and classifying his own methods of investigation. In a conversation
with two old associates a number of years ago he remarked: "It has
been said of me that my methods are empirical. That is true only so
far as chemistry is concerned. Did you ever realize that practically
all industrial chemistry is colloidal in its nature? Hard rubber,
celluloid, glass, soap, paper, and lots of others, all have to deal
with amorphous substances, as to which comparatively little has been
really settled. My methods are similar to those followed by Luther
Burbank. He plants an acre, and when this is in bloom he inspects it.
He has a sharp eye, and can pick out of thousands a single plant that
has promise of what he wants. From this he gets the seed, and uses his
skill and knowledge in producing from it a number of new plants which,
on development, furnish the means of propagating an improved variety in
large quantity. So, when I am after a chemical result that I have in
mind I may make hundreds or thousands of experiments out of which there
may be one that promises results in the right direction. This I follow
up to its legitimate conclusion, discarding the others, and usually
get what I am after. There is no doubt about this being empirical; but
when it comes to problems of a mechanical nature, I want to tell you
that all I've ever tackled and solved have been done by hard, logical
thinking." The intense earnestness and emphasis with which this was
said were very impressive to the auditors.
If, in following out his ideas, an experiment does not show the results
that Edison wants, it is not regarded as a failure, but as something
learned. This attitude is illustrated by his reply to Mr. Mallory, who
expressed regret that the first nine thousand and odd experiments on
the storage battery had been without results. Edison replied, with a
smile: "Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I have found
several thousand things that won't work."
Edison's patient, plodding methods do not always appear on the
note-books. For instance, a suggestion in one of them refers to a
stringy, putty-like mass being made of a mixture of lampblack and tar.
Some years afterward one of the laboratory assistants was told to make
some and roll it into filaments. After a time he brought the mass to
Edison and said:
"There's something wrong about this, for it crumbles even after
manipulating it with my fingers."
"How long did you knead it?" asked Edison.
"Oh, more than an hour," was the reply.
"Well, keep on for a few hours more and it will come out all right,"
was the rejoinder. And this proved to be correct.
With the experimenter or employee who exercises thought Edison has
unbounded patience, but to the careless, stupid, or lazy person he is a
terror for the short time they remain around him. Once, when asked why
he had parted with a certain man, he said: "Oh, he was so slow that it
would take him half an hour to get out of the field of a microscope."
Edison's practical way of testing a man's fitness for special work is
no joke, according to Mr. J. H. Vail, formerly one of the Menlo Park
staff. "I wanted a job," he said, "and was ambitious to take charge of
the dynamo-room. Mr. Edison led me to a heap of junk in a corner and
said: 'Put that together and let me know when it is running.' I didn't
know what it was, but received a liberal education in finding out. It
proved to be a dynamo, which I finally succeeded in assembling and
running. I got the job."
A somewhat similar experience is related by Mr. John F. Ott, who, in
1869, applied for work. This is the conversation that took place, led
by Edison's question:
"What do you want?"
"Work."
"Can you make this machine work?" (exhibiting it and explaining its
details).
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Well, you needn't pay me if I don't."
And thus Mr. Ott went to work and accomplished the results desired. Two
weeks afterward Edison put him in charge of the shop. From that day to
this, Mr. Ott has remained a member of Mr. Edison's staff.
Examples without number could be given of Edison's inexhaustible
fund of ideas, but one must suffice by way of example. In the
progress of the ore-concentrating work one of the engineers submitted
three sketches of a machine for some special work. They were not
satisfactory. He remarked that it was too bad there was no other way
to do the work. Edison said, "Do you mean to say that these drawings
represent the only way to do this work?" The reply was, "I certainly
do." Edison said nothing, but two days afterward brought in his own
sketches showing _forty-eight_ other ways of accomplishing the result,
and laid them on the engineer's desk without a word. One of these
ideas, with slight changes, was afterward adopted.
This chapter could be continued to great length, but must now be closed
in the hope that in the foregoing pages the reader may have caught an
adequate glance of Mr. Edison at work.
