Nikola Tesla U.S. Patent 645,576 - System of Transmission of Electrical Energy Patent Wrapper Page 35

[ 1 J JUJ 1L) (JGJ ) The assertion is made that no previously constructed ap para tus did or could produce currents that were practically available for the transmission of energy by conduction through the atmosphere at any elevation which could be reached by known appliances. What may have been accomplished or demonstrated subsequent to the applicant's ry is quite a different matter. So that the case, as we look at it, stands thus: Mr. Tesla produced an entirely novel form of apparatus which is illustrated in the specification and drawings. He discovered that for the currents which such an apparatus was capable of producing, accessible strata of the atmosphere formed true conducting paths over which any amount of energy which the apparatus can produce can be conveyed to any distance with little loss and at small expense, and it remained then, only to conduct such currents to the proper elevation and collect them, at a more or less remote point, from the stratum which afforded for them a path as conductive as a copper wire, or even more so. The distinction between the present discovery and previous demonstrations or speculations is mainly this: Heretofore it was not known, or at least we have no evidence of such knowledge, that it was possible to utilize any portion of the atmosphere as a conducting path for any current that could be produced. Mr. Tesla, on the other hand, has produced currents which accessible atmospheric strate will convay by conduction. or some one else may produce, currents of higher pressure or of different character which lower strata or discov duce, -2He may pro153