The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-01-04 00:00:00

MR. EDISON'S CAREER SKETCHED.

'The Times of Tuesday, in giving a very interesting biogra-
phical sketch of .Ir. Edison, commences by remarking that
his "present sayings and doings are watched and noted
with feverish anxiety both in the United States and this
country. No Royal or eminent personage has ever been the
object of greater attention and curi,sity than he is at the
present moment. Ile is in the position of a skilful con-
juror, whose every movement is followed with breattless
Interest when, after having performed some marvellous feat,
he announces that he is about to do something more ex•ra-
ordinary still. . . . It will be instructive to consider Mr.
Edison's career as an inventor. His life has in it many of
tie elements of a romance." The following is an extract
from the article :
On his father's side Mr. Edison is of Dutch and on
his mother's of Scottish extractron. He is a Westerner
by birth, being a native of the State of Ohio, whore
he was born in 1847; he is also a Westerner by train-
ing, having spent his youth in the State of Michigan.
His mother, who had been a school-teacher in Canada,
gave him nearly all the education which he received in
early life, the only addition being two months at a
public school. As soon as he could read, he bean the
course of self-education to which he is indebted for
his varied general knowledge, reading every book that
he could procure and reading solid literature from
choice. When a lad of ten he had perused the
histories of Htune and Gibbon, and the "Penny
Cyclopxdia," and had also found much to interest him
in some works on chemistry. His parents were poor;
their family was large; consequently, he had not the
opportunity of cultivating his tastes in this direction.
Having to earn a livelihood, he obtained the post of
" train-boy " on the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada.
In this country there are no " train-boys ;" travellers
in the United States and Canada often wish most
fervently that they were unknown there also. Here
books and newspapers can be purchased at any rail-
way station; on the United States and Canada lines
of rail they can be got in the train only. At very
short intervals a boy traverses the train, through
which a passage runs from end to end, soliciting the
passengers to buy books or newspapers, and; after
having sold his stock or failed to induce them to
become purchasers, he then tempts them with fruit,
sweetmeats, or cigars. To paraphrase a well-known
saying, life would be very tolerable in an American
railway car but for the train-boy, Young Edison was
so persistent and successful in importuning passengers
to buy his wares that he soon became able to employ
four assistants. Having procured a copy of Freeenius's
"Qualitative Analysis" and some rude chemical
apparatus, he formed a small laboratory in an un-
occupied compartment of a car, and devoted his leisure
moments to making chemical experiments. Then he
established a small printing-press in the same place,
having conceived the notion of printing a weekly
newspaper for sale in the train. The conductors
and other officials wzote the contents of the paper;
he set up the type and worked off the impression.
The, eheet, which was 12in, by 16in., was called the
Grand Trunk Herald. Its youthful proprietor and
conductor was gratified to find it received a notice in
The Times as the only paper which was printed and
published in a railway train. The venture was not
only an original one, but it proved pecuniarily success-
ful. But young Edison learnt that he could not play
so many parts with impunity. The carriage having
been set on fire owing to an accident to his chemical
apparatus, the conductor of the train first threw away
all his stock of bottles and type and then chastised
him severely. He next established a paper at Port
Huron, which was called Paul Fry; a contributor
having offended a reader the latter revenged himself on
the editor by throwing him into the river. Young
Edison's real start in life was due to his bravery in saving
a station-master's child from being run over by an
approaching train; the grateful father rewarded him
with instruction in the art of telegraphing, and he
became so expert a telegraphist as to command the
highest salary. Then it was that he turned his
special attention to electricity, his desire being to
simplify processes and economise outlay. First, he
devised a scheme whereby one wire does the work of
two, then he capped this by making one wire do the
work of four, and he does not despair of eclipsing the
latter feat. His inventions proved so important and
useful that the Western Union Telegraph Company
arranged to pay him 6,000 dole. annually for a term
of years coLdttionally on having the first offer of
any new invention which he made in teleginhy. The
use of one such invention has enabled the company
to save half a million dollars yearly. The prolific
character of Mr. Edison's mind in the matter
of improvements in telegraphy is shown by
the fact that he holds eighty-Dine letters patent
for them, eight relating to variations on the Morse
register, eight to the duplex and quadruplex systems
of transmitting messages, thirty-five to chemical and
automatic telegraphs, and thirty-eight to telegraphic
printing. In addition to the phonograph, the micro-
tasimeter, the electric pen, and other striking inven-
tions, he has devised the megaphone, whereby persons
may converse together though two miles apart; the
aerophone, which raises the voice of one person to the
volume of that of 250 persons. Afflicted with deafnes in
one ear, he has overcome this infirmity by means of an
instrument which will doubtless be a great boon to
others who suffer in the same way. The object for
which he lives is to invent some new thing. Wealth he
values and uses solely in order to give form to the
ideas of his mind. The vast sums which he earns are
chiefly expended in making experiments and patenting
new inventions. He has a large factory and labo-
ratory at Menlo-park, a village in New Jersey, which
is distant about an hour by rail from New York, were
many highly skilled artificers are employed in con-
structing elaborate machinery for working out his plans
on a large scale. It is his present intention to light
up the streets of this village in order to demonstrate
the practical value of his system of lighting by elec-
tricity. His ambition is to produce something every
year as good and striking as the phonograph. His
belief is that through the phonograph alone he has in-
sured a competency, and he is wont to say of it. "This
is the boy that is to take care of his father in his old
age." But if the electric light prove as docile in his
hands as other manifestations of electricity have done.
it will render him the richest inventor the world has
ever seen and honoured.

