a brought down to Canton bamboos of many species, where this
wondrously utilitarian reed enters very largely into the industrial life
of that people, and not merely into the industrial life, but even into
the culinary arts, for bamboo sprouts are a universal vegetable
in China; but among all the bamboos of China I found none of
superexcellence in carbonizing qualities. Japan came next in the
succession of countries to be explored, but there the work was much
simplified, from the fact that the Tokio Museum contains a complete
classified collection of all the different species in the empire, and
there samples could be obtained and tested.

"Now the last of the important bamboo-producing countries in the globe
circuit had been done, and the 'home-lap' was in order; the broad
Pacific was spanned in fourteen days; my natal continent in six; and
on the 22d of February, on the same day, at the same hour, at the
same minute, one year to a second, 'little Maude,' a sweet maid of the
school, led me across the line which completed the circuit of the globe,
and where I was greeted by the cheers of my boys and girls. I at once
reported to Mr. Edison, whose manner of greeting my return was as
characteristic of the man as his summary and matter-of-fact manner of my
dispatch. His little catechism of curious inquiry was embraced in four
small and intensely Anglo-Saxon words--with his usual pleasant smile he
extended his hand and said: 'Did you get it?' This was surely a summing
of a year's exploration not less laconic than Caesar's review of his
Gallic campaign. When I replied that I had, but that he must be the
final judge of what I had found, he said that during my absence he
had succeeded in making an artificial carbon which was meeting the
requirements satisfactorily; so well, indeed, that I believe no
practical use was ever made of the bamboo fibres thereafter.

"I have herein given a very brief resume of my search for fibre through
the Orient; and during my connection with that mission I was at all
times not less astonished at Mr. Edison's quick perception of conditions
and his instant decision and his bigness of conceptions, than I had
always been with his prodigious industry and his inventive genius.

"Thinking persons know that blatant men never accomplish much, and
Edison's marvellous brevity of speech along with his miraculous
achievements should do much to put bores and garrulity out of fashion."

Although Edison had inst