Nikola Tesla Patents
Per 2 73 when electrical waves or oscillations are impressed upon such a conducting path as a metallic wire, reflection takes place, under certain conditions, from the ends of the wire and, in consequence of the interference of the impressed and reflected. oscillations, the phenomenon of "stationary waves", with maxima and minima in definite, fixed positions is produced. In any case the existence of these waves indicates that some of the outgoing waves have reached the boundaries of the conducting path and have been reflected from the same. Now I have discovered, that notwithstanding its vast dimensions and contrary to all observations heretofore made, the Xterrestrial Aglobe may, in a large part or as a whole, behave towards disturbances impressed upon it in the same manner as a conductor of limited size, this fact being demonstrated by novel phenomena which I shall hereinafter describe. In the course of certain investigations, which I carried on for the purpose of studying the effects of lightning discharges upon the electrical condition of the Earth, I observed that sensitive receiving instruments, arranged so as to be capable of responding to electrical disturbances created by the discharges, at times failed to respond, when they should have done so and, upon inquiring into the causes of this unexpected behavior, I discovered it to be due to the character of the electrical waves, which were produced in the Earth by the lightning discharges and which had nodal regions following, at definite distances, the shifting source of the disturbances. From data obtained in a large number of observations of the maxima and minima of these waves, I found their length to vary, approximately, from twenty five to seventy kilometers, and these -2This page retyped from microfilm for better readability - • Ed.] 537
