Nikola Tesla U.S. Patent 511,916 - Electric Generator Patent Wrapper Page 7

14 set forth." We have considered very carefully the object ions made to this application and have examined the references cited. It was not the inventor's intention to be understood as claiming the combinations of the reciprocating element of an ordinary steam or other engine and the movable element of a generator connected directly together, and we might say that this appears to be the most unscientific and impracticable way imaginable for converting en The claims are limited so as power into electric. engined to describe the engine as one in which the part carrying the movable element of the generator is "free to reciprocate under the action thereon of steam et c." In the references there is not the most remote suggestion of such an engine. The engines described are the ordinary forms in which the movements of the piston are restricted or controlled by regulat ing mechanism, fly wheels or similer systems of great inertia. In applicants invention the piston is entire ly free to move as the steam impels it without having to encounter and overcome the inertia of a moving system, and in this respect the two forms differ essentially and radically. If this distinction be made sufficiently apparent from the language of the claims and we do not see how they could well be more explicit in this respect without injustice to the appli cant claims 1, 2 and 3 would be free -2