The station was now started and everything went well. New customers were added daily, and very soon it became necessary to supply more current. This called for the operation of two dynamos at one time. As this involved new problems, Edison chose a Sunday to try it, when business places would be closed. We will let him tell the story. He says: "My heart was in my mouth at first, but everything worked all right.... Then we started another engine and threw the dynamos in parallel. Of all the circuses since Adam was born, we had the worst then! One engine would stop, and the other would run up to about a thousand revolutions, and then they would see-saw. The trouble was with the governors. When the circus commenced the gang that was standing around ran out precipitately, and I guess some of them kept running for a block or two. I grabbed the throttle of one engine, and E. H. Johnson, who was the only one present to keep his wits, caught hold of the other, and we shut them off."
One of the gang that ran, but, in this case, only to the end of the room, afterward said: "At the time it was a terrifying experience, as I didn't know what was going to happen. The engines and dynamos made a horrible racket, from loud and deep groans to a hideous shriek, and the place seemed to be filled with sparks and flames of all colors. It was as if the gates of the infernal regions had been suddenly opened."
Edison attacked this problem in his strenuous way. Although it was Sunday, he sent out and gathered his men and opened the machine-works to make new appliances to overcome this trouble.
Space will not permit of telling all the methods he applied until the difficulty was entirely conquered. It was only a short time, however, before he was able to operate two or any number of dynamos all together as one, in parallel, without the least trouble.
This early station grew and prospered, and continued in successful operation for more than seven years, until January 2, 1890, when it was partially destroyed by fire. This occurrence caused a short interruption of service, but in a few days current was again supplied to customers as before, and the service has never since ceased.
Increasing demands for service soon afterward led to the construction of other stations on Manhattan Island, until at the present time the New York Edison Company (the successor to the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York) is operating over forty stations and sub-stations. These supply current for about 800,000 customers, wired for 17,000,000 incandescent lamps and for about 1,300,000 horse-power in electric motors.
The early success of the first central station in New York led to the formation of new companies in other cities, and the installation of many similar plants. The business has grown by leaps and bounds, until at the present time there are many thousands of central stations spread all over the United States, furnishing electric light, heat, and power, chiefly by use of the principles elaborated so many years ago by Mr. Edison.
We ought to mention that this tremendous growth has also been largely due to another invention made by him in 1882, called the "three-wire system." Its value consists in the fact that it allowed a further saving of sixty-two and one-half per cent, of copper required for conductors. This invention is in universal use all over the world.
It may be mentioned here that at the opening ceremonies of the Electrical Exposition in New York, on October 11, 1911, the leading producers and consumers of copper presented Mr. Edison with an inscribed cubic foot of that metal in recognition of the stimulus of his inventions to the industry. The inscription shows that the yearly output of copper was 377,644,000 pounds at the time of Edison's first invention in 1868, and in October, 1911, the yearly output had increased to 1,910,608,000 pounds.
It is quite likely that many of our young readers have never seen a horse-car. This is not strange, for in a little over twenty years the victorious trolley has displaced the old-time street-cars drawn by one or two horses. Indeed, a horse-car is quite a curiosity in these modern days, for such vehicles have almost entirely disappeared from the streets.
The first horse railroad in the United States was completed in 1827, and it was only seven years afterward that a small model of a circular electric railroad was made and exhibited by Thomas Davenport, of Brandon, Vermont. Other inventors also worked on electric railways later on, but they did not make much progress, because in their day there were no dynamos, and they had to use primary batteries to obtain current. This method of generating current was far too cumbersome and expensive for general use.
In 1879, after dynamos had become known, the firm of Siemens exhibited at the Berlin Exhibition a road about one-third of a mile in length, over which an electric locomotive hauled three small cars at a speed of about eight miles an hour.
This was just before Edison had developed the efficient commercial dynamo with low-resistance armature and high-resistance field, which made it possible to generate and use electric power cheaply. Thus we see that Edison was not the first to form the broad idea of a electric railway, but his dynamo and systems of distribution and regulation of current first made the idea commercially practicable.
