reached to close down, if he was specially disappointed there was
nothing in his manner to indicate it, his every thought being for the
future."
In this attitude we find a true revelation of one conspicuous trait
in Mr. Edison. No one ever cried less over spilled milk than he. He
had spent a fortune and had devoted nine years of his life to the most
intense thought and labor in the creation and development of this vast
enterprise. He had made many remarkable inventions and had achieved
a very great success, only to see the splendid results swept away
in a moment. He did not sit down and bewail his lot, but with true
philosophy and greatness of mind applied himself with characteristic
energy to new work through which he might be able to open up a more
promising future.
XIX
EDISON MAKES PORTLAND CEMENT
Long before Edison ever thought of going into the manufacture of cement
he had very pronounced opinions of its value for building purposes.
More than twenty-five years ago, during a discussion on ancient
buildings, he remarked: "Wood will rot, stone will chip and crumble,
bricks disintegrate, but a cement and iron structure is apparently
indestructible. Look at some of the old Roman baths. They are as solid
as when they were built."
With such convictions, and the vast fund of practical knowledge and
experience he had gained at Edison in the crushing and handling of
enormous masses of finely divided material, it is not surprising that
he should have decided to engage in the manufacture of cement.
He was fully aware of the fact that he was proposing to "butt into" an
old-established industry, in which the principal manufacturers were
concerns which had been in business for a long time. He knew there were
great problems to be solved, both in manufacturing and selling the
cement. These difficulties, however, only made the proposition more
inviting to him.
Edison followed his usual course of reading up all the literature
on the subject that he could find, and seeking information from all
quarters. After thorough study he came to the conclusion that with his
improved methods of handling finely crushed material, and with some new
inventions and processes he had in mind, he could go into the cement
business and succeed in making a finer quality of product. As we shall
see later, he "made good."
This study of the cement proposition took place during the first few
months of his experimenting on a new storage battery. In the mean time
Mr. Mallory had been busy arranging for the formation of a company with
the necessary money to commence and carry on the business. One day he
went to the laboratory and told Mr. Edison that everything was ready
and that it was now time to engage engineers to lay out the works.
To this Edison replied that he intended to do that himself, and
invited Mr. Mallory to go with him to one of the draughting-rooms
up-stairs. Here Edison placed a sheet of paper on a draughting-table
and immediately began to draw out a plan of the proposed works. He
continued all day and away into the evening, when he finished; thus
completing within twenty-four hours the full lay-out of the entire
plant as it was subsequently installed. If the plant were to be rebuilt
to-day no vital change would be necessary.
It will be granted that this was a remarkable engineering feat, for
Edison was then a newcomer in the cement business. But in that one
day's planning everything was considered and provided for, including
crushing, mixing, weighing, grinding, drying screening, sizing,
burning, packing, storing, and other processes.
From one end to the other the cement plant is about half a mile long,
and through the various buildings there passes, automatically, each day
a vast quantity of material under treatment. In practice this results
in the production of more than two and a quarter million pounds of
finished cement every twenty-four hours.
Not only was all this provided for in that one day's designing, but
also smaller details, such, for instance, as the carrying of all
steam, water and air pipes and electrical conductors in a large subway
extending from one end of the plant to the other; also a system by
which the ten thousand bearings in the plant are oiled automatically,
requiring the services of only two men for the entire work.
Following this general outline plan of the whole plant by Edison
himself there came the preparation of the detail plans by his
engineers. As the manufacture of cement also involves the breaking and
grinding of rocks, the scheme, of course, included using the giant
rolls and other crushing, drying, and screening machinery invented by
him for the iron-concentrating work, as mentioned in our last chapter.
No magnetic separator is necessary in cement-making, but there were
other processes to provide for that did not occur in concentrating iron
ore. One of them relates to burning the material, which is one of the
most important processes in manufacturing cement.
Perhaps it may be well to state for the information of the reader that
in cement-making, generally speaking, cement-rock and limestone in
the rough are mixed together and ground to a fine powder. This powder
is "burned" in a kiln and comes out in the form of balls, called
"clinker." This again is crushed to a fine powder, which is the cement
of commerce.
It will be seen, therefore, that the quantity of finished cement
produced depends largely upon the capacity of the kilns. When Edison
first thought of going into cement-making he expected to use the old
style of kilns, which were about sixty feet long and six feet in
diameter, and had a capacity of turning out about two hundred barrels
of clinker every twenty-four hours. He is never satisfied, however, to
take the experience of others as final, and thought he could improve on
what had been done before.
