o is sufficiently interested can obtain copies
of any of the patents referred to for five cents each by addressing the
Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. C.

APPENDIX

I. THE STOCK PRINTER

IN these modern days, when the Stock Ticker is in universal use, one
seldom, if ever, hears the name of Edison coupled with the little
instrument whose chatterings have such tremendous import to the whole
world. It is of much interest, however, to remember the fact that it
was by reason of his notable work in connection with this device that he
first became known as an inventor. Indeed, it was through the intrinsic
merits of his improvements in stock tickers that he made his real entree
into commercial life.

The idea of the ticker did not originate with Edison, as we have already
seen in Chapter VII of the preceding narrative, but at the time of his
employment with the Western Union, in Boston, in 1868, the crudities of
the earlier forms made an impression on his practical mind, and he got
out an improved instrument of his own, which he introduced in
Boston through the aid of a professional promoter. Edison, then only
twenty-one, had less business experience than the promoter, through
whose manipulation he soon lost his financial interest in this early
ticker enterprise. The narrative tells of his coming to New York in
1869, and immediately plunging into the business of gold and stock
reporting. It was at this period that his real work on stock printers
commenced, first individually, and later as a co-worker with F. L. Pope.
This inventive period extended over a number of years, during which time
he took out forty-six patents on stock-printing instruments and devices,
two of such patents being issued to Edison and Pope as joint inventors.
These various inventions were mostly in the line of development of the
art as it progressed during those early years, but out of it all came
the Edison universal printer, which entered into very extensive use,
and which is still used throughout the United States and in some foreign
countries to a considerable extent at this very day.

Edison's inventive work on stock printers has left its mark upon the art
as it exists at the present time. In his earlier work he directed his
attention to the employment of a single-circuit system, in which only
one wire was required, the two operations of setting the type-wheels
and of printing being controlled by separate electromagnets which