When Edison made his trip to Wyoming with the astronomers in 1878 he noticed that the farmers had to make long hauls of their grain to the railroads or markets. He then conceived the idea of building light electric railways to perform this service.
As we have already noted, he started on his electric-light experiments, including the dynamo, when he returned from the West. He had not forgotten his scheme for an electric railway, however, for, early in 1880, after the tremendous rush on the invention of the incandescent lamp had begun to subside, he commenced the construction of a stretch of track at Menlo Park, and at the same time began to build an electric locomotive to operate over it.
The locomotive was an ordinary flat dump-car on a four-wheeled iron truck. Upon this was mounted one of his dynamos, used as a motor. It had a capacity of about twelve horse-power. Electric current was generated by two dynamos in the machine-shop, and carried to the rails by underground conductors.
The track was about a third of a mile in length, the rails being of light weight and spiked to ties laid on the ground. In this short line there were some steep grades and short curves. The locomotive pulled three cars; one a flat freight-car; one an open awning-car, and one box-car, facetiously called the "Pullman," with which Edison illustrated a system of electromagnetic braking.
THE EDISON ELECTRIC RAILWAY AT MENLO PARK—1880
On May 13, 1880, this road went into operation. All the laboratory "boys" made holiday and scrambled aboard for a trip. Things went well for a while, but presently a weakness developed and it became necessary to return the locomotive to the shop to make changes in the mechanism. And so it was for a short time afterward. Imperfections of one kind and another were disclosed as the road was operated, but Edison was equal to the occasion and overcame them, one by one. Before long he had his locomotive running regularly, hauling the three cars with freight and passengers back and forth over the full length of the track. Incidentally, the writer remembers enjoying a ride over the road one summer afternoon.
The details of the various improvements made during these months are too many and too technical to be given here. It is a fact, however, that at this time Edison was doing some heavy electric railway engineering, each improvement representing a step which advanced the art toward the perfection it has reached in these modern days.
The newspapers and technical journals lost no time in publishing accounts of this electric railroad, and once again Menlo Park received great numbers of visitors, including many railroad men, who came to see and test this new method of locomotion.
Of course, in operating this early road there were a few mishaps, fortunately none of them of a serious nature. In the correspondence of the late Grosvenor P. Lowry, a friend and legal adviser of Mr. Edison, is a letter dated June 5, 1880, giving an account of one experience. The letter reads as follows: "Goddard and I have spent a part of the day at Menlo, and all is glorious. I have ridden at forty miles an hour on Mr. Edison's electric railway—and we ran off the track. I protested at the rate of speed over the sharp curves, designed to show the power of the engine, but Edison said they had done it often. Finally, when the last trip was to be taken, I said I did not like it, but would go along. The train jumped the track on a short curve, throwing Kruesi, who was driving the engine, with his face down in the dirt, and another man in a comical somersault through some underbrush. Edison was off in a minute, jumping and laughing, and declaring it a most beautiful accident. Kruesi got up, his face bleeding, and a good deal shaken; and I shall never forget the expression of voice and face in which he said, with some foreign accent: 'Oh yes! pairfeckly safe.' Fortunately no other hurts were suffered, and in a few minutes we had the train on the track and running again."
This first electric railway was continued in operation right along through 1881. In the fall of that year Edison was requested by the late Mr. Henry Villard to build a longer road at Menlo Park, equipped with more powerful locomotives, to demonstrate the feasibility of putting electric railroads in the Western wheat country.
Work was commenced at once, and early in 1882 the road and its equipment were finished. It was three miles long, and had sidings, turn-tables, freight platform and car-house. It was much more complete and substantial than the first railroad. There were two locomotives, one for freight and the other for passenger service.
The passenger locomotive was very speedy and hauled as many as ninety persons at a time. Many thousands of passengers traveled over the road during 1882. The freight locomotive was not so speedy, but could pull heavy trains at a good speed. Taken altogether, this early electric railway made a great advance toward modern practice as its exists to-day.
