chapter01.txt

EDISON, HIS LIFE AND INVENTIONS











CHAPTER I







THE AGE OF ELECTRICITY







THE year 1847 marked a period of great territorial



acquisition by the American people, with incalculable



additions to their actual and potential wealth.



By the rational compromise with England in the dispute



over the Oregon region, President Polk had secured



during 1846, for undisturbed settlement, three



hundred thousand square miles of forest, fertile land,



and fisheries, including the whole fair Columbia Valley.



Our active "policy of the Pacific" dated from



that hour. With swift and clinching succession came



the melodramatic Mexican War, and February, 1848,



saw another vast territory south of Oregon and west



of the Rocky Mountains added by treaty to the United



States. Thus in about eighteen months there had



been pieced into the national domain for quick development



and exploitation a region as large as the



entire Union of Thirteen States at the close of the War



of Independence. Moreover, within its boundaries



was embraced all the great American gold-field, just



on the eve of discovery, for Marshall had detected the



shining particles in the mill-race at the foot of the



Sierra Nevada nine days before Mexico signed away



her rights in California and in all the vague, remote



hinterland facing Cathayward.







Equally momentous were the times in Europe, where



the attempt to secure opportunities of expansion as



well as larger liberty for the individual took quite



different form. The old absolutist system of government



was fast breaking up, and ancient thrones were



tottering. The red lava of deep revolutionary fires



oozed up through many glowing cracks in the political



crust, and all the social strata were shaken. That the



wild outbursts of insurrection midway in the fifth



decade failed and died away was not surprising, for



the superincumbent deposits of tradition and convention



were thick. But the retrospect indicates that



many reforms and political changes were accomplished,



although the process involved the exile of not a few



ardent spirits to America, to become leading statesmen,



inventors, journalists, and financiers. In 1847,



too, Russia began her tremendous march eastward into



Central Asia, just as France was solidifying her first



gains on the littoral of northern Africa. In England



the fierce fervor of the Chartist movement, with its



violent rhetoric as to the rights of man, was sobering



down and passing pervasively into numerous practical



schemes for social and political amelioration, constituting



in their entirety a most profound change



throughout every part of the national life.







Into such times Thomas Alva Edison was born, and



his relations to them and to the events of the past



sixty years are the subject of this narrative. Aside



from the personal interest that attaches to the picturesque



career, so typically American, there is a broader



aspect in which the work of the "Franklin of the



Nineteenth Century" touches the welfare and progress



of the race. It is difficult at any time to determine



the effect of any single invention, and the investigation



becomes more difficult where inventions of the



first class have been crowded upon each other in rapid



and bewildering succession. But it will be admitted



that in Edison one deals with a central figure of the



great age that saw the invention and introduction in



practical form of the telegraph, the submarine cable,



the telephone, the electric light, the electric railway,



the electric trolley-car, the storage battery, the electric



motor, the phonograph, the wireless telegraph; and



that the influence of these on the world's affairs has



not been excelled at any time by that of any other



corresponding advances in the arts and sciences.



These pages deal with Edison's share in the great



work of the last half century in abridging distance,



communicating intelligence, lessening toil, improving



illumination, recording forever the human voice; and



on behalf of inventive genius it may be urged that its



beneficent results and gifts to mankind compare with



any to be credited to statesman, warrior, or creative



writer of the same period.







Viewed from the standpoint of inventive progress,



the first half of the nineteenth century had passed



very profitably when Edison appeared--every year



marked by some notable achievement in the arts and



sciences, with promise of its early and abundant fruition



in commerce and industry. There had been



exactly four decades of steam navigation on American



waters. Railways were growing at the rate of



nearly one thousand miles annually. Gas had become



familiar as a means of illumination in large cities.



Looms and tools and printing-presses were everywhere



being liberated from the slow toil of man-power.



The first photographs had been taken. Chloroform,



nitrous oxide gas, and ether had been placed at the



service of the physician in saving life, and the revolver,



guncotton, and nitroglycerine added to the agencies



for slaughter. New metals, chemicals, and elements



had become available in large numbers, gases had



been liquefied and solidified, and the range of useful



heat and cold indefinitely extended. The safety-lamp



had been given to the miner, the caisson to the bridge-



builder, the anti-friction metal to the mechanic for



bearings. It was already known how to vulcanize



rubber, and how to galvanize iron. The application of



machinery in the harvest-field had begun with the



embryonic reaper, while both the bicycle and the



automobile were heralded in primitive prototypes. The



gigantic expansion of the iron and steel industry was



foreshadowed in the change from wood to coal in the



smelting furnaces. The sewing-machine had brought



with it, like the friction match, one of the most profound



influences in modifying domestic life, and making



it different from that of all preceding time.







Even in 1847 few of these things had lost their



novelty, most of them were in the earlier stages of



development. But it is when we turn to electricity



that the rich virgin condition of an illimitable new



kingdom of discovery is seen. Perhaps the word



"utilization" or "application" is better than discovery,



for then, as now, an endless wealth of phenomena



noted by experimenters from Gilbert to



Franklin and Faraday awaited the invention that



could alone render them useful to mankind. The



eighteenth century, keenly curious and ceaselessly active



in this fascinating field of investigation, had not,



after all, left much of a legacy in either principles or



appliances. The lodestone and the compass; the



frictional machine; the Leyden jar; the nature of conductors



and insulators; the identity of electricity and



the thunder-storm flash; the use of lightning-rods;



the physiological effects of an electrical shock--these



constituted the bulk of the bequest to which philosophers



were the only heirs. Pregnant with possibilities



were many of the observations that had been



recorded. But these few appliances made up the



meagre kit of tools with which the nineteenth century



entered upon its task of acquiring the arts and conveniences



now such an intimate part of "human nature's



daily food" that the average American to-day



pays more for his electrical service than he does for



bread.







With the first year of the new century came Volta's



invention of the chemical battery as a means of producing



electricity. A well-known Italian picture represents



Volta exhibiting his apparatus before the



young conqueror Napoleon, then ravishing from the



Peninsula its treasure of ancient art and founding an



ephemeral empire. At such a moment this gift of de-



spoiled Italy to the world was a noble revenge, setting



in motion incalculable beneficent forces and agencies.



For the first time man had command of a steady supply



of electricity without toil or effort. The useful



results obtainable previously from the current of a



frictional machine were not much greater than those



to be derived from the flight of a rocket. While the



frictional appliance is still employed in medicine, it



ranks with the flint axe and the tinder-box in industrial



obsolescence. No art or trade could be founded



on it; no diminution of daily work or increase of daily



comfort could be secured with it. But the little battery



with its metal plates in a weak solution proved



a perennial reservoir of electrical energy, safe and



controllable, from which supplies could be drawn at will.



That which was wild had become domesticated; regular



crops took the place of haphazard gleanings from



brake or prairie; the possibility of electrical starvation



was forever left behind.







Immediately new processes of inestimable value



revealed themselves; new methods were suggested.



Almost all the electrical arts now employed made



their beginnings in the next twenty-five years, and



while the more extensive of them depend to-day on



the dynamo for electrical energy, some of the most



important still remain in loyal allegiance to the older



source. The battery itself soon underwent modifications,



and new types were evolved--the storage,



the double-fluid, and the d...