Electrical Magic by Great Wizards

"Miracles" Shown in Matter of Fact Way by American Institute of Electrical Engineers.

BARRELS OF TALK ON TAP FROM PIANO WIRE

Nikola Tesla and His Audience Cheer Thomas A. Edison, Who Gives Encouragement to His Successor in the Field of Invention, Who Makes the Deaf Hear.

Ray! Ray! Ray!
C-O-L-U-M-B-I-A.
Edison.

With such hearty welcome was "the Wizard of Menlo Park" received when he entered the lecture room of Havemeyer Hall, at Columbia University last night.

Nikola Tesla was giving experimental demonstrations with an electric oscillator when he saw Mr. Edison entering. His own greeting had been generous and hearty. When he saw the greatest of all American Inventors Mr. Tesla stopped his work and grasped Mr. Edison's hand, which he shook as he led him to a seat. The great audience appreciated the courtesy of the younger man and responded with cheers for both.

The American Institute of Electrical Engineers held what it was pleased to call a "conversazione" at Columbia University last night. In reality it was an electrical exposition, and the most complete ever known in America. Fully two thousand guests had been invited, and few of those that received invitations failed to attend. The Engineering Building and Havemeyer Hall were given over to the electrical engineers and their guests, and every room in the two great buildings was used.

Matter of Fact "Miracles."

While there was nothing exhibited that was absolutely new, there were on exhibition inventions of which the public has only barely heard. "Miracles" were performed in a matter of fact way that left the beholders too dazed to do more than exclaim. Many of the wonders in operation are of too technical a nature to appeal powerfully to the layman in electric matters. Others are so practical that their value is easily understood.

Professor Waldemar Poulsen's telephonograph was exhibited in the Engineering Building, by Messrs. Lemvig Fog and Emil S. Hagemann, of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Mr. William A. Rosenbaum, of New York. This exhibition attracted the enthusiastic attention of all who saw it, and none was louder in praise than Mr. Edison, who gave great credit to the inventor for his work. It was Jules Verne who told of conversation being frozen into the air to be heard when the weather moderated. While the Frenchman's dream has not yet been realized, Professor Poulsen has succeeded in packing into an electrically charged piano wire a conversation that may be drawn out much as one draws wine from a cask. The apparatus, as exhibited last night, consists of a brass drum, eleven by five inches, upon which is wound piano wire. Resting upon the wire is a tiny electro magnet, which is connected to a carbon telephone transmitter, two cells of battery and preferably an induction coil.

Speech Put on Tap.

When the transmitter is spoken into, it acts as a tap on the battery, causing currents of varying strength, in proportion to the strength of the sound waves, to pass through the electro magnet. The current causes the magnet transversely to magnetize the steel wire as the drum revolves, and the magnetic lines of force are permanently recorded therein.

After the steel spiral is filled — which operation takes about 39 seconds, and permits the recording of 100 to 120 words—the tiny magnet is placed in its original position and connected with a Bell receiving telephone. The cylinder is again revolved, and as the magnetized steel wire passes before the poles of the electro-magnet it forms a species of magneto-electric generator, giving out currents of electricity of a strength and direction corresponding to the magnetization of the steel wire, which correspondingly affect a Bell telephone held to the ear, and reproduce the sounds and words originally spoken with absolute fidelity.

In addition, there was shown the band form of telephonograph and a dictation machine for office use. The band form gives the machine a practical value, as it makes it possible to extend the dictation almost indefinitely. The record is wiped out at the will of the operator, or retained permanently. There is no waste of material. The telephonograph is not yet considered perfect by its inventor, who is constantly at work upon it. The reproduction is similar to the sound of the telephone, the buzzing of the phonograph being obviated.

Aerodrome Pictured in Flight.