There are many interesting stories of the railway period at Menlo Park. One of them, as told by the late Charles T. Hughes, who worked with Edison on the experimental roads, is as follows: "Mr. Villard sent J. C. Henderson, one of his mechanical engineers, to see the road when it was in operation, and we went down one day—Edison, Henderson, and I—and went on the locomotive. Edison ran it, and just after we started there was a trestle sixty feet long and seven feet deep, and Edison put on all the power. When we went over it we must have been going forty miles an hour, and I could see the perspiration come out on Henderson. After we got over the trestle and started on down the track Henderson said: 'When we go back I will walk. If there is any more of that kind of running I won't be in it myself.'"
The young reader, who is now living in an age in which the electric railway is regarded as a matter of course, will find it difficult to comprehend that there should ever have been any doubt on the part of engineering experts as to the practicability of electric railroads. But in the days of which we are writing such was the case, as the following remarks of Mr. Edison will show: "At one time Mr. Villard got the idea that he would run the mountain division of the Northern Pacific Railroad by electricity. He asked me if it could be done. I said: 'Certainly; it is too easy for me to undertake; let some one else do it.' He said: 'I want you to tackle the problem,' and he insisted on it. So I got up a scheme of a third rail and shoe and erected it in my yard here in Orange. When I got it all ready he had all his division engineers come on to New York, and they came over here. I showed them my plans, and the unanimous decision of the engineers was that it was absolutely and utterly impracticable. That system is on the New York Central now, and was also used on the New Haven road in its first work with electricity."
Mr. Edison knew at the time that these engineers were wrong. They were prejudiced and lacking in foresight, and had no faith in electric railroading. Indeed, these particular engineers were not by any means the only persons who could see no future for electric methods of transportation. Their doubts were shared by capitalists and others, and it was not until several years afterward that the business of electrifying street railroads was commenced in real earnest.
In the mean time, however, Edison's faith did not waver, and he continued his work on electric railways, making innumerable experiments and taking out a great many patents, including a far-sighted one covering a sliding contact in a slot. This principle and many of those covered by his earlier work are in use to-day on the street railways in large cities.
The early railroad at Menlo Park has gone to ruin and decay, but the crude locomotive built by Edison has become the property of the Pratt Institute, of Brooklyn, New York, to whose students it is a constant example and incentive.
Down to the present moment Edison has kept up an active interest in transportation problems. His latest work has been in the line of operating street-cars with his improved storage battery. During the time that this book has been in course of preparation he has given a great deal of time to this question.
Some years ago there were a number of street-cars in various cities operated by storage batteries of a class entirely different from the battery invented by Edison. We refer to storage batteries containing lead and sulphuric acid. These were found to be so costly to operate and maintain that their use was abandoned.
Mr. Edison's new nickel and iron storage battery with alkaline solution has been found by practical use to be entirely satisfactory for operating street-cars, not only at a low cost, but also with ease of operation and at a trifling expense for maintenance. Of course there have been many problems, but he has surmounted the principal difficulties, and there are now quite a number of street-cars operated by his storage battery in various cities. These cars are earning profits and their number is steadily increasing.
On walking along the sea-shore the reader may have noticed occasional streaks or patches of bluish-black sand, somewhat like gunpowder in appearance. It is carried up from the bed of the sea and deposited by the waves on the shore to a greater or lesser extent on many beaches.
If a magnet be brought near to this "black sand" the particles will be immediately attracted to it, just as iron filings would be in such a case. As a matter of fact, these particles of black sand are grains of finely divided magnetic iron in a very pure state.
Now, if we should take a piece of magnetic iron ore in the form of a rock and grind it to powder the particles of iron could be separated from the ground-up mass by drawing them out with a magnet, just as they could be drawn out of a heap of seashore sand. If all the grains of iron were thus separated and put together, or concentrated, they would be called concentrates.
