Wonderful Devices

A Short History of the “Oscillator” — Marvels Being Discovered in Telegraphy.

One of the most remarkable of Tesla’s inventions is his so-called “oscillator,” which is a contrivance consisting of a steam piston vibrating at a tremendous rate of speed against electromagnets. The oscillation, though so rapid, is through so small a space that the piston seems merely to tremble as it vibrates. By means of this device very powerful currents are generated and energy is utilized more economically. In other words, less energy goes to waste. Tesla employs his oscillator for lights and for running machinery. Another of his feats is to charge himself with electricity in such quantities that his body is luminous in a dark room. Thus charged, he takes an electric light bulb in one hand and ignites it by placing a finger of his other hand upon a generator.

Marvels are being accomplished in telegraphy these days. There is the new Delaney multiplex system, by which 72 messages can be sent over one wire simultaneously. It is already in use in England, but for practical purposes only six messages are attempted. You have heard of course of Prof. Gray’s telautograph, by which, over a wire, one may reproduce his own handwriting at a distance of 1,000 miles. Yet more remarkable is the sending of half-tone pictures by telegraph. If you will examine one of these pictures, resembling photographs, to be found in any magazine of the day, you will see that it is entirely made up of small dots. On the metal plate from which the printing is done the dots appear as raised points. Contacts of an electrical mechanism with these points at one end of a wire cause marks representing the dots to be made on a sheet of paper at the other end of the wire. Thus the picture is reproduced with astonishing perfection of detail.

Before very long the telegraph will itself produce automatically typewritten matter in full pages. This will be a great improvement on the narrow paper ribbon. It is the next important step to be accomplished in telegraphy. A fact you may not be aware of has to do with the remarkably small amount of electricity required for transmitting the human voice over a telephone wire. The current needed may be only the one-millionth part of what a small electric battery would furnish. By the way, when one speaks through a telephone he does not talk over the line of wire. He talks merely into a little coil in the instrument. It is a second coil near it that transmits the spoken words. In the United States are more telephone subscribers than in all the countries of Europe put together. One of the valuable new uses of electricity is to separate copper from the ore. The latter is dissolved in acids and the metal is deposited by the action of a powerful dynamo upon the metal plates.

The kitchen of the future will be run by electricity. Such a kitchen was exhibited in operation at the Chicago fair. It was absolutely free from dust and dirt. Heat for cooking was produced at an instant’s notice by turning a switch. Electric heating for practical purposes is a problem not yet satisfactorily solved, merely because it is not cheap enough. — Rene Bache in Boston Transcript.