The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1893-07-19
]. sa4kll4aa4.44..
UnsOlved Problems that Edison Is
Studying.


Thomas A. Edison, when he was
congratulated upon his forty-sixth
birthday, declared that he did not tneas-
ure his life by years, but by achieve
ments or by campaigns; and he then
confessed that he had planned ahead
many campaigns, and that he looks
forward to no period of rest, believing
that for him., atleast, the happiest
life is life Of work. In speaking
of his campaigns, Mr.. Edison said:
IT do not regard myself as pure
scientist, as so many persons insisted
that I am. I do not search for the
laws Of nature. and have made no great
discoveries Of such laws. I d6 not
study science as Newton and Kepler
and Faraday and Henry studied it,
simply for the purpose Of learning
truth. I am only q professional ihi
ventor. Mystudies and experiments
have been conducted entirely With the
object Of inventing that which will
have commercial Utility. I suppose I
might be called a scientific inventor,
as distinguished from mechanical
inventor, although really there is no
distinction"
/. When Mr.. Edison was asked about
his campaigns and those achievements
by which he measured his life, he said
that in the past there, had been first
the stock ticker and the telephone,
upon the latter Of which he. worked
very hard. But he regarded the
greatest Of his achievements, in the
early part of his career, as the inven-
tien Of the phonograph. That, :, ;.
said he, twas an invention puresand,
simple. No suggestion Of; it, far as
I know, had ever been made and 10
was a discovery made by accident,
while experimenting upon another ina
vention, that led to the development
Of the photograph.
"My second campaign was that
which resulted in the invention of:the
incandescent lamp. OF course an in.
candescent lamp had been suggested
before. There had, been abortive at.
tempts to make them, even before I
knew anything about telegraphing.
The work which 1 did was to make an
incandescent lamp which was COM
mercially valuable, and the courts
have recently sustained my claim to
priority Of invention of this lamp: I
worked about three years upon that.
Some Of the experiments were very
delicate and very difficult. Some OF
them needed help which was very cost
ly. That, SO far, has been, I suppose,
my chief achievement. It certainly
was the first one which made me inde-
pendent, and left me free to begin
other.eampaigns withoutthe necessity
Of. calling for outside capital. or
Of finding my invention subjected
to the mysteries Of Wall Street manip-'
ulation.
The hint contained in Mr.. Edison's
reference ito Wall Street, and the
mysteries Of fnanciering which pre-,
vail there, led naturally enough TO q
question as to Mr.. Edison's future
purpose with regard to capitalists, and
he said: .-1s4s.s
I'm my future campaigns ! expect
myself to control absolutely such in
ventions as I make. I am now fortu-
nate enough to have capital OF my
own, and that I shall use in these
campaigns. The most important of
the campaigns I have in mind is one
in which I have now been engaged for
several years. 1have long been salts.
fed that it was possible to invent an
ore concentratoE which would vastly
simplify the prevailing methods of
extracting iron from earth and rock,
and which would do it so much cheap:
er than those processes as to command
the market. Of course / refer to mag
netic iron ore. Some Of the New Jer-
ses mountains contain practically in
exhaustible stores Of this magnetic
ore, but it. has been expensive 60;
mines I was able to secure mining
options upon nearly all these proper:
ties, and then I began the campaign
of developing an ore concentrator
which would make these deposits prof
itably available. The iron Is Unlike
any other iron. ore. It takes four.
tons of the ore to produce one ton ;of
pure iron, and yet I saw, some. years
ago, that if some method Of extracting
this ore, could be devised, and the
mines controlled, an enormously prof
liable business would. be developed,
and yet cheaper iron ore-cheaperH
in it's first cost--would be put upon
the market. Iworked very hard upon
this problem, and in one sense sue
cessfully, for I have been able, by my
methods, to extract this magnetic ore
at comparatively small cost, and de-;
liver from my mills pure iron brick
let's. Yet I have not been satisfied
with the methods; and some months
ago Idecided to abandon the old meth
DDS, and to undertake to do this work
by an entirely new system. had
some ten important details to master
before / could get perfect machine,
and have already mastered eight eof
them. Only two remain to be solved,
and when this work is completed, I
shall have, I think, a plant and min
ing privileges which will outrank the
incandescent lamp as a commercial
| venture, certainly so far as | am my
self concerned. Whatever the profits
are, shall myself control them, as l
have taken no capitalist in with me in
this scheme.
Mr.. Edison was asked if he was
| willing to be more explicit respecting
this invention, but he declined to be,
further than to say: "When the ma
| chine is done as expect to develop
it, it will be capable Of handling
twenty thousand tons Of ore day
with two shift, of men, Ave in shift.
That is to say, ten workman, working
| twenty hours day in the aggregate,
will be able to take this ore, crush it,
reduce the iron to cement-like pro-
portions, extract it from the rock and
earth, and male it into bricklets Of
pure iron and do it so cheaply that it
will command the market for magnetic
iron.
Mr.. Edison, in speaking Of this cam