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Show r lifTi who has 1 MB MIRACLES IN ELECTRICITY, ; IfW AIDING THE UNITED STATES ., a Edison, who Is apply- cf v,nme to the war Prepara. - & 1 it he United States, Is the 0 H.tnmt inventor. The flood-'f flood-'f world with HKht second i n Sat of the sun Itself was one , ! l?Jni Rifts to humanity when fXXd the carbon filament lamp, : lJD h i captured the evanescent Hei nf Urn human voice through !: -fiocraph: n4 dictating ma f p m i Tcducad Uie cost of doing . V, bio dictagraph has been ) tori c, rceasMl In the dotectlpn of Vlnd through his Invention, 1 V nlrturos were made possible. ' TO early achievements In telo : W arTm no small measure roapon-lV?r roapon-lV?r the fact that today the hu-A hu-A nice may Pn continents, I wi improvements of the tele-' tele-' Tk' h Ke done wonders. The EdL Pftorarc battery has made a new I 2 In electricity and placed the & automobile on the market. A ' eJ.n M other Edison Inventions, all cf !ve added to the d P.i t comfort of living, for long ,: Pf Llt Renins vowed he would iS iaSto time on anything for J 8Sh there was not a practical use. ..' "Siblv there Is no man in Amer-1 Amer-1 J$fi life U w 11 of acblorjr ) nm February 11. 1847. at Milan, "I n Thomas Alva Edison received ex- J J u?ce months' schooling. - 'Too Sid to learn," his teachers said of I in and after this one experience he i JSincd bis education from his moth- Ij "and by reading any books he could tJSt young Thomas displayed his firtt Interest In chemistry and start-J start-J js first experiments, but lack of ' fads handicapped him. ! At 12 ho was working as a now3. vot on the trains of the Grand Trunk i jyjiffay, running between Port Huron ; ,id Detroit. 15 Jr added Journalism to his ? iftomplisliments, bought a press, ! which he Installed in the bRggase car cr tie train, and then wrote, set up iad told the Grand Trunk Herald. : Ttlch bo described as "The first and only newspaper ever published on a railroad train." The paper had over , 400 regular subscrlbors and ran forty weekly numbers. Its death was caused by tho elimination of Edison, who had set up a laboratory on the train and one day permitted a stick of phosphorus to fall upon the floor and set fire to tho car. Tho boy genius and all his belongings were thrown off the train at tho next stop, and for good measure tho conductor boxed Edison's, oars hard enough to cause the complete deafness from which he has ever since suffered. At 16 he had picked up onough telegraphy to enable him to secure a Job as operator at the Grand Trunk station at Stratford Junction, Can 1 ada. Although a ' good operator his mind-was more upon science and invention in-vention than business. On night ho failed to give tho proper signal and a small train "wreck resulted. Ho hurriedly hur-riedly loft the Dominion and went back to the United States and ba-.j came a roaming telegraph operator, j At Indianapolis he started work on his "repeater" which permits one j I message to be transfered from one , wire to another without the aid of an operator. At 17 ho wont to Memphis, whore he received $125 a month. Here he por. fooled his repeater, but ho was as carelqss as over about his daily Job and again lost it because of an ex. plosion in his office, resulting from one of his experiments. At 21 he had drifted -'to Boston, where he secured a Job as crack operator op-erator vjon the New York wire, and although he made good, his mind was entirely filled with his experiments. At 22 June 1, 1S69 Thomas Edison Ed-ison took out his first patent on an automatic voteecordlng apparatus, lie journeyed to the capital expecting to bo received with open arms, but was advised that Washington did not want such a device. At 2'i Thomas Edison camo to New York without a cent in his pock, et or a job in sight. That was In the days when gold indicators wore placed in the offices of New York brokers to show the fluctuations in the price of gold. One morning the indicators refused to work. The offices were In a turmoil when the unknown Edison walked in and said ho could fix the apparatus. He had the indicators running again in a jiffy and was promptly engaged as superintendent i at 5300 a month, and from that moment mo-ment his future was assured. lie improved im-proved the indicators, invented Uie stook printer and an automatic tele-graph tele-graph system, -which could sent and receive 3000 words a minute and r cord them in type . He completed other important work for the Western West-ern Union Telegraph company, for which ho roctrivod $40,000, and then ho started a laboratory of his own in Newark, N. J., where ho worked on a typewriter that developed into the Remington . At 2C he had completed tho invention inven-tion of his marveloun quadruplex system sys-tem of telegraphy, which has saved millions of dolars and dispensed with 'bousands of miles of poles and wires. nl had also Invented tho mimeograph. mimeo-graph. At 20 he organized his famous os-. tabllshment at Menlo Park, N. J.. 2-1 miles' from New York Olty, and started start-ed experiments on a larger scale than ever before, working eighteen hours a day and sometimes -more. Here , he completed the Invention of his phonograph and his wonderful carbon car-bon telephone receiver, which has played. such an important part in the progress of the telephone. Hero he began his greatest achievement the invention of the carbon filament lamp. This was probably the hardest invention Edison ever made For years ho tried to get the proper material ma-terial for use as a filament inside the glass bulb. Ho ransacked the world , and at one time made filament of bamboo that had been brought from Japan. At 35 Edison had succeeded in establishing es-tablishing the first olectrlc lighting plant in Now York. lie not only superintended su-perintended the building of the plant, but went into the trenches to see that his tubp conductors were laid properly. proper-ly. At the end of the year 225 office buildings In Now York were wired for elegtrlclty. Then followed the introduction intro-duction of central stations, the invention inven-tion of tho electric meter' and other devices for the improvement of electric elec-tric lighting. Since then Edison has completed epoch-making inventions with unfailing unfail-ing regularity Lon.g ago he made somo wonderful electric railway experiments, ex-periments, which were followed by his wonderful inventions for the manufacture man-ufacture of cement and the perfection j of hundreds of other devices -which J have revolutionized many industries. Today, at 70, Thomas Edison is ' working as hard as ever, but now ho fs devoting all his time to tho require. , ment3 of Uncle Sam. He has completed com-pleted the Edlson-SIms torpedo, lm-1 portant wireless apparatus and somo wonderful submarine devices. It is generally believed that he has completed com-pleted many Important contrivances which will raatrially aid the United States in the prosecution of the war. Thomas A. Edison is one of this coun. try's greatest assets in the fight for civilization. |