Memories Of Menlo Park - 12

Memories Of Menlo Park - 12

 

In the mean time, during the progress of the investigations on the dynamo, word had gone

out to the world that Edison expected to invent a generator of greater efficiency than any

that existed at the time. Again he was assailed and ridiculed by the technical press, for

had not the foremost electricians and physicists of Europe and America worked for years

on the production of dynamos and arc lamps as they then existed? Even though this

young man at Menlo Park had done some wonderful things for telegraphy and telephony;

even if he had recorded and reproduced human speech, he had his limitations, and could

not upset the settled dictum of science that the internal resistance must equal the external

resistance.

Such was the trend of public opinion at the time, but "after Mr. Kruesi had finished the

first practical dynamo, and after Mr. Upton had tested it thoroughly and verified his

figures and results several times-- for he also was surprised--Edison was able to tell the

world that he had made a generator giving an efficiency of 90 per cent." Ninety per cent.

as against 40 per cent. was a mighty hit, and the world would not believe it. Criticism and

argument were again at their height, while Upton, as Edison's duellist, was kept busy

replying to private and public challenges of the fact.... "The tremendous progress of the

world in the last quarter of a century, owing to the revolution caused by the allconquering

march of `Heavy Current Engineering,' is the outcome of Edison's work at

Menlo Park that raised the efficiency of the dynamo from 40 per cent. to 90 per cent."

Mr. Upton sums it all up very precisely in his remarks upon this period: "What has now

been made clear by accurate nomenclature was then very foggy in the text-books. Mr.

Edison had completely grasped the effect of subdivision of circuits, and the influence of

wires leading to such subdivisions, when it was most difficult to express what he knew in

technical language. I remember distinctly when Mr. Edison gave me the problem of

placing a motor in circuit in multiple arc with a fixed resistance; and I had to work out the

problem entirely, as I could find no prior solution. There was nothing I could find bearing

upon the counter electromotive force of the armature, and the effect of the resistance of

the armature on the work given out by the armature. It was a wonderful experience to

have problems given me out of the intuitions of a great mind, based on enormous

experience in practical work, and applying to new lines of progress. One of the main

impressions left upon me after knowing Mr. Edison for many years is the marvellous

accuracy of his guesses. He will see the general nature of a result long before it can be

reached by mathematical calculation. His greatness was always to be clearly seen when

difficulties arose. They always made him cheerful, and started him thinking; and very

soon would come a line of suggestions which would not end until the difficulty was met

and overcome, or found insurmountable. I have often felt that Mr. Edison got himself

purposely into trouble by premature publications and otherwise, so that he would have a

full incentive to get himself out of the trouble."

This chapter may well end with a statement from Mr. Jehl, shrewd and observant, as a

participator in all the early work of the development of the Edison lighting system:

"Those who were gathered around him in the old Menlo Park laboratory enjoyed his

confidence, and he theirs. Nor was this confidence ever abused. He was respected with a

respect which only great men can obtain, and he never showed by any word or act that he

was their employer in a sense that would hurt the feelings, as is often the case in the

ordinary course of business life. He conversed, argued, and disputed with us all as if he

were a colleague on the same footing. It was his winning ways and manners that attached

us all so loyally to his side, and made us ever ready with a boundless devotion to execute

any request or desire." Thus does a great magnet, run through a heap of sand and filings,

exert its lines of force and attract irresistibly to itself the iron and steel particles that are

its affinity, and having sifted them out, leaving the useless dust behind, hold them to itself

with responsive tenacity.