Nikola Tesla Patents
520 though it may be locally disturbed by a commotion of some kind, remains unresponsive and impassive in a large part or as a whole. whole. Still another fact, now of common knowledge, is that when electrical waves or oscillations are impressed upon such a conducting path as is afforded by a metallic wire, reflection takes place, under certain conditions, from the ends or surface of the wire, and, owing to the interference of the impressed and reflected oscillations, the phenomenon of stationary waves with maximum and minimum points in definite, fixed positions along the wire, is produced. In such a case the existence of these waves in a wire serves, in accordance with the commonly adopted scientific views, as an absolute proof that some of the outgoing waves have reached the ends or boundaries of the 1 conducting path and have been reflected from the same. Now, I have discovered that, notwithstanding its vast 1 dimensions, and contrary to all observations heretofore made, the Earth 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 hereafter describe. In the course of certain investigations which I at x xxx 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 such discharges, at -2This page retyped from microfilm for better readability Ed. Ed.]
