September 29th, 1915 letter from Nikola Tesla to Benjamin F. Miessner - Page 1

8 West 40th Street
New York, N. Y.
September 29, 1915

Benjamin F. Miessner, Esq.,
Purdue University,
Lafayette, Indiana

My dear Sir:

Your favor of September 24th has been received in due course and has interested me in view of your forthcoming bock on "Radio Dynamics". Some time ago my friend, Charles E. Speirs of the D. Van Nostrand Company, told me that you were engaged in its preparation and I commended it for publication as very little has been written on the subject. Personally, I believe that the name is not the very best as it conveys the idea that radiations are, if not motive, at least the controlling agent, while, as a matter of fact, such is not the case.

I am naturally greatly absorbed in this field of invention which has been barely touched and which I look upon as extremely promising. In an article in the Century Magazine, copy of which I em forwarding to you, I have related the circumstances which led me to develop the idea of a self-propelled automaton. My experiments were begun sometime in '92 and from that period, on, until '95, in my Laboratory at 35 South Fifth Avenue, I exhibited a number of contrivances and perfected plans for several complete telautomata. After the destruction of my Laboratory by fire in '95, there was an interruption in these labors which, however, were resumed in ¹96 in my new Laboratory at 46 East Houston Street where I made more striking demonstrations, in many instances actually transmitting the whole motive energy to the devices instead of simply controlling the same from distance. In ¹97 I began the construction of a complete automaton in the form of a boat, which is described