Nikola Tesla Books
[Sec. 5.c., cont.]
"The principle is this: A ray of great ionizing power is used to give to the atmosphere great powers of conduction. A high tension current of 10,000,000 to 12,000,000 volts is then passed along this ray to the upper strata of the air, which strata can be broken down very readily and will conduct electricity very well.
"I will confess that I was disappointed when I first made tests along this line on a large scale. They did not yield practical results. At the time I used about 8,000,000 to 12,000,000 volts of electricity. As a source of ionizing rays I employed a powerful arc reflected up into the sky. At the time I was trying only to connect a high tension current and the upper strata of the air, because my pet scheme for years has been to light the ocean at night.
"However, since 1902 I have made many improvements in my method which I know now will assure success...." ["Tesla Predicts Ships Powered By Shore Beam," New York Herald Tribune, June 5, 1935, p. 38.]
6. Test of wireless power transmission concept
O'Neill, in his biography of Tesla at page 193, comments that
"By piecing together the fragmentary material published in a number of publications ..., it appears evident that Tesla, in addition to experiments with his gigantic current movements, as a means of establishing world-wide broadcasts and making a number of detectors for such use, tested his power-transmission system at a distance of twenty-six miles from his laboratory and was able to light two hundred incandescent lamps, of the Edison type, with electrical energy extracted from the earth while his oscillator was operating. These lamps consumed about fifty watts each; and if two hundred were used in the test bank, the energy consumed would be 10,000 watts, or approximately thirteen horsepower."
Appendix B lists all the references that were provided by O'Neill with the submission of the manuscript for Prodigal Genius. Most of us have read everything in this list that pertains to Tesla's experiments in wireless transmission of power but have been unable to find any corroboration of O'Neill's claim of Tesla's test.
Dr. Marincic, in a letter to Wait dated December 28, 1979, stated,
"Although I tried very hard to find Tesla's statement about 'transmission of power to a distance of some 26 miles.' I have never been able to find it. I know that A.P.M. Fleming in Journal of Inst. of Elec. Eng., London, vol. 91, Febr. 1944, stated that: 'He (Tesla) transmitted enough power to light a lamp at a distance of 30 km, and to produce
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