Beats Lightning!

TESLA DISCOVERS NEW ELECTRIC WAVES.

Tremendous Power Will Change the Present Order of Things — Modern Magician Predicts Many Wonders to Follow.

WITH his dark eyes glowing like incandescent coals, his long lean arms moving prophetically in the air, his tall, thin form trembling with the intensity of his thoughts, Nikola Tesla, producer of electrical marvels, stood in his room in a big New York hotel and voiced his predictions of things which he is confident will develop from his latest invention to bring about the wireless transmission of power.

“Into the clouds like birds,” he said, “will go huge winged receptacles flying from nation to nation, carrying men on voyages of new discovery, even to the frozen poles.

“Vessels sailing the waters of the ocean, speeding across the seas with amazing velocity, without fuel, devoid of huge engines and smokestacks, not needing great storage of coal, drawing the power from the air as if by a miracle.

“At the North or the South Pole, in the land of darkness and cold, brave explorers sitting comfortably in well-heated tents, or huts, reading by an incandescent electric light mimicking day. And they too, receiving energy or light and heat from the bosom of the earth.

“In the innermost jungles of Africa, the land of the lion and the savage, travelers lying in hammocks, cooled by electric fans, with telephone receivers in their hands, talk merrily to friends in New York, London and Paris.

“In the heart of civilization itself, in the big cities, the passing of engines that darken the sky with smoke and make intolerable hells of heat where men labor. Men heating and lighting their homes simply by tapping the electricity of the atmosphere. These, and more, are some of the things which will come to bless mankind in the near future.”

LIKE A WILD DREAM.

Many persons will regard Tesla’s prophetic utterances as so many wild dreams. But are they? Would not the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, the marvelous achievements of wireless telegraphy and the hundred and one other wonders of electricity of to-day have been termed “wild” and “dreams” at a corresponding period of the last century? What is a dream in the still almost unexplored realms of electricity?

This fall Tesla hopes to complete a plant on Long Island where he says he will produce power which will enable men to talk to one another from opposite ends of the earth. He has also drawn specifications for a plant at Niagara where he expects to produce electric energy which can be tapped to propel machinery or to produce light and heat in any portion of the globe.

As he stood in his room telling of the marvels he expects to bring about, he seemed like one of the impassioned prophets who cheered the people of Israel with promise of a Messianic reign. This difference was apparent, however. Tesla is the modern prophet of the commercial 20th century, promising freedom from many evils — a modern worker of miracles, having control not of spiritual forces, but the wonderful forces of nature. What wonders of any magician of old can compare with the magic of a man who promises to free the cities from the noxious ills of smoke and smell and noise? Truly, if his prophecy comes true, he will be the great emancipator of generations, the Messiah of science of the golden age.

Should Tesla succeed in the wonderful plan he has conceived, and should he generate the terrific volume of electric energy which he claims he will be able to do when he has erected a plant at Niagara Falls, he will, without doubt, be the most powerful individual on earth. He will control a force which heretofore no man has mastered. He will wield a power greater than any of which the magicians and the seers of the ages dreamed. From his finger-tips, comparatively speaking, will dart jets of fire that will penetrate the four corners of the earth. A terrific electric force that will vibrate from pole to pole, with no diminution of power at any point, a globe-encircling

GLOBE OF FIRE.

“I have already drawn plans for the plant which I expect to build at Niagara Falls,” declared Mr. Tesla, “and I hope to see it begun next spring. By using power from the falls I shall be able to generate electric currents at that point. These currents will travel 10 per cent. faster than lightning and will go through the earth in one-half second.

“There will be no diminution of power in the energy. It will be equally distributed in all parts of the earth. I shall create electric energy at the plant and produce what is known as stationary waves. These electric waves will vibrate between two points in my apparatus and the earth will vibrate in unison. No matter whether one were in the desert of Arabia or the wilds of Siberia, power could be easily tapped at either point with a receiving apparatus.”

THE EARTH A TUNING FORK.

“Imagine the world as a great tuning fork or as a live wire. The waves of electricity will pass through the earth with hardly any perceptible loss. On any part of the earth the power can be tapped. Ships at sea can throw open their receivers and get the power, engines in all parts of the world can run by using it, and airships can get it, no matter where they are in the atmosphere; houses can be lighted and heated, and factories and motor cars can be operated at any point.”

Mr. Tesla is firmly convinced that these things will come to pass. For more than eight years he has labored to find a way to send electric power through natural media. Now, he says, he has achieved success.

With the use of radiant electric energy, electricians say that the wireless use of electricity for producing power is impossible. Like the rays from a lamp, these electric rays distribute themselves in every direction, with a natural decrease of intensity. But with the stationary wave, which vibrates so terrifically that it will go quivering through the earth, as if the globe were no more than a live wire, it is declared

NOTHING WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE.

Mr. Tesla spoke of his invention reluctantly. He has already secured patents on the apparatus for producing the wave. Of the apparatus itself, however, he declined to speak.

He is at present working on a plant at Wardenclyffe, near Port Jefferson, L. I., where he says he will produce power which will enable people to telephone to each other by wireless telephony, without regard to distance.

“There will be no limit to the distance,” he says. “Persons can talk to each other from Philadelphia to New York or from New York to London. The voice will be transmitted distinctly and plainly — the voice will sound as clear as crystal. You’ll not even be bothered by the annoying hum on the wires which exists with the present methods.”

“Do you mean that a person in the wilds of northern China could speak to a person in America and they would actually hear one another?”

“As plainly as if you and I were in adjoining rooms and were talking to each other,” replied the inventor earnestly.

“And this by means of a little instrument that may be carried in the pocket.”

Conceive the wonderful possibilities of this invention. You are aboard ship on your way to Europe and you awake in the morning wondering how your relatives are at home. You simply call them up by the telephone which will use the power created by Mr. Tesla and speak with them at your leisure. You may wish to know the news of the day — you simply call up points in various cities and make inquiries.

One of the terrors of the frozen north is the utter loneliness and desolation of that silent land. Think of the pleasure which Peary would experience on his trip if he were able to call up his wife and give her good night before retiring.

Imagine how consoling such an invention would be to his friends; how their anxiety would be relieved by hearing of his progress and safety each day over the wireless telephone.