out to the world that Edison expected to invent a
generator of greater efficiency than any that existed at the time. Again
he was assailed and ridiculed by the technical press, for had not the
foremost electricians and physicists of Europe and America worked for
years on the production of dynamos and arc lamps as they then existed?
Even though this young man at Menlo Park had done some wonderful things
for telegraphy and telephony; even if he had recorded and reproduced
human speech, he had his limitations, and could not upset the settled
dictum of science that the internal resistance must equal the external
resistance.

Such was the trend of public opinion at the time, but "after Mr. Kruesi
had finished the first practical dynamo, and after Mr. Upton had tested
it thoroughly and verified his figures and results several times--for he
also was surprised--Edison was able to tell the world that he had made
a generator giving an efficiency of 90 per cent." Ninety per cent. as
against 40 per cent. was a mighty hit, and the world would not believe
it. Criticism and argument were again at their height, while Upton,
as Edison's duellist, was kept busy replying to private and public
challenges of the fact.... "The tremendous progress of the world in
the last quarter of a century, owing to the revolution caused by the
all-conquering march of 'Heavy Current Engineering,' is the outcome of
Edison's work at Menlo Park that raised the efficiency of the dynamo
from 40 per cent. to 90 per cent."

Mr. Upton sums it all up very precisely in his remarks upon this period:
"What has now been made clear by accurate nomenclature was then very
foggy in the text-books. Mr. Edison had completely grasped the effect
of subdivision of circuits, and the influence of wires leading to such
subdivisions, when it was most difficult to express what he knew in
technical language. I remember distinctly when Mr. Edison gave me the
problem of placing a motor in circuit in multiple arc with a fixed
resistance; and I had to work out the problem entirely, as I could
find no prior solution. There was nothing I could find bearing upon
the counter electromotive force of the armature, and the effect of the
resistance of the armature on the work given out by the armature. It was
a wonderful experience to have problems given me out of the intuitions
of a great mind, based on enormous experience in practical work, and
applying to new lines of progress. One of the ma