Show INVENTIVE CAPITAL edison unlike tesla says little but accomplishes much he has in operation on the new jersey coast a plant for the mining and reduction of low grade iron ore the mechanical appliances irom air compressor drills and steam shovels at the iron quarries to the giant rolls and ingeniously contrived ore separators at the mills being products ot his fertile mind at first his experiments attracted little attention and the results of his practical tests received no serious thought from the great iron magnates of the east but now that the success of the wizards iron plant has been demonstrated and the product Is having material influence in the iron markets of pennsylvania and Is successfully competing with the high grade ores of the masaba mesaba range there Is some talk of the rock ef ellers and carnegles combining to crush the industry before it becomes a giant beyond their power of barm when edison was mada aware of the antagonism his success had aroused and was asked it he did not fear that combined wealth would wreck the industry he had built up at such a great cost of money time and inventive ability he made a reply that Is worth repeating verbatim indicating as it does the supreme confidence he possesses in the majesty of his genius and his contempt tor the forces the great capitalists may array against him he said the masaba mesaba range produces phenomenally no fine ore the men who own it dictate their freight rates within a certain sphere but that cuts no ice with us so tar as the eastern market Is concerned I 1 am building twenty five new houses and three big boarding houses when that Is done I 1 can greatly increase my output we reduce from 1800 to 2000 tons of gneiss rock a day at present it yields tons of briquettes of compressed powdered magnetic iron pure in form convenient tor smelling smelting sm elting with the lowest ble expenditure of fuel why can we lead the masaba mesaba ores in the market that Is simple the secret lies in the fact that from the time the rocks are drilled by compressed air blasted out loaded in to care by a steam shovel and hoisted to the breakers in mechanical skips and bricks it Is unnecessary for human labor to intervene until the finished briquettes are delivered by an automatic carrier to the railway cars the western miners may put their ores from tho car with a steam shovel tor nothing let the state pay them a of 25 cents per car and their associates socia tes make the freight rates as low AS the cost of carriage will allow I 1 can still beat them tor bessemer process in the eastern market here is an illustration of what mechanical ch anical ingenuity can accomplish the iron ore on which edison operates contains only 20 per cent of metallic iron yet he Is able to cuore than compete with the masaba mesaba range ore containing 60 per cent metallic iron the great success attending Edi sons efforts at mining and milling of base metal suggests the thought that should he give bis attention to the extraction and reduction of ores bearing precious metals be would revolutionize the mining industry of the west |