Tesla's Line to Mars

If Nikola Tesla had not accomplished some really wonderful things in the electrical line the world would set him down to-day as the heir of Baron Munchausen and Joe Mulhatton. The Baron is long since dead, while poor Joe, who never did anybody any harm, is in an insane asylum in Arizona. Mulhatton’s story of the discovery of detached sun spots brought orders from Paris and London to send crack reporters to the scene at once and spare no expense in securing complete details. Perhaps his best fake was that of the meteor which was said to have fallen in Brown County, Tex., covering an acre of ground and destroying all the ranches for miles around by reason of the sulphurous fumes it gave off. His brilliant description of the occurrence sent a trainload of reporters and scientists into the mesquite bushes of the Lone Star State. Another ingenious fake was that about the great cave in Pike County, Kentucky, with mammoth rooms filled with precious jewels. This fooled even P. T. Barnum, the leading humbugger of the age.