Dawning of an Age of the Miraculous

Talking by wireless to a man nearly 5000 miles away seemed to the average reader like a tale from the Arabian Nights, and when the newspapers last week chronicled the feat that had been performed by operators in Arlington and Pearl Harbor, 4600 miles apart, there was a gasp of wonder as to what new miracle would be announced next.

To Nikola Tesla, however, this is merely the arrival at a way station along a road which he has completely mapped out.

"This wonder in wireless telephony, of which the papers are full, is no wonder at all, but a perfectly simple result of the application of my wireless system," says Mr. Tesla in a letter to the MANUFACTURERS RECORD. "Both the plants in Washington and Honolulu are equipped with my apparatus, but the engineers are, of course, entitled to credit for the particular devices of controlling the transmitted and recording the received impulses. These, however, are only accessories of the system, which can be varied in many ways by inventive and experienced experts. I have, myself, contrived more than two dozen of such devices before settling on what I considered the best. Please note that all this was done prior to 1902.

"I am sending you under enclosure an article descriptive of my discovery made in July, 1899, which furnished absolute demonstration that the human voice, by means of the system I have devised, could be readily carried around the globe. In fact, I had performed at that time feats described in my patents which involved the overcoming of greater difficulties than those confronting the experts in these tests just reported."

The article Tesla sent was an extended description of discoveries made by him in 1899, as a result of which he found that "not only was it practicable to send telegraphic messages to any distance without wires, as I recognized long ago, but also to impress upon the entire globe the faint modulations of the human voice, far more still, to transmit power, in unlimited amounts to any terrestrial distance and almost without any loss."

Concluding, he declared: "When the great truth accidentally revealed and experimentally confirmed is fully recognized, that this planet, with all its appalling immensity, is to electric currents virtually no more than a small metal ball, and that by this fact many possibilities, each baffling imagination and of incalculable consequence, are rendered absolutely sure of accomplishment; when the first plant is inaugurated and it is shown that a telegraphic message, almost as secret and non-interferable as a thought, can be transmitted to any terrestrial distance; the sound of the human voice, with all its intonations and inflections, faithfully and instantly reproduced at any other point of the globe; the energy of a waterfall made available for supplying light, heat or motive power anywhere — on sea, or land, or high in the air — humanity will be like an antheap stirred up with a stick. See the excitement coming!"

In an interview in the New York Times of the 3d Tesla foretells a time when thousands of persons will be talking at once between stations, without regard to distance, these wireless conversations entirely safe from eavesdroppers — "as secret as a thought," he says. "Some day there will be, say, six great wireless telephone stations in a 'world system' connecting all the inhabitants of this earth to one another not only by voice, but by sight."

The human intellect finds it well-nigh impossible to comprehend the unseen, to visualize the unknown. Thus it comes about that much greater excitement is caused by the bare announcement of a conversation between Washington and Honolulu than was aroused by the description of greater wonders Mr. Tesla foresaw nearly twenty years ago.

That the perfection of the wireless transmission of speech and power was then at hand was the declaration made by Tesla in an article he wrote for the MANUFACTURERS RECORD and which was printed in this newspaper a few weeks ago.

"The use of a new receiving device which will be shortly described, and the sensitiveness of which can be increased almost without limit," said he, "will enable telephoning through aerial lines or cables however long by reducing the necessary working current to an infinitesimal value. This invention will dispense with the necessity of resorting to expensive constructions, which, however, are of circumscribed usefulness. It will also enormously extend the wireless transmission of intelligence in all its departments.

"The next art to be inaugurated is that of picture transmission by ordinary telegraphic methods and existing apparatus. This idea of telegraphing or telephoning pictures is old, but practical difficulties have hampered commercial realizations. A number of improvements of great promise have been made, and there is every reason to expect that success will soon be achieved.

"Another valuable novelty will be a typewriter electrically operated by the human voice. This advance will fill a long-felt want, as it will do away with the operator and save a great deal of labor and time in offices.

"A new and extremely simple electric tachometer is being prepared for the market, and it is expected that it will prove useful in power plants and central stations, on boats, locomotives and automobiles.

"Many municipal improvements based on the use of electricity are about to be introduced. We have soon to have everywhere smoke annihilators, dust absorbers, ozonizers, sterilizers of water, air, food and clothing, and accident preventers on streets, elevated roads and in subways. It will become next to impossible to contract disease germs or get hurt in the city, and country folk will go to town to rest and get well."

That there has been great destruction of German submarines through the use of electrical devices which tell of the proximity of the boats is reported from abroad. This is merely one of the electrical inventions foretold by Tesla in his marvelous résumé of electrical progress made for the MANUFACTURERS RECORD.

"Battleships and submarines," said he, "will be provided with electric and magnetic feelers so delicate that the approach of any body under water or in darkness will be detected. Torpedoes and floating mines are almost in sight which will direct themselves automatically and without fail get in fatal contact with the object to be destroyed. The art of telautomatics, or wireless control of automatic machines at a distance, will play a very important part in future wars and, possibly, in the next phases of the present one. Such contrivances which act as if endowed with intelligence will be used in innumerable ways for attack as well as defense. They may take the shape of aeroplanes, balloons, automobiles, surface or under-water boats, or any other form according to the requirement in each special case, and will be of greater range and destructiveness than the implements now employed. I believe that the telautomatic aerial torpedo will make the large siege gun, on which so much dependence is placed at present, obsolete."

Among the most amazing predictions made by Mr. Tesla in his article in the MANUFACTURERS RECORD was the one that, within a short time, it will be possible for mankind to completely control the precipitation of the moisture of the atmosphere. He foresees the time when it will be possible to draw unlimited quantities of water from the oceans, giving moisture to the crops as required, and supplying any amount of energy to water-powers that may be desired, thus completely transforming the globe by irrigation, intensive farming and the development of unlimited hydro-electric power.

"We are progressing at an amazing pace," says Mr. Tesla, "but the truth is that even in the fields most successfully exploited the ground has only been broken. What has been so far done by electricity is nothing as compared with what the future has in store."