Rapid though the progress of lighting by electricity
has been of late, its course will probably be ac-
celerated now that Mr. Edison has devoted his in-
finite fund of ingenuity and perseverance to the
subject. He has a healthy aversion to failure, coupled
with a justifiable belief in his ability to sur-
mount obstacles. Having once undertaken to fur-
nish a printing machine on a new model and being
annoyed to find that it would not work, he shut
himself up in a room declaring that he would
remain there till he succeeded in getting the
machine to his mind. He accomplished.the task
after 60 hours of continuous labour and then he rested
for 31. Such a man may be trusted to make the electric
light as perfect as lies within the compass of human
ingenuity. We may, therefore, anticipate that he will
achieve a fresh triumph as soon as the letters patent
are completed and his latest invention is rendered
accessible to the public. . . .
. . . It is worthy of note that neither the prospect
of what Mr. Edison may do nor the result actually
realized by others has materially disturbed the equani-
mity of gas companies in New York. Gas companies
may occupy a profitable field for many years after the
electric light has been generally adopted
The prejudice against gas as a medium for light-
ing private houses is still powerful, despite the
fact that gas is the cheapest of all existing
means for producing artificial light. Moreover,
the employment of gas for heating and cooking
may be almost indefinitely extended, with profit to
the companies and with advantage to the consumers.
It is certain that gas of a low quality, which can be
produced and supplied at a cheap rate, is the handiest
and most economical form of artificial fuel. Thus
there is no ground for unreasoning panic among the
holders of gas shares, even if Mr. Edison prove as suc-
cessful with his new light as we may fairly anticipate.
Professor Morton, Principal of the Stevens Institute
of Technology and a highly competent authority, has
warned his countrymen in New Ycrk agaiost sup-
posing that the most perfect electric light is
at once to take the place of gas everywhere. The
anxiety which is shown by a few gas shareholders is
largely due to confounding the impending cessation of
a practical monopoly on the part of the companies
with the extinction of a profitable trade. Though the
monopoly expire, the trade can flourish. Gas and
electricity may not instantly cease to be rivals in
illuminating the world, even if Mr. Edison should im-
mortalize himself by his rEnprovements in utilizing the
electric light.

According to the American papers received from
New York by the White Star steamer, Mr. E iison
has completed his lamp and is now at work to ascer-
tain the description of generator that will produce the
greate3t amount of electricity per horse power. It
will be several months before he can make a public
exhibition of his light. He has obtained several patents,
but he will not take them out i:,side of six months,
until he has completed his invention. It appears he
has sold his phonograph to the Edison Phonograph
Company, who are now selling the machines for £25
to £3O each. He has also disposed of the right to use
the carbon telephone in France, for £25,000.

In London, on Monday night, Professor W. F. Barrett
delivered a lecture before the members of the London In-
stitution, on "The Phonograph, Carbon-Telephone, and
other inventions of Mr. Edison." There was a crowded at-
tendance Professor Barrett began his lecture by a short
sketch of the career of Air. Edison, after which he pro-
ceeded to say that his (Mr. Edison's) inventions had not
suddenly struck him as brilliant ideas, but, like all success-
ful scientific work, were the result of patient and persistent
labour. Strong prejudices had arisen against Edison among
scientific men, due chiefly to the impression created by the
sensational reports of newspaper interviewers; but they must
remember that in America the invemive faculty had 1,-;scome
exceedingly developed of late among newspaper reporters
By some men Edison was regarded as a mere charlatan, aP d
by others as a Davy, a Faraday, and a Ty ndall rolled into
one. The just view was between these extremes. If not
a great discoverer in the highest seine of the word, he
Was undoubtedly a great inventor. Professor Barrett then
proceeded to describe in detail the principal inventions of
Mr. Edison. One of the earliest and simplest was the
electric pen, an ingenious mechanical adapLation of well-
known scientific facts. Next was the eiectro-motograph, by
which a telegraphic machine similar to the Morse lustru-
ment could be worked without a magnet. Its swiftness
was immense, but practical difficulties had arisen in its
working, and it had not,
as at one time expected,
superseded the Morse instrument. The next. inven-
tion to which Professor Barrett referred was that of
quadruplez telegraphy, by which four currents could be
transmitted along one wire at the lame time. This was

effected by altering the direction and strength of the cur-
rents. Thus messages could be transmitted from both ends
of a wire at the same time, and another set of messages
could also be sent with a current of different strength The
quadruplex system was in operation in sixty circuits in the
United States, and in one or two circuits in the United
Kingdom; and coming to the carbon-telephone, Professor
Barrett said that its success was due to the discovery that
the pressure of carbon Increa3ed the conductivity of the
wire. Professor Graham Bell had undoubtedly brought the
telephone to a practical issue, but by the carbon-telephone
the strength of the current could be increased or diminished
at will. Mr. Edison had also recently invented a receiver
which was capable of delivering the voice in a louder tone
than it was originally spoken In America parties now
spoke at a distance of 750 miles by the telephone, ar,d the
other day he (Professor Barrett) spoke through Mr. CAman's
private wire to Norwich, and was diAinctly heard.
The lecturer then dc scribed at some length the con;trnc-
Mon of the phonograph, at.d gave some interesting examples
of its working from a machine in the hall.