The New Death-Dealing "Diabolic Rays" Page 152

light wire grounding through him. He was killed very quickly. He could have been killed instantly except for the danger of creating fire by applying the full force of the ray. The mouse was not burned or disfigured in any way.

Actually, what the mouse received was an electric shock of the simplest kind. The destructive force behind the ray is nothing more than a high-potential, low-frequency current which grounds through the object with which the ray comes in contact exactly as though it were being applied through a piece of copper wire.

For example, the effect of the ray on wooden floors is the same as though the insulation had burned off the electric-light wiring or some other high-tension conductor, thus forming a short-circuit through the boards. The natural result is a little blaze as where bare wires come in contact with the flooring.

This generation of heat is the explanation of the firing of the gunpowder but it is not the secret of the stopping of the gasoline motor unless the magneto is completely destroyed. The cause of this stopping is primarily the “carrier beam” itself, along which the electric current is projected. Without the discovery of this carrier beam we would not have been able to continue our work.

This beam is nothing more or less than a conducting beam of secret composition; a development of our present knowledge of light waves and vibrations. It acts in the same way as does a cable or wire. Controlled as is a searchlight beam, it brings to bear upon the object at which it is pointed merely an electric contact. The destructive current then flows through this beam as it would through a metallic conduit.

For working on a magneto the carrier