The Phonograph - 10

The Phonograph - 10

"There were astronomers from nearly every nation," says Mr. Edison. "We had a special

car. The country at that time was rather new; game was in great abundance, and could be

seen all day long from the car window, especially antelope. We arrived at Rawlins about

4 P.M. It had a small machine shop, and was the point where locomotives were changed

for the next section. The hotel was a very small one, and by doubling up we were barely

accommodated. My room-mate was Fox, the correspondent of the New York Herald.

After we retired and were asleep a thundering knock on the door awakened us. Upon

opening the door a tall, handsome man with flowing hair dressed in western style entered

the room. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was somewhat inebriated. He introduced

himself as `Texas Jack'--Joe Chromondo--and said he wanted to see Edison, as he had

read about me in the newspapers. Both Fox and I were rather scared, and didn't know

what was to be the result of the interview. The landlord requested him not to make so

much noise, and was thrown out into the hall. Jack explained that he had just come in

with a party which had been hunting, and that he felt fine. He explained, also, that he was

the boss pistol-shot of the West; that it was he who taught the celebrated Doctor Carver

how to shoot. Then suddenly pointing to a weather-vane on the freight depot, he pulled

out a Colt revolver and fired through the window, hitting the vane. The shot awakened all

the people, and they rushed in to see who was killed. It was only after I told him I was

tired and would see him in the morning that he left. Both Fox and I were so nervous we

didn't sleep any that night.

"We were told in the morning that Jack was a pretty good fellow, and was not one of the

`bad men,' of whom they had a good supply. They had one in the jail, and Fox and I went

over to see him. A few days before he had held up a Union Pacific train and robbed all

the passengers. In the jail also was a half-breed horse-thief. We interviewed the bad man

through bars as big as railroad rails. He looked like a `bad man.' The rim of his ear all

around came to a sharp edge and was serrated. His eyes were nearly white, and appeared

as if made of glass and set in wrong, like the life-size figures of Indians in the

Smithsonian Institution. His face was also extremely irregular. He wouldn't answer a

single question. I learned afterward that he got seven years in prison, while the horsethief

was hanged. As horses ran wild, and there was no protection, it meant death to steal

one."

This was one interlude among others. "The first thing the astronomers did was to

determine with precision their exact locality upon the earth. A number of observations

were made, and Watson, of Michigan University, with two others, worked all night

computing, until they agreed. They said they were not in error more than one hundred

feet, and that the station was twelve miles out of the position given on the maps. It

seemed to take an immense amount of mathematics. I preserved one of the sheets, which

looked like the time-table of a Chinese railroad. The instruments of the various parties

were then set up in different parts of the little town, and got ready for the eclipse which

was to occur in three or four days. Two days before the event we all got together, and

obtaining an engine and car, went twelve miles farther west to visit the United States

Government astronomers at a place called Separation, the apex of the Great Divide,

where the waters run east to the Mississippi and west to the Pacific. Fox and I took our

Winchester rifles with an idea of doing a little shooting. After calling on the Government

people we started to interview the telegraph operator at this most lonely and desolate

spot. After talking over old acquaintances I asked him if there was any game around. He

said, `Plenty of jack-rabbits.' These jack-rabbits are a very peculiar species. They have

ears about six inches long and very slender legs, about three times as long as those of an

ordinary rabbit, and travel at a great speed by a series of jumps, each about thirty feet

long, as near as I could judge. The local people called them `narrow-gauge mules.'

Asking the operator the best direction, he pointed west, and noticing a rabbit in a clear

space in the sage bushes, I said, `There is one now.' I advanced cautiously to within one

hundred feet and shot. The rabbit paid no attention. I then advanced to within ten feet and

shot again--the rabbit was still immovable. On looking around, the whole crowd at the

station were watching--and then I knew the rabbit was stuffed! However, we did shoot a

number of live ones until Fox ran out of cartridges. On returning to the station I passed

away the time shooting at cans set on a pile of tins. Finally the operator said to Fox: `I

have a fine Springfield musket, suppose you try it!' So Fox took the musket and fired. It

knocked him nearly over. It seems that the musket had been run over by a handcar, which

slightly bent the long barrel, but not sufficiently for an amateur like Fox to notice. After

Fox had his shoulder treated with arnica at the Government hospital tent, we returned to

Rawlins."

The eclipse was, however, the prime consideration, and Edison followed the example of

his colleagues in making ready. The place which he secured for setting up his tasimeter

was an enclosure hardly suitable for the purpose, and he describes the results as follows:

"I had my apparatus in a small yard enclosed by a board fence six feet high, at one end

there was a house for hens. I noticed that they all went to roost just before totality. At the

same time a slight wind arose, and at the moment of totality the atmosphere was filled

with thistle-down and other light articles. I noticed one feather, whose weight was at least

one hundred and fifty milligrams, rise perpendicularly to the top of the fence, where it

floated away on the wind. My apparatus was entirely too sensitive, and I got no results."

It was found that the heat from the corona of the sun was ten times the index capacity of

the instrument; but this result did not leave the value of the device in doubt. The

Scientific American remarked;

"Seeing that the tasimeter is affected by a wider range of etheric undulations than the eye

can take cognizance of, and is withal far more acutely sensitive, the probabilities are that

it will open up hitherto inaccessible regions of space, and possibly extend the range of

aerial knowledge as far beyond the limit obtained by the telescope as that is beyond the

narrow reach of unaided vision."

The eclipse over, Edison, with Professor Barker, Major Thornberg, several soldiers, and a

number of railroad officials, went hunting about one hundred miles south of the railroad

in the Ute country. A few months later the Major and thirty soldiers were ambushed near

the spot at which the hunting-party had camped, and all were killed. Through an

introduction from Mr. Jay Gould, who then controlled the Union Pacific, Edison was

allowed to ride on the cow-catchers of the locomotives. "The different engineers gave me

a small cushion, and every day I rode in this manner, from Omaha to the Sacramento

Valley, except through the snow-shed on the summit of the Sierras, without dust or

anything else to obstruct the view. Only once was I in danger when the locomotive struck

an animal about the size of a small cub bear--which I think was a badger. This animal

struck the front of the locomotive just under the headlight with great violence, and was

then thrown off by the rebound. I was sitting to one side grasping the angle brace, so no

harm was done."

This welcome vacation lasted nearly two months; but Edison was back in his laboratory

and hard at work before the end of August, gathering up many loose ends, and trying out

many thoughts and ideas that had accumulated on the trip. One hot afternoon --August

30th, as shown by the document in the case--Mr. Edison was found by one of the authors

of this biography employed most busily in making a mysterious series of tests on paper,

using for ink acids that corrugated and blistered the paper where written upon. When

interrogated as to his object, he stated that the plan was to afford blind people the means

of writing directly to each other, especially if they were also deaf and could not hear a

message on the phonograph. The characters which he was thus forming on the paper were

high enough in relief to be legible to the delicate touch of a blind man's fingers, and with

simple apparatus letters could be thus written, sent, and read. There was certainly no

question as to the result obtained at the moment, which was all that was asked; but the

Edison autograph thus and then written now shows the paper eaten out by the acid used,

although covered with glass for many years. Mr. Edison does not remember that he ever

recurred to this very interesting test.