these instru-
ments, 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

164 THOMAS A. EDISON

the placement of the dynamos and in the
measurement of the currents. His electrolytic
meter and his various apparatus designed
for measuring the quantity of amperes
and volts bear overwhelming testimony to
this.

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

Thus, with his extraordinary aptitude for
utilizing certain given elements and obliging
them to furnish a maximum of return, he
contributed toward 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 electric power, which he succeeded in
distributing so widely, was destined to be
applied to an ever-increasing extent to our
daily needs. Electricity furnished a motor
power. The problem of electrical locomotion
was squarely raised.

By way of experiment, Edison hastened to

LET THERE BE LIGHT ! 165

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 to dwell 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, after the organization 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 diffi-
culties, Edison succeeded, in a surprisingly
short time, in constructing one-third of a
mile of electric railway and putting it into
operation, at the Chicago Railway Exposition.
It continued in operation for thirteen days,
during which time it carried no less than
twenty-eight thousand passengers.

America to-day owes to this same great
inventor her superiority in electrical trans-

166 THOMAS A. EDISON

portation and the construction of all the
various machinery relating to it.

But electricity was capable of other things
besides competing with other methods of
locomotion ; she was destined to afford a
driving power for the various forms of me-
chanical work. This, indeed, was one of the
vastest of all the problems which haunted
the brain of this modern wizard, for ever
labouring to revolutionize society through
the transforming power of science and in-
dustry.

- 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 per cent, of the
energy contained in the coal is lost. To
avoid this loss would in itself amount to a
revolution in our economic and social con-
ditions.

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

LET THERE BE LIGHT ! 167

operated by a pyromagnetic motor. These
two inventions 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
concealed from us any of those forces which
we would be glad to turn to our advantage,
Edison 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 dis-
coveries. 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 put some specimens of this sand
in his pockets. On returning to his labora-
tory he put the sand on his table ; at this
moment a workman entered, 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

168 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 magnetic 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,
acquired 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 abandon the enterprise, 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 knowledge 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 gone, but we had a hell of a
good time spending it ! "

LET THERE BE LIGHT ! 169

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
inventions ? 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 characters produced by humanity, victori-
ous even in his defeats and sublime in his
duel with the forces of implacable nature.

CHAPTER VII

RECORDING THE GESTURE — IN FULL FAIRY-
LAND— 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 instantly. I got a drum
and went over to the potato farm and
sprinkled it on the vines with a pot. Every
bug dropped dead. The next morning the
farmer came in very excited and reported
that the stuff had killed the vines as well.
I had to pay $300 for not experimenting
properly." *

We see from this anecdote, related by
Edison himself, that he had good reason to
become more circumspect toward visitors,

1 From Dyer and Martin's Life of Edison.

170

RECORDING THE GESTURE 171

and also that he delights in exercising his
ingenuity according to the needs of the hour
and in relation 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
correspondence.

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

Shortly afterward Edison sent to this
same harassed man of business his electric
pen, which, by aid of a small motor and the
rapid movement of a tiny plunger, the point
of which is projected a bare hundredth of an
inch at each vibration, forms letters com-
posed 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
a multitude of tiny points, 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

172 THOMAS A. EDISON

Edison, and notably his accumulator, we
gladly pass on to linger over another of
his greatest wonders, another miracle of this
amazing prestidigitator.

The triumph of the phonograph had en-
couraged Edison to do for the eyes what he
had 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 apparatus conceived as early as 1887.
Here again the glorious inventor has proved
worthy of himself. His science has succeeded
in achieving the most intense and artistic
reproductions, thanks to a series of extremely
ingenious combinations. From day to day
they adapt themselves better and better to
the lofty conceptions of a physicist who is
able to imprison light, just as he previously
imprisoned sound, and to record and preserve,
in a halo of radiance, 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
photography, due to the gelatine-bromide
plate, which required an exposure of only
a fraction of a second, attempts were

RECORDING THE GESTURE 173

made to obtain a more exact reproduction
of reality — that is to say, to photograph
moving objects at intervals of fractions of
a second.

Edison, king of electricity and of speed,
naturally considered as coming within his
province this delicate research, this complex
problem 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 sensitized plate forty-six
times to the second. In this way he obtained
forty-six images to the second, or 2760 to
the minute. He succeeded in projecting
them upon a screen at the rate of 14,000
separate images to every five minutes.

