every visitor as he opened or closed the gate
added involuntarily to the supply in the reservoir. Two or three of the
houses were occupied by the families of members of the staff; in the
others boarders were taken, the laboratory, of course, furnishing all
the patrons. Near the railway station was a small saloon kept by an old
Scotchman named Davis, where billiards were played in idle moments,
and where in the long winter evenings the hot stove was a centre of
attraction to loungers and story-tellers. The truth is that there
was very little social life of any kind possible under the strenuous
conditions prevailing at the laboratory, where, if anywhere, relaxation
was enjoyed at odd intervals of fatigue and waiting.

The main laboratory was a spacious wooden building of two floors. The
office was in this building at first, until removed to the brick library
when that was finished. There S. L. Griffin, an old telegraph friend
of Edison, acted as his secretary and had charge of a voluminous and
amazing correspondence. The office employees were the Carman brothers
and the late John F. Randolph, afterwards secretary. According to Mr.
Francis Jehl, of Budapest, then one of the staff, to whom the writers
are indebted for a great deal of valuable data on this period: "It
was on the upper story of this laboratory that the most important
experiments were executed, and where the incandescent lamp was born.
This floor consisted of a large hall containing several long tables,
upon which could be found all the various instruments, scientific and
chemical apparatus that the arts at that time could produce. Books
lay promiscuously about, while here and there long lines of
bichromate-of-potash cells could be seen, together with experimental
models of ideas that Edison or his assistants were engaged upon. The
side walls of this hall were lined with shelves filled with bottles,
phials, and other receptacles containing every imaginable chemical and
other material that could be obtained, while at the end of this hall,
and near the organ which stood in the rear, was a large glass case
containing the world's most precious metals in sheet and wire form,
together with very rare and costly chemicals. When evening came on, and
the last rays of the setting sun penetrated through the side windows,
this hall looked like a veritable Faust laboratory.

"On the ground floor we had our testing-table, which stood on two large
pillars of brick built dee