Strange Light at Tesla's Tower

Manager, However, Refuses to Explain Its Significance — Inventor's Reserve.

From the top of Mr. Tesla's lattice work tower, on the north shore of Long Island, there was a vivid display of light several nights last week. This phenomenon provoked the curiosity of the few people who live near by, but the proprietor of the Wardencliffe [sic] plant declined to explain the spectacle when inquiries were addressed to him.

For several years Mr. Tesla has been talking about wireless telegraphy and the transmission of electricity for commercial purposes through the upper air. So numerous were the postponements of any actual consummation that the public began to fear that nothing would ever come of the prophecies attributed to this inventor. The outlook was more encouraging where he bought land at Wardencliffe [sic] two years ago and began putting up a tower there and building workshops and a laboratory. The latter having been completed, the have taken the place of those long used by home in Houston St. The tower was 150 or 200 feet high, and had a well underneath.

In a conversation reported by The Tribune on November 27, 1901, Mr. Tesla said that he would probably install an engine of 100 horsepower to drive his dynamo. In connection with this he intended to use that combination of the condenser and induction coil with which he has for several years been able to produce high pressures. This resembles the outfit at Marconi's Glace Bay and Cape Cod stations. In some experiments in his laboratory and in public lectures Mr. Tesla has often produced a brilliant light at one end of a wire, and has taken photographs therewith.

From what Mr. Tesla has himself said on several occasions it might have been inferred that he had abandoned wireless telegraphy altogether, and was planning only a transient power. So long as he continues to maintain his usual mysterious reserve the public can adopt any one of half a dozen explanations of his conduct. Though sensitive to criticism, he sometimes appears to be oblivious to some of the uncomplimentary interpretations which are put upon his delays.