The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-04-05
EARTH'S ELECTRIC FORCE.
NiisoIa Tesla's Amazing Plan to
Harness Free Currents.

astounding revelation. The conditions
under which we exist will be changed.
The end has come to telegraph and
telephone monopolies with a crash
Incidentally, all the other monopolies
that depend on power of any kind will
come to a sudden stop. The earths
currents of electricity are to be har-
messed. Nature supplies them free OF
charge. The cost of power. of light
and heat will be practically nothing.
The scientific electricians who have
for years been trying to master the
mystery of electrical earth currents
with which the ground beneath your
feet is filled, are on the threshold of
success. The success of the expert
ments they have under way means
much to them but vastly more to the
people. 1t means that if Nikola Tesla
succeeds in Harvesting the electrical
earth currents and putting them to
work for man there will be an end to
oppressive extortionate monopolies in
steam, telephones, telegraphs and the
other commercial uses of electricity,
and that the grasping millionaires who
have for two decades MIXED the peo-
pies purse with electrical fingers Will
have to relinquish their monopoly.
Nikola Tesla has discovered the Sc
cret of the electric earth currents of
nature, and they will be adapted TO
the uses of man. He has succeeded in
transmitting sound by the currents
that make an electric net of the earth.
The transmission of power will follow.
His experiments reduced to CONNER
cially practicable uses will mean that
men will be able to tap the electric
currents of the earth and make them
serve the purpose of industry and of
trade just as a well-digger taps water
or a miner opens a vein of coal. The
mighty electrical emery that has been
stored up in the earth for ages will be
harnessed and made to move the ma
chinery of men.
Electricity will be as free as the air.
For the privileges of its use legisla-
lures will not have to be bribed or
men corrupted at the polls and public
boards will not have to be "seen" 10
bestow exclusive franchises upon cor
porations organized to use public prop
erty for purposes of private gain, and
| make the people pay the original cost
of their investment and excessive
charges for service in order to squeeze
dividends out of copiously watered
shares.
Monopolies for purveying steam pow
er too will be forced to capitulate to
| free electricity, for with the latter,
manufacturers will only have to con-
meet their dynamos with the earth cur
rent to set their machinery in motion.
The successful adaptation of Tesla's
discovery will administer a death-bloW
to the most calling slavery that has
ever yoked the activities of men to
the treadmill of monopoly. Tesla is
the wizard who is going to enamel
pate modern industries from the
shacllles of corrupting, dividend
grabbing, monopolistic corporations.
Sound travels with amazing speed,
| but electrical vibrations travel so
swiftly that it is difficult to conjure
UP a figure which will graphically IL
lustrate their speed. Here is one that
| will, perhaps, convey a vivid and lucid
impression. In fancy place yourself
| at a table with a revolver in one hand
and finger of the other hand on the
key of telegraph instrument connec-
ted with a wire that girdles the globe
seven times and laps over on the
eighth turn a distance equal to II 900
miles. Pull the trigger of the pistol
and simultaneously press the telegraph
key. While the sound of the report
Of the revolver is travelling 1850 feet
the electrical impulse impaired by the
pressure on the key will pass seven
and a half times around the world
through the wire with which the key
| is connected.
|
electrical impulse $4,000 miles sec
ond. If the electrical currents with
which the earth is filed can be har-
messed and put to work. q new era in
electricity will have dawned. 1t is to
the mastering of the mystery of these
| earth currents and their adaptation
that scientists like Tesla have been
! striving.
In the course of Tesla's experiments
it is reported that he found in the
vicinity of large cities there We're SO
many conflicting earth currents that
satisfactory results could not be OBJ
tanned. So he went out to Denver. and
near there found better field for eX-
| perimenting. There he met friend
! interested in electrical research. They
went to Pixies Peak. Conspicuous
among their baggage were two auto
! harDs.
Tesla and his friend scaled the rug
! ged side of the peak. AT an elevation
agreed on they separated. Tesla skirt
ed the peak, and or reaching a point
precisely opposite the place at which
/ he left his friend he stopped. The two
/ eAperimenters, on a line drawn straight
! through the peak, were thus separated
/ by four miles of stratified rock. The
! two autoharps had been delicately at
! tuned before the scientists parted, and
q time fixed for Mr. Tesla's comrade to
/ play an air (aiso agreed upon) on the
aUtoharp.
! Tesla waited patiently the arrival of
/ the appointed time. Then he connected
! his harm with the ground in such a
way as to secure harmonic resonance
with the earth current The manner
and medium of this connection are Sc
crets. The receiving autoharp was
equipped with a microphone AS the
| time approached for his friend on the
other side of the peak to strum the
appointed tune Tesla listened with
rapt attention.
AT last, as the tuning fork responds
| to its harmonic note sounded on the
| strings of a piano. the autoharp in Mr..
| TeSla's hands gave out the harmonic
tones of Ben Bolt which his COM
panion az the station four miles away
ing from the tense wires of his inStru-
ment The experiment was a success.
After many tunes had been played,
Tesla and his companion descended the
peak. A statement of the facts and
results of the experiments was written
and attested before a notary public as
a matter of scientific record.
The electric currents are in the
earth. Their strength is great enough
to furnish all the power and light man
needs. Mr.. Tesla has overcome the
initial difficulty and has located and
! tapped the earth currents. The rest will
follow, as followed the telephone Prof
Bells discovery of how to transmit
speech over wire.
THEE OLD AND NEW NAVY.
The old Constitution could with he,