Tesla's Death Ray is Climax of 50 Years' Inventions

Scientist Believes That Communication Between Planets Possible

By EDWIN C. HILL

Edison is gone, and that extraordinary little genius of Schenectady, Steinmetz. But the race of electrical wizards has not depart ed from the earth. Younger men built upon the foundations laid down by the elder magicians, promising us, in the immediate future, marvels even more useful to humanity Nikola Tesla at 78 (he celebrated his birthday only the other day), is young only in the sense that genius never ages, but the pupil of the great Edison commands the interest of the world by his announcement of his seven hundred and first invention, the death ray — the instrument, man-made lightning, which may abolish war.

For generations and centuries troubled humanity, at the mercy of stupid or designing politicians, has dreamed of some force, some power, so terrible and instant that war and human slaughter would become utter futility. And now Dr. Tesla tells us that he has found that force, that power.)

He calls it not the "death ray," but the "death beam," a lightning bolt of a million volts, of such tremendous energy that its wielders could bring down in flaming wreckage a fleet of a thousand airplanes flying two hundred and fifty miles from the borders of the nation they were sent to attack. Or it could destroy an army in the field, dropping a hundred thousand men dead in their tracks.

For Defense Only

It will be a defensive weapon solely, because its use requires great power plants which could not be transported by invading and offensive forces, and as a defensive weapon it will build, so Dr. Tesla asserts, an impregnable wall around every nation which possesses it. It may be a dream, but dreams have a way of coming true in science, and if this dream materializes, then Tesla will surely take his place among the great of all time, as "the man who abolished war."

Dr. Tesla promises to tell us all about his invention — or four inventions, really, for the "death beam" implies four processes which must be co-ordinated. But in the meantime he predicts the end of that sea wolf, the submarine, for his death beam will be able to penetrate deep down into the sea and destroy the lurking terror.

It will drive the attacking airplanes from the air. It will make the battleship ruler of the waves, and the forts of the future will be, not subterranean caverns armed with long range cannon, but great power houses radiating a force far more destructive than any cannon

Worked With Edison

Nikola Tesla is Austrian born and came to this country just 50 years ago to work for Thomas A. Edison. He was twenty-eight then, fresh from the Gratz Polytechnic and the University of Prague, a shy young man who dreamed his dreams and spent whole nights in his laboratory, sleeping when his eyes would no longer stay open, eating when the weakness of hunger warned him.

Thereafter, for 50 years, marvel after marvel sprang full-fledged from his dreaming brain. He discovered the principle of the rotary magnetic field.

It was this discovery which made possible the alternating current motor and the transmission of power by that method.

He invented innumerable electrical appliances including dynamos, transformers, induction coils, oscillators and are lamps. His later work dealt with the application of such currents to wireless telegraphy, the transmission of power without wires and many similar problems which have affected the whole field of electrical energy.

Thinks Mars Inhabited

Always imaginative, Tesla has speculated as to whether a man electrocuted in the death chair could not be restored to life by the application of electrical current. More than 30 years ago, from the top of Pike's Peak, he caught (or thought so, at any rate) electrical signals from the planet Mars. Like the late Professor Lowell, Tesla. is convinced that life exists on Mars, and believes that its intellectually advanced inhabitants have been trying for centuries — perhaps for thousands of years — to communicate with the duller intelligence of the earth.

Interesting to note at this writing that the Lowell Observatory, at Flagstaff, while asserting that there can be no possibility of any thing like human life out in the void of space, make a possible exception of Mars, for Mars has clouds and water.

Dr. Tesla feels convinced that the day will come when he, or someone following in his footsteps will be able to communicate with either Mars or Venus, or both. It is mathematically certain, says Tesla, that other planets are inhabited. It would be a bold skeptic, indeed, who could lightly discard the theories and predictions of the man who has worked such wonders, this man of fascinating mind, who stands today as America's greatest inventor.