XXIV
EDISON'S LABORATORY AT ORANGE
If Longfellow's youth "Who through an Alpine village passed" had
been Edison, the word upon his banner would probably not have been
"Excelsior" but "Experiment." This seems to be the watchword of his
life, and is well illustrated by a remark made to Mr. Mason, the
superintendent of the cement works: "You must experiment all the time;
if you don't the other fellow will, and then he will get ahead of you."
For some years after closing the little laboratory in his mother's
cellar Edison made a laboratory of any nook or corner and experimented
as long as he had a dollar in his pocket. The first place he began to
do larger things was in Newark, where he established his first shops.
While life there was very strenuous, he tells of some amusing
experiences: "Some of my assistants in those days were very green in
the business. One day I got a new man and told him to conduct a certain
experiment. He got a quart of ether and started to boil it over a
naked flame. Of course it caught fire. The flame was about four feet
in diameter and eleven feet high. The fire department came and put a
stream through the window. That let all the fumes and chemicals out and
overcame the firemen.
"Another time we experimented with a tubful of soapy water and put
hydrogen into it to make large bubbles. One of the boys, who was
washing bottles in the place, had read in some book that hydrogen was
explosive, so he proceeded to blow the tub up. There was about four
inches of soap in the bottom of the tub, which was fourteen inches
high, and he filled it with soap-bubbles up to the rim. Then he took a
bamboo fish-pole, put a piece of lighted paper at the end and touched
it off. It blew every window out of the place."
We have seen that Edison moved to Menlo Park, where he had a very
complete laboratory, in which he brought out a large number of
important inventions. After a time, however, this establishment was
outgrown and lost many of its possibilities, and he began to plan a
still greater one which should be the most complete of its kind in the
world.
The Orange laboratory, as was originally planned, consisted of a main
building two hundred and fifty feet long and three stories in height,
together with four other structures, each one hundred by twenty-five
feet and only one story in height. All these were substantially built
of brick. The main building was divided into five chief divisions--the
library, office, machine-shops, experimental and chemical rooms, and
stock-rooms. The small buildings were to be used for various purposes.
A high picket fence, with a gate, surrounded these buildings. A keeper
was stationed at the gate with instructions to admit no strangers
without a pass. On one occasion a new gateman was placed in charge,
and, not knowing Edison, refused to admit him until he could get some
one to come out and identify him.
The library is a spacious room about forty by thirty-five feet.
Around the sides of the room run two tiers of gallery. The main
floor and the galleries are divided into alcoves, in which, on the
main floor, are many thousands of books. In the galleries are still
more books and periodicals of all kinds, also cabinets and shelves
containing mineralogical and geological specimens and thousands of
samples of ores and minerals from all parts of the world. In a corner
of one of the galleries may be seen a large number of magazines
relating to electricity, chemistry, engineering, mechanics, building,
cement, building materials, drugs, water and gas power, automobiles,
railroads, aeronautics, philosophy, hygiene, physics, telegraphy,
mining, metallurgy, metals, music, and other subjects; also theatrical
weeklies, as well as the proceedings and transactions of various
learned and technical societies. All of these form part of Mr. Edison's
current reading. At one end of the main floor of the library, which is
handsomely and comfortably furnished, is Mr. Edison's desk, at which he
may usually be seen for a while in the early morning hours or at noon
looking over his mail.
The centre of the library is left open for the reception of visitors,
and one corner is partitioned off to provide a private office for Mr.
Edison's son, Charles, who is the President and active manager of the
various Edison industries. Directly opposite to the entrance-door
is a beautiful marble statue representing the supremacy of electric
light over gas. This statue was purchased by Mr. Edison at the Paris
Exposition in 1889.
A glance at the book-shelves affords a revelation of the subjects in
which Edison is interested, for the titles of the volumes include
astronomy, botany, chemistry, dynamics, electricity, engineering,
forestry, geology, geography, mechanics, mining, medicine, metallurgy,
magnetism, philosophy, psychology, physics, steam, steam-engines,
telegraphy, telephony, and many others. These are not all of Edison's
books by any means, for he has another big library in his house on the
hill.
