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 invention of the phonograph. “That,” said he, “was an invention pure and simple. No suggestion of it, so far as I know, had ever been made; and it was a discovery made by accident, while experimenting upon another invention, that led to the development of the phonograph.
“My second campaign was that which resulted in the invention of the incandescent lamp. Of course, an incandescent lamp had been suggested before. There had been abortive attempts to make them, even before I knew anything about telegraphing. The work which I did was to make an incandescent lamp which was commercially 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 costly. That so far has been, I suppose, my chief achievement. It certainly was the first one which made me independent, and left me free to begin other campaigns without the necessity of calling for outside capital, or of finding my invention subjected to the mysteries of Wall Street manipulation.”
The hint contained in Mr. Edison’s reference to Wall Street, and the mysteries of financiering which prevail there, led naturally enough to a question as to Mr. Edison’s future purpose with regard to capitalists, and he said:
“In my future campaigns I expect myself to control absolutely such inventions as I make. I am now fortunate 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. I have long been satisfied that it was possible to invent an ore-concentrator which would vastly simplify the prevailing methods of extracting iron from earth and rock, and which would do it so much cheaper than those processes as to command 38 the market. Of course I refer to magnetic iron ore. Some of the New Jersey mountains contain practically inexhaustible stores of this magnetic ore, but it has been expensive to mine. I was able to secure mining options upon nearly all these properties, and then I began the campaign of developing an ore-concentrator which would make these deposits profitably available. This 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 profitable business would be developed, and yet a cheaper iron ore—cheaper in its first cost—would be put upon the market. I worked very hard upon this problem, and in one sense successfully, for I have been able by my methods to extract this magnetic ore at comparatively small cost, and deliver from my mills pure iron bricklets. Yet I have not been satisfied with the methods; and some months ago I decided to abandon the old methods and to undertake to do this work by an entirely new system. I had some ten important details to master before I could get a perfect machine, and I have already mastered eight of them. Only two remain to be solved; and when this work is complete, I shall have, I think, a plant and mining privileges which will outrank the incandescent lamp as a commercial venture, certainly so far as I am myself concerned. Whatever the profits are, I shall myself control them, as I have taken no capitalists 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 machinery is done as I expect to develop it, it will be capable of handling twenty thousand tons of ore a day with two shifts of men, five in a shift. That is to say, ten workmen, working twenty hours a day in the aggregate, will be able to take this ore, crush it, reduce the iron to cement-like proportions, extract it from the rock and earth, and make 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 campaign, referred to it as though it was practically finished; and it was evident in the conversation that already his mind turns to a new campaign, which he will take up as soon as his iron-ore concentrator is complete and its work can be left to competent subordinates.
He was asked if he would be willing to say what he had in mind for the next campaign, and he replied: “Well, I think as soon as the ore concentrating business is developed and can take care of itself, I shall turn my attention to one of the greatest problems that I have ever thought of solving, and that is, the direct control of the energy which is stored up in coal, so that it may be employed without waste and at a very small margin of cost. Ninety per cent. of the energy that exists in coal is now lost in converting it into power. It goes off in heat through the chimneys of boiler-rooms. You perceive it when you step into a room where there is a furnace and boiler; it is also greatly wasted in the development of the latent heat which is created by the change from water to steam. Now that is an awful waste, and even a child can see that if this wastage can be saved, it will result in vastly cheapening the cost of everything which is manufactured by electric or steam power. In fact, it will vastly cheapen the cost of all the necessaries and luxuries of life, and I suppose the results would be of mightier influence upon civilization than the development of the steam-engine and electricity have been. It will, in fact, do away with steam-engines and boilers, and make the use of steam power as much of a tradition as the stage-coach now is.
“It would enable an ocean steamship of twenty thousand horse-power to cross the ocean faster than any of the crack vessels now do, and require the burning of only two hundred and fifty tons of coal instead of three thousand, which are now required; so that, of course, the charges for freight and passenger fares would be greatly reduced. It would enormously lessen 39 the cost of manufacturing and of traffic. It would develop the electric current directly from coal, so that the cost of steam-engines and boilers would be eliminated. I have thought of this problem very much, and I have already my theory of the experiments, or some of them, which may be necessary to develop this direct use of all the power that is stored in coal. I can only say now, that the coal would be put into a receptacle, the agencies then applied which would develop its energy and save it all, and through this energy electric power of any degree desired could be furnished. Yes, it can be done; I am sure of that. Some of the details I have already mastered, I think; at least, I am sure that I know the way to go to work to master them. I believe that I shall make this my next campaign. It may be years before it is finished, and it may not be a very long time.”
Mr. Edison looks farther ahead than this campaign, for he said: “I think it quite likely that I may try to develop a plan for marine signalling. I have the idea already pretty well formulated in my mind. I should use the well-known principle that water is a more perfect medium for carrying vibrations than air, and should develop instruments which may be carried upon sea-going vessels, by which they can transmit or receive, through an international code of signals, reports within a radius of say ten miles.”
Mr. Edison believes that Chicago is to become the London of America early in the next century, while New York will be its Liverpool, and he is of opinion that very likely a ship canal may connect Chicago with tide water, so that it will itself become a great seaport.