Tesla Has a Rival

Denver Man Has Invented Plan for Overcoming Induction.

Says He Can Telephone or Telegraph From Trains Moving Rapidly.

Astonishes All Experimenters by Saying That Oil Is a Good Conductor of Electricity and Other Inventors Make Mistake in This Respect.

Denver has a modern Tesla who out-Teslas even the wizard himself and who treats the impossible with a lightness that would easily confuse the experimenter at Colorado Springs. And Denver’s Tesla has cropped out all because Tesla, the real, has achieved some favorable notoriety. There is one difference, however, between the two men. One has invented “things” and put them into use. The other promises to do so.

William Fremont Parker was at the Albany hotel last evening. He received his friends there, but his name didn’t appear on the register. He replied when asked for his residence address that he was “in and out all the time.”

About a year ago Mr. Parker experimented with telegraphing from moving trains. He stretched a few hundred feet of wire near a side track at Parker’s station on the Colorado road and rigged up a little trolley to a car loaned by the company. The car was moved backward and forward and Mr. Parker sent a short message to Superintendent Dunaway. All this was by no means new, for several eastern roads have long been taking and receiving messages from moving trains, but not by the trolley method, however.

Mr. Parker last night told of the great benefit his invention would be to mankind. “Why, it will save the lives of 1,500 people each year who are killed in railroad wrecks.” His idea is to put a bell in each of the coaches to alarm the passengers just before an accident happens.

But incidentally, Mr. Parker said he had discovered a method for overcoming induction from wires and making each line work without interference from others. This is entirely new, for electricians have for years considered this possible only by impracticable methods.

Then, Mr. Parker said his invention would permit the use of telephones from moving trains, but he would be compelled he said, to build insulated and sound proof rooms on the trains.

“How fast will your trolley work?” was asked.

“Oh, with a carriage well oiled and built of gutta percha and six-inch aluminum wheels with three-inch slots it will easily run 100 miles an hour and maintain a solid contact with the wires at exactly ten pounds pressure.”

Then Mr. Parker said he had discovered that oil is a good conductor of electricity. That was entirely new, inasmuch as Tesla seems to have made the mistake of using oil to insulate his high potential converters in which currents of 40,000 volts are employed.

“Yes, it’s a fact. Oil is a good conductor. Any street car man will tell you that,” continued the inventor. He further explained that since his test he had done nothing with his inventions, but that he had written to the heads of several railroads and the Burlington had promised to permit him to build a hundred miles of wires along its road - under certain conditions.