The Wilmington morning star., 1947-02-08
EDIS0N'S NOTES
WILL Be STUDIED
Family Of Famed Inventor
To Unlock Desk As
Part OF Celebration

WEST ORANGE, N. j., Feb. T.
W.H-Thomas Alva Edison's rolltop
desk, locked and sealed with
strips of paper on the day he died
Is years ago, will be opened tomor-
row so that his last formulas and
notes can be studied by experts.
Not even Charles Edison, former
secretary of the Navy and governor
of New Jersey, and the o who
locked it. will guess what secrets it
holds. Edison died at 1927 am. on
Oct. 10, 1881, in mis- West Orange
mansion.
At daybreak, Charles Edison went
to his fathers li~brary--a three-story
building with four one-story labor
atory building around ii and lock-
ed the desk. It's pigeonholes and
drawers e crammed with note
books, papers and formulas. but he
did not take time to examine them.
Subsequently, all cracks in the
p%onderous, dark-oak desk were
sealed with strips of paper to keep
out the dust and so that any at
tempt to get into it could instantly
be detected. Feb. II is the Tooth an
niYersary Of Edison's birth, and
the desk is being opened tomorrow
as part of national ceremonies to
honor probably the worlds most
prolific inventor,
Before his final illness, Edison
was working on a method of OBJ
tanning rubber from, goldenrod.
Since the war ended, the problem
Of obtaining rubber is no longer a
pressing one for the United States,
but the mind that conceived the
incandescent lamp, the photograph,
motion pictures, the Horoscope
and fluorescent light may have
left behind ideas startling even now
In the age of the atom, %television
and radar.
Several years after Edison died,
two New York mediums announced
that they had received a spirit
message" from him saying he had
left a "momentous message to the
world concealed in a fountain pen
inside the desk. So far as is known,
Edison never took any stock in
mediums, being addicted only to
things that we're practical. and sell
dom used a fountain pen.
But when his desk is opened,
Charles Edison, his mother, Har-
vey S. Firestone, Jr., and Frank M.
TAFT, vice president of the Thomas
A. Edison centennial committee,
will look for the fountain pen. It
may be several weeks before eX-
perts are able to say whether the
notes and papers contain anything
of value.
The desk was one of 40 pieces of
furniture that Edison's employees
gave him on Feb. II, 1889, On his
And birthday. He installed it in
the center of his pine-panelled lib
rary, which is three stories from
to ceiling and crammed with
10, 900 scientific books.
Edison used it for the last a.
years of his life. Overhead and
behind the desk is a giant electric
clock, whose mechanism, after
f%unctioning faithfully for years,
stopped On Oct. 10, 1881, at 1921
am, the moment Edison died.
Around the library building are
four workshops and laboratories
where the ideas Edison conceived
in his library were transformed
into inventions. During his life
time. he was granted nearly LOO
American patents. Motion pictures,
the Horoscope and fluorescent
light were among his main inven-
tons in the laboratories heve.
The first motion picture studio in
the world was erected on e vacant
lot near the laboratory. The lib
rary, nearly completely covered
with ivy, and the other four build
lngs are now a museum.