During the last century a great many experimenters besides Edison attempted to perfect various cheap methods of magnetically separating iron ores, but until he took up the work on a large scale no one seems to have realized the real meaning of the tremendous problems involved.
The beginning of this work on the part of Edison was his invention in 1880 of a peculiar form of magnetic separator. It consisted of a suspended V-shaped hopper with an adjustable slit along the pointed end. A long electromagnet was placed, edgewise, a little below the hopper, and a bin with a dividing partition in the center was placed on the floor below.
Crushed ore, or sand, was placed in the hopper. If there was no magnetism this fine material would flow down in a straight line past the magnet and fill the bin on one side of the partition. If, however, the magnet were active the particles of iron would be attracted out of the line of the falling material, but their weight would carry them beyond the magnet and they would fall to the other side of the partition. Thus, the material would be separated, the grains of iron going to one side and the grains of rock or sand to the other side.
This separator, as afterward modified, was the basis of a colossal enterprise conducted by Mr. Edison, as we shall presently relate. But first let us glance at an early experiment on the Atlantic seashore in 1881, as mentioned by him. He says:
"Some years ago I heard one day that down at Quogue, Long Island, there were immense deposits of black magnetic sand. This would be very valuable if the iron could be separated from the sand. So I went down to Quogue with one of my assistants and saw there for miles large beds of black sand on the beach in layers from one to six inches thick—hundreds of thousands of tons. My first thought was that it would be a very easy matter to concentrate this, and I found I could sell the stuff at a good price. I put up a small magnetic separating plant, but just as I got it started a tremendous storm came up, and every bit of that black sand went out to sea. During the twenty-eight years that have intervened it has never come back."
In the same year a similar separating plant was put up and worked on the Rhode Island shore by the writer under Mr. Edison's direction. More than one thousand tons of concentrated iron ore of fine quality were separated from sea-shore sand and sold. It was found, however, that it could not be successfully used on account of being so finely divided. Had this occurred a few years later, when Edison invented a system of putting this fine ore into briquettes, that part of the story might have been different.
Magnetic separation of ores was allowed to rest for many years after this, so far as Edison was concerned. He was intensely busy on the electric light, electric railway, and other similar problems until 1888, and then undertook the perfecting and manufacturing of his improved phonograph, and other matters. Somewhere about 1890, however, he again took up the subject of ore-separation.
For some years previous to that time the Eastern iron-mills had been suffering because of the scarcity of low-priced high-grade ores. If low-grade ores could be crushed and the iron therein concentrated and sold at a reasonable price the furnaces would be benefited. Edison decided, after mature deliberation, that if these low-grade ores were magnetically separated on a colossal scale at a low cost the furnace-men could be supplied with the much-desired high quality of iron ore at a price which would be practicable.
He appreciated the fact that it was a serious and gigantic problem, but was fully satisfied that he could solve it. He first planned a great magnetic survey of the East, with the object of locating large bodies of magnetic iron ore. This survey was the greatest and most comprehensive of the kind ever made. With a peculiarly sensitive magnetic needle to indicate the presence of magnetic ore in the earth, he sent out men who made a survey of twenty-five miles across country, all the way from lower Canada to North Carolina.
Edison says: "The amount of ore disclosed by this survey was simply fabulous. How much so may be judged from the fact that in the three thousand acres immediately surrounding the mills that I afterward established at Edison, New Jersey, there were over two hundred million tons of low-grade ore. I also secured sixteen thousand acres in which the deposit was proportionately as large. These few acres alone contained sufficient ore to supply the whole United States iron trade, including exports, for seventy years."
Given a mountain of rock containing only one-fifth to one-fourth magnetic iron, the broad problem confronting Edison resolved itself into three distinct parts—first, to tear down the mountain bodily and grind it to powder; second, to extract from this powder the particles of iron mingled in its mass; and third, to accomplish these results at a cost sufficiently low to give the product a commercial value.
