ot value myself at above fifteen hundred dollars. Edison laughed and
said that he would assume the risk, and another point was settled. The
next matter was the financing of the trip, about which Mr. Edison asked
in a tentative way about the rates to the East. I told him the expense
of such a trip could not be determined beforehand in detail, but that I
had established somewhat of a reputation for economic travel, and that
I did not believe any traveller could surpass me in that respect. He
desired no further assurance in that direction, and thereupon ordered a
letter of credit made out with authorization to order a second when the
first was exhausted. Herein then are set forth in briefest space the
preliminaries of a circuit of the globe in quest of fibre.

"It so happened that the day on which I set out fell on Washington's
Birthday, and I suggested to my boys and girls at school that they make
a line across the station platform near the school at Maplewood,
and from this line I would start eastward around the world, and if
good-fortune should bring me back I would meet them from the westward at
the same line. As I had often made them 'toe the scratch,' for once they
were only too well pleased to have me toe the line for them.

"This was done, and I sailed via England and the Suez Canal to Ceylon,
that fair isle to which Sindbad the Sailor made his sixth voyage,
picturesquely referred to in history as the 'brightest gem in the
British Colonial Crown.' I knew Ceylon to be eminently tropical; I knew
it to be rich in many varieties of the bamboo family, which has been
called the king of the grasses; and in this family had I most hope of
finding the desired fibre. Weeks were spent in this paradisiacal isle.
Every part was visited. Native wood craftsmen were offered a premium on
every new species brought in, and in this way nearly a hundred species
were tested, a greater number than was found in any other country. One
of the best specimens tested during the entire trip around the world was
found first in Ceylon, although later in Burmah, it being indigenous
to the latter country. It is a gigantic tree-grass or reed growing in
clumps of from one to two hundred, often twelve inches in diameter, and
one hundred and fifty feet high, and known as the giant bamboo (Bambusa
gigantia). This giant grass stood the highest test as a carbon, and on
account of its extraordinary size and qualities I extend it this special
mention. With o