Fruits of Genius Were Swept Away

By a Fire the Noted Electrician, Nikola Tesla, Loses Mechanisms of Inestimable Value.

INVENTIONS IN THE RUINS.

The Workshop Where He Evolved Ideas That Startled Electricians Entirely Destroyed.

YEARS OF LABOR LOST.

Utterly disheartened and broken in spirit, Nikola Tesla, one of the world's greatest electricians, returned to his rooms in the Gerlach yesterday morning and took to his bed. He has not arisen since. He lies there, half sleeping, half waking. He is completely prostrated.

In a single night the fruits of ten years of toll and research were swept away. The web of a thousand wires which at his bidding thrilled with life had been twisted by fire into a tangled skein. Machines, to the perfection of which he gave all that was best of a master mind are now shapeless things, and vessels which contained the results of patient experiment are heaps of pot sherds.

By the fire which swept through the building at Nos. 33 and 35 South Fifth avenue in the early hours of yesterday morning one of the most valuable laboratories in the world was destroyed. It was that of Nikola Tesla, the Servian electrician. In those upper lofts were apparatus and appliances which meant a revolution in electrical science.

There were materials which he could shape to fetter the lightning and to call into action the most subtle of forces. Early and late he tolled there. He was on the eve of making known scientific discoveries which would have added new luster to his name when all was swept away. He had worked day in and day out, and far into many a night over the work bench and the forge in those upper rooms.

THERE HE HAD TOILED.

Time spent in sleep he considered almost wasted; A man can never injure himself by working too much, was the maxim on which he shaped his life. He drove himself to tasks which would have seemed superhuman to the man of ordinary mind. He evolved theories upon which the power of Niagara was harnessed to work. He constructed mechanisms which converted simple materials into mighty electric currents.

In these lofts, above the dust and rattle of the elevated road and the din of the factory wheel, steam heaters were made. This man discovered principles in physics which have revised many a page in the great book of science.

Nikola Tesla came to this country about ten years ago from Servia. He was twenty-seven years old then, yet his name was already one of the foremost in the world of electrical research.

He was for a time associated with Thomas Edison. He and Mr. Edison parted after a few months and went their separate ways. They were friends, yet rivals.

The young Servian devoted all his best energies to the study of electrical phenomena. In addition to his work as controlling electrician for some of the largest companies using electrical power, he perfected several appliances for the production of electricity.

His discovery, in 1887, of the rotating magnetic field for the economic transmission of power, attracted the attention of the entire scientific world to him. His theory of the production of light by the vibration of the atmosphere, and his proposal to transmit messages without the use of wires, amazed the older scientists.

It was to perfect such theories as these that the young Servian toiled so unremittingly in his South Fifth avenue laboratory. The experiments which he has been carrying on there in the last few months were conducted with secrecy. He would say but little about them beyond the fact that he hoped soon to solve a vexed electrical problem.

His strength was overtaxed by the strains placed upon it. For weeks those who knew him knew that he was bordering on a state of nervous exhaustion. Yet so firm was his will that few would have suspected how worn he was with toll.

"I am completely worn out," he said the other day to a friend, "yet I cannot stop my work. These experiments are so beautiful, so fascinating, so important, that I can hardly tear myself away from them to eat, and when I try to sleep I think about them constantly. I expect that I shall go on until I break down altogether."

THEN HE SUCCUMBED.

When the fire took away that which sustained him in spite of his exhaustion, the iron will was broken, and Nikola Tesla became as other men, whom work, and care have worn.

The man who had, in the course of one of his experiments, withstood, under peculiar conditions, the polyphase currents of electricity to thousands of volts, is lying on his bed, clasping his nerveless hands and speaking no word.

The laboratory where he worked was situated over Gillis & Geoghegan's factory, in South Fifth avenue. The fire was discovered at half past two o'clock yesterday morning. The building is now four cracked and blackened walls.

Hundreds of workmen were thrown out of employment, and the loss will be many thousands of dollars. It is easy to replace all that. Money will do it. But the loss which Nikola Tesla has sustained gold cannot make good.

The actual amount invested by him there was between $80,000 and $100,000. What he has lost and what the scientific world has lost cannot be estimated that way.