Then came another question : it was
necessary 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

174 THOMAS A. EDISON

images that would be instantaneous, successive
and separate.

Edison, with characteristic patience, pro-
ceeded from the glass plate to the sheet of
gelatine, 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 unrolling 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
pieces to be taken by the cinematograph are
enacted upon the stage, the actors being
illuminated either by the direct rays of the
sun or by magnesium lights. Every one
knows that the cinematograph has become
one of the favourite amusements of the crowd,
which flocks to these exhibits. According to
his habit, and exactly as in the case of his
phonograph, Edison simultaneously kept in
mind the entertainment of the spectacle and
the utility of the invention for scientific and
educational purposes.

Thus, for instance, he employed the cine-
matograph for the clear and precise study

RECORDING THE GESTURE 175

of microscopic phenomena, by showing the
forms and the movements of infusoria develop-
ing 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 any one
and every one to become initiated into the
profoundest mysteries of nature.

It is needless to dwell upon the medical
interest of inventions of this kind which pro-
vide 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 cinematograph 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

176 THOMAS A. EDISON

his new invention would have as a source
of popular entertainment. Henceforward the
most sumptuous opera, choruses, and ballets
could be offered to the public for a few
pence, placing within reach of the humblest
an endless series of new pleasures, as well as a
liberal 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 the 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 miracu-
lous 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.

RECORDING THE GESTURE 177

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 swell the fund needed for further inven-
tions, Edison has built up quite an important
business 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-storey building, containing on the
one hand offices, storerooms for costumes
and scenery, and a library, and on the other
hand a theatre. The ceiling and walls are
of glass, the floor-space is sufficiently large
to permit of six simultaneous 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,
photographers, actors, electricians, costumiers,
and other specialists. After having proved
satisfactory to a committee of competent
judges, the films are placed on sale. In spite
of the enormous competition, the affairs of
the company appear to be most prosperous,
and all the more so because the sale of all the

178 THOMAS A. EDISON

various apparatus needed for exhibiting the
films goes to swell the receipts.

A number of skilled experimenters are
working with unwearying persistence, on
lines laid down by Edison, at various im-
provements 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 entertainment of
the crowd.

Edison sometimes enjoys attending these
public performances and criticizing them,
while he dreams of a still greater 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-roomed 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 con-
crete is poured and allowed to harden. The
mould is removed, and an entire dwelling,
foundations, walls, cellars, every detail down

RECORDING THE GESTURE 179

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
enormous cylinders. When pulverized, it
passes under a roller, where the mixture of
limestone and cement rock is completed.

Without having the least intention of
attempting to enumerate all of Edison's
countless inventions, we may call to mind the
fact that he was the author of the first fluoro-
scope, after the discovery of the X-rays.
And without stopping to examine all his
lamps, and all his phonographic apparatus,
we may content ourselves with mentioning,
in addition to his 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.

180 THOMAS A. EDISON

As may easily be imagined, Edison has not
failed to follow with intense interest the pro-
gress of aviation. At the request of James
Gordon Bennett, he experimented with a
number of motors designed to serve for the
' heavier than air ' type of machine. He in-
vented one motor, to be run with gun-cotton,
but after an explosion he gave up this line
of experiment, 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 admira-
tion 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,
under conditions hitherto regarded as im-
possible, Edison plays a leading role in the
essentially modern and already extraordinarily
developed industry of tramways and auto-
mobiles. What is not so generally known is
that, although far from interested in engines
of death, because he is opposed to war and
its atrocities, he nevertheless conceived an

RECORDING THE GESTURE 181

electric submarine torpedo, 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 civilized
nations. And if we realize the peaceful re-
volution in our manners and customs which
electricity 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 establish-
ment of a new social 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
personalities 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

182 THOMAS A. EDISON

under any misapprehension as to the quality
of his genius.

And what if the world could know all his
secrets ! But he reveals them only one by one
and at his own good pleasure. How many
incomplete inventions, half realized 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
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 utilize 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,
humorous word to the humblest man on the
staff, rather than in an austere frock-coat
more befitting a gentleman of professorial
manner. There is no doubt about it. But

EDISON THE CHEMIST

The great Inventor has always had a marked predilection
for chemistry.

182

RECORDING THE GESTURE 183

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 electricity maintains his sove-
reignty only because he is also a monarch of
commerce and industry.

It is impossible to calculate mathemati-
cally the commercial value of Edison's work.
Nevertheless we may cite a few figures for
the United States alone.

