Nikola Tesla's Eighty-Fifth Birthday (reprint 2)

NIKOLA TESLA'S eighty-fifth birthday finds his death ray still in the blueprint stage. The great inventor says he could build a few plants, at a cost of $2,000,000 each, within three months, and melt the engine of any approaching plane at a distance of hundreds of miles.

The Immigrant youth from Jugoslavia already had discovered the rotary magnetic field, which made possible alternating current motors, before he arrived here in 1884. He helped harness Niagara, turned in numerous inventions which became historic contributions to power transmission, was an associate of Edison, won the 1915 Nobel physics prize and now holds 700 patents.

When he grows too old to dream, he'll have this and many other things to remember. Among other things he may remember that many of his earlier dreams caused amusement — as when he made the declaration that it would soon be possible to telephone around the world.

Alone in his room in the Hotel New Yorker, he still delves deep in the hidden chambers of electro-mechanics, his deep set eyes eager and intense under their bushy brows. Wireless transmission of power is still one of his many deep preoccupations.