From the start Edison realized that in order to carry out this program there would have to be automatic and continuous treatment of the material, and that he would have to make the fullest possible use of natural forces, such as gravity and momentum. The carrying out of these principles and ideas gave rise to some of the most brilliant engineering work that has ever been done by Edison. During this period he also made many important inventions, of which several will now be mentioned.
As he proposed to treat enormous masses of material, one of the chief things to be done was to provide for breaking the rock and crushing it to powder rapidly and cheaply. After some experimenting, he found there was no machinery to be bought that would do the work as it must be done. He was therefore compelled to invent a series of machines for the purpose.
The first of these was an invention quite characteristic of Edison's daring and boldness. It embraced a gigantic piece of mechanism, called the "Giant Rolls," which was designed to break up pieces of rock that might be as large as an ordinary upright piano, and weighing as much as eight tons.
A pair of iron cylinders five feet long and six feet in diameter, covered with steel knobs, were set fifteen inches apart in a massive frame. The rolls weighed about seventy tons. By means of a steam engine these rolls were revolved in opposite directions until they attained a peripheral speed of about a mile a minute. Then the rocks were dumped into a hopper which guided them between the rolls, and in a few seconds, with a thunderous noise, they were reduced to pieces about the size of a man's head. The belts were released by means of slipping friction clutches when the load was thrown on the rolls, the breaking of the rocks being accomplished by momentum and kinetic energy.
The broken rock then passed through similar rolls of a lesser size, by means of which it was reduced to much smaller pieces. These in their turn passed through a series of other machines in which they were crushed to fine powder. Here again Edison made another remarkable invention, called the "Three-High Rolls," for reducing the rock to fine powder. The best crushers he had been able to buy had an efficiency of only eighteen per cent, and a loss by friction of eighty-two per cent. By his invention he reversed these figures and obtained a working efficiency of eighty-four per cent, and reduced the loss to sixteen per cent.
The problems of drying and screening the broken and crushed material were also solved most ingeniously by Edison's inventive skill and engineering ability, and always with the idea and purpose in mind of accomplishing these results by availing himself to the utmost of one of the great forces of Nature—gravity.
The great extent of the concentrating works may be imagined when we state that two hundred and fifty tons of material per hour could be treated. Altogether, there were about four hundred and eighty immense magnetic separators in the plant, through which this crushed rock passed after going through the numerous crushing, drying, and screening processes.
EDISON AT THE OFFICE DOOR OF THE ORE-CONCENTRATING PLANT AT EDISON, NEW JERSEY, IN THE 'NINETIES
If it had been necessary to transfer this tremendous quantity of material from place to place by hand the cost would have been too great. Edison, therefore, designed an original and ingenious system of mechanical belt conveyors that would automatically receive and discharge their loads at appointed places in the works, covering about a mile in transit. They went up and down, winding in and out, turning corners, delivering material from one bin to another, making a number of loops in the drying-oven, filling up bins, and passing on to the next one when full. In fact, these conveyors in automatic action seemed to play their part with human intelligence.
We have been able to take only a passing glance at the great results achieved by Edison in his nine years' work on this remarkable plant—a work deserving of most serious study. The story would be incomplete, however, if we did not mention his labors on putting the fine ore in the form of solid briquettes.
When the separated iron was first put on the market it was found that it could not be used in that form in the furnaces. Edison was therefore obliged to devise some other means to make it available. After a long series of experiments he found a way of putting it into the form of small, solid briquettes. These answered the purpose exactly.
This called for a line of new machinery, which he had to invent to carry out the plan. When this was completed, the great rocks went in at one end of the works and a stream of briquettes poured out of the other end, being made by each briquetting machine at the rate of sixty per minute.
Thus, with never-failing persistence, infinite patience, intense thought and hard work, Edison met and conquered, one by one, the difficulties that had confronted him. Furnace trials of his briquettes proved that they were even better than had been anticipated. He had received some large orders for them and was shipping them regularly. Everything was bright and promising, when there came a fatal blow.