Turning to pass out of the library, one's attention is arrested by a
cot standing in one of the alcoves near the door. Sometimes during long
working hours Mr. Edison will throw himself down for a nap. He has
the ability to go to sleep instantly, and, being deaf, noises do not
disturb his slumber. The instant he awakes he is in full possession of
his faculties and goes "back to the job" without a moment's hesitation.
Immediately outside the library is the famous stock-room, about which
much has been written. Edison planned to have in this stock-room
some quantity, great or small, of every known substance not easily
perishable, together with the most complete assortment of chemicals and
drugs that experience and knowledge could suggest. His theory was, and
is, that he does not know in advance what he may want at any moment,
and he planned to have anything that could be thought of ready at hand.
Thus, the stock-room is not only a museum, but a sample-room of nature,
as well as a supply department. At first glance the collection is
bewildering, but when classified is more easily comprehended.
The classification is natural, as, for instance, objects pertaining to
various animals, birds, and fishes, such as skins, hides, hair, fur,
feathers, wool, quills, down, bristles, teeth, bones, hoofs, horns,
tusks, shells; natural products such as woods, barks, roots, leaves,
nuts, seeds, gums, grains, flowers, meals, bran; also minerals in great
assortment; mineral and vegetable oils, clay, mica, ozokerite, etc.
In the line of textiles, cotton and silk threads in great variety,
with woven goods of all kinds, from cheese-cloth to silk plush. As for
paper, there is everything in white and color, from thinnest tissue up
to the heaviest asbestos, even a few newspapers being always on hand.
Twines of all sizes, inks, wax, cork, tar, rosin, pitch, asphalt,
plumbago, glass in sheets and tubes, and a host of miscellaneous
articles are revealed on looking around the shelves, as well as an
interminable collection of chemicals including acids, alkalies, salts,
reagents, every conceivable essential oil, and all the thinkable
extracts. It may be remarked that this collection includes the eighteen
hundred or more fluorescent salts made by Edison during his experiments
for the best material for a fluoroscope in the early X-ray period. All
known metals in form of sheet, rod, and tube, and of great variety
in thickness, are here found also, together with a most complete
assortment of tools and accessories for machine-shop and laboratory
work.
The list above given is not by any means complete. In detail it would
stretch out to a rather large catalogue. It is not by any means an
idle collection, for a stock clerk is kept busy all the day answering
demands upon him.
Beyond the stock-room is a good-sized machine-shop, well equipped, in
which the heavier class of models and mechanical devices are made.
Attached to these are the engine-room and boiler-room. Above, on the
second floor, is another machine-shop, in which is carried on work
of greater precision and fineness in the construction of tools and
experimental models.
There are many experimental rooms on the second and third floors of the
laboratory building. In these the various experimenters are at work
carrying out the ideas of Mr. Edison on the great variety of subjects
to which he is constantly devoting his attention. One cannot go far in
the upper floors without being aware that efforts are being made to
improve the phonograph, for the sounds of vocal and instrumental music
can be heard from all sides.
On the third floor the visitor may see a number of glass-fronted
cabinets containing a multitude of experimental incandescent lamps,
and an immense variety of models of phonographs, motors, telegraph and
telephone apparatus, and a host of other inventions, upon which Mr.
Edison's energies have at one time or other been bent. Here are also
many boxes of historical instruments and models. In fact, this hallway,
with its variety of contents, may well be considered a scientific attic.
In the early days of the Orange laboratory some of the upper rooms
contained cots for the benefit of the night-workers. In spite of the
strenuous nights and days the spirit of fun was frequently in evidence.
One instance will serve as an illustration.
One morning about two-thirty the late Charles Batchelor said he was
tired and would go to bed. Leaving Edison and the others busily
working, he went out and returned quietly in slippered feet, with
his night-gown on, the handle of a feather-duster down his back
with the feathers waving over his head, and his face marked. With
unearthly howls and shrieks, _a l'Indien_, he pranced about the room,
incidentally giving Edison a scare that made him jump up from his work.
He saw the joke quickly, however, and joined in the general merriment
caused by this prank.
A description of the laboratory building would be incomplete without
mention of room Number 12. This is one of Edison's favorite rooms,
where he may frequently be found seated at a plain table in the center
of the room deeply intent on one of his numerous problems. It is a
plain little room, but seems to exercise a nameless fascination for him.
