"Only a Matter of Patience Now," Says Tesla

With a billion horsepower, drawn from Niagara, I am going to signal Mars, and my message will reach not only that ruddy planet but one hundred times further, even to Neptune, which is so distant that our sun looks little bigger than a star.

Our generators will soon be complete, and the waters of Niagara Falls will supply me with a billion horsepower in the form of electricity. My tower at Wardenclyffe, L. I., will receive as much of this power as is needed. Only one one-hundredth part will be necessary to reach Mars.

Whether we get an answer or not depends on who is there. More than likely the first answer from our neighbor will be:

“Well — well — at last. We have been calling you the last ten thousand years.”

Astounding as this prediction is — a prediction that is also a bona fide promise — it becomes even more astonishing when translated into plain terms capable of human comprehension. For it means that we are on the eve of sending communications into space for a distance of 4,800,000,000 miles. In other words, no planet within the solar universe will be outside the range of communication promised.

It will be as simple as telephoning from one part of a city to another after the preliminary attuning of instruments on the two planets and the study and interpretation of each other’s codes and languages are done.

As the Martians are probably the most advanced and skilled they will take our code and language and learn it first and then teach us theirs in plain English. Difficult as this fact would seem, it in reality would not be comparable with the achievement of teaching a deaf, dumb and blind child to understand. Yet this is only a matter of patience.

Mars Would Learn English.

By using a tithe more power than is necessary to transmit a message to Mars, it will be possible to project a message across or through the 3,900,000,000 miles between ourselves and Jupiter. By using one-fifth of the Niagara Falls voltage, a message may be sent to Saturn floating off yonder 800,000,000 miles from the sun, or 795,000,000 miles from the earth. Even Neptune, the most distant planet in the solar system, will not be able to hide longer behind the 2,800,000,000 miles separating it from the earth.

Realizing the far-reaching importance of the stupendous riddle of universal communication, I have been proceeding slowly and carefully, but I have now reached the point where I am absolutely convinced of my ability to make the greatest dream of humanity come true.

My first step was to develop the magnifying transmitter. This met with such success that it is hard to form an adequate conception of the marvelous power of the unique appliance, by the aid of which the globe will be transformed. The electro-magnetic radiations being minimized and proper conditions of resonance maintained, the circuit acts like an immense pendulum, storing indefinitely the energy of the primary existing impulses and impressing upon the earth and its conducting atmosphere uniform harmonic oscillations of intensities which actual tests have shown to be capable of surpassing those attained in the natural displays of static electricity.

Briefly explained, my method, when fully inaugurated, will permit of a direct wireless service of thousands and millions of electric volts from the Niagara Falls plant to the great Wardenclyffe Tower, which is now practically completed, on Long Island. Wardenclyffe will be the main distributing point for sufficient wireless power, not only to illumine all of Greater New York, but to operate its elevated and subway trains and surface cars; to supply motive power to elevators, automobiles, vans, ferryboats; to wind and regulate timepieces and to do nearly everything but think for mankind.

So stupendous is the capacity of the Wardenclyffe Tower, as supplied by the Niagara Falls generators, that messages may be dispatched from it to Mars and millions of leagues beyond the red-named planet.

Other tributary towers are to be erected within a radius of three hundred miles of Niagara Falls, which will likewise supply them with electrical energy, each tower to distribute about ten thousand horsepower of wireless electricity under a tension of approximately one million volts or more, as occasion may demand, to cities, factories and private residences within a radius of thirty miles of each distributing station.

Eventually it is proposed to extend the system until the entire North American continent is fairly freckled with tower stations, about sixty miles apart, capable of operating the motive and stationary machinery of the United States, Canada, Mexico and Central America.

NIKOLA TESLA.