Nikola Tesla to Insulate Electric Wires in Ice

Nikola Tesla, who now comes forward with a proposal to insulate electric wires in ice, so as to make it possible to safely transmit currents of high voltage, is Edison’s great rival in the world of American invention. He is a Serbian and was born in 1857. After a period with the Servian Telegraph Department he went to Paris as an electrical engineer, and then to America where he was employed by Edison. He soon started out for himself, and erected the Tesla Laboratory in New York for independent electrical research. His most remarkable invention was that which is adopted in the apparatus used to harness the power of Niagara Falls, but he is the inventor of many other improvements in dynamos, coils and lamps. Of his latest invention he says: “I hope, with my latest improvement, to do away with loss of power in transmission almost entirely, and I think the time is not far off when we shall be able to transmit, with wire buried in the ground, power from Niagara to New York City with a loss not exceeding one half of 1 per cent.”