Tesla Promises Big Things

Planeless, Screwless Airship Safe in Any Storm.

Says His Engine Could Convert Factory Gases Now Wasted Into Prodigious Power for Use on Land or Sea or in the Air - Believes He Proved It.

Dr. Nikola Tesla leaned back in his chair at the Waldorf last night and talked calmly of airships without planes, propellers or any of the other gear of the now familiar aeroplanes hurtling through space at tremendous speed or driving more slowly carrying great loads, and in either case always as safely as the most prosaic of wheeled vehicles.

He spoke of harnessing the energy of the gases given off by the great steel plants and producing therefrom 25,000,000 or 50,000,000 horse-power with a value of say $450,000,000 a year. He spoke of these things as of things already accomplished.

“They have called me a dreamer,” he said, “but this is not a dream. It is not an experiment.”

Then he went on to tell something about the new mechanical principle on the development of which he has been at work for several years and concerning which, he said, he felt free to talk since the publication yesterday of the Electrical Review in which Dr. Tesla’s invention is described. He said:

“Virtually in all generation, transmission and transformation of mechanical power we must avail ourselves of a fluid, a liquid or a gas, either to impart or receive energy. In a steam engine, for instance, the fluid is a gas under pressure which transmits its potential energy to a mechanical system. In a pump just the reverse process takes place, the fluid, be it a liquid or a gas, having energy imparted to it by a moving material system. This invention of mine is a novel means of imparting to or deriving energy from a fluid, and therefore bears on all the branches of mechanics.

“It is rather difficult,” he continued in reply to a question, “to give the average reader a correct idea of such a technical advance. But I assume that every one will understand that any fluid is possessed of two properties, one of which is to adhere to the surface of a solid and the other to hold on, as it were, to its own particles. It is a surprising fact that gases and vapors are possessed of this second property to a greater degree than are liquids such as water. Owing to these properties if a solid body is moved through a fluid more or less of the same is dragged along; conversely if a body is immersed in a fluid in motion it is impelled in the direction of movement. The new principle is based on these fundamental facts.”

In reply to a question as to how the principle was applied to practical use in his new invention Dr. Tesla said:

“Let us suppose that it is desired to derive energy from steam under pressure. In this case a number of disks are mounted on a shaft and the whole is placed in a casing with an inlet for the steam tangential to the disks. The steam entering into this orifice by reason of the properties mentioned exercises a pull on the disks and sets them in rotation, circulating under the influence of the centrifugal and tangential forces in a spiral with gradually diminishing velocity, giving up its energy on the rotating system and finally escaping at a centre virtually devoid of dynamic energy.

“In this manner,” continued Dr. Tesla, “an ideal rotary engine without any buckets, vanes or sliding contacts is obtained, and one which in performance surpasses by far any other mechanism yet invented. I have developed 110 horse-power with disks only 9¼ inches in diameter and making a thickness of about two inches. Under proper conditions the performance might have been as much as 1,000 horse-power. In fact there is almost no limit to the mechanical performance of such a machine.”

Dr. Tesla said that his machine would work with gas, as in the usual type of explosion engine used in automobiles and aeroplanes, even better than it did with steam. “Tests which I have conducted have shown that the rotary effort with gas is greater than with steam,” is the way he put it.

It is the utilization through his invention of energy now allowed to go to waste that seemed most to interest the inventor.

“The field of fuel waste,” he said, “is the greatest of all, offering almost unlimited opportunities for exploitation. In the manufacture of steel and iron, according to data which I have carefully collected, in this country alone from 25,000,000 to 30,000,000 horse-power are wasted through the hot gases escaping into the atmosphere. These gases have a high heating value and by means of the new principle the energy could be readily and cheaply harnessed. If you place the value of one horse-power per annum at $15 this would mean an annual revenue from this source of $450,000,000 per annum.

The ability of his new engine to act in either direction - its “reversibility” the inventor calls it - and the wonderful energy that may be developed by a machine of little weight Dr. Tesa says makes the engine particularly well suited to propelling ships.

“Applied to a vessel,” he said, “these engines will make the carrying of reverse turbines unnecessary and greatly reduce the expense, weight and bulk of the others.”

“How about aerial navigation?” Dr. Tesla was asked. He considered for a moment or two and then replied with great deliberation:

“The application of this principle will give the world a flying machine unlike anything that has ever been suggested before. It will have no planes, no screw propellers or devices of any kind hitherto used. It will be small and compact, excessively swift, and, above all, perfectly safe in the greatest storm. It can be built of any size and can carry any weight that may be desired.”

Dr. Tesla in conclusion emphasized again his assertion that the engine that is to do all this is a fact, with its performances matters of record.

“I have built a great many machines, steam and gas turbines, pumps, compressors and other apparatus,” he said, “and a number have been in practical use for some time past. Yes, it is a big thing, but it is for the big things only that I care to work.”