Memories Of Menlo Park - 2
Menlo Park was the merest hamlet. Omitting the laboratory structures, it had only about
seven houses, the best looking of which Edison lived in, a place that had a windmill
pumping water into a reservoir. One of the stories of the day was that Edison had his
front gate so connected with the pumping plant that every visitor as he opened or closed
the gate added involuntarily to the supply in the reservoir. Two or three of the houses
were occupied by the families of members of the staff; in the others boarders were taken,
the laboratory, of course, furnishing all the patrons. Near the railway station was a small
saloon kept by an old Scotchman named Davis, where billiards were played in idle
moments, and where in the long winter evenings the hot stove was a centre of attraction
to loungers and story-tellers. The truth is that there was very little social life of any kind
possible under the strenuous conditions prevailing at the laboratory, where, if anywhere,
relaxation was enjoyed at odd intervals of fatigue and waiting.
The main laboratory was a spacious wooden building of two floors. The office was in this
building at first, until removed to the brick library when that was finished. There S. L.
Griffin, an old telegraph friend of Edison, acted as his secretary and had charge of a
voluminous and amazing correspondence. The office employees were the Carman
brothers and the late John F. Randolph, afterwards secretary. According to Mr. Francis
Jehl, of Budapest, then one of the staff, to whom the writers are indebted for a great deal
of valuable data on this period: "It was on the upper story of this laboratory that the most
important experiments were executed, and where the incandescent lamp was born. This
floor consisted of a large hall containing several long tables, upon which could be found
all the various instruments, scientific and chemical apparatus that the arts at that time
could produce. Books lay promiscuously about, while here and there long lines of
bichromate-of- potash cells could be seen, together with experimental models of ideas
that Edison or his assistants were engaged upon. The side walls of this hall were lined
with shelves filled with bottles, phials, and other receptacles containing every imaginable
chemical and other material that could be obtained, while at the end of this hall, and near
the organ which stood in the rear, was a large glass case containing the world's most
precious metals in sheet and wire form, together with very rare and costly chemicals.
When evening came on, and the last rays of the setting sun penetrated through the side
windows, this hall looked like a veritable Faust laboratory.
"On the ground floor we had our testing-table, which stood on two large pillars of brick
built deep into the earth in order to get rid of all vibrations on account of the sensitive
instruments that were upon it. There was the Thomson reflecting mirror galvanometer
and electrometer, while nearby were the standard cells by which the galvanometers were
adjusted and standardized. This testing-table was connected by means of wires with all
parts of the laboratory and machine-shop, so that measurements could be conveniently
made from a distance, as in those days we had no portable and direct-reading instruments,
such as now exist. Opposite this table we installed, later on, our photometrical chamber,
which was constructed on the Bunsen principle. A little way from this table, and
separated by a partition, we had the chemical laboratory with its furnaces and stinkchambers.
Later on another chemical laboratory was installed near the photometer-room,
and this Dr. A. Haid had charge of."
Next to the laboratory in importance was the machine- shop, a large and well-lighted
building of brick, at one end of which there was the boiler and engine- room. This shop
contained light and heavy lathes, boring and drilling machines, all kinds of planing
machines; in fact, tools of all descriptions, so that any apparatus, however delicate or
heavy, could be made and built as might be required by Edison in experimenting. Mr.
John Kruesi had charge of this shop, and was assisted by a number of skilled mechanics,
notably John Ott, whose deft fingers and quick intuitive grasp of the master's ideas are
still in demand under the more recent conditions at the Llewellyn Park laboratory in
Orange.
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