ose
totals increase from week to week.

The reader will naturally be disposed to ask whether it is intended to
claim that Edison has brought about all this magnificent growth of the
electric-lighting art. The answer to this is decidedly in the negative,
for the fact is that he laid some of the foundation and erected a
building thereon, and in the natural progressive order of things other
inventors of more or less fame have laid substructures or added a wing
here and a story there until the resultant great structure has attained
such proportions as to evoke the admiration of the beholder; but the old
foundation and the fundamental building still remain to support other
parts. In other words, Edison created the incandescent electric lamp,
and invented certain broad and fundamental systems of distribution
of current, with all the essential devices of detail necessary for
successful operation. These formed a foundation. He also spent great
sums of money and devoted several years of patient labor in the early
practical exploitation of the dynamo and central station and isolated
plants, often under, adverse and depressing circumstances, with a dogged
determination that outlived an opposition steadily threatening defeat.
These efforts resulted in the firm commercial establishment of modern
electric lighting. It is true that many important inventions of others
have a distinguished place in the art as it is exploited today, but the
fact remains that the broad essentials, such as the incandescent lamp,
systems of distribution, and some important details, are not only
universally used, but are as necessary to-day for successful commercial
practice as they were when Edison invented them many years ago.

The electric railway next claims our consideration, but we are
immediately confronted by a difficulty which seems insurmountable when
we attempt to formulate any definite estimate of the value and influence
of Edison's pioneer work and inventions. There is one incontrovertible
fact--namely, that he was the first man to devise, construct, and
operate from a central station a practicable, life-size electric
railroad, which was capable of transporting and did transport passengers
and freight at variable speeds over varying grades, and under complete
control of the operator. These are the essential elements in all
electric railroading of the present day; but while Edison's original
broad ideas are embodied in present practice, the perf