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

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 civilization
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 i$ve Future, Villiers de PIsle Adam,
a poet of noble and picturesque verse,
and of adventurous and at times bizarre
imagination, shows us, in a fantastic tale,
" not Mr Edison 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
Archimedes 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 pande-
monium, letting a haze of reddish-gold invade
and overspread all objects. Here and there,
encumbering the tables, appeared the faint

184

LLEWELYN PARK 185

outlines of delicate measuring instruments,
the wheels and gearings of unknown mechan-
isms, electric apparatus, telescopes, reflectors,
enormous magnets, flasks filled with enig-
matic substances, 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
decadent school :

" From among the noises of past ages, how
many mysterious sounds were perceived by
our predecessors which, through lack of any
apparatus adapted to preserve them, have
passed for ever into oblivion ! Who, indeed,
at the present day, can form any exact
notion — for example, of the trumpets of
Jericho, of the 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, al-
though in passing we may well recognize its

186 THOMAS A. EDISON

interest and the considerable truth which it
contains in a general sense. The newspaper
accounts which have appeared from time to
time in both hemispheres, 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 advantage to get a
somewhat magnified view of him, if we wish
to see him clearly. Accordingly, we should
do wrong if we failed to recall the impres-
sion made by the most famous of modern en-
chanters upon the most celebrated enchantress
of our own day.

" His marvellous blue eyes," writes Madame
Sarah Bernhardt in her Memoires, " more
luminous than his own incandescent lamps,
permitted 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
charming, this King of the Realm of Light.

LLEWELYN PARK 187

64 While we leaned side by side over the
fragile bridge that trembled above the
frightful abyss in which immense wheels,
carrying large driving 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, some-
times 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 between these two men,
and I am sure that it is a case where the two
brains would be found to be identical.

44 . . . The bewildering noise of the
machinery, 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 uncon-
sciousness of the danger that even before I
had recovered from my surprise 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

188 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 Shake-
speare."

Following the example of Madame Sarah
Bernhardt, 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 reality a simple man, sincere and
cordial, although terribly, even formidably,
busy.

But who would not willingly pardon him
for wishing to guard himself from importun-
ate visitors ? It is no more than right that
his laboratory should be protected from in-
quisitive glances behind the shelter of high
walls, and that the main entrance should bear
the following notice : "On account of his
work, Mr Edison 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,

LLEWELYN PARK 189

and more particularly so in the case of Mr
Edison. But since, in spite of our indiscre-
tion, our intentions are honourable, we will
take the liberty of disregarding the injunction.

We must not resent the attitude of the
gatekeeper, 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 gatekeeper who
subjected Mr Edison himself to a like ex-
amination and delay before he could be con-
vinced 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 tram-
way, a street car, whose economical motor,
which makes it possible to cover a consider-
able distance without recharging the batteries,
is another of Edison's inventions, has brought
us to Llewelyn Park, the site of the Edison
laboratory 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

190 THOMAS A. EDISON

country district, in the midst of charming
homes and wooded hill-sides.

It was in the year 1886 that Edison re-
moved from his far-famed habitation at
Menlo Park. He had need for vaster space,
both for his own personal work and for the
extensive manufactories of which he was to
remain the head. He felt the need of a more
scientific organization and system of manage-
ment. 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
it also a manufacturing centre, representing
an invested capital of four million dollars and
consisting of a whole group of enterprises,
including : the Edison Manufacturing Com-
pany, the Bates Manufacturing Company, the
Edison Storage Battery Company, the Edison
Phonograph Works, the National Phono-

LLEWELYN PARK 191

graph Company, and the Edison Phonograph
Company.

But it is the scientist and the unsur-
passed wizard whom we wish primarily to
visit.

The laboratory, which has become, year
by year, more spacious, more practical, more
magnificently comfortable in the American
sense, comprises one principal building — no
sky-scraper, but a four-story structure, two
hundred 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 dimensions 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 com-
prises more than sixty thousand volumes
ranged upon the shelves, not to speak of
the scientific reviews, and all the technical
publications in connexion with every art,
science, and craft.

In this agreeably and harmoniously pro-
portioned room we observe four electric
chandeliers and a number of chairs and

192 THOMAS A. EDISON

tables. The boards of directors frequently
hold their meetings around one of these
tables. Edison presides over them with his
clear, ardent, compelling, 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
acquired at the Exposition of 1889, a work
by Bordiga, representing the triumph of elec-
tricity and electric light. On an adjacent
table we perceive a pretty model in miniature
of the poured-cement house invented by
Edison. Portraits of scientists and cele-
brated men adorn the galleries. A bust of
Humboldt and a statuette of Sandow especi-
ally attract our attention.

