Tesla Seeks Patent for New Device for Electrical Warfare

His Device is An Engine Which Will Paralyze or Kill Anywhere on the Earth's Surface.

New York, Dec. 15. — Nikola Tesla, the noted inventor, and winner of the Nobel Physics Prize for 1915, has filed applications for patents on the essential parts of a machine to make war electrically. His device is an engine that will paralyze or kill an enemy at any point on the earth’s surface. Ten miles or a thousand, it will be all the same to the machine, the inventor claims. Straight to the point, on land or on sea, it will be able to go with precision, delivering a blow that will paralyze or kill, as desired.

That a man on a tower on Long Island could shield New York against ships or army by working a lever is the prediction of the inventor, if the full end of his hopes is realized.

Dr. Tesla says it would be possible with his wireless mechanism to direct an ordinary aeroplane manless to any point, over a ship or an army, and to discharge explosives with electrical devices from the base of operations.

“This idea is founded upon a principle that means great things in peace and great things in war,” says Dr. Tesla. “With transmitters we are able to project electrical energy in any amount to any distance and apply it for innumerable purposes, both in peace and war. Through the universal adoption of this system, ideal conditions for the maintenance of law and order will be realized, for then the energy necessary for the enforcement of right and justice will be normally productive, yet potential, and in any moment available, for attack and defense. The power transmitted need not be necessarily destructive, for, if existence is made to depend on it, its withdrawal or supply will bring about the same results as those now accomplished by force of arms.

“The art is already so far developed that great destructive effects can be produced to any point on the globe, determined before hand and with great accuracy. In view of this, I have not thought it hazardous to predict that the wars of the future will not be waged with explosives but with electrical means.”

Dr. Tesla insists there is nothing sensational about his new device, that it is but the fruition of many years of work and study. He is not yet ready to give the details of the engine which he says will render fruitless any military expedition against a country which possesses it. All that could be learned definitely about it is that the destructive invention will go through space with a speed of 300 miles a second; a manless airship propelling engine or wings, sent by electricity to any desired point on the globe.