Passing out of the building, we come to the four smaller buildings,
which are known as Numbers One, Two, Three, and Four. The building
Number One is called the galvanometer room. Edison originally planned
that this should be used for the most delicate and minute electrical
measurements. He went to great expense in fitting it up and in
providing a large number of costly instruments, but the coming of the
trolley near by a few years afterward rendered the room utterly useless
for this purpose. It is now used as an experimental room, chiefly for
motion-picture experiments.
Building Number Two is quite an important one. As the visitor arrives
at the door he is quite conscious that it is a chemical-room. Here
a corps of chemists is constantly kept busy in carrying out the
various experiments Mr. Edison has given them to perform. This room is
also one of his special haunts. He may be seen here very frequently
experimenting in person, or seated at a plain little table figuring out
some new combination that he has in mind.
A chemical store-room and a pattern-maker's shop occupy building Number
Three, while Number Four, which was formerly used for ore concentrating
experiments, is now used as a general stock-room.
We have only attempted to afford the reader a passing glance of this
interesting laboratory, which for many years has been the headquarters
of Edison and the central source of inspiration for the great
industries he has established at Orange. Around it are grouped a number
of immense concrete buildings in which the manufacture of phonographs,
motion-pictures, and storage batteries is carried on, giving employment
to as many as four thousand people during busy times.
Needless to say, the laboratory has many visitors. Celebrities of all
kinds and distinguished foreigners are numerous, coming from all parts
of the world to see the great inventor and the scene of his activities.
XXV
EDISON HIMSELF
Let us turn from what Edison has done to what Edison is. It is worth
while to know "the man behind the guns." Who and what is the personal
Edison?
Certainly there must be tremendous force in a personality which has
been one of the most potent factors in bringing into existence new
industries now capitalized at tens of billions of dollars, earning
annually sums running into billions, and giving employment to an army
of more than two million people.
It must not be thought that there is any intention to give entire
credit to Edison for the present magnificent proportions of these
industries. The labors of many other inventors and the confidence of
capitalists and investors have added greatly to their growth. But
Edison is the father of some of these arts and industries, and as to
some of the others it was the magic of his touch that helped make them
practicable.
How then does Edison differ from most other men? Is it that he combines
with a vigorous body a mind capable of clear and logical thinking,
and an imagination of unusual activity? No, for there are others of
equal bodily and mental vigor who have not accomplished a tithe of his
achievements.
We must answer then, first, that his whole life is concentrated upon
his work. When he conceives a broad idea of a new invention he gives
no thought to the limitations of time, or man, or effort. Having his
body and mind in complete subjection through iron nerves, he settles
down to experiment with ceaseless, tireless, unwavering patience, never
swerving to the right or left nor losing sight of his purpose. Years
may come and go, but nothing short of success is accepted.
A good example of this can be found in the development of the nickel
pocket for the storage battery, an element the size of a short
lead-pencil. More than five years were spent in experiments costing
upward of a million dollars to perfect it. Day after day was spent on
this investigation, tens of thousands of tubes and an endless variety
of chemicals were made, but at the end of five years Edison was as much
interested in these small tubes as when the work was first begun.
So far as work is concerned, all times are alike to Edison, whether it
be day or night. He carries no watch, and, indeed, has but little use
for watches or clocks except as they may be useful in connection with
an experiment in which time is a factor. The one idea in mind is to go
on with the work incessantly, always pushing steadily onward toward the
purpose in view, with a relentless disregard of effort or the passage
of time.
[Illustration: THOMAS ALVA EDISON--1911]
A second and very marked characteristic of Edison's personality is an
intense and courageous hopefulness and self-confidence, into which
no thought of failure can enter. The doubts and fears of others have
absolutely no weight with him. Discouragements and disappointments
find no abiding place in his mind. Indeed, he has the happy faculty
of beginning the day as open-minded as a child, yesterday's
discouragements and disappointment discarded, or, at any rate,
remembered only as useful knowledge gained and serving to point out the
fact that he had been temporarily following the wrong road.