The discovery of rich Bessemer ore in the Mesaba range of mountains in Minnesota a few years before had been followed by the opening of the mines there about this time. As this rich ore could be sold for three dollars and fifty cents per ton, as against six dollars and fifty cents per ton for Edison's briquettes, his great enterprise must be abandoned at the very moment of success.
It was a sad blow to Edison's hopes. He had spent nine years of hard work and about two millions of his own money in the great work that had thus been brought to nought through no fault of his. The project had lain close to his heart and ambition, indeed he had put aside almost all other work and inventions for a while.
For five of the nine years he had lived and worked steadily at Edison (the name of the place where the works were located), leaving there only on Saturday night to spend Sunday at his home in Orange, and returning to the plant by an early train on Monday morning. Life at Edison was of the simple kind—work, meals, and a few hours' sleep day by day, but Mr. Edison often says he never felt better than he did during those five years.
After careful investigations and calculations it was decided to close the plant. Mr. W. S. Mallory, his close associate during those years of the concentrating work, says: "The plant was heavily in debt, and, as Mr. Edison and I rode on the train to Orange, plans were discussed as to how to make enough money to pay off the debt. Mr. Edison stated most positively that no company with which he had been personally actively connected had ever failed to pay its debts, and he did not propose to have the concentrating company any exception.
"We figured carefully over the probabilities of financial returns from the phonograph works and other enterprises, and, after discussing many plans, it was finally decided that we would apply the knowledge we had gained in the concentrating plant to building a plant for manufacturing Portland cement, and that Mr. Edison would devote his attention to the developing of a storage battery which did not use lead and sulphuric acid.
"He started in with the maximum amount of enthusiasm and ambition, and in the course of about three years we succeeded in paying off the indebtedness of the concentrating works.
"As to the state of Mr. Edison's mind when the final decision was reached to close down, if he was specially disappointed there was nothing in his manner to indicate it, his every thought being for the future."
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.
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."
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, thesuggestionof 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.
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 agoodstorage 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 wouldnotdo, 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.
The group that took part in these early years of Edison's arduous labors included his old-time assistant, Fred Ott, together with his chemist, J. W. Aylsworth, as well as E. J. Ross, Jr.; W. E. Holland, and Ralph Arbogast, and a little later W. G. Bee, all of whom grew up with the battery and devoted their energies to its commercial development.
One of these workers, relating the strenuous experiences of these few years, says: "It was hard work and long hours, but still there were some things that made life pleasant. One of them was the supper-hour we enjoyed when we worked nights. Mr. Edison would have supper sent in about midnight, and we all sat down together, including himself. Work was forgotten for the time, and all hands were ready for fun. I have very pleasant recollections of Mr. Edison at these times. He would always relax and help to make a good time, and on some occasions I have seen him fairly overflow with animal spirits, just like a boy let out of school. He was very fond of telling and hearing stories, and always appreciated a joke. After the supper-hour was over, however, he again became the serious, energetic inventor, deeply immersed in the work in hand."
Another interesting and amusing reminiscence of this period of activity has been told by another of the family of experimenters: "Sometimes when Mr. Edison had been working long hours he would want to have a short sleep. It was one of the funniest things I ever witnessed to see him crawl into an ordinary roll-top desk and curl up and take a nap. If there was a sight that was still more funny, it was to see him turn over on his other side, all the time remaining in the desk. He would use several volumes ofWatts' Dictionary of Chemistryfor a pillow, and we fellows used to say that he absorbed the contents during his sleep, judging from the flow of new ideas he had on waking."
Such incidents as these serve merely to illustrate the lighter moments that relieved the severe and arduous labors of the strenuous five years of the early storage-battery work of Edison and his associates. Difficulties there were a-plenty, but these are what Edison usually thrives on. As another coworker of this period says: "Edison seemed pleased when he used to run up against a serious difficulty. It would seem to stiffen his backbone and make him more prolific of new ideas. For a time I thought I was foolish to imagine such a thing, but I could never get away from the impression that he really appeared happy when he ran up against a serious snag."
