SPE
ECTION
FOR HONGKO
As the train burst in flames one of the world's really great men was on his way to everlasting fame
FIREL
Illustrated by Peter Jackson WITH its bell clanging desperately the train
lurched to a stop at Smith's Creek station. Flames were licking from the baggage car.
The engineer leapt from his cab and raced back down the line to help the conductor fight the fire. The station agent came running with a pail of water.
In a few minutes the panic was over. The flames had sub- sided. The engineer wiped his brow and went back to his cab. Then, down the high steps of the baggage car, pushed by the strong hands of the conductor, was bundled the dishevelled
figure of a 15-year-old boy.
'Stay off'
"Get off and stay off and don't ever come back, roared the red faced conductor. He disap- peared inside, then returned to the steps to bombard the boy with a strange collection of articles, a bundle of newspapers, a load of vegetables, part of a printing press, jars of chemicals and scientific equipment.
As the train disappeared, the conductor still shaking his fist at the boy he had thrown off; the boy began to gather his scat- tered possessions.
He could not have guessed that he had just broken up the first laboratory of a coy who was to become one of the world's greatest scientists, the man who made electricity the useful ser- vant it is today,
across a textbook intended for adults. He built himmelf- a laboratory in the cellar of his home and did almost every ex- periment in the book.
Edison snatched her up
He did not go to school; his mother, a former schoolteacher taught him. His father had a Edison was almost deaf. His few seconds · when an electric. A year of two later in 1882 grain business.
deafness began one day when he curent was passed through them.-Edison pressed a mains switch Soon Edison was needing more nearly missed a train while He set out to find a material that and lit 14,000 lamps in 900 New money than his parents could working as a newsboy. Some-, would shine longer. He car- York houses which had sari-bed- at 12 he got a job as a newsboy and pulled him aboard as it was bamboo, coconut shells, human lamp. give him to buy chemicals. So one on the train grabbed his hand banised anything and everything, from gas to the new Edison
moving off.
on a train. His job was to col- lect newspapers at one station
Wholesale He began to buy vegetables wholesale and sell them along the line.
-
Something in his hair. cars went.
But his deafness did not pre-
The
mains switch
Loose button
Ghost light of north Texas
Edison built 'kinetoscops to and sell them at stations further
show movie films, combining it along the line. Edison varied vent him becoming an ace tele-
with a phonograph to mak: en what he charged for a paper ac graphist. When he began work One day he pulled a "ose but- amusement arcadę. Kideshow in cording to what was in the news. in Boston his colleagues got an ten from his jacket. Then he which turning a handle provided with the Civil War blowing up operator in New York to send a looked at the thread if his hand. action and music; it was a fɔre- he did well and was soon em- Press message to the new boy at. He carbonised the thread and put runner of the cinema. ploying other newsboys on other fat out speed. They thought it it in a vacuum bulb. He switch. Altogether Edison fled more trains.
would be funny to watch Edison ed on the current. It glowed than 1,300 patents of many dif- in a panic.
brightly. How long would it ferent kinds. When workir 3 en Edison realised what was give off, this light? A minute? an idea be would work day and"
An hour passed. night, matching sleep when he The conductor could not have
happening but kept pace casily. Ten minutes? When the guessed that 67 years later, in
New York operator Two hours, Edison sat staring needed it on a laboratory table. His business thrived.
"is one 1929, the boy, as an old man, He bought a printing press and
began to tire Edison flashed him at the bulb. He could not go to "Genius," he declared was to be escorted, most polite- began to print his own news-
a message: "Try sending with bed. He smoked big cigars and pèr cent inspiration and 99 per drank black coffee. And waited. cent perspiration.” He wa ly, from a train at this same paper, the Weekly Herald, in the
your other, foot."
Edison soon moved on to New The bulb burned 45 hours. genius by any standard. Michigan station by the Presl-baggage car of the traim ·
York himself: He arrived with dent of the United States, Her- But chemistry. was still his
in his pocket. A bert Hoover.
che dollar main interest. He spent all the friend, who was a telegraphist in money he earned on chemicals Wall Street, let him sleep in a and apparatus. He had his own celler at his office until he found laboratory in the baggage car.
a jcb. The train crews were amused at the boy's business. 'Until the day the train hurched, he dropped a stick of phosphorus and the
On his third day there Edison baggage car went up in flames...
round the A few months
was having a look later he was
building. The firm sent out gold standing at * another station, Mount Clemens, watching shunt ing.
