194 



NA TURE 



[June 27, 1895 



about 1876, as to who invented the carbon telephone 

 transmitter, and we are told that the Edison carbon trans- 

 mitter "held the monopoly of the telephone in England 

 for many years." In the next chapter, " the pretensions 

 of his rival " are touched on, and Edison's remark, that 

 " one of the biggest steals ever made was filched directly 

 from my telephone," is quoted. 



"The individual mistress of Edison's heart until 

 now had been science, but a new potency was at hand 

 equally strong, but immeasurably more subtle and all- 

 pervading." Then the authors drop into poctr>', which 

 they have a way of doing on all possible occasions. Later 

 on we are told that " prior to his marriage Edison por- 

 tioned out the hours of sleeping and waking by the ebb 

 and flow of the Divine afflatus," and that his " blood after 

 having served the purpose of stimulating the capillar)- 

 vessels of the brain, and inducing inventive capacity, soon 

 retreats quietly to its legitimate source." We note in this 

 chapter references to " Mrs. Noah's superior faculties," 

 the Roman Empire, Carthage and her glor>-, a Phoenician 

 axiom, and a disquisition on " the sickly and mercurial 

 sentimentality of the Oriental and Latinic races," " the 

 Plutonian broths of Sparta," " the delicious pastoral 

 flavour to the Allegrello and the Lycidas." We presume 

 Milton's title " I'.-Vllegro " was not long enough for the 

 authors ; and all this while Edison has been left gazing 

 at a test-tulie in a large photograph on page 95 of this 

 book. 



By 1876 forty-five of his distinct inventions were in dif- 

 ferent processes of completion ; ^100,000 had been realised 

 from the manufacture and the sale of patents ; and the 

 throng of sight-seers to Edison's laboratory at Newark 

 became so great that he niovcd to .Menlo Park, twenty- 

 four miles from New York, and stacked there his " cases 

 of every ordinary and cxtraordinar>- device born of that 

 prolific parent, necessity." 



The first sketch of the phonograph, on p. 1 23, is of real 

 interest, for we regard the phonograph as scientifically 

 the greatest of Edison's achieveinents, in that Edison 

 accomplished with its use, in an extremely simple way, 

 what the previous elaborate talking-machines could not 

 perform. But why the microscopic examination of the 

 tin-foil showed that " the feminine members of the 

 alphabet were less aggressive in their outlines than their 

 masculine coadjutors," or why the "long E vindicated her 

 rights to female enfranchisement," we know not. 



IJcscriptions of various forms of phonographs, phono- 

 graphic dolls, &c.. take us to the end of chapter xi. 

 Chapter xii. is devoted to telegraphing from trains in 

 motion, a subject that is certainly worthy of more con- 

 sideration than it has yet received, and to Edison's pyro- 

 magnetic motor, which, from its principle of construction, 

 could never have Ixien comnicrcially successful. 



The chapters on the development of the glow-lamp by 

 Edison, and those associated with him, are some of the 

 most interesting in this book. Phlegmatic indeed must 

 be the reader who does not feel inspired by the enthu- 

 siasm which led Edison to despatch .Mr. Moore to search 

 through China and Japan, Mr. McCowan to explore the 

 American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and 

 Mr. Kicalton to seek in India, Ceylon, and the neighbour- 

 ing countries for a vegetable fibre suitable for being car- 

 Imniscd into a glow-lamp filament. But, if the reader be 



NO. 1.339 VOL. 52] 



of a critical temperament, liis pleasure at reading the 

 account of these explorations will be diminished by the 

 many faults which mar the description. 



For example, the large picture on p. 217 of " Cingalese 

 Women, photographed by Mr. Ricalton in his Search 

 for Fibre," was never taken in Ceylon, since it is 

 ob\iously a photograph of a group of Japtmcsc girls 

 posed in front of a theatrical back scene. One of these girls 

 ^s sitting on a Western rustic garden-chair; so, perhaps, the 

 photograph was taken in New York or Paris, on the 

 principle followed by the special correspondent in the 

 Soudan war, whose envelopes bore the St. John's Wood 

 post-mark. Oddly enough, the book contains several 

 other photographs of Cingalese people taken by Mr. 

 Ricalton : but the authors do not seem to have been struck 

 with the fact that a comparatively small isUuul like Ceylon 

 should have possessed inhalsitants of sucli a variety ol 

 dititerent types. 



A great deal of tall talk follows about Edison s 

 work on the dynamo machine. " All ! potent wizard, 

 you shame the records of the .Arabian nights and the 

 fabled glories of the East," &c., with the following sur- 

 prising bit of information for the Englishman : " To-day 

 there is not a hamlet in England, however insignificant, 

 which is not in \ital connection with the central sources 

 of supply," that is, has electric energy supplied to it from 

 a central electric light station. Passing over pages of 

 grandiloquence, we come to a long description of Edison's- 

 factory and laboratories at Orange. The pictures remind 

 us of what we ourselves saw when visiting Edison, but we 

 have no recollection that in the laboratory "fragrant 

 gums and spices recall memories of the fair Babe of 

 Bethlehem." In fact, what we chiefly remember was our 

 surprise at the large number of phonographs which we 

 saw in course of manufacture, and Edison's sallies of 

 laughter at the simplicity of the English in t>cing st> 

 easily gulled by limited liability companies. 



Although this book is in parts as silly as anything we 

 have ever read, it is nevertheless full of interest ; for it 

 gives a graphic picture of the struggles and success of 

 one who is certainly remarkable for his quickness of 

 insight, originality, and capacity for long stretches of 

 hard work, even if we do not agree with the authors that 

 he is " the greatest genius of this or any other age." Even 

 if we were not told on the title-page that the book was 

 written by W. K. L. and Antonia Dickson, we should feel 

 quite sure that it was a joint production, one of the 

 authors being Edison's superintendent of the experimental 

 department in New York, and the other a poctir 

 rhapsodist who has never read her " Mark Twain." 1 In 

 illustrations arc well executed, the printing and |)aper 

 good, and the general get-up of the book all that can be 

 desired of an expensive quarto volume to lie on thi: draw- 

 ing-room table. But why was it not edited ? asks the 

 English reader. " '*• I^- 



CRIMINAL IDENTIFICA TION. 

 Finger-print Directories. By Francis C.alton, I'.R.S, 

 (London : Macmillan and Co., 1895.) 



IT will be remembered that the Departmental Committee 

 which re])orted in the beginning of last year upon 

 the best method of identifying haljilual criminals, re- 