He discussed the project with Mr. Mallory, who says: "After having
gone over this matter several times, Mr. Edison said, 'I believe I
can make a kiln which will give an output of one thousand barrels
in twenty-four hours.' Although I had then been closely associated
with him for ten years and was accustomed to see him accomplish great
things, I could not help feeling the improbability of his being able
to jump into an old-established industry--as a novice--and start by
improving the 'heart' of the production so as to increase its capacity
four hundred per cent. But Mr. Edison went to work immediately and
very soon completed the design of a new type of kiln which was to be
one hundred and fifty feet long and nine feet in diameter, made up
in ten-foot sections of cast iron bolted together and arranged to be
revolved on fifteen bearings. He had a wooden model made, and studied
it very carefully through a series of experiments. These resulted so
satisfactorily that this form was finally decided upon, and ultimately
installed as part of the plant.
"Well, for a year or so the kiln problem was a nightmare to me. We
could only obtain four hundred barrels at first, but gradually crept
up through a series of heart-breaking trials until we got over eleven
hundred barrels a day. Mr. Edison never lost his confidence throughout
the trials, but on receiving a disappointing report would order us to
try it again."
Although the older cement manufacturers predicted utter failure, they
have since recognized the success of Edison's long kiln, and it is now
being used quite generally in the trade.
Another invention of minor nature but worthy of note relates to the
weighing of the proportions of cement-rock and limestone. In most cases
the measurement is usually by barrow loads, but Edison determined that
it must be done accurately to the pound, and devised a means of doing
it automatically, for, as he remarked, "The man at the scales might
get to thinking of the other fellow's best girl, so fifty or a hundred
pounds of rock, more or less, wouldn't make much difference to him."
With Edison's device the scales are set at certain weights and the
materials are fed from hoppers. The moment the scale-beam tips an
electrical connection automatically stops the feed and no more can be
put on the scale until the load is withdrawn.
Another and important new feature introduced by Edison was in raising
the standard of fine grinding of cement ten points above the regular
standard of seventy-five per cent, through a two-hundred-mesh screen.
By reason of the great improvement he had made in grinding machinery
he could grind cement so that eighty-five per cent, passed through a
two-hundred-mesh screen. As cement is valuable in proportion to its
fineness, it will be seen that he has thus made an advance of great
importance to the trade.
We cannot enter into all the details of the numerous inventions and
improvements that Edison has introduced into his cement plant during
the last eight or nine years. It is sufficient to say that by his
persistent and energetic labors during that period he has raised his
plant from the position of a newcomer to the rank of the fifth largest
producer of cement in this country.
A remarkable instance of the power of Edison's memory may be related
here. Some years ago, when the cement plant was nearly finished and
getting ready to start, he went up to look it over and see what needed
to be done.
On the arrival of the train at ten-forty in the morning he went to the
mill, and, starting at one end, went through the plant to the other
end, examining every detail. He made no notes or memoranda, but the
examination required all day.
In the afternoon, at five-thirty, he took a train for home, and on
arriving there a few hours later got out some note-books and began to
write from memory the things needing change or attention. He continued
on this work all night and right along until the next afternoon, when
he completed a list of nearly six hundred items. This memory "stunt"
was the more remarkable because many of the items included all the
figures of new dimensions he had decided upon for some of the machinery
in the plant.
Each item was numbered consecutively, and the list copied and sent
up to the superintendent, who was instructed to make the changes and
report by number as they were done. These changes were made and their
value was proven by later experience.
Edison's achievements have made a deep impression on the cement
industry, but it is likely that it will become still deeper when his
"Poured Cement House" is exploited.
A few years ago he conceived the idea of pouring a complete concrete
house in a few hours. He made a long series of experiments for
producing a free-flowing combination of the necessary materials, and
at length found one that satisfied him that his idea was feasible,
although experts said it could not be done.
His plan is to provide two sets of iron molds, one inside the other,
with an open space between. These molds are made in small pieces and
set up by being bolted together. When erected, the concrete mixture is
poured in from the top in a continuous stream until the space between
the molds is filled.
The pouring will be done in about six hours, after which the molds will
be left in position about four days in order that the concrete may
harden. When the molds are removed there will remain standing an entire
house, complete from cellar to roof, with walls, floors, stairways,
bath and laundry tubs, all in one solid piece. These houses, when built
in quantity, can be produced at a very moderate cost.
Mr. Edison intends this house for the workingman, and in its design
has insisted on its being ornamental as well as substantial. As he
expressed it: "We will give the workingman and his family ornamentation
in their house. They deserve it, and besides, it costs no more after
the pattern is made to give decorative effects than it would to make
everything plain."
XX
MOTION-PICTURES
Through his invention and introduction of the phonograph and of his
apparatus for taking and exhibiting motion-pictures Edison has probably
done more to interest and amuse the world than any other living man.
These two forms of amusement have more audiences in a week than all the
theaters in America in a year.
It is a curious fact that while instantaneous photography is necessary
to produce motion pictures, the _suggestion_ of producing them was made
many years before the instantaneous photograph became possible.
