Light Like Perfume

It Will Float Impalpably in the Air By and By.

NIKOLA TESLA’S INVENTION

Walls, Doors, Ceilings, All Will Furnish a Glow Like Day.

“Hail, holy light,” are the words with which Milton begins his invocation to the “offspring of heaven’s firstborn,” and, perhaps because he was blind, the theme always possessed an awesome fascination for the patriot poet. That was a wonderful piece of prophecy on his part when he declared that light would yet prove “an undiscovered country wherein beauty’s citadel rears high embattlements,” but not until these century end days of marvels has even the dream of its fulfillment come. For at this very moment we are on the eve of a revolution in electrical science that seems destined to make of light not beauty’s citadel merely, but the bestower of beauty itself. Without light, beauty would cease to be evident. No wonder, then, that light has become the Nile of physics, with scientists seeking night and day for its ultimate source. The secret seems to have been learned at last, and science is now the land of the unsetting sun.

Imagine an ever playing fountain of light or a century plant in unending bloom of which the petals are sheafs of light. There is no graceful dream too extravagant in this respect for realization now. The chandelier, the globe, the bulb, the painful mechanism which has made the connection of light and machinery so unesthetically obvious heretofore—all are destined to be swept away. Light in the next century will well impalpably out of walls. It will stream from brackets or from picture frames, none divining whence it comes, like the perfumes at Lucullan banquets.

Nikola Tesla’s eyes glowed as he predicted the results of the discovery that has been made. Then they were dimmed by a passing regret as a new thought came.

THE COST IS GREAT.

“The one impediment,” he said, “is cost. That problem will be solved yet—perhaps in three months, perhaps not in as many years. The existing waste of electric lighting is barbarous—barbarous. Ninety per cent. of the material employed goes for nothing. But when we have settled the question of cost, the new era will dawn. Light will become really a great transforming factor in civilization. It will then be not only day, but a glorious, beautiful day.”

It may be mentioned at this point that to D. McFarlan Moore, the American electrician, who has done as much to popularize the use of electric light as any living man probably, belongs the credit of having first called the attention of scientists to the impending change. Tesla has indeed been experimenting for years, and long ago indicated the lines along which the transformation would be wrought. Mr. Moore, however, demonstrated why the near future will witness the commercial adoption of the transmission of light through tubes, and that electricity is to be the agent of this consummation. It is declared by scientists that while the conversion of heat into power and power again into the current known as electricity, seems to have reached a limit for the present at least, the matter of producing light from electricity has hardly begun to be studied.

THE NEW LIGHT.

The Incandescent lamp is admittedly the illuminant of to-day. In spite of its conceded advantages, however, the scientific world has come to look upon it as a crude contrivance for reasons apart from the humiliating circumstance that to extract 5 per cent. of light 95 per cent. of the constituent elements goes to utter waste. Therefore, in spite of the practical elimination of the factors of heat and odor from the problem of dispelling darkness, scientists for years have been at work in an endeavor not so much to make new discoveries as to utilize discoveries already made.

Now, what is known as phosphorescent, or glow lighting, has come to be recognized as the source of untold millions to the capitalist who can first reduce it to a marketable commodity in the cities of the world. So far the great cost attending its utilization has stood in the way of any such enterprise. Now comes Mr. Moore, who makes the assertion in Cassier’s Magazine that electric sparks rapidly succeeding one another in a vacuum are the key to the whole treasure house. This fact is shown by means of an ingenious contrivance now familiar to most electricians, in which the current of electricity is repeatedly broken by rapid vibrations. The vibrations produce a corresponding number of sparks, which act upon the ether in a bulb duly placed to be affected in precisely this manner, with the result that the whole bulb gives forth light. Such electricians as Nikola Tesla and McFarlan Moore would not put the conditions of things into such simple words. Mr. Moore, indeed, saying, and very scientifically, no doubt, that the whole thing is the result of the current being rapidly disrupted by a magnetic field exterior to the evacuated space.

WILL WORK A REVOLUTION.

In fact, the whole problem of light may be said to have become one of vibrations. Its solution, as stated, has been arrived at by means of electric sparks thus made to succeed one another rapidly in a vacuum. And along these lines has it become a possibility to conduct light through tubes, with results destined to effect the revolution now on the eve of accomplishment.

“Then we will indeed have beautiful light,” exclaimed Nikola Tesla. “How few of us realize the importance of the cost of light on the lives of people to-day. It is not too much to say that when the coming changes are inaugurated our whole municipal life will be transformed. Light will be not merely a means of seeing at night. It will become the great source of beauty in streets and homes. Heretofore the difficulty of getting both light and beauty has seemed inseparable. We now have the means of producing light that will not merely be beautiful itself, but that will make all things beautiful.”

“And how soon may we look for all this?”

“As soon as the matter of cost has been reduced within due limits. It will undoubtedly be reduced in time. He would be a rash electrician who ventured to say precisely when. It may be some years. Perhaps a genius will hit upon the true method to-morrow. At all events, electric light cannot fail to be ultimately one of the cheapest of commodities.”

UNSIGHTLINESS DONE AWAY WITH.

Mr. Tesla conceded that existing electric light features are too unpleasantly evident. In the coming condition of things they will be eliminated, so far as being visible is concerned, unless some special effect were sought. In a great hall, for instance, the light would stream from the capitals of its pillars. Or it could as easily be arranged to shed itself from the ceiling or the dome cornices. The illustrations herewith will give an idea of the effects Mr. Tesla had in mind. Separated lights, such as we have now, will become largely things of the past.

“The transformation in street illumination will be very marked,” he declared. “The unsightly pole will no longer be seen. Light may stream from a statue or from a fountain in great waves. Its source will be hidden. Its very quality will be changed. The glare now so ungrateful to many eyes will give way to a sympathetic glow.”

The young electrician was of opinion that the popular mind and taste were not sufficiently educated on the subject of electric lighting.

“The most wretched makeshifts are tolerated,” he said, “because the public have not as yet been accustomed to the best results. There was at one time, indeed, a prejudice against electricity itself as a means of lighting, owing to its depressing effect on some people. To-day the improvements are so marked that the light is preferred to gas. In the same way the improvements to come will be so great that the unsightliness of present methods will be deemed unendurable. It is hardly too much to say that the beautifying of cities will never be adequately undertaken until the electric light has been improved, or rather rendered generally available in its new form. Then we may look for decided alterations in the appearance of the streets of our great cities.”

WILL DRIVE SHADOWS AWAY.

A striking improvement, moreover, will be the absence of sharply defined shadows that detract so much from the advantages of the present lights. We will have not lights, but light, as Mr. Moore so graphically puts it. Phosphorescent electric light so closely resembles the light of day that the coming era will practically be one of unbroken day.

The elimination of elaborate fixtures in great edifices will be a very conspicuous consequence of the reform. In spite of the artistic nature of the candelabra which have been introduced into the more pretentious structures, they are a serious drawback to the stateliness of some forms of Gothic and Greek architecture, and as architects well know, it is frequently necessary to modify an interior on this account. But nothing can be conceived more majestic than the interior effects which will become possible by the introduction of the new method. No globes, no brackets, no candelabra can break the sweep of pillar or nave. There will be greater cleanliness as well as beauty, and an immense saving of time and trouble, not to speak of expense.

In the matter of cost, the reform will effect a saving as well. Many electricians feel convinced that the commercial adoption of the innovation cannot longer be postponed. The men at work in improving the method, so far as this is concerned, are expected to demonstrate the validity of their theories much sooner than they care to acknowledge from modest deprecation of their own acuteness. And when the change does come there will be a great fortune for somebody to enjoy.