Mr. Tesla's Wireless Telegraphy - He Hopes to Send Messages Through the Earth Ere Long

Marconi, in England, Slaby, in Berlin, and other foreign electrical experts are attracting a good deal of attention just now by their achievements in wireless telegraphy. But Mr. Tesla is quite willing to have the public remember that he has been studying this subject for several years, and as long ago as 1893 outlined a plan from which he hopes to secure great results before the new century is a year old.

There are two apparent points of difference between the Marconi and Tesla systems. The young Italian relies upon the ether to convey his messages, while Mr. Tesla employs the earth as a conductor. To be sure, Marconi discovered that his apparatus worked better after he connected both transmitter and receiver with the ground, and it is not altogether clear that his first theory concerning the medium which conveys his messages is correct. Then, secondly, the particular form of energy employed by Marconi and Slaby is believed by them to be the so-called Hertz waves, which are not electricity, though produced by electrical apparatus. Mr. Tesla, on the other hand, utilizes true electric waves, of great power and frequency, such as can be generated by his much talked about "oscillator."

The advances which Mr. Tesla says he has made within the last year or two consist of the improvement of the power of his generating devices, and in the perfecting of his receivers, which are so designed as to respond only to messages intended for them. While the latter phrase would seem to describe other men's instruments as well, Mr. Tesla insists that he has developed the "tuning" system far beyond the possibilities reached by any one else, and he hopes to carry it still further. He doubts, for instance, whether Marconi could permit more than six or eight receivers in the range of a transmitter without more than a single instrument picking up a message. But Mr. Tesla believes that out of several hundred of his receivers only the right one will respond to a transmitter.

While on Pike's Peak Mr. Tesla made tests which satisfy him that he can, when the proper plant has been erected, establish communication between this country and Europe with the utmost ease. This conclusion rests largely upon electrical measurements and mathematical computation. There was no actual transmission of a message to a person on the other side of the globe, and hence, no reply. But Mr. Tesla hopes to have his apparatus ready within the next eight months to furnish the latter kind of demonstration, and thus revolutionize transatlantic telegraphy.