The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-11-13

is out, 1t Is out because ne mas
just received patents on it in
this and other countries.
What Tesla proposes to do
now is to transmit almost any amount
of power almost any distance without
wires, and without loss. Although
moving ships at sea may use the sys-
TEN for propulsion it is mainly intend
ed for use on land
To illustrate the anticipated results
IN the most concrete form it is pro-
posed, for instance, that water power
shall generate a great quantity Of
electricity on the lower courses OF
streams coming from the Sierras; that
this electricity shall be conducted to
balloon arrangement floating mile or
two above the earth; that there shall
be in San Francisco a similar balloon
high above the city and that all the
electrical energy conducted to the first
balloon shall pass without loss and
without wires to the balloon over the
city, from which it shall descend to
turn wheels and light lamps, etc.
A secondary result would seem to be
that ships minus boilers and minus
coal shall plow their way from the
Golden Gate to Puget Sound, their
motors which draw their energy
through the air from stations arranged
every hundred miles or so along the
shore.
This may seem crazy idea to some
people, but then it was q more crazy
idea once that a mans voice should
be heard 1000 miles away and that a
waterfall should turn mill hundred
miles away, and besides Nikola Tesla
says so and he is acknowledged as one
of the very best electric experts in the
country.
In one sense Tesla is greater wizard
than Edison. They are twin wizards
in the wondrous field of electrical sci
ence, but they are wholly unlike. Edi-
son is wholly practical and he cares for
nothing that he cannot make a COM
mercial success. His spur is not devo-
ton to science as it was with Frank
lin, Faraday, Volta, Galvani and the
rest. Tesla is rather Edisons reverse
as a genius. He plunges into electrical
mystery and seeks scientific facts, phe-
nOmena, laws and principles rather
than patents though he looks out for
the patents when they are in sight
Young Tesla has startled the world
about as much as has Edison, but you
don't find his name on the patent plates
Of as many machines about town He
made electrical engineers marvel by
smilingly passing a million volts Of
showed them how to light a room bril-
liantly with a simple empty glass tube
which he held in his hand or laid on
the table without any connecting wires.
In various ways he has led the SCI
entific world far toward the final mys
terry of this form of radiation" This
latest advance of his is both scientific
and practical.
'Teslas system of electric mower
transmission through natural media
is the descriptive title Of this latest in
vention of his.
This at once suggests the new tele-
graphy without wires, which promises
to be commercial feature of EVERYDAY
life tomorrow or next day, but the one
system is wholly different from the
other.
In the wireless telegraphy an appar-
atus sends out in all directions through
air buildings, earth and water a series
of 'Hertzian waves" as a lighthouse
lamp sends out light waves. The
length and frequency are regulated
and the receiving apparatus, if adapt
ed to these waves, responds as one
tuning fork will to its like. In this
case the electrical phenomena proceed
in all directions like sound or ripples
from where a stone strikes in the
water.
Tesla, however, proposes to generate
energy at one point and pass it all