A World-Hunt For Filament Material - 5

A World-Hunt For Filament Material - 5

"I reported to Mr. Edison on the following day, when he instructed me to come to the

laboratory at once to learn all the details of drawing and carbonizing fibres, which it

would be necessary to do in the Oriental jungles. This I did, and, in the mean time, a set

of suitable tools for this purpose had been ordered to be made in the laboratory. As soon

as I learned my new trade, which I accomplished in a few days, Mr. Edison directed me

to the library of the laboratory to occupy a few days in studying the geography of the

Orient and, particularly, in drawing maps of the tributaries of the Ganges, the Irrawaddy,

and the Brahmaputra rivers, and other regions which I expected to explore.

"It was while thus engaged that Mr. Edison came to me one day and said: `If you will go

up to the house' (his palatial home not far away) `and look behind the sofa in the library

you will find a joint of bamboo, a specimen of that found in South America; bring it

down and make a study of it; if you find something equal to that I will be satisfied.' At

the home I was guided to the library by an Irish servant- woman, to whom I

communicated my knowledge of the definite locality of the sample joint. She plunged her

arm, bare and herculean, behind the aforementioned sofa, and holding aloft a section of

wood, called out in a mood of discovery: `Is that it?' Replying in the affirmative, she

added, under an impulse of innocent divination that whatever her wizard master laid

hands upon could result in nothing short of an invention, `Sure, sor, and what's he going

to invint out o' that?'

"My kit of tools made, my maps drawn, my Oriental geography reviewed, I come to the

point when matters of immediate departure are discussed; and when I took occasion to

mention to my chief that, on the subject of life insurance, underwriters refuse to take any

risks on an enterprise so hazardous, Mr. Edison said that, if I did not place too high a

valuation on my person, he would take the risk himself. I replied that I was born and bred

in New York State, but now that I had become a Jersey man I did not value myself at

above fifteen hundred dollars. Edison laughed and said that he would assume the risk,

and another point was settled. The next matter was the financing of the trip, about which

Mr. Edison asked in a tentative way about the rates to the East. I told him the expense of

such a trip could not be determined beforehand in detail, but that I had established

somewhat of a reputation for economic travel, and that I did not believe any traveller

could surpass me in that respect. He desired no further assurance in that direction, and

thereupon ordered a letter of credit made out with authorization to order a second when

the first was exhausted. Herein then are set forth in briefest space the preliminaries of a

circuit of the globe in quest of fibre.

"It so happened that the day on which I set out fell on Washington's Birthday, and I

suggested to my boys and girls at school that they make a line across the station platform

near the school at Maplewood, and from this line I would start eastward around the

world, and if good-fortune should bring me back I would meet them from the westward at

the same line. As I had often made them `toe the scratch,' for once they were only too

well pleased to have me toe the line for them.

"This was done, and I sailed via England and the Suez Canal to Ceylon, that fair isle to

which Sindbad the Sailor made his sixth voyage, picturesquely referred to in history as

the `brightest gem in the British Colonial Crown.' I knew Ceylon to be eminently

tropical; I knew it to be rich in many varieties of the bamboo family, which has been

called the king of the grasses; and in this family had I most hope of finding the desired

fibre. Weeks were spent in this paradisiacal isle. Every part was visited. Native wood

craftsmen were offered a premium on every new species brought in, and in this way

nearly a hundred species were tested, a greater number than was found in any other

country. One of the best specimens tested during the entire trip around the world was

found first in Ceylon, although later in Burmah, it being indigenous to the latter country.

It is a gigantic tree-grass or reed growing in clumps of from one to two hundred, often

twelve inches in diameter, and one hundred and fifty feet high, and known as the giant

bamboo (Bambusa gigantia). This giant grass stood the highest test as a carbon, and on

account of its extraordinary size and qualities I extend it this special mention. With others

who have given much attention to this remarkable reed, I believe that in its manifold uses

the bamboo is the world's greatest dendral benefactor.