ely bestowed upon him. He
was made an officer of the Legion of Honor, and Prof. George F. Barker
cabled as follows from Paris, announcing the decision of the expert jury
which passed upon the exhibits: "Accept my congratulations. You have
distanced all competitors and obtained a diploma of honor, the highest
award given in the Exposition. No person in any class in which you were
an exhibitor received a like reward."

Nor was this all. Eminent men in science who had previously expressed
their disbelief in the statements made as to the Edison system were now
foremost in generous praise of his notable achievements, and accorded
him full credit for its completion. A typical instance was M. Du Moncel,
a distinguished electrician, who had written cynically about Edison's
work and denied its practicability. He now recanted publicly in this
language, which in itself shows the state of the art when Edison came
to the front: "All these experiments achieved but moderate success, and
when, in 1879, the new Edison incandescent carbon lamp was announced,
many of the scientists, and I, particularly, doubted the accuracy of
the reports which came from America. This horseshoe of carbonized
paper seemed incapable to resist mechanical shocks and to maintain
incandescence for any considerable length of time. Nevertheless, Mr.
Edison was not discouraged, and despite the active opposition made to
his lamp, despite the polemic acerbity of which he was the object, he
did not cease to perfect it; and he succeeded in producing the lamps
which we now behold exhibited at the Exposition, and are admired by all
for their perfect steadiness."

The competitive lamps exhibited and tested at this time comprised those
of Edison, Maxim, Swan, and Lane-Fox. The demonstration of Edison's
success stimulated the faith of his French supporters, and rendered
easier the completion of plans for the Societe Edison Continental, of
Paris, formed to operate the Edison patents on the Continent of Europe.
Mr. Batchelor, with Messrs. Acheson and Hipple, and one or two other
assistants, at the close of the Exposition transferred their energies
to the construction and equipment of machine-shops and lamp factories
at Ivry-sur-Seine for the company, and in a very short time the
installation of plants began in various countries--France, Italy,
Holland, Belgium, etc.

All through 1881 Johnson was very busy, for his part, in England. The
first "Jumbo" Edison dynamo had gone