very little incandescent lighting, for the
simple reason that there was very little to see. Johnson had had a
few Edison lamps in London, lit up from primary batteries, as a
demonstration; and in the summer of 1880 Swan had had a few series
lamps burning in London. In New York a small gas-engine plant was being
started at the Edison offices on Fifth Avenue. But out at Menlo Park
there was the first actual electric-lighting central station, supplying
distributed incandescent lamps and some electric motors by means of
underground conductors imbedded in asphaltum and surrounded by a wooden
box. Mr. Insull says: "The system employed was naturally the two-wire,
as at that time the three-wire had not been thought of. The lamps
were partly of the horseshoe filament paper-carbon type, and partly
bamboo-filament lamps, and were of an efficiency of 95 to 100 watts per
16 c.p. I can never forget the impression that this first view of the
electric-lighting industry produced on me. Menlo Park must always be
looked upon as the birthplace of the electric light and power industry.
At that time it was the only place where could be seen an electric
light and power multiple arc distribution system, the operation of which
seemed as successful to my youthful mind as the operation of one of the
large metropolitan systems to-day. I well remember about ten o'clock
that night going down to the Menlo Park depot and getting the station
agent, who was also the telegraph operator, to send some cable messages
for me to my London friends, announcing that I had seen Edison's
incandescent lighting system in actual operation, and that so far as I
could tell it was an accomplished fact. A few weeks afterward I received
a letter from one of my London friends, who was a doubting Thomas,
upbraiding me for coming so soon under the spell of the 'Yankee
inventor.'"

It was to confront and deal with just this element of doubt in London
and in Europe generally, that the dispatch of Johnson to England and of
Batchelor to France was intended. Throughout the Edison staff there
was a mingled feeling of pride in the work, resentment at the doubts
expressed about it, and keen desire to show how excellent it was.
Batchelor left for Paris in July, 1881--on his second trip to Europe
that year--and the exhibit was made which brought such an instantaneous
recognition of the incalculable value of Edison's lighting inventions,
as evidenced by the awards and rewards immediat