Difficulties seem to have a fascination for him. To advance along
smooth paths, meeting no obstacles or hardships, has no charm for
Edison. To wrestle with difficulties, to meet obstructions, to attempt
the impossible--these are the things that appear to give him a high
form of intellectual pleasure. He meets them with the keen delight of a
strong man battling with the waves and opposing them in sheer enjoyment.
Another marked characteristic of Edison is the fact that his happiness
is not bound up in the making of money. While he appreciates a good
balance at his banker's, the keenness of his pleasure is in overcoming
difficulties rather than the mere piling up of a bank account. Had
his nature been otherwise, it is doubtful if his life would have been
filled with the great achievements that it has been our pleasure to
record.
In a life filled with tremendous purpose and brilliant achievement
there must be expected more or less of troubles and loss. Edison's life
has been no exception, but, with the true philosophy that might be
expected of such a nature, he remarked recently: "Spilled milk doesn't
interest me. I have spilled lots of it, and, while I have always felt
it for a few days, it is quickly forgotten, and I turn again to the
future."
Edison to-day has a fine physique, and, being free from serious
ailments, enjoys a vigorous old age. His hair has whitened, but it is
still abundant, and though he uses glasses for reading, his gray-blue
eyes are as keen and bright and deeply lustrous as ever, with the
direct, searching look in them that they have ever worn.
Edison in his 'eighties still has a fine physique, weighs over one
hundred and sixty-five pounds, and has varied little as to weight in
the last forty years. He is very abstemious, hardly ever touching
alcohol and caring little for meat. In fact, the chief article of his
diet is warm milk, which he finds satisfactory for his need.
He believes that people eat too much, and governs himself accordingly.
His meals are simple, small in quantity, and take but little of his
time at table. If he finds himself varying in weight he will eat a
little more or a little less in order to keep his weight constant.
As to clothes, Edison is simplicity itself. Indeed, it is one of the
subjects in which he takes no interest. He says: "I get a suit that
fits me, then I compel the tailors to use that as a jig, or pattern,
or blueprint, to make others by. For many years a suit was used as a
measurement; once or twice they took fresh measurements, but these
didn't fit, and they had to go back. I eat to keep my weight constant,
hence I never need changed measurements."
This will explain why a certain tailor had made Edison's clothes for
twenty years and had never seen him.
In 1873 Mr. Edison was married to Miss Mary Stilwell, who died in 1884,
leaving three children--Thomas Alva, William Leslie, and Marion Estelle.
Mr. Edison was married again in 1886 to Miss Mina Miller, daughter of
Mr. Lewis Miller, a distinguished pioneer inventor and manufacturer
in the field of agricultural machinery, and equally entitled to fame
as the father of the "Chautauqua idea," and the founder with Bishop
Vincent of the original Chautauqua, which now has so many replicas all
over the country. By this marriage there are three children--Charles,
Madeline, and Theodore.
For over twenty years Edison's happy and perfect domestic life has
been spent at Glenmont, a beautiful property in Llewellyn Park, on the
Orange Mountain, New Jersey. Here, amid the comforts of a beautifully
appointed home, in which may be seen the many decorations and medals
awarded to him, together with the numerous souvenirs sent to him by
foreign potentates and others, Edison spends the hours that he is away
from the laboratory. They are far from being idle hours, for it is here
that he may pursue his reading free from interruption.
His hours of sleep are few, not more than six in the twenty-four,
and not as much as that when working nights at the laboratory. In a
recent conversation a friend expressed surprise that he could stand
the constant strain, to which Edison replied that he stood it easily,
because he was interested in everything. He further said: "I don't live
with the past; I am living for to-day and to-morrow. I am interested
in every department of science, art, and manufacture. I read all the
time on astronomy, chemistry, biology, physics, music, metaphysics,
mechanics, and other branches--political economy, electricity, and, in
fact, all things that are making for progress in the world. I get all
the proceedings of the scientific societies, the principal scientific
and trade journals, and read them. I also read some theatrical and
sporting papers and a lot of similar publications, for I like to know
what is going on. In this way I keep up to date, and live in a great,
moving world of my own, and, what's more, I enjoy every minute of it."