The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-12-18
Mr.. TESLA CRITICISED
HIS PROMISES AND PERFORMANCES
SAVIOR OF sENsATIONALIsM
Mea gerness of the Practical Outcome
scientific Disbelief I'm His Re-
cent Announcements.



New York Evening Post.
THAT the author of the mutiphase system
OF transmission should at this late day be
flooding the press with rhetorical bombast
that recalls the widest days of the Keely-
motor mania is inconsistent and inexplicable
to the last degree" This utterance from
the Scientific American exemplifies the
strong language coming from scientific
| quarters about the latest announcements of
Mr.. Nikola Tesla, and bids fair to mark the
elimination of a long period of what may
be called electric sensationalsm. Another
scientific journal, the Electrical Engineer,
which for some years expounded Mr.. Tesla's
earlier work, has drawn back in alarm;
and in a recent comment on one of Mr..
| Tesas promises says it refuses point
blank to accept it in silence, and is will
ing to face the consequences" The situa-
ton thus developed is of unusual interest.
1t is not until a review is made of Mr..
Teslas programme that an intelligent un-
derstanding can be reached of the attitude
now displayed on this subject by the scien-
/ tiic press and by leaders of scientific
thought, and of the resentment exhibited
by the subject of their quiet criticism, who
accuses them of desire to do him serious
injury" A representative of the Evening
Post has made investigation of the matter.
and the data now presented will assist the
public in forming its own conclusions.
| AT the tirnc of the destruction by fire of
Mr.. Tesla's laboratory Blocker street
| early in 1895 he was at work on an "oscil-
lator," in which he sought to combine steam
| engine and dynamo in one machine, with
| immense economy of steam and gain in out
put of current. A completed machine
| tpd in Moo zin n
| April 1885, with glowing comment by the
| author of the article At that time Mr..
Tesla had stated to friends that the machine
would certainly be widely in use in New
! York city within six months. Mr.. Tesla
| forthwith started new plans and new lab
oratory, but no ''oscillator'' has made it's
| appearance. On the contrary, Mr.. Tesla has
! given the name to quite another apparatus
! of utterly different construction, having
nothing to do with steam, and upon which
he has laid great stress as to it's merit in
delicate ctro-therapeutic work.
| Mr.. Tesla also became engaged in perfect
| ing vacuum tube lighting, which as early as
1892 at the New York Electric Club and
| other places he had predicted would wipe
| out the Edison incandescent system in Il
| year. In the New York Sun of Nov. q, 1928,
Mr.. Tesla stated that he had his system
ready, but he limited it's possible usefulness.
| 1t is not, however, on the market nor has
| any one approached by the reporter ever
seen it in commercial operation anywhere.
AS development of his ''oscilator''
! perlments Mi. Tesla further expressed his
| belief that the current would be used in tel
| eegraphy, and the New York Herald quoted
m as IPIoWs 81 ma 1t VII DE possible to
and that from the logical development of
this it will be possible to signal the stars by
| electrical disturbances here, | have no doubt
| whatever" He claimed to be able by his
! ''oscilatory methods to disturb the earth's
| electrical charge, and showed apparatus in
| which this extraordinary phenomenon was
| alleged to be manifest
INSPIRED BY X RAY
The discovery of the X ray by Professor
Roentgen in 1895, and its announcement at
the beginning of 1885, led to great activity
on the part Of such men as Mr.. Edison, Mr.
| Tesla, Mr. Moore and others in the field of
| fuorescent and vacuum-tube lighting, and
| claims of one kind and another followed
| thick and fast as to what the ray was, better
methods of securing it, new lamps, improved
| X-ray pictures, etc. But at the present mo-
| ment so far as can be discovered, not a
| single piece of Tesla special X-ray appa-
| ratus can be bought anywhere and not
| single theory advanced by him has received
| the approval of the scientific world.
| Next we hear of holder schemes. A few
| months later Garrett p. Serviss heralded in
! the New York Journal the fact that 'Nilxola
| Tesla's latest contribution to science opens
| I'D one of the most surprising visions of
| mans future control over nature that the
| nineteenth century has produced" This re-
| ferred to elaborate scheme for generating
| electric current at a trihing expense by Nj
| agara power, SatUrating the earth with 1t
and spraying growing plants from electrified
water tanks. In this way the nitrogen need
ed by exhausted soil was to be restored to it,
and mankind saved from starvation. The
| most diligent inquiry fails to reveal the trial
| of any apparatus for this purpose or the
| first public proof of the intrinsic value of the
TO enumerate step by step all