Nikola Tesla Books
its lighting machines disabled and its sailing was delayed. As the super-structure had been built after their installation, it was impossible to remove them from the hold. The predicament was a serious one and Edison was much annoyed. In the evening I took the necessary instruments with me and went aboard the vessel where I stayed for the night. The dynamos were in bad condition, having several shortcircuits and breaks, but with the assistance of the crew, I succeeded in putting them in good shape. At five o'clock in the morning, when passing along Fifth Avenue on my way to the shop, I met Edison with Bachelor and a few others, as they were returning home to retire. "Here is our Parisian running around at night,â he said. When I told him that I was coming from the Oregon and had repaired both machines, he looked at me in silence and walked away without another word. But when he had gone some distance I heard him remark, "Bachelor, this is a good man." And from that time on I had full freedom in directing the work. For nearly a year my regular hours were from 10:30 A.M. until 5 o'clock the next morning without a day's exception. Edison said to me, "I have had many hard working assistants, but you take the cake." During this period I designed twenty-four different types of standard machines with short cores and uniform pattern, which replaced the old ones. The Manager had promised me fifty thousand dollars on the completion of this task, but it turned out to be a practical joke. This gave me a painful shock and I resigned my position. Immediately thereafter, some people approached me with the proposal of forming an arc light company under my name, to which I agreed. Here finally, was an opportunity to develop the motor, but when I broached the subject to my new associates they said, "No, we want the arc lamp. We don't care for this alternating current of yours." In 1886 my system of arc lighting was perfected and adopted for factory and municipal lighting, and I was free, but with no other possession than a beautifully engraved certificate of stock of hypothetical value. Then followed a period of struggle in the new medium for which I was not fitted, but the reward came in the end, and in April, 1887, the TESLA Electric Co. was organised, providing a laboratory and facilities. The motors I built there were exactly as I had imagined them. I made no attempt to improve the design, but merely reproduced the pictures as they appeared to my vision and the operation was always as I expected. In the early part of 1888, an arrangement was made with the Westinghouse Company for the manufacture of the motors on a large scale. But great difficulties had still to be overcome. My system was based on the use of low frequency currents and the Westinghouse experts had adopted 133 cycles with the objects of securing advantages in transformation. They did not want to depart with their standard forms of apparatus and my efforts had to be concentrated upon adapting the motor to these conditions. Another necessity was to produce a motor capable of running efficiently at this frequency on two wire, which was not an easy accomplishment. At the close of 1889, however, my services in Pittsburgh being no longer essential, I returned to New York and resumed experimental work in a Laboratory on Grand Street, where I began immediately the design of high-frequency machines. The problems of construction in this unexplored field were novel and quite peculiar, and I encountered many difficulties. I rejected the inductor type, fearing that it might not yield perfect sine waves, which were so important to resonant action. Had it not been for this, I could have saved myself a great deal of labour. Another discouraging feature of the high-frequency alternator seemed to be the inconstancy of speed which threatened to impose serious limitations to its use. I had already noted in my demonstrations before the American Institution of Electrical Engineers, that several times The Strange Life of Nikla Tesla 23