One of the earliest efforts in this direction was made before Edison
was born, and shown by a toy called the Zoetrope, or "Wheel of Life."
A number of figures showing fractional parts of the motion of an
object--such, for instance, as a boy skating--were boldly drawn in
silhouette on a strip of paper. This paper was put inside an open
cylinder having small openings around its circumference. The cylinder
was mounted on a pivot, and, when revolved, the figures on the paper
seemed to be in motion when viewed through the openings.
The success of this and similar toys, as well as of modern
motion-pictures, depends upon a phenomenon known as the "persistence
of vision." This means that if an object be presented to the vision
for a moment and then withdrawn, the image of that object will remain
impressed on the retina of the eye for a period of one-tenth to
one-seventh of a second.
If, for instance, a bright light be moved rapidly up and down in front
of the eye in a dark room it appears not as a single light, but as a
line of fire, because there is not time for the eye to lose the image
of the light between the rapid phases of its motion. For the same
reason, if a number of pictures exactly alike were rapidly presented to
the eye in succession it would seem as if a single picture were being
viewed.
Thus, if a number of photographs, say at the rate of fifteen per
second, be taken of a moving object, each successive photograph will
show a fraction of the movements. Now if these photographs be thrown
on a screen in the same order and at the same rate at which they were
taken the movements of the object would apparently again take place,
because the eye does not have time to lose the image of one fractional
movement before the next follows.
One of the earliest suggestions of reproducing animate motion was made
by a Frenchman named Ducos about 1864. He was followed by others, but
they were all handicapped by the fact that dry-plates and sensitized
film were entirely unknown, and the wet plates then used were entirely
out of the question for the development of a practical commercial
scheme.
The first serious attempt to secure photographs of objects in motion
was made in 1878 by Edward Muybridge. At this time very rapid
wet-plates were known. By arranging a line of cameras along a track
and causing a horse in trotting past them to strike wires or strings
attached to the shutters, the plates were exposed and a series of clear
instantaneous photographs of the horse in motion was obtained.
Positive prints were made which were mounted in a modified form of
Zoetrope and projected upon a screen. The horse in motion was thus
reproduced, but, differing from the motion-pictures of to-day, always
remained in the center of the screen in violent movement and making no
progress.
Early in the 'eighties dry-plates were introduced, and other
experimenters took up the work, but they were handicapped by the
fact that plates were heavy and only a limited number could be used.
This difficulty may be easily understood when it is realized that a
modern motion-picture reel lasting fifteen minutes comprises about
sixteen thousand separate and distinct photographs. The impossibility
of manipulating this large number of glass plates to show one
motion-picture play will be seen at once.
This was the condition of the art when Edison entered upon the work.
He himself says, "In the year 1887 idea occurred to me that it was
possible to devise an instrument which should do for the eye what the
phonograph does for the ear, and that by a combination of the two all
motion and sound could be recorded and reproduced simultaneously."
Two very serious difficulties lay in the way, however--first, a
sensitive surface of such form and weight as could be successively
brought into position and exposed at a very high rate; and, secondly,
the making of a camera capable of so taking the pictures. Edison
proved equal to the occasion, and, after an immense amount of work
and experiment, continuing over a long period of time, succeeded in
producing apparatus that made modern motion-pictures possible.
In his earliest experiments a cylinder about the size of a phonograph
record was used. It was coated with a highly sensitized surface,
and microscopic photographs, arranged spirally, were taken upon it.
Positive prints were made in the same way, and viewed through a
magnifying-glass. Various forms of this apparatus were made, but all
were open to serious objections, the chief trouble being with the
photographic emulsion.
During this experimental period the kodak film was being developed by
the Eastman Kodak Company, under the direction of Mr. George Eastman.
Edison recognized that in this product there lay the solution of that
part of the problem. At first the film was not just what he required,
but the Eastman Company after a time developed and produced the highly
sensitized surface that Edison sought.
It then remained to devise a camera by means of which from twenty to
forty pictures per second could be taken. Every user of a film camera
can appreciate the difficulty of the problem. A long roll of film must
pass steadily behind the lens. At every inch it must be stopped, the
shutter opened for the exposure, and then closed again. The film must
be advanced say an inch, and these operations repeated twenty to forty
times a second throughout, perhaps, a thousand feet of film.
Who but an Edison would assume that such a device could be made, and
with such exactness that each picture should coincide with the others?
After much experiment, however, he finally accomplished it, and in the
summer of 1889 the first modern motion-picture camera was made. From
that day to this the Edison camera has been the accepted standard for
securing pictures of objects in motion.
The earliest form of exhibiting apparatus was known as the kinetoscope.
