ch included a large induction-coil, was shipped from
Orange to New York, and on Saturday afternoon Edison, accompanied by
Fred Ott, one of his assistants, and myself, went over to install it so
as to have it ready for Monday morning. Had everything been normal, a
few hours would have sufficed for completion of the work, but on coming
to test the big coil, it was found to be absolutely out of commission,
having been so seriously injured as to necessitate its entire rewinding.
It being summer-time, all the machine shops were closed until Monday
morning, and there were several miles of wire to be wound on the coil.
Edison would not consider a postponement of the exhibition, so there was
nothing to do but go to work and wind it by hand. We managed to find
a lathe, but there was no power; so each of us, including Edison, took
turns revolving the lathe by pulling on the belt, while the other two
attended to the winding of the wire. We worked continuously all through
that Saturday night and all day Sunday until evening, when we finished
the job. I don't remember ever being conscious of more muscles in
my life. I guess Edison was tired also, but he took it very
philosophically." This was apparently the first public demonstration of
the X-ray to the American public.

Edison's ore-separation work has been already fully described, but the
story would hardly be complete without a reference to similar work
in gold extraction, dating back to the Menlo Park days: "I got up a
method," says Edison, "of separating placer gold by a dry process, in
which I could work economically ore as lean as five cents of gold to the
cubic yard. I had several car-loads of different placer sands sent to me
and proved I could do it. Some parties hearing I had succeeded in doing
such a thing went to work and got hold of what was known as the Ortiz
mine grant, twelve miles from Santa Fe, New Mexico. This mine, according
to the reports of several mining engineers made in the last forty years,
was considered one of the richest placer deposits in the United States,
and various schemes had been put forward to bring water from the
mountains forty miles away to work those immense beds. The reports
stated that the Mexicans had been panning gold for a hundred years out
of these deposits.

"These parties now made arrangements with the stockholders or owners of
the grant, and with me, to work the deposits by my process. As I had had
some previous experience with the