Suddenly here was confusion An engine sent a goods
passed since the set- waggon rattling towards a sid- everywhere. Stockbrokers' mes- Hers north of Texas'
arriving in hun- ing. Across the rails in front of sengers were the waggon was crawling a small dreds complaining the tickers Bend National Park first figure...the stationmaster's baby were not working. The transmit-reported a mysterious light.
ter had broken down.
weird No one It glittered like a daughter. Edison raced across
The head of the could fix it.. the rails, snatched her up and threw himself to safety. The firm was dancing up and down, eye from an isolated peak truck passed so closely that it calling for experts to be found, in the Chinati Mountains.
when Edison almost grazed his boot.
stepped forward “I think I can mend brilliance; travellers along US. The stationmaster was natural and said: ly full of gratitude.
he was technical supervisor of and Marfa,
Edison did so. An hour later Highway 90, between Alpine can still see it most any - night. Replied Edison: "Please could
A year later he in-plainly vented a new ticker system. Strangely enough, no one even you teach me telegraphy?" The stationmaster did. It was the The frin paid him 40,000 dollars Bow knows what it is, where boy's first contact with electrical for it and with the money Edison it criginates, or why it shines.- apparatus. He learned fast. He opened his own laboratories. got a job in a railway telegraph of improvements in telegraphy. He began by devising all sorts cffice. And his first invention
He invented an automatic was born, the first of more than
Alt the conductor knew was that this boy had set fire to his train.
The boy was Thomas Alva Edi- sen, known to his friends as Al. He became interested in science when as a nine-year-old he came
The 17-21
Club's
five rules
• Membership in the 17-21. Club is open to all within that age group.
"What can I do to show, my
thanks?" he asked.
2,000.
The breakdown
still puzzles after a century
prices on a ticker tape service. ALMOST a century has
it."
the firm.
Time has not dimmed
Vanishes
!
Big
its
transmission and repeater Countless persons have search be a large exposed lode which system. He turned to railwayed for this ghost light without would most certainly have been signalling systems. Alexander success, When it is approached discovered long before now.
Others think that huniscus Graham Bell invented - the from the air or across the searing
• Contributions and all ac- tivities of the Club will
telephone. Edison made a new floor of the desert, it suddenly 23, similar to the kind brown To check that the staff were and better microphone.
24 "Swamp gis," might be re- vanishes. be limited to members awake and alert at night the
At night the strange light-sponsible, head office required them to only.
He turned to a system of re- twinkles in the distance like a send the Morse signal for 6 re- cording sound, built a gadgetstar that has come to rest en Contributions may consist gularly every hour,
with a handle, an ear trumpet the mountain slope. An Indian" Edison's 6 always came in on end a cylinder round which was legend has it that it is a camp-
snow..."
Mirage?
of anything that is time.
But one night the head wrapped a piece of tinfoil, He fire kindled by an ancient Some believe that the light publishable articles, cffice had occasion to call him turned the handle and said into Apache ghost condemned to is a mirage. It's time that in letters, stories, photo-back and got no reply. Some the trumpet, "Mary had a little roam the high mountain trails verse mirages require a special graphs, drawings, verses. one was sent to see if he was lamb, its fleece was white as forever.
type-of. stratified., air such, an all right.
abounds in the Chinatis, But only the best will
The boy was happily sleeping.
It is pale compared with the be printed.
He had invented an attachment He put the needle back to the light of a star and aften ap- It is also true that mirages aro to the station clock that slant beginning, wound away again: pears as a double light.: And one reflections of distant artificial All contributions MUST the signal automatically every and back came the words, "Mary minute it can be a tiny, almost lights. And 106 TELE" BED, the be original.
had a little lamb..." It was the | huvisible sparkle, the next a brightest : light in this, part of
· Edison was sacked. But he first time the human voice had| vivik: spliah brighter than any -America was a kerosene lantern.- Written contributions sopu got another job. Now he been recorded.
zutomobile Headlight. At other. Some day, perhaps, someone should not consist of invented a device for counting But now Edison was working times, there is nợ light at all. will unravel the mystery. But more than 350 words, les electrically in the House of to find an electric light bulb One explanation is that the för one century, at least, the photographs and draw Representatives, America's Par which would rival gas, for light is a reflection of the mecz Chinati afountains have guarded
hament. It was good but the lighting.
from an undiscovered mier their secret welf: ings will only be accept politicians preferred the tradi- Edison noticed that strips of vein. But to allow reflection ed in black-and-white.
-H.; N. - Ferguson -- carbonized paper glowed for ato move, the vein would have to
hour.
tional methods of voting.