It was a machine in which a positive print from the negative roll
of film obtained in the camera was exhibited directly to the eyes
through a peep-hole. About 1895 the pictures were first shown through
a modified form of magic lantern, and have so continued to this day.
The industry has grown very rapidly, and for a long time the principal
American manufacturers of motion-pictures paid a royalty to Edison
under his basic patents.
The pictures made in the earliest days of the art were simple and
amusing, such as Fred Ott's sneeze, Carmencita dancing, Italians
and their performing bears, fencing, trapeze stunts, horsemanship,
blacksmithing, and so on. No attempt was made to portray a story or
play. The "boys" at the laboratory laugh when they tell of a local
bruiser who agreed to box a few rounds with "Jim" Corbett in front of
the camera. When this local "sparring partner" came to face Corbett he
was so paralyzed with terror he could hardly move.
These early pictures were made in the yard of Edison's laboratory at
Orange, in a studio called the "Black Maria." It was made of wood,
painted black inside and out, and could be swung around to face the
sunlight, which was admitted by a movable part of the roof.
This is all very different in these modern days. The studios in which
interior motion-pictures are made are expensive and pretentious
affairs. An immense building of glass, with all the properties and
stage settings of a regular theater, are required. Of course many of
the plays are produced out of doors, in portions of the country suited
to the story.
All the companies producing motion-pictures employ regular stock
companies of actors and actresses, selected especially for their skill
in pantomime, although, as may be suspected, in the actual taking
of the pictures they are required to carry on an animated dialogue
as if performing on the real stage. This adds to the smoothness and
perfection of the performance.
Motion-picture plays are produced under the direction of skilled
stage-managers who must be specially trained for this particular
business. Their work is far from being easy, for an act in a
picture-play must be exact and free from mistakes, and must take place
in a very short time. For instance, an act in such a play may take less
than five minutes to perform, but it must be carefully rehearsed for
several weeks beforehand.
There is plenty of scope for patience and ingenuity in taking
motion-picture plays. If trained children or animals are required they
must be found or trained; and all the resources of trick and stop
photography are called upon from time to time as the occasion requires.
Edison has always held to his idea of a combination of the phonograph
and motion-picture. Some time ago he said, "I believe that in coming
years, by my own work and that of Dickson, Muybridge, Marey, and others
who will doubtless enter the field, grand opera can be given at the
Metropolitan Opera House in New York without any material change from
the original, and with artists and musicians long since dead."
This prediction has been partly fulfilled, for Edison's successful
talking motion-pictures marked the beginning of the "talkies" which are
flourishing to-day.
XXI
EDISON INVENTS A NEW STORAGE BATTERY
Many an invention has been made as the result of some happy thought or
inspiration, but most inventions are made by men working along certain
lines, who set out to accomplish a desired result. It is rarely,
however, that man starts out deliberately, as Edison did, to invent an
entirely new type of such an intricate device as a storage battery,
with only a vague starting point.
Previous to Edison's work the only type of storage battery known was
the one in which lead plates and sulphuric acid were employed. He had
always realized the value of a storage battery as such, but never
believed that the lead-acid type could fulfil all expectations because
of its weight and incurable defects.
About the time that he closed the magnetic iron ore concentrating plant
(in the beginning of the present century) Edison remarked to Mr. R.
H. Beach, then of the General Electric Company: "Beach, I don't think
nature would be so unkind as to withhold the secret of a _good_ storage
battery if a real earnest hunt for it is made. I'm going to hunt." And
before starting he determined to avoid lead and sulphuric acid.
Edison is frequently asked what he considers to be the secret of
achievement. He always replies, "Hard work, based on hard thinking." He
has consistently lived up to this prescription to the utmost.
Of all his inventions it is doubtful whether any one of them has
called forth more original thought, work, perseverance, ingenuity, and
monumental patience than the one we are now dealing with. One of his
associates who has been through the many years of the storage-battery
drudgery with him said: "If Edison's experiments, investigations, and
work on this storage battery were all that he had ever done, I should
say that he was not only a notable inventor, but also a great man. It
is almost impossible to appreciate the enormous difficulties that have
been overcome."
From a beginning which was made practically in the dark, it was not
until he had completed more than ten thousand experiments that he
obtained any positive results whatever. Month after month of constant
work by day and night had not broken down Edison's faith in success,
and the failure of an experiment simply meant that he had found
something else that would _not_ do, thus bringing him nearer the
possible goal.
After this immense amount of preliminary work he had obtained promising
results in a series of reactions between nickel and iron, and was
then all afire to push ahead. He therefore established a chemical
plant at Silver Lake, New Jersey, and, gathering around him a corps of
mechanics, chemists, machinists, and experimenters, settled down to one
of his characteristic struggles for supremacy. To some extent it was a
revival of the old Menlo Park days and nights.