Telegraph Without Wires - Tesla Says His Invention is of Proven Value

Nikola Tesla, the electrician, has at last announced that he has solved the problem of telegraphing to any part of the earth without wires. Up to this time he has spoken very guardedly about the possibilities of his invention, but now positively. He has already tested it over a distance of fifty miles. The principle upon which he depends for such results is in the development of his electrical oscillator, which he was working upon particularly in connection with the production of light from the Crookes tubes. The energy of the electric current, like that of flowing water, is displayed only when the current is interrupted. A familiar example of this may be seen in the common medical battery where the current flowing from one pole to the other may be passed through the most sensitive parts of the body, and yet not be felt. Pass the same current through a Ruhmkorff coil, interrupting the secondary current by the vibrations of the commutator, and it will twist up the muscles of the strongest man and make him powerless. Before Tesla's time interruptions of this sort had been produced only by mechanical means and could number only a few hundred a second. His electrical oscillator acts upon the principle of a bell, where a single stroke of the hammer sets the metal vibrating with a rapidity commensurate with its bulk, and these vibrations can be continued indefinitely by repeated strokes of the hammer at slow intervals. Mr. Tesla now makes oscillators which will interrupt the current millions of times in a second. He explained how he proposed to set the whole of the static electricity of the earth in motion for telegraphing purposes by taking advantage of the Incompressibility and elasticity of the electric fluid.