The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-03-20
WHAT TESLA WILL
ACCOMPLISH NEXT
He Now Proposes, as II We're, TO Harness
the Globe.
GREAT STRIDES IN ELECTRICITY
The Wizard of lcctrical Science Has
Some Ambitious That Almost Take
Ones Breath Away-- to
Telegraph to the Planets and Hitch
n Telephone TO Ray of Light.

Telegraph to the Planets and Hitch
Telephone TO Ray of Light.
Writing in Leslc's Weekly about the
wizard of electricity, Niko!a Tesla, j.
e. st. Clair says: This revolving globe
generates every moment enough cleo
tricity, If it could be stored in batteries,
to run all the machinery of the world
for the balance of time. At the North
Pole this electricity streams off in beieu-
tiful red ribbons called the auroras,
and we see this phenomenon on account
of the highly Gttenuated condition of
the atmosphere. But everywhere, as
high as the air reaches, around this
earth is this immense wealth of nature,
yet man, in his blindness and puniness,
continues to manufacture with his lit
tie dynanOs what nature has placed
before him in such abundance. He does
not need to manufacture another spark;
he needs only to use an infnitesimal
fraction of what is already made and
the world of intelligence will become
whispering gallery, and the world of his
machinery will move in it's appointed
motion out of the forces of the invisible
air.
For more than ten years scientists
have known that man was wasting his
time and energy burning coal and wood,
denuding his forests, impCverishing his
soil, and blackening the air of his cities
and then, with all his boosted speed, to
move comparatively as a cripple. n
few of them knew this, and one of them
Nikola Tesla, was bold enough to say
that he could change all this. Well, 1t
hasn't yet been changed, but while |
was in his laboratory the other day
he looked up from one of his machines
with the confidence of Archimedes light
ing his face. II have found the way of
my dream and will soon show it to
the world Mr.. Tesla, as is we'll known,
has harnessed Niagara and now he is
ready to harness the globe.
TESLA'S OSCILLATOR.
A few hundred feet in the air, just
above what is known as the magnetic
disturbance of the earths surface, the
electric waves run in long, straight
lines. They are called the Hertizian
waves, after young Hertz, their dscov-
erer. These waves are in fact, found
everywhere in the air. but up there
they can be used without the danger of
by a long series of experiments, learned
to take hold of them and flash a light
precisely as a sunbeam is flashed from
a mirror. He has also learned to throw
the electric energy of these waves into
a battery and turn a distant machine
connected with this battery by a wire.
Mr.. Tesla has machine in his labor
atory, that he calls an oscillator, that
c
them into the atmosphere just as nature
does. With this oscillator he has sue
ceeded in making every calculation nee
essary to flash a message without a wire
to any part of the earth, or to take
the electric waves generated by the
great power of Niagara and grind
wheat in Argentina, or run the trolley
cars in Sydney. This is no longer spec
ulation, but science, and with time and
capital such a gigantic scale will be re-
allied.
What is necessary to build here and
there on the high points of the earth,
tall towers and put into the tops of
| these towers machines to gather and
focus these waves, Just as the mirror
gathers and focuses the sunbeams. Mr..
Tesla said to me that, with tower
tall enough and with machines big
enough he could send a message from
New York to London without a wire,
but for transmitting electric energy for
running machinery at this distance it
would require a series of towers. But
there will never be any necessity for
running machinery at that long dis
tance from the source of energy. Il is
over long distances that we want to tel
egraph. With such a station at New
York not only could we talk to IIu-
rope without wires, but every ship on
the Atlantic could communicate With
us, and assistance could be rendered to
any one of them in distress. The seas
would be robbed of over half their ter
rurs. But this means of communication
would render 1t impossible for a few
persons to conceal important informa-
| ton long enough to take advantage of
the public. Every financial panic has
had its origin in the way the telegraph
or cable news has been concealed, but
a tall tower flashing its messages on
the city would protect the public and
would immensely help nations to read
| lily understand each other in an inter
national crisis threatening war
LIGHT AND SOUND.
It is now known that light is sound
carried to a point of vibration beyond
hearing There are scientists. and
| among them Mr. Tesla, who believe
that the two terms may be convertible
that is to say, that we might take a
sunbeam and 50 graduate it down as
to hear something of the terrific storms
that are constantly sweeping over that
luminary So it may not be impossible
to attach the telephone and phOnograph
to these waves that may he made to
blink around the globe as the winking
diamonds in the girdle of a woman's
waist. i we ever talk and sing across
the wide seas this is possibly the only
way for it should be understood that
wires can be distributed from these high
stations into every house.
Mr. Tesla has gone so far as to say
that it is possible to communicate with
other planets of our system by throwing
gigantic letters with these tall-tower
lights on the face of the earth. This
is DOWNRIGHT dreaming and here we