Polk County observer. (Monmouth, Polk County, Or.) 1888-1927, 1916-10-13
DESCRIBES FIRST lamp
THOMAS A EDISON TELLS OF
EARLY DIFFICULTIES.
Light Without Heat. The Firefiy Eli
ficiency, Is The Goal-Research
Unending, The Way.

"The first thing to do was to find out
what was the best material to use for
n light producer. began Mr. Edison.
~ soon made up my mind that Of all
the material colId obtain in 1877
carbon was the most promising. Pa
per, iute, palm fiber, grass's, tissue
paper, coated i:h tar and rolled into
thin sticks, charcoal, hemp-every'
thing, in word. was tried. Finally
on October 81, 1870, l carbonlzed a
piece of cotton sewing thread bent
into loop ard sealed it in IA glass
globe from which the air had been
pumped out. When the current whs
turned on, that black thread glowcd
for forty hours. That was really thc
first incandescent electric lamp. IT
couldn't be put on the market, Of
course, but it showed unmistakabl%
that electricity could be used for in
candescent lighting, | spent about
$40, 900 to bring the investigation up
to that point, and yet in way, this
was only the beginning. A little lat
er we placed several hundred paper
filament lamps on the market. So !
began hunt for the right kind OF
carbon Men were sent all over the
world to collect grasses and tibers
that looked promising. They brought
back several hundred, and out OF the
lot | selected a certain kind of BAN
boo that grows in Japan. We made
filaments out Of that for nine years. y
In these few words Mr.. Edison tells
the story of the first electric lamp
A week from tomorrow, the twenty
first day Of October, nov known as
edison Day." is the birthday Of the
electric lamp.
''No invention is perfect, and the
ineandeseent lamp is not an excep-
tion," " continued Mr.. Edison. "Light
without beat is the ideal and that is
stiff far off. The electric irseandes-
cent lamp of today has the cheapest
form of filament that has ever been
produced, BUT some day it will be
cheaper and colder than it is. There
is good deal of truth in the saying
that the tireffy is the ideal. Ii is, so
far as coldness goes. But it's color
is AGAINST If. You couldn't use a
thousand Gamble tirefiy to match col
ors. and YOU woHldn t want the insect
TO light up street, because his light
would be II hidecus ereenish yellow
But some day we will get reasonably
near the FREELY for efficiency without
copying his disasreeable color. The
task needs much investigations, much
research of the kind we did liz 1879
The research thst we begun tiien is;
still going on,. and it always will gU|
on. Somehow, each new discovery
opcns up the way to another.
ga laboratory is indispensable
nowadays to- produce an invention" :"
he remarked. NSThe General Electric
company has One of the largest in the
world im which to develop new ideas
or to Improve old processes. They
hire inventors now like boOkkeepelss.
That is because the whole character
Of manufacturing has changed. Com
panies that handle lakefal of dyes
at once and convert whole train loads
of ore into iron and steel at a single
operation Eave problems to consider
that were not worth whiie bothering
about fifty years ago. 1t pays to save
few cents in handling a ton Of ma
terial, and therefore it pays to invent
way of saving those few GEMS.
SHYou can improve, but You can't
change human nature" said Edison.
'SIt is hard, it always will be hard,
to drive a new idea into the worlds
head. No one likes revolutions, even
though they are for the best. The
more important the invention. the big
ger is the revelation, which means
the harder your struggle to overcome
prejudice. 1t takes a Niagara of ad-
vertising to make man play the pi-
ano acceptably with pneumatic mech
anism and a punched roll of paper in
stead of very badly with ten stiff fin
gers. You can imagine how hard it
was to get whole cities Illuminated
with the electric ineandeseent lamp.
Perhaps business men will invent
some quick way of making the world
see the point of a new invention. 1t
seems to be quite beyond the powers
of an ordinary inventor"