es of space. His trip has been
already described. He was absent about two months. Coming home rested
and refreshed, Mr. Edison says: "After my return from the trip to
observe the eclipse of the sun, I went with Professor Barker, Professor
of Physics in the University of Pennsylvania, and Doctor Chandler,
Professor of Chemistry in Columbia College, to see Mr. Wallace, a large
manufacturer of brass in Ansonia, Connecticut. Wallace at this time was
experimenting on series arc lighting. Just at that time I wanted to take
up something new, and Professor Barker suggested that I go to work and
see if I could subdivide the electric light so it could be got in small
units like gas. This was not a new suggestion, because I had made a
number of experiments on electric lighting a year before this. They had
been laid aside for the phonograph. I determined to take up the search
again and continue it. On my return home I started my usual course of
collecting every kind of data about gas; bought all the transactions
of the gas-engineering societies, etc., all the back volumes of gas
journals, etc. Having obtained all the data, and investigated gas-jet
distribution in New York by actual observations, I made up my mind that
the problem of the subdivision of the electric current could be solved
and made commercial." About the end of August, 1878, he began his second
organized attack on the subdivision of the current, which was steadily
maintained until he achieved signal victory a year and two months later.

The date of this interesting visit to Ansonia is fixed by an inscription
made by Edison on a glass goblet which he used. The legend in diamond
scratches runs: "Thomas A. Edison, September 8, 1878, made under the
electric light." Other members of the party left similar memorials,
which under the circumstances have come to be greatly prized. A number
of experiments were witnessed in arc lighting, and Edison secured
a small Wallace-Farmer dynamo for his own work, as well as a set of
Wallace arc lamps for lighting the Menlo Park laboratory. Before leaving
Ansonia, Edison remarked, significantly: "Wallace, I believe I can beat
you making electric lights. I don't think you are working in the right
direction." Another date which shows how promptly the work was resumed
is October 14, 1878, when Edison filed an application for his first
lighting patent: "Improvement in Electric Lights." In after years,
discussing the work of Wallace, who was no