In Search of Nikola Tesla Page 100

CHAPTER ELEVEN The next morning, when I came down to breakfast, Dave was already up and dressed with my papers collected around him on the kitchen table. He looked up at me as I entered and smiled. 'Well?' he asked. I hesitated for a little then asked him, 'What do you think of it all?" Dave looked at me. 'It's good. I like what you've written very much. It's clear. I think it must have been a terrible mess to sort out." I enjoyed his compliment but wanted to press on. 'Yes, but what do you really think of it?" Dave smiled a little self-consciously. 'At the beginning when I read about what Tesla wanted to do I really hoped that it would work... I know that sounds silly. But then as I read through your notes I had to agree with you - it would be really interesting to build one of these things but you can't use it to transmit power.' I felt relieved. Dave was the first person who had seen my draft report and its conclusions. I also knew him to be a stern critic who would be able to spot any loopholes or sloppy arguments. 'Well, that's that,' I said. 'But I know what you meant when you said that you wished Tesla had been right. He was such a strange man...all that vision. Do you know how he got hold of his ideas?' I began to explain all that I had read about Tesla and the curious fashion in which pictures would appear in his imagination. Dave listened with great concentration as I sketched out the story of Nikola Tesla and his hopes and plans for the future. As I drew near to giving some sort of conclusion about Tesla and his life Dave suddenly stood up and said, ‘Let's go to the waterfall.' The waterfall had once been a curious symbol for us both. It had been a meeting place and a focus for our thoughts. The falls themselves were modest when compared with something as powerful as Tesla's Niagara, but they had a character and a temperament all their own. We had visited the falls in winter and summer and had studied their moods. The falls represented the meeting point of the Rideau and Ottawa rivers and were located very close to the building which had housed the office we had shared. In the winter, we would walk briskly to the falls after lunch and remark upon the complex patterns of ice left by the spray. In summer we could spend an hour or more looking down into the water and watch100