The hint contained in Mr. Edison's reference to Wall Street, and the mysteries of financiering which prevail there, led naturally enough to a question as to Mr. Edison's future purpose with regard to capitalists, and he said:
"In my future campaigns I expect myself to control absolutely such inventions as I make. I am now fortunate enough to have capital of my own, and that I shall use in these campaigns. The most important of the campaigns I have in mind is one in which I have now been engaged for several years. I have long been satisfied that it was possible to invent an ore-concentrator which would vastly simplify the prevailing methods of extracting iron from earth and rock, and which would do it so much cheaper than those processes as to command the market. Of course I refer to magnetic iron ore. Some of the New Jersey mountains contain practically inexhaustible stores of this magnetic ore, but it has been expensive to mine. I was able to secure mining options upon nearly all these properties, and then I began the campaign of developing an ore-concentrator which would make these deposits profitably available. This iron is unlike any other iron ore. It takes four tons of the ore to produce one ton of pure iron, and yet I saw, some years ago, that if some method of extracting this ore could be devised, and the mines controlled, an enormously profitable business would be developed, and yet a cheaper iron ore--cheaper in its first cost--would be put upon the market. I worked very hard upon this problem, and in one sense successfully, for I have been able by my methods to extract this magnetic ore at comparatively small cost, and deliver from my mills pure iron bricklets. Yet I have not been satisfied with the methods; and some months ago I decided to abandon the old methods and to undertake to do this work by an entirely new system. I had some ten important details to master before I could get a perfect machine, and I have already mastered eight of them. Only two remain to be solved; and when this work is complete, I shall have, I think, a plant and mining privileges which will outrank the incandescent lamp as a commercial venture, certainly so far as I am myself concerned. Whatever the profits are, I shall myself control them, as I have taken no capitalists in with me in this scheme."