In the same room with the telephonograph was exhibited a remarkable collection of aeronautical pictures, comprising photographs, shown for the first time, of Professor S. P. Langley's aerodrome in actual flight. Dr. Alexander Graham Bell took a photograph which shows the aerodrome in the air at least one hundred feet from the earth. At the time the picture was taken the machine made a successful flight of more than three thousand feet. The velocity attained was twenty-five miles an hour in a course that was constantly taking the aerodrome "up hill."

Peter Cooper Hewitt in another room of the Engineering Building exhibited high candle power lamps lighted the room, using ordinary oil or vapor. One large tube lamp of 1,000 candle power lighted the room, using ordinary 115- volt, direct current. The room was perfectly lighted, remarkable color effects being produced at the will of the exhibitor. At times an almost hypnotic effect upon the nervous system was produced. By the use of another apparatus Mr. Hewitt showed the relation of voltage to the length and the diameter of the tubes used.

Where The Deaf Heard.

On the third floor of the Engineering Building Mr. F. Hutchison exhibited the akouphone and the akouallons, the microtelephonic instruments of his invention, by means of which he makes the deaf hear.

A class from the New York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb were present to illustrate the value of the akouphone. They were selected because of the fact that they are the most hopelessly deaf of all in the institution. Among them was Orris Benson, who has been deaf and blind since birth.

Benson has had five hours of training with the akouphone and is now somewhat accustomed to it. He listened to music from a phonograph, and when the sensation of sound first penetrated his brain he threw up his "talking hand" and told his teacher, who was with him, that the music sounded sweeter to him than it ever had before. Later he held a short conversation with Mr. Hutchison.

"Hello!" said the young inventor.

"Hello!" responded the boy whose life had so long been mute. His voice was hollow and metallic, but his enunciation was not bad.

"Can you say 'mamma' and 'papa'?"

"Mamma, papa," came back from Benson, who divided the words into syllables, as does a talking doll.

"Are you a bad boy?"

Benson shook his head. For a moment he studied, then replied: —

"Bad boy — no."

Other members of the class were eager to test the akouphone. When they heard music or words their faces changed in expression, losing that set condition of features that marks those whose ears are deaf.

For hours the room in which Mr. Hutchison exhibited his invention was crowded. Mr. Edison and Mr. Tesla were there, and complimented the young inventor for producing the instrument.

Telegraph Picture Machine.

Mr. H. R. Palmer exhibited a facsimile picture telegraph in operation. This system is similar to that which has been successfully used in transmitting pictures and sketches over long distances, employing ordinary telegraph circuits.

Dr. Michael I. Pupin exhibited his original apparatus used in developing the recent invention by which he made it possible to telephone long distances under the ocean. Dr. Pupin's system consists in the location of inductance coils in the line at distances which are small fractions of a current wave length.

Wireless telegraphy, as worked out for the use of the United States government, was exhibited and explained in connection with a field telephone and telegraph kit used in the Philippine campaigns.

Professor Elihu Thomson exhibited a new rotary electrical apparatus consisting of an iron sphere heavily electroplated with copper and mounted so that it may revolve on any axis or in any plane. Surrounding this sphere are three coils in planes at right angles to each other. By suitably energizing these coils with polyphase current the sphere may be made to revolve on any axis or in any direction, or it may be said to illustrate a three-dimension polyphase system.

These are only a few of the many things that were exhibited and explained. In the lecture room Mr. Tesla gave demonstrations at nine o'clock and at ten o'clock. Each time he had large audiences that marvelled at the wonders he performed, though few of them were new. With the room darkened Mr. Tesla walked about brandishing long glass tubes which flashed in a manner resembling phosphorescence that was not entirely canny.

In one hand he carried what seemed like an ordinary glass globe, fifteen inches in diameter. Suddenly a flash of electricity appeared many feet from the demonstrator, and the globe glowed as though it were filled with living fire. Again the room was darkened, and from what appeared to be an ordinary insulated wire sparks shot in every direction, filling the atmosphere for yards around with fire that drove away curious persons who had crowded too close to the demonstrator.

Mr. Tesla apologized for the failure of many of his experiments, as being due to flaws in his apparatus developed after it had been installed.