SIX IDEAS A TIME

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 184, 2 May 1931, Page 23

SIX IDEAS A TIME

Edison’s Ten Hours a Day at Eighty-four

Mr. Charles Edison, a son of the famous inventor, has just left London after a visit in connection with his father’s activities. In an interview with a “Sunday Express” representative lie revealed some of the details of his father’s'- latest work, and threw som6 fascinating and intimate sidelights on the life of the Grand Old Man of Science. “My father works nine to ten hours a day. although he is eighty-four,” said Mr. Edison. “It is impossible, to get him away, even for meals, if he has once started working but an idea. In spite of this, his health and faculties remain unimpaired. “He has for some time believed that rubber can be extracted from the leaves of plants, and in order to discover the most suitable specimen he had to analyse more than 22,000 different varieties. So far he finds that the most successful specimen is a plant known as Golden Rod growing in California. Its yellow flowers are sometimes found on a twelve-foot stem. “He is also inventing a special apparatus for extracting the rubber by the most economic method. . He believes that the manufacture and sale of the various by-products will lower the cost of production, and therefore reduce the price of rubber by 50 per. cent. “Jly father has an experimental facin Florida, where he is assisted by a staff of fifteen engineers. “IJis energy, mental and physical, is amazing. He generally has five or six.

new ideas going at the same time, and is continually searching out fresh subjects for bls inventiveness,” continued Mr. Edison. “A little while ago he constructed a new starter battery made exclusively for Ford cars, and this followed the introduction of a new design of signal lamps, now used on a large number of American railways. “It is also not long ago that he put on the market the Ediphone, the dicta-phone-apparatus which is used by the Pope in his private office in the Vatican. “Our works are producing at least a dozen other articles based on my father’s inventions, such as sandwichgrillers, toasters, waffle bakers, samovars, and so on. We have also the Edison accumulator, wireless equipment, a new kind of adding machine, and an Improved anaesthetic. “But, like every one else, my father insists on some recreation. When he decides to take time off he jumps into his car, and drives through the country at a high speed. On Sundays, and the last thing at night, he sits on his terrace, usually reading a technical book. “He used to go three times a week to the cinema, but the coming of the talkies has spoiled this pleasure, because he is unable to follow the dialogue, owing to his deafness,” . - Mr. Charles Edison closely resembles his father. He is tall, stoops slightly, and has the same clear, pale-coloured eyes.