2 1 4 HER OES OF INVENTION AND DISCO VER Y. 



consideration would bring him quantities of zinc, taken from 

 their respective homes. The station-master at Port Clements 

 taught him telegraphing, in gratitude for the rescue of his child, 

 Edison having snatched the infant from the front of an 

 advancing train. 



From this time he began to concentrate his energies and 

 turned his attention more closely to electricity. He became 

 thoroughly conversant with telegraphing, but as an ordinary 

 operator did not succeed ; his duties were forgotten or neglected 

 while he was deep in some experiment. 



The strong inventive bent of his mind carried him away, and 

 the close attention to the ordinary routine of work that was 

 necessary seemed impossible to him, hence his wanderings 

 from place to place. 



Some of his small inventions succeeded about this time ; but 

 his attempt to introduce a duplex system of telegraphy failed, 

 and he went to New York with his ardour damped. The tide 

 was about to turn in his favour, however. The Gold and Stock 

 Company were fortunate enough to secure his services, and a 

 useful invention of his which they adopted secured their favour. 



The Western Union Telegraph Company also gave him a 

 salary that they might get the benefit of his inventions in tele- 

 graphy. His success was now secured, and his inventive faculties 

 had full play. At Newark he took regular lessons in chemistry. 

 He married a Newark lady. Miss Mary Stillwell. In 1876 he 

 removed to Menlo Park, an hour's ride from New York on the 

 Pennsylvania Road. At a little distance from the village stands 

 a long white wooden building of two stories. This contains 

 the laboratory of this pioneer of a new age. Although it is 

 twenty-eight by one hundred feet in extent, it is already too 

 small for the needs of its owner. Many workmen o»d much 



