The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-07-23
WIRELESS ELECTRIC LAMPS.

AAr. Ieslas Experience With High FIRE.
quency Alterations.
New York Times: The electrical world
is just now experiencing a thrill of delight
because of the remarkable experiments of
Nlkola Tesla, q young Austro-Hungarian,
who has made this city his home and who
promises to become famous in his profess
sion. The particular subject upon which
this gentleman has SO wonderfully per
fecteU himself is that of alternating cur
rents OF high frequency, Il subject on
which he recently delivered a lecture at
Columbia college before the American In
stitute OF Electrical Engineers.
While there wes much in Mr.. Tesla's
paper that applied to the most occult bran
ches OF theoretical electricity, there was
also much that appealed to the laymon be-
cause of the great promise it gave OF future
commercial I'M portance. Mr.. Tesla is now
engaged III pertecting an improved system
OF electric lighting, by which, from q given
amount OF electrical energy, Il light manv
times st onGer than any vet produced NAV
bo secured without wires or pipes Of auy
KIND connecting with the light itself. Wires
from q station lending to the building TO be
lighted will still be employed, and much of
the machinery now used in an ordinary
1ncandescent lighting plant will be used.
but with the difference that the lamuH
may be carried about IN the hand. that the
walls and ceilings will not be Gefaced BY
wires and il es. and the light will be very
much stronger than that now in use. The
methods by which Mr.. i esla was led to
these conclusions are obtained from his pa
per, which las just been made public.
Ills attention was first drawn to an ordi-
nary induction coil from which sparks are
developed similar to those evolved from "A
static fractional electric machine.
The currents that operated these coils
were alternating, with from 10 to 700 vi
bratIons a second. In order 10 obtain
greatly increased effects MIR. Tesla con-
structed Il machine which produced q, eco
alterations Per second. This experiment
Resulted in several interesting phenomena.
by attaching n wire to one ct toe terlnl-
nals of such II coil streams OF light issued
IN ali directions, sho ainG how intense was
the nature of the 10. ces at wo k. lie then
placed u line platinum wirs IN
q glass bulb anu tie tremendous
force of the current get the
platinum TO spinning about it in n vsritabia
cone OF llluminatioa. THIS led to tho CON
struet'on Of a practical form of lamp, con-
sistlnG d u glass bulb from which the air
had Leen exhausted, and which contained a
button OF some refractory material con
nected with Il wire leading to the outside OF
the bulb. This lamp elowcd brightly. 1t
established tho first oint of Mr.. Iesia's ex-
perlnelts by doing away will the two-wire
system row IN use.
lhis, howeve!, by no means satisfied him.
The Use o. alte mating currents of VERY
high tieausucy,' he says, makes it nogsi
BILE to trsnste, by elect ostatic or electro
magnet INDUCTION through the glass of Il
lamp sufficient energy to keep = n!ament at
1ncaldescrnce ana 40 do away with tho
leading-in witea." In other words, he con-
templated the creation of a lamp without