han the motor, permitted large logs of oak timber to be sawed with ease
with the use of two small cells of battery. Edison's friend, General
Lefferts, had become excited and was determined to invest a large sum
of money in the motor company, but knowing Edison's intimate familiarity
with all electrical subjects he was wise enough to ask his young expert
to go and see the motor with him. At an appointed hour Edison went to
the office of the motor company and found there the venerable Professor
Morse, Governor Cornell, General Lefferts, and many others who had been
invited to witness a performance of the motor. They all proceeded to the
room where the motor was at work. Payne put a wire in the binding-post
of the battery, the motor started, and an assistant began sawing a heavy
oak log. It worked beautifully, and so great was the power developed,
apparently, from the small battery, that Morse exclaimed: "I am thankful
that I have lived to see this day." But Edison kept a close watch on the
motor. The results were so foreign to his experience that he knew there
was a trick in it. He soon discovered it. While holding his hand on the
frame of the motor he noticed a tremble coincident with the exhaust of
an engine across the alleyway, and he then knew that the power came from
the engine by a belt under the floor, shifted on and off by a magnet,
the other magnets being a blind. He whispered to the General to put
his hand on the frame of the motor, watch the exhaust, and note the
coincident tremor. The General did so, and in about fifteen seconds he
said: "Well, Edison, I must go now. This thing is a fraud." And thus
he saved his money, although others not so shrewdly advised were easily
persuaded to invest by such a demonstration.

A few years later, in 1878, Edison went to Wyoming with a group of
astronomers, to test his tasimeter during an eclipse of the sun, and
saw the land white to harvest. He noticed the long hauls to market or
elevator that the farmers had to make with their loads of grain at great
expense, and conceived the idea that as ordinary steam-railroad service
was too costly, light electric railways might be constructed that could
be operated automatically over simple tracks, the propelling motors
being controlled at various points. Cheap to build and cheap to
maintain, such roads would be a great boon to the newer farming regions
of the West, where the highways were still of the crudest character, and
where tra