Mr. Tesla on Roentgen Rays

Last week Mr. Tesla gave some of the results of his experiments in the domain of Röntgen rays, before the New York Academy of Sciences, and showed some of his latest types of high frequency generators. Mr. Tesla still adheres to his original view that the Röntgen effects are due to the action of molecules projected from the tube at high velocities, but we must confess our inability to reconcile this view with the results of his experiments in deflecting the Röntgen rays by means of a magnet, unless we assume the molecules charged and at the same time endowed with a vortical motion, a point which Mr. Tesla did not elaborate on. It is so rarely that Mr. Tesla appears on the lecture platform that it is to be regretted that the conditions surrounding his last appearance were not more favorable. It was hardly fair to Mr. Tesla, or to the large audience which had assembled solely to greet him, to delay his appearance until two other estimable speakers had taken up the time of the audience for nearly three-quarters of an hour. The result was that it was close on to 10 o'clock before Mr. Tesla began, and he was forced to conclude his address in its initial stages. It is to be hoped, for the benefit of the science at large that Mr. Tesla will find time to write out his address in full for the Transactions of the Academy. Brief as his utterances were, they were extremely interesting and they evidenced a mellowing and a mastery indicative of higher perfection than ever of his powers as an investigator and elucidator of obscure natural phenomena.