The automatic telegraph permits the sending of several thousand
words over the same wire in one minute.
[Illustration]
There are many others.
Do you wonder that he is called "The Wizard of Menlo Park?"
But his crowning discovery is the electric light.
Some gentlemen of New York put one hundred thousand dollars into Mr.
Edison's hands.
They told him to experiment until he could make a light which every
one would be glad to use.
Many had tried to do this and had not succeeded.
It is said that he tried two thousand substances for the arch in his
glass globe before he found one which suited him.
Do you know what he chose at last?
Do you remember the plant which the boys and girls of India, China,
and Japan know so well?
It is the bamboo.
And it was bamboo which Mr. Edison chose.
Oh, how glad this light made many people!
In ten cotton factories in one town were men, women, and children
working.
They worked in rooms where gas was used.
The gas injured their eyes and health.
Now in those same factories there are sixty thousand electric
lights.
The bamboo burns six hundred hours before it has to be replaced.
Would you like a picture of Mr. Edison?
Close your eyes then and think of him like this.
He is five feet ten inches high.
His face is boyish, but earnest.
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