Tesla and Power

The very latest from America is that Mr. Nikola Tesla has invented a means of transmitting electricity to the distance of thousands of miles without loss of power or the use of wires, and there seems to be no limit to the power so transmitted, for the announcement states that the power of Niagara will now be available in any part of the world. Of course, such statements as this are naturally received with a considerable amount of caution; in fact, would not be taken any notice of were not Mr. Tesla's name mentioned in connection with them. We are told, however, the why and the wherefore, and are given a considerable amount of detail. The rarefied air at high altitudes is said to be a conductor of electricity, though of very high resistance, but the resistance is said to decrease rapidly as the electrical pressure increases. Tesla proposes to use electricity of millions of volts pressure, and to conduct it to a large metallic globe kept suspended high in the air by means of a balloon, and to have another globe similarly suspended at a receiving station perhaps some thousands of miles away. We have seen and heard in this our generation so much of the ostensibly impossible becoming the usefully possible, that it would be rash to assert that Tesla, or his American interpreter, say the thing which is not. But we manifest no undue incredulity when we say that no method of generating electricity of millions of volts pressure has yet been devised; while there is not any conceivable means of insulating the necessary apparatus. To the scientific use of the imagination the world is indebted for much. Tesla may find himself anticipated by some one who, instead of making lightning by the aid of Niagara, will utilise it as we find it ready made by nature's own apparatus.