Adjoining the library is situated the cele-
brated stock-room, with its accumulation of
the greatest variety of substances which the
inventor may need to have immediately at
hand. Sovereign experimenter that he is,

LLEWELYN PARK 193

he must always take Nature as his starting-
point and ceaselessly collaborate with her.

This stock-room contains an enormous
collection, and at first sight a very strange
one, including the simplest as well as the
rarest elements 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 diamonds.

Many a joke has been made at the expense
of this stock-room, 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-
tory at Orange, relates the following conversa-
tion with Mr Ebdell, its erudite and practical
organizer. 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

N

194 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 forthcoming.

" 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-cah ? "

" 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
possess 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

LLEWELYN PARK 195

it is quite likely that there are still some gaps
in the stock-room 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 appreciable delay.

We come next to the rooms devoted to
machinery and mechanical experiments ;
they contain the models of various kinds of
apparatus and of improvements connected
with them. They occupy one half of the
whole vast structure.

On the second story 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 assassination of President McKinley.

Room No. 12 is of still more special inter-
est, for it is Edison's own room. It contains
every variety of apparatus that might be re-
quired successively by a physicist, a chemist,
or a machinist, according to the needs of the
day and the hour. Let us contemplate
almost devoutly this place of retirement,

196 THOMAS A. EDISON

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 ex-
pands into hearty merriment at the recital
of some 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 exactly 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
toward 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 connexion with his prolonged
labours upon the telephone and phonograph,

LLEWELYN PARK 197

because he found it impossible 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
extends almost the entire length of the
building ; 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
phonograph, also the private office in which
the personal business affairs of Mr Edison are
conducted 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 galvano-
meter 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

198 THOMAS A. EDISON

magnetic influence, iron and steel were both
discarded in its construction. But after all
these wise precautions had been taken an
electric trolley line was installed directly
beneath its windows ! Consequently, all the
instruments had to be relegated to a useless
inactivity on walls, tables and shelves.

Without pausing at a small outhouse used
by the inventor for his experiments in con-
crete houses, we enter the second of the four
single-story 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 appa-
ratus and utensils, as well as models, while
the fourth is a supplementary stock-room,
besides containing photographic and cine-
matographic apparatus.

At Orange, just as formerly at Menlo Park,
Edison is constantly besieged with more or
less legitimate demands upon his time, and
notwithstanding his courtesy, which turns to
affability when he has to do with brother

LLEWELYN PARK 199

scientists or artists or any one 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 dis-
tinction 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 absent-mindedness, from which the whole
human race reaps a benefit.

At Orange Edison remains the master-
mind of the whole immense organization,
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 example, he has entrusted all questions
of litigation to Mr F. L. Dyer, an eminent
lawyer, learned and far-sighted, whom we
have had frequent occasion to quote in these
pages. Mr 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

200 THOMAS A. EDISON

United States and in foreign countries. They
range from the quadruplex telegraph to the
manufacture of window-glass, from electric
locomotion to a method of preserving fruit,
from compressed air apparatus to a machine
for writing addresses, etc. Not to mention
that Mr Dyer's duties involve the continual
defence of the inventions, for the infringe-
ments of them are innumerable, and conse-
quently so also are the lawsuits. Lastly,
some of Edison's engineers, and even some of
the assistant workmen, eager to prove their
ability and personal ingenuity, make occa-
sional 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 a recent visit to France, where he
was received, just as in 1889, with the utmost
enthusiasm. He bestows special praise upon
the French automobile roads, French aviation
and French cookery.

Before long we arrive at Mr Edison's
beautiful residence at Glenmont. In 1886
he was remarried, this time to a Miss Mina
Miller, daughter of Louis Miller, a rich manu-

LLEWELYN PARK
Edison prefers his home to all the attractions of the outside world.

200

LLEWELYN PARK 201

facturer 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 attractive setting
of the Orange Mountains, is a delightful one.
It is built in English style, of stone and brick,
and ornamented with balconies, terraces, and
verandahs. It is all very pleasing and in
charming taste.

