The Teslian - Vol. I, No. 4 Page 3

O'NEILL & "PRODIGAL GENIUS"

When preparing the manuscript of "Prodigal Genius", Mr. O'Neill found it very difficult to locate material on Tesla. Tesla outlived his contemporaries, and families of deceased friends preserved little concerning him. Research manuscripts have drifted into various hands and have been scattered to the extent that they are not now traceable. Strange as it may seem, there are those who have collections of Tesla material but, for personal reasons, will not reveal them. It is not surprising then that errors have been found in the text of "Prodigal Genius" because information in several instances was either fragmentary or unconfirmable. The following is a tabulation of corrections for errors which have been found in the text of "Prodigal Genius" The Life of Nikola Tesla by John J. O'Neill.

p. 125 - The Tesla interview appearing in the Electrical Review was for June 9, 1897, instead of the month of July as stated.

p. 178 - The description of Tesla's "magnifying transmitter" should be corrected as follows: The circular fence like wall seventy-five feet in diameter is actually a portion of the secondary circuit instead of the primary circuit as stated. The lower end of the coil wound on the cylindrical skeletonized framework can be seen connected by a lead to the uppermost turn of the larger coil in several photographs. (This mode of joining the two portions of the secondary circuit is described in the Tesla patent 1,119,732, page 2, lines 93-100.) The primary circuit of the "magnifying transmitter" was 51 feet in diameter and buried in the ground.

p. 238 - The Tesla statement described as unpublished appears in the Electrical Experimenter magazine for October, 1919, pp. 601-603.

p. 251 - The article entitled "Mans Greatest Achievement" described as unpublished appears in the New York Sunday American for July 6, 1930.

NOTE: Two excellent articles on the construction of vacuum tube type Tesla oscillators have appeared currently. One in Popular Science for August by Elbert Robberson, pp. 190-193. The other in Radio & Television News by R. A. Kawcyn and T. C. Marshall, pp. 45, 98.