The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-11-08
Mr.. EDISON At HOME
A Talk With the Great Inventor
in His Laboratory.
HOW THE WIZARDLoOKS AND ACTS
Edison Says Our Patent System is a Fraud and
That He Never Made Cent Out Of
His Inventions.

New YORK, Nov. 3, 1S9l.-TSpecial cor
respondence of The SUNDAY HERALD. l.
"Our patent system puts premium on
rascality. have taken out seven hundred
patents for my inventions but have never
had one minutes protection"
The speaker was the great inventor,
Thomas A. Edison. The place was his ex-
perimental laboratory near Orange New
Jersey. The time was about eleven o'clock
one morning few days ago. Mr. Edison
had had no sleep for thirty-six hours and
during the seventy-two hours before this
he had closed his eyes for less than six
Still he looked as fresh as daisy when the
morning sun strikes the dew on its petals
and the sparkle of his eyes and the laugh
VIII CHI shook his frame from time to time
were those of 3 boy. he was in the midst
Of one of those inventive periods when he
tases but little rest and works away night
and day to accomplish mis- ends. He had
left his chemicals to talk to me and he came
in his shirt sleeves with his vest of Scotch
tweed open at the front, and with his shirt
bosom of white linen decorated with spots
of all the colors Of the rainbow. These
spots were having a kind of polk a-dot
dance up and down mis- great chest. They
went in and cut between his gold studs and
some were stains of yellow and others of
wax and melted birthstone. An odor like
that of the hell broth of Macbeth's witches
came from the chemicals in the room and
all of the surroundings showed the simple
ity of its owner. During these inventive
.;o1e ~, hi lol tor,
his meals are sent down from mis- magniti-
cent home at Llewellyn park. Upon plain
table covered with brown paper lay the re-
mains of his breakfast. These were the
bones of two mutton chops the crumbs of a
muffin and glass fruit can in the bottom
of which was q little coffee of the same
brown color as that in the glass beside 1t
out of which Mr.. Edison had evidently
drank instead of a cup. In one corner of
the room was washstand with couple of
well used towels over 1t ana the remainder
of the space was taken up with bottles,
machines and other articles of an expert
mental kind. The room in which Mr. Edi-
son sleeps when at the laboratory is quite
as simple and his bed is folding arrange
ment which you could buy anywhere for
twenty five dollars. Still this laboratory
all told must cover several acres. Its orig
inal cost must have been more than half a
million dollars, and it takes il is said more
lldu one uuuuTeu IuOUSduU OOIIdES d year
to run it, 1t is the most complete labora
tory in the world and no inventor in history
has ever had anything like unto it. In its
store room which by the way is bigger than
any country church in the United States,
Mr.. Edison has pieces of every known ma
terial substance from, as he says, a spool of
cotton TO the eyeballs of au United States
Senator. He has everything from moss
from Iceland to q hippopotamus' tooth, and
he has pieces of every variety of vegetable,
animal and mineral substances so that he
does not have to go out of his laboratory for
anything. There are more than twenty
five thousand different articles in the store.
room, and some of these cost as high SIS a
$1,000 an ounce.
EDIsoN's PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY.
The workshops of the laboratory cover, !
judge, more than four acres of floor space
and the great brick building with its big
windows looks more like factory than a
place for the making OF experiments.
Everything in it is of the most complete
kind in the world from its mechanical
rooms TO its musical department and you
will find no finer photograph gallery any
where in the country. The head of this,
Professor w. K. K. Dickson, has an inter.
national reputation as 3 photographer and
he brings out every week some new wonder
in his experiments. He has wonderful
skill in the use of the camera upon objects
under the microscope, and one of Edison's
great suits was gained lately solely through
the photographs made of slice of japanese
bamboo, from which was shown the fibre
out of which Edison makes the carbon fol
his incandescent lamps. This slice consist
ing of q section smaller around than the
smallest slate pencil was magnified to the
size of the bottom of dinner pail and
section of this photograph was put under
the microscope and again magnitied SO thai
the pictures showed the little fibres of the
bamboo which after experimenting with
thousand different articles from all parts Of
the world Edison decided was the best fol
his light One of the last experiments il
this Photographic department was photo
graph of the head Of a house-f fly. Thi.
photograph lies before me. The head a.
magnihed is as big as that of q Newfound
land dog, and it has hair standing out from
its centre in all directions as though about
fifty camels hair brushes with hair TIVE
inches long had been driven into place thi
size Of trade-dollar. Its eyes stand GU
from the head, and in the photograph each
eye Of this fly which in the original was nc
larger than the head of pin is bigger thar
the palm Of my hand, and it is made up o
thousands upon thousands of little bits O
eyes fastened together like honey coml
and Mr.. Dickson. Edison's photographer
tells me that If you will lay your watch
face upward, down near the eye of fly
under the microscope you can read the tim
in each one of these ten thousand eyes.
TESTING ELECTRIC LIGHTS.
Only an electrician can appreciate tn
wonders of the electrical appliances Of thi
]ahnratorv. In one large room the machine