e. About four
hours before the steamer had to get it, the machine was shut down after
the test, and a schedule was made out in advance of what each man had
to do. Sixty men were put on top of the dynamo to get it ready, and each
man had written orders as to what he was to perform. We got it all taken
apart and put on trucks and started off. They drove the horses with a
fire-bell in front of them to the French pier, the policemen lining
the streets. Fifty men were ready to help the stevedores get it on the
steamer--and we were one hour ahead of time."

This Exposition brings us, indeed, to a dramatic and rather pathetic
parting of the ways. The hour had come for the old laboratory force that
had done such brilliant and memorable work to disband, never again to
assemble under like conditions for like effort, although its members all
remained active in the field, and many have ever since been associated
prominently with some department of electrical enterprise. The fact
was they had done their work so well they must now disperse to show
the world what it was, and assist in its industrial exploitation. In
reality, they were too few for the demands that reached Edison from
all parts of the world for the introduction of his system; and in the
emergency the men nearest to him and most trusted were those upon whom
he could best depend for such missionary work as was now required.
The disciples full of fire and enthusiasm, as well as of knowledge and
experience, were soon scattered to the four winds, and the rapidity
with which the Edison system was everywhere successfully introduced is
testimony to the good judgment with which their leader had originally
selected them as his colleagues. No one can say exactly just how this
process of disintegration began, but Mr. E. H. Johnson had already been
sent to England in the Edison interests, and now the question arose as
to what should be done with the French demands and the Paris Electrical
Exposition, whose importance as a point of new departure in electrical
industry was speedily recognized on both sides of the Atlantic. It is
very interesting to note that as the earlier staff broke up, Edison
became the centre of another large body, equally devoted, but more
particularly concerned with the commercial development of his ideas. Mr.
E. G. Acheson mentions in his personal notes on work at the laboratory,
that in December of 1880, while on some experimental work, he was called
to the ne