It would be out of the question in a book of this kind to follow Edison's trail in detail through the innumerable twists and turns of his experimentation on the storage battery, for they would fill a big volume. The reader may imagine how extensive they were from the reply of one of his laboratory assistants, who, when asked how many experiments were made on the storage battery since the year 1900, replied: "Goodness only knows! We used to number our experiments consecutively from one to ten thousand, and when we got up to ten thousand we turned back to one and ran up to ten thousand again, and so on. We ran through several series—I don't know how many, and have lost track of them now, but it was not far from fifty thousand."
The mechanical problems in devising this battery were numerous and intricate, but the greatest difficulty that Edison had to overcome was the proper preparation of nickel hydrate for the positive and iron oxide for the negative plate. He found that comparatively little was known by manufacturing chemists about these compounds. Hence it became necessary for him to establish his own chemical works and put them in charge of men specially trained by himself.
After an intense struggle with these problems, lasting over several years, the storage battery was at length completed and put on the market. The public was ready for it and there was a rapid sale.
Continuous tests of the battery were carried on at the laboratory, as well as practical and heavy tests in automobiles, which were kept running constantly over all kinds of roads under Edison's directions. After these tests had been going on for some time the results showed that occasionally a cell here and there would fall short in capacity.
This did not suit Edison. He was determined to make his storage battery a complete success, and after careful thought decided to shut down until he had overcome the trouble. The customers were satisfied and wanted to buy more batteries, but he was not satisfied and would sell no more until he had made the battery perfect.
He therefore shut down the factory and went to experimenting once more. The old strenuous struggle set in and continued nearly three years before he was satisfied beyond doubt that the battery was right. In the early summer of 1909 Edison once more started to manufacture and sell the batteries, and has since that time continued to supply them as quickly as they are made. At the present writing the factory is running day and night in attempting to keep up with orders.
One of the principal troubles of the earlier cells was a lack of conductivity between the nickel hydrate and the metal tube in which it was contained. Edison had used graphite to obtain this conductivity, but this material proved to be uncertain in some cases. After a long course of study and experiment he solved this problem in a satisfactory manner by using flakes of pure nickel, which he obtained by a most fascinating and ingenious process.
A metallic cylinder is electroplated with alternate layers of copper and nickel, one hundred of each. The combined sheet, which is only as thick as a visiting-card, is stripped off the cylinder and cut into tiny squares of about one-sixteenth of an inch each. These squares are put into a bath which dissolves out the copper. This releases the layers of nickel, so that each of these squares becomes one hundred tiny sheets, or flakes, of pure metallic nickel, so thin and light that when they are dried they will float in the air. These flakes are automatically pressed into the positive tubes with the nickel hydrate in an ingenious machine which had to be specially invented for the purpose.
Not only was this machine specially invented, but it was necessary to invent and design practically all the other machinery that it was necessary to use in manufacturing the battery. Thus, we see that in this, as in many other of Edison's inventions, it is not only the thing itself that has been invented, but also the special machinery and tools to make it.
The principal use that Edison has had in mind for his storage battery is the transportation of freight and passengers by truck, automobile, and street-car. Although at the time of writing this book the improved battery has been on the market a little over two years, great strides have been made in carrying his ideas into effect.
The number of trucks and automobiles using Edison's storage battery already run into the thousands, with more orders than can be immediately filled.
Thus far the history of Edison's career has fallen naturally into a series of chapters each aiming to describe a group of inventions in the development of some art. This plan has been helpful to the writer and probably useful to the reader.
It happens, however, that the process has left a vast mass of discovery and invention untouched, and it is now proposed to make brief mention of a few of the hundreds of things that have occupied Edison's attention from time to time.