The ground floor comprises a number of
parlours and reception-rooms, a dining-room
and a large lounging-room, known familiarly
as the c den.' It is here that Edison's various
medals and decorations may be seen. In
1889, after his magnificent contribution to
the Paris Exposition, costing him personally
more than one hundred thousand dollars,
Edison was appointed Commander of the
Legion of Honour. Other souvenirs of the
same period are also preserved in the ' den,'
among them a letter from Mme Sadi-Carnot
placing the presidential 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

202 THOMAS A. EDISON

a collection of photographs, ornaments, and
presents offered to the noted scientist, con-
spicuous among them being the marble
statues sent by the Tsar, 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 mention the fact that, in addition to all
these other objects, the ' den ' also contains
... a phonograph !

Edison retires by preference to the second
story. In addition to the bedrooms and a
billiard -room, it contains a splendid library,
comprising technical works and standard
literature, scientific periodicals and popular
magazines. Here, when not detained in his
laboratory, Edison spends his evenings in the
company of his family and intimate friends.
He surprises every one by his easy manners,
his unaffected humour, his thousand and one
inventions and ideas, large and small, always
novel, often diverting, yet with a hidden
depth of serious import. These evenings are
prolonged to a late hour. It no more occurs
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 Huron,

LLEWELYN PARK 203

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
ornamental designs, and at the same time
continuing to talk and argue.

Without having active connexion 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 impos-
sible to come into intimate contact with the
mysteries of nature, and more particularly
to study chemistry, without being convinced
of the existence 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 accepta-
tion 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

204 THOMAS A. EDISON

armed with college 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 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 ability in
manufacturing, commerce, railroading, etc."

All of which, as a matter of fact, does not
prevent Edison from having a profound ad-
miration for the arts and artists, especially
for musicians. How could a genius such as
his fail to sympathize with a Beethoven,
whose gigantic art is also made up of constant
and manifold combinations and inventions,
in pursuit 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

LLEWELYN PARK 205

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.

Do not let us exaggerate the importance
of details which, without amounting to a
profession 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
resent Edison's partiality for the hard disci-
pline of life and experience, we cannot help
surrendering ourselves more and more to the
charm of the man himself in private life.
This famous wizard wears quite the same
clothes as any one else, without a touch of
dandyism, and with a secret preference for
his everyday, much-worn working clothes.
He is fond of good living 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 delights in making a

206 THOMAS A. EDISON

comparative examination of the different
races. " The nations which eat rice," he
says, " never make any progress. They
never make anything excepting rice, rice,
always rice ! ': We may observe in this con-
nexion 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 alcohol, 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 Glenmont, in
spite of the occasional inevitable visitors
who must be received. This eminently
family life is enlivened by the coming and
going of Mr Edison's children and by the
annual winter trip to Fort Myers, Florida,

LLEWELYN PARK 207

where he has an attractive house, a garden of
luxurious vegetation, and a laboratory. He
spends a few weeks there each year, without
interruption to his labours, for this labora-
tory, although less complete than the one
at Orange, contains all the equipment neces-
sary to enable him to carry on his personal
experiments.

Supposing now, at the risk of committing
an indiscretion, but urged on by a profound
desire to solve the marvellous secret of this
superman, that we should venture to question
him as to his methods of work and research.!

Mr Edison would begin by replying that it
is usually a mistake to attribute inventions
to accident or chance. But rather serious
blunders 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 toward a well-defined goal. Hence
arises a distinction which this scientist, this
experimenter loves to make, and which causes
us a certain mild regret, because we have
employed successively the two words in

208 THOMAS A. EDISON

question without stopping to differentiate
them.

"A discovery," says he, " is not an inven-
tion. For my own part, I hate this confusion
of meaning. A discovery is something which
happens more or less accidentally. A man
is following a certain road. He is going,
for instance, 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 cer-
tainly has not made an invention. He has
gone to no trouble to find this bracelet ; and
yet its value to him is precisely 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
invention, on the contrary, is the fruit of
assiduous care, of long and methodical effort,
and God knows that it is never a fruit easy to
gather and that it frequently remains green,
or else, at last, ripens in spite of its inclement

LLEWELYN PARK 209

surroundings, thanks to the knowledge and
unwearied 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 in-
carnates the American spirit in its greatest
freedom and fertility, its most positive and
audacious aspect.

