Tesla's Triumph

When Morse found out the possibility of sending messages from one place to another by the electric telegraph his invention was only the clumsy beginning of a system. He used two wires to complete the circuit.

Presently somebody discovered that only one wire was necessary, because by "grounding" it at each end the earth could be made to do the rest of the work.

From that hour to this — from the time when it was discovered that the earth could be made to do half the work — it has been the problem of electricians to make the earth do all of it. It has been certain that sooner or later we should do our telegraphing without wires.

Mr. Tesla now announces that he has accomplished this. He can send signals for twenty miles without the use of wires. Any system that sends signals can be made to send messages. And when signalling for twenty miles is possible, signalling for any conceivable distance is a thing not far off.

This earth of ours is a great magnet, a gigantic dynamo. We have only to learn how to apply its practically illimitable magnetic powers to our uses in order to "make the whole world kin" in a degree never dreamed of by the poet who invented that phrase.