Dazzling Plans Made by Tesla

His Long Island Plant to Be a Place of Marvels.

ALL ITS WORK WIRELESS

Currents for Factories Far Away, to Run Autos, Even to Operate Launches at Sea.

Special to The Press.

WARDENCLYFFE, L. I., Feb. 22. – Nikola Tesla, the Serbian wizard, whose feats in the electrical field have made him one of the most remarkable men of the century, is busy putting up a strange and costly plant here that promises to make necromancy an everyday affair. To the fertile mind of the Serbian, when his wireless plant is finished, there will be nothing impossible. From the buildings there he promises to run the busy wheels of industry in this city, to make wireless telephoning easy and certain, to operate an electric launch far at sea or to run automobiles any and everywhere, only that their electric attachments be attuned to the power at mysterious Wardenclyffe.

While Tesla has been looked upon as something of a dreamer through the extraordinary statements he occasionally has consented to make, the electrical world has found him quite the contrary. Invention after invention has been put on the market through him, invariably successful and a step in advance of others. His undeveloped patents on file in Washington and in countries abroad probably number many hundreds, and other inventors are exceedingly careful in going ahead with anything commercial without first consulting the records, as they have learned frequently that Tesla had been on the ground first.

SURPRISE “UP HIS SLEEVE.”

For this reason the quietness, if not secrecy, with which he is going about the building of his wireless plant is taken to mean he has something that will astonish the scientific and commercial worlds.

Though the inventor will not go into details regarding his plans, he will talk of them in a general way. He is absorbed deeply in the putting up of the buildings and the placing of machinery, and recently has been spending most of his time in Wardenclyffe. It is known unlimited capital is behind him, and the apparatus he is installing resembles nothing ever seen before. If the dream of talking to Mars is to be fulfilled in this age one might well believe the first step is being taken now by Tesla.

Of course he will not talk of such improbabilities, but that something great is expected is certain. In the many valuable inventions of Tesla he never before has shown such personal interest, usually preferring to have others work out their commercial uses, while he again went into seclusion in his workshop and evolved more inventions. Thus far, having produced them, he has been satisfied, but in the present instance he is on the ground practically all the time, and personally superintends the placing of every piece of machinery down to the smallest wheel, lever or coil. That means it is to be a plant capable of demonstration, and not theoretical or built for mere experiment.

HAS PLENTY OF CASH, HE SAYS.

The inventor, who has a way of talking of dazzling and almost incomprehensible affairs as if they were the veriest things of daily routine and knowledge, will not say who is behind him in this new venture. He says, however, he does not need any money for it, having plenty at hand. The plant he is putting up is as solid and substantial as anything could be, and evidently is intended to last fifty or a hundred years.

Evidently Tesla takes little stock in the wireless telegraph stations now being built in this and other countries. He believes they are merely temporary; he calls them ridiculous and mere toys. He does not care to excite public interest in the work he is pushing so rapidly and quietly, and says he has no stock for sale. He tells what the plant will do by explaining it will be a central wireless station, capable of sending power great distances. He says it easily can run machinery in this city, sending the power eighty or ninety miles without the use of wire connections.

In explaining this he brings out a new theory regarding the transmission of electrical energy without the use of wires, saying it will be sent through the earth. The general belief has been heretofore that with the Marconi and other systems the power was sent through the air. If Tesla is going to use the ground or water as a medium, he has something entirely new, or the theories regarding wireless telegraphy have been incorrect.

NOT PLAY, BUT BUSINESS.

“This isn't a plaything, but something for business,” said the inventor. “We shall have great power, and, if so desired, will be able to run the presses on New York newspapers from here. It is all so simple. Away back in 1898” (five years apparently being a lifetime to him) “I succeeded in passing a spark one hundred feet — an artificial lightning stroke and something never done before. But it is simple, and this we have here is equally so. When we are finished here we can put instruments in offices and houses, and persons may be able to talk to anyone anywhere in the country who has a similar apparatus. And this is only a part of what will be done, without the aid of any artificial connection except the earth.

“Already the Long Island Railroad Company is putting up a new station here so as to be able to handle the increased business, but I don't think the officials or any one except myself or those directly connected with me realize the full extent of what is going on here. After the Wardenclyffe plant is in operation others will be built at different points throughout the country.”