Nikola Tesla, 85, Noted Inventor, Succumbs

Nikola Tesla world famous inventor, died last night in his suite at the Hotel New Yorker at the age of 85. He had been in failing health for the past two years.

The noted electrical engineer and designer, who had more than 700 inventions to his credit, had as his aim unlimited power for mankind - power that could be tapped of unlocked from the earth by anyone who had the key.

Engineers credit him with having devised the first practical application of alternating current. He patented an induction motor making it possible to convert electrical energy into mechanical energy more efficiently and economically than by direct current.

INVENTIONS NUMEROUS

The principle of the rotary magnetic field embodied in the apparatus used to transmit power from Niagara Falls was his invention.

Other work which helped raise him to a place among the lions of American inventiveness included a system of arc lighting, a system of electric conversion and distribution by oscillatory discharges, researches and discoveries in radiations, material streams and emanations.

New forms of dynamos, transformers, induction coils, condensers and other electrical apparatus also were chalked up to the credit of his genius.

The son of a Greek clergyman and a Serb mother, who was the daughter of an inventor, Dr. Tesla was born in Smiljan, a village of Austrian Croatia.

CAME HERE AT 28.

He studied at the Polytechnic Institute In Gratz and at the University of Prague. His practical career began in 1881 in Budapest, where he brought out his first invention; a telephone repeater. Three years later when he was 31, he liberated to this country and became an American citizen.

Dr. Tesla worked for a time at Camden, N. J. with the late Thomas A. Edison as a designer of motors and generators. He described Edison as by far the most successful and probably the last exponent of the purely empirical method of investigation.

When on his birthday, reporters sought him out he would predict future that appeared next day in headlines.

His ideas were always visionary, but he made them come true so often that his most fantastic prophecies were heard with respect of the world of science.

BEFRIENDED PIGEONS

He predicted that would in time be accomplished by means of vest-pocket-sized receiver; that world power would be found by harnessing volcanic heat; that all carrier-vehicles would receive their energy by wireless. He had made rough designs of a mechanism by which interplanetary communication could be achieved.

In recent years, Dr. Tesla had been seen by thousands - though identified by few - on the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral, in front of the Firth ave. Library and in Greeley Square. Invariably he carried a bag of crumbs and chopped nut-meats for the pigeons - the befriending of which had became a strong interest.