In order to guard against any mistake, in
attempting to solve this problem, and to
arrive at a reasonable conclusion, it is wisest
to appeal to those fellow - countrymen of
Edison's who have enjoyed a prolonged and
close intimacy with him throughout the chief
periods of struggle and of victory — namely,
Mr Frank Lewis Dyer and Mr Thomas
Commerford Martin — whose close observation

210 THOMAS A. EDISON

nothing pertaining 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 physi-
cally robust constitution a mind capable of
clear and logical thinking and aa imagina-
tion 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 consideration to
explain this phenomenon ?

First a stolid, almost phlegmatic nervous
system, which takes absolutely no notice of
ennui — " 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, always apparently the same,
cost him more than a million dollars. To
any one else this research would have become

LLEWELYN PARK 211

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 re-
sources. And how many times he has had
occasion to take a hand in enterprises that
have been given up as hopeless by his
assistants ! On one occasion he had need
of a new machine to perform a specified kind
of work. He turned the matter over to his
engineers and gave them the necessary speci-
fications. After a certain lapse of time they
brought him three plans for machines that
in their opinion would be capable of perform-
ing the required work. Edison examined
them and found that none would answer.
"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
impossible. But Edison insisted :

" You are absolutely sure ? "

212 THOMAS A. EDISON

" Absolutely," came the simple and unani-
mous reply.

This happened on a Saturday. The follow-
ing Monday, when Edison came to the office,
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
results, nothing but results.

Here, parenthetically, we may lay our
finger, in a measure, upon the essence of
genius. It is 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 invention as composed
of 1 per cent, inspiration and 99 per cent,
perspiration, to quote his humorous and
yet significant definition. The exceptional
element does not consist in mere labour,
even compulsory labour, prolonged to the
limit of human endurance, but in inventive
labour, if one may be permitted to use this
new term.

Edison makes discoveries where others,
endowed with keen intelligence and a rare
measure of energy, discover nothing. Further-
more, let us note that this faculty is employed

LLEWELYN PARK 213

quite as often for trifling matters as it is for
those that are of far greater importance.
He is convinced that in the whole realm of
invention insignificant details are frequently
of infinite importance. This is the reason of
his innumerable laboratory notes, in which
he follows, day by day, the progress of an
experiment conducted with the aid of the
greatest variety of elements — and it must
not be forgotten that Edison spends reck-
less 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
positive, complete, and invincible optimism,
fortified 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 diffi-
culties, he delights in them. Fighting a feeble
enemy, conquered 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 exploita-
tion of his electro-magnetic separator for iron
ore, and the commercial enterprise ended in

214 THOMAS A. EDISON

disaster. At the age of fifty he had lost a
fortune. Nevertheless he left the scene of
his defeat calm and light of heart, satisfied in
having proved the success of an invention,
even though he 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, no-
thing 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 some one some time."

We realize, upon reflection, how disinter-
ested 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 inborn forces of his tem-
perament and his race.

From childhood up it seems as though
Edison had flung a glance of defiance at all
obstacles which barred his path or that of
others, including the whole human race.
Consequently he acted without vain declama-
tion or idle posing, but with the implacable
resolve to triumph, thanks to a higher

LLEWELYN PARK 215

understanding of the means at our disposal,
whether through sudden and salutary action
or through slow, detailed, and progressive
observation.

Whether it is a question of making a
newspaper or a telegraph instrument out
of nothing, of sending a dispatch without
the aid of instruments, of forcing sound to
transmit itself and be preserved intact, of
forcing light to become concentrated in a
given lamp during a specified time and with
a specified brilliance, Edison is the man
who succeeds in eliminating 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 practical mechanic, who refuses to
be rated as a scientist, hampered by theories,
but works steadily toward a definite goal
with dogged determination, have been in-
spired by the unquenchable and joyous
energy of a hero.

Thomas Alva Edison, the King of Electri-
city, the physicist, the chemist, the American
manufacturer, the modern enchanter, the

216 THOMAS A. EDISON

master of creative thought, who has the gift
of subjugating the most mysterious forces
of nature and placing them at our service,
remains for us, as for posterity, first and
foremost a great conqueror.

FOURTEEN DAY USE

RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED

This book is due on the last date stamped below, or

on the date to which renewed.
Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.

*

OV161984

1^-

ReceN€0'

lAJiil'fiOMM

MOM 1 '^ V9'dA

. ^JLtf*** °EPr

'\

cm

•/^p ° -

•-.? 1gSQ

l20d'60BM

i

LD 21-100m-2,'55
(B139s22)476

General Library

University of California

Berkeley

75223