the preparation of various
combinations, some of which are boiling or otherwise cooking under their
dexterous manipulation.

It would not require many visits to discover that in this room, also,
Edison has a favorite nook. Down at the far end in a corner are a plain
little table and chair, and here he is often to be found deeply immersed
in a study of the many experiments that are being conducted. Not
infrequently he is actively engaged in the manipulation of some compound
of special intricacy, whose results might be illuminative of obscure
facts not patent to others than himself. Here, too, is a select little
library of chemical literature.

The next building, No. 3, has a double mission--the farther half being
partitioned off for a pattern-making shop, while the other half is used
as a store-room for chemicals in quantity and for chemical apparatus
and utensils. A grimly humorous incident, as related by one of the
laboratory staff, attaches to No. 3. It seems that some time ago one of
the helpers in the chemical department, an excitable foreigner,
became dissatisfied with his wages, and after making an unsuccessful
application for an increase, rushed in desperation to Edison, and said
"Eef I not get more money I go to take ze cyanide potassia." Edison gave
him one quick, searching glance and, detecting a bluff, replied in an
offhand manner: "There's a five-pound bottle in No. 3," and turned to
his work again. The foreigner did not go to get the cyanide, but gave up
his job.

The last of these original buildings, No. 4, was used for many years
in Edison's ore-concentrating experiments, and also for rough-and-ready
operations of other kinds, such as furnace work and the like. At the
present writing it is used as a general stock-room.

In the foregoing details, the reader has been afforded but a passing
glance at the great practical working equipment which constitutes the
theatre of Edison's activities, for, in taking a general view of such a
unique and comprehensive laboratory plant, its salient features only can
be touched upon to advantage. It would be but repetition to enumerate
here the practical results of the laboratory work during the past two
decades, as they appear on other pages of this work. Nor can one assume
for a moment that the history of Edison's laboratory is a closed book.
On the contrary, its territorial boundaries have been increasing step by
step with the enlargement of its labors, until now it