The Laboratory At Orange And The Staff - 6

The Laboratory At Orange And The Staff - 6

 Hence it is not surprising to find the stock-room not only a museum, but a sample-room

of nature, as well as a supply department. To a casual visitor the first view of this

heterogeneous collection is quite bewildering, but on more mature examination it

resolves itself into a natural classification--as, for instance, objects pertaining to various

animals, birds, and fishes, such as skins, hides, hair, fur, feathers, wool, quills, down,

bristles, teeth, bones, hoofs, horns, tusks, shells; natural products, such as woods, barks,

roots, leaves, nuts, seeds, herbs, gums, grains, flours, meals, bran; also minerals in great

assortment; mineral and vegetable oils, clay, mica, ozokerite, etc. In the line of textiles,

cotton and silk threads in great variety, with woven goods of all kinds from cheese-cloth

to silk plush. As for paper, there is everything in white and colored, from thinnest tissue

up to the heaviest asbestos, even a few newspapers being always on hand. Twines of all

sizes, inks, waxes, cork, tar, resin, pitch, turpentine, asphalt, plumbago, glass in sheets

and tubes; and a host of miscellaneous articles revealed on looking around the shelves, as

well as an interminable col- lection of chemicals, including acids, alkalies, salts, reagents,

every conceivable essential oil and all the thinkable extracts. It may be remarked that this

collection includes the eighteen hundred or more fluorescent salts made by Edison during

his experimental search for the best material for a fluoroscope in the initial X-ray period.

All known metals in form of sheet, rod and tube, and of great variety in thickness, are

here found also, together with a most complete assortment of tools and accessories for

machine shop and laboratory work.

The list is confined to the merest general mention of the scope of this remarkable and

interesting collection, as specific details would stretch out into a catalogue of no small

proportions. When it is stated, however, that a stock clerk is kept exceedingly busy all

day answering the numerous and various demands upon him, the reader will appreciate

that this comprehensive assortment is not merely a fad of Edison's, but stands rather as a

substantial tribute to his wide-angled view of possible requirements as his various

investigations take him far afield. It has no counterpart in the world!

Beyond the stock-room, and occupying about half the building on the same floor, lie a

machine shop, engine-room, and boiler-room. This machine shop is well equipped, and in

it is constantly employed a large force of mechanics whose time is occupied in

constructing the heavier class of models and mechanical devices called for by the varied

experiments and inventions always going on.

Immediately above, on the second floor, is found another machine shop in which is

maintained a corps of expert mechanics who are called upon to do work of greater

precision and fineness, in the construction of tools and experimental models. This is the

realm presided over lovingly by John F. Ott, who has been Edison's designer of

mechanical devices for over forty years. He still continues to ply his craft with unabated

skill and oversees the work of the mechanics as his productions are wrought into concrete

shape.

In one of the many experimental-rooms lining the sides of the second floor may usually

be seen his younger brother, Fred Ott, whose skill as a dexterous manipulator and

ingenious mechanic has found ample scope for exercise during the thirty-two years of his

service with Edison, not only at the regular laboratories, but also at that connected with

the inventor's winter home in Florida. Still another of the Ott family, the son of John F.,

for some years past has been on the experimental staff of the Orange laboratory.

Although possessing in no small degree the mechanical and manipulative skill of the

family, he has chosen chemistry as his special domain, and may be found with the other

chemists in one of the chemical-rooms.

On this same floor is the vacuum-pump room with a glass-blowers' room adjoining, both

of them historic by reason of the strenuous work done on incandescent lamps and X-ray

tubes within their walls. The tools and appliances are kept intact, for Edison calls

occasionally for their use in some of his later experiments, and there is a suspicion among

the laboratory staff that some day he may resume work on incandescent lamps. Adjacent

to these rooms are several others devoted to physical and mechanical experiments,

together with a draughting-room.