Tesla's Latest

Nicola Tesla’s latest patent specifications were published during the past week. It is for the means and apparatus and other mechanism carried by a moving object, whereby the course of the object may be controlled from a distance, and any device carried by it brought into action at will. No patent issued in a generation has excited so much interest. If his apparatus works as he claims it does, one can stand on shore or shipboard and send a torpedo boat, or fleet of such boats or other torpedo carriers, against an enemy a dozen miles away without endangering life on the attacking boat. It appears to be receiving only favorable criticism from electric journals and experts, which is probably what might be expected from any invention which Tesla can make. It does not appear to be improbable that it may entirely change modern naval war methods, as electric discoveries have changed our lighting, transportation and power methods. They have, in fifteen years, opened the door to a new domestic and economic world, of which no one even dreamed twenty years ago. So, by revolutionizing war methods, they may open the door to a new world, where peace, instead of war, may reign.

All this, however, is based upon the supposition that the result of the inventions may be as claimed. Of course an ordinary layman, or simple student of electric science, is not allowed to question the accuracy of what the powers that be may say about any new electric invention. He who doubts is damnest in this field. But we must run the risk of being damned. Mr. Tesla has been before the world as a great inventor for many years, and the yellow journals have converted him into a wizard, little if any, lower than the gods. We published, years ago, an account of his oscillator, or combined power generator and engine, which was going to revolutionize all power generators in use. We never heard from it since it materialized as spooks do for mediums. Then next he was going to send currents through the earth without wires, and it was going to do great things. Then he switched to the use of the upper air currents, or Brush’s etherion. His latest one is on a par with others, like the friends who have gone before, and will be known no more forever. There is scarcely any reason for we common mortals to think that the invention will cause spears to be beaten into plow shares, swords into pruning hooks and war ships to take their place with the armor of old. - Mining Reporter.