His work was frequently
interrupted by curious visitors, who wished to see the laboratory and
the man. Although he had chosen that out-of-the-way place to avoid
disturbance, they were never denied: and he often took a pleasure in
showing his models, or explaining the work on which he was engaged.
There was no affectation of mystery, no attempt at keeping his
experiments a secret. Even the laboratory notes were open to
inspection. Menlo Park became a kind of Mecca to the scientific
pilgrim; the newspapers and magazines despatched reporters to the
scene; excursion parties came by rail, and country farmers in their
buggies; till at last an enterprising Yankee even opened a refreshment
room.
The first of Edison's greater inventions in Menlo Park was the 'loud-
speaking telephone.' Professor Graham Bell had introduced his magneto-
electric telephone, but its effect was feeble. It is, we believe, a
maxim in biology that a similarity between the extremities of a creature
is an infallible sign of its inferiority, and that in proportion as it
rises in the scale of being, its head is found to differ from its tail.
Now, in the Bell apparatus, the transmitter and the receiver were alike,
and hence Clerk Maxwell hinted that it would never be good for much
until they became differentiated from each other.
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