Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/461

Rh wheels and brakes. Far off one can see a great bridge-crane, its top lifted above the tree-line; and presently the cry of a child startles one into a quick view of "Summerville," a hamlet where the miners live.

This is Edison the place; where is Edison the man? "Probably over watching the steam shovel. He is always there. It seems to fascinate him. Follow the water-pipe through the cut," says one of his men. The iron water-pipe lies on the surface, and it leads in a tortuous manner between the numerous buildings and out into the open country. On the way over we receive our first impressions of this great system of ore production. Over to the right, lumbermen are cutting down trees and making the land ready for the steam shovel, which is tearing away at the rocks half a mile distant. Further over, on a half-cleared section, a great stream of water rushing through a hose with mighty force from a hydraulic pump is washing the débris free from the rock and leaving the latter bare of all vegetation. Still further along, the rattle of steam drills and the boom of dynamite tell where the rock is being riven into boulders and loaded on the five-ton skips, or trays, prior to being transmitted to the crushing-plant. The steam shovels do the work of loading, and as they have a capacity for lifting ten tons of free rock a minute, the local activity is tremendous; and the flat cars, carrying two skips each, move along at a lively speed. A long line of them is constantly leading up to the crushing-plant, where the big electric cranes rid them of their loads and a little switching engine pushes them around a loop and allows them to run down an incline into the cut again.

Edison, descried in the distance by means of his historic linen duster and his great country straw hat, is found sitting on a stone, peering earnestly down into a great trench from which the most surprising grunts, shrieks, whistlings, and queer noises generally are being emitted. It is the complaint of the steam shovel, than which there is no more human-like piece of mechanism in the world. Edison looks up pleasantly as you approach. His manner is encouraging. There is, as some one has said, the assurance of honesty in his strong, round face, and an attitude of democracy in his dirty duster, which makes you friends with him at once. There is no air of self-importance, which, after all, one could easily pardon in the man for whom the French people played our own National anthem on his entrance to the Paris Opera House—honored him, in fact, as they only honor kings. As you talk, he places his hand to his ear; but it is not to exclude the roar of the crushers, the whir of the conveyers, or the noise of the shovel. He is slightly deaf; a condition, however, which he regards more in the way of a boon than as a misfortune, for it excludes the small talk of those about him and enables him to concentrate his mind on whatever problem he may have in hand. His face, when his mind is bent on serious matters, reflects the deep import of his thoughts; but he is always ready to unbend, and his change of demeanor when some lighter vein of conversation is struck seems to come as a relief. He is as ready for a funny story as was Lincoln, and several of his best jokes are decidedly on himself. A query on a scientific subject reforms the wrinkles of thought on his face, and he becomes lost completely to all sight, sound, and feeling of the out-