Beginning with telegraphy, we find that Edison did some work on wireless transmission. He says: "I perfected a system of train telegraphy between stations and trains in motion, whereby messages could be sent from the moving train to the central office; and this was the forerunner of wireless telegraphy. This system was used for a number of years on the Lehigh Valley Railroad on their construction trains. The electric wave passed from a piece of metal on top of the car across the air to the telegraph wires, and then proceeded to the despatcher's office. In my first experiments with this system I tried it on the Staten Island Railroad and employed an operator named King to do the experimenting. He reported results every day, and received instructions by mail; but for some reason he could send messages all right when the train went in one direction, but could not make it go in the contrary direction. I made suggestions of every kind to get around this phenomenon. Finally I telegraphed King to find out if he had any suggestions himself, and I received a reply that the only way he could propose to get around the difficulty was to put the island on a pivot so it could be turned around. I found the trouble finally, and the practical introduction on the Lehigh Valley road was the result. The system was sold to a very wealthy man, and he would never sell any rights or answer letters. He became a spiritualist subsequently, which probably explains it."
The earlier experiments with wireless telegraphy were made at Menlo Park during the first days of the electric light, and it was not until 1886 that Edison had time to spare to put the system into actual use. At that time Ezra T. Gilliland and Lucius J. Phelps, who had experimented on the same lines, became associated with him in the work.
Although the space between the train and the pole line was not more than fifty feet, Edison had succeeded at Menlo Park in transmitting messages through the air at a distance of five hundred and eighty feet. Speaking of this and of his other experiments with induction telegraphy by means of kites, he said, recently: "We only transmitted about two and one-half miles through the kites. What has always puzzled me since is that I did not think of using the results of my experiments on 'etheric force' that I made in 1875. I have never been able to understand how I came to overlook them. If I had made use of my own work I should have had long-distance wireless telegraphy."
These experiments of 1875, as recorded in Edison's famous note-books, show that in that year he detected and studied some then unknown and curious phenomena which made him think he was on the trail of a new force. His representative, Mr. Batchelor, showed these experiments with Edison's apparatus, including the "dark box," at the Paris Exposition in 1881. Without knowing it, for he was far in advance of the time, Edison had really entered upon the path of long-distance wireless telegraphy, as was proven later when the magnificent work of Hertz was published.
When Roentgen made the discovery of the X-ray in 1895 Edison took up experimentation with it on a large scale. He made the first fluoroscope, using tungstate of calcium for the screen. In order to find other fluorescent substances he set four men to work and thus collected upward of eight thousand different crystals of various chemical combinations, of which about eighteen hundred would fluoresce to the X-ray. He also invented a new lamp for giving light by means of these fluorescent crystals fused to the inside of the glass. Some of these lamps were made and used for a time, but he gave up the idea when the dangerous nature of the X-ray became known.
It would be possible to go on and describe in brief detail many more of the hundreds of Edison's miscellaneous inventions, but the limits of our space will not permit more than the mere mention of afew, simply to illustrate the wide range of his ideas and work. For instance:
From first to last Edison has filed in the United States Patent Office more than fourteen hundred applications for patents. Besides, he filed some one hundred and twenty caveats, embracing not less than fifteen hundred additional inventions. The caveat has now been abolished in patent-office practice, but such a document could formerly be filed by an inventor to obtain a partial protection for a year while completing his invention. As an example of Edison's fertility and the endless variety of subjects engaging his attention the following list of matters covered byoneof his caveats is given. All his caveats are not quite so full of "plums," but this is certainly a wonder:
It must be borne in mind that the above and hundreds of others are not merelyideasput in writing, but represent actual inventions upon which Edison worked and experimented. In many cases the experiments ran into the thousands, requiring months for their performance.
To describe Edison's mere ideas and suggestions for future work would of itself fill a volume. These are written in his own handwriting in a number of large record-books which he has shown to the writer. Judging from a hasty inspection, there is enough material in these books to occupy the lifetime of several persons.
The immense range of Edison's mind and activities cannot well be described in cold print, but can only be adequately comprehended by those who have been closely associated with him for a length of time, and who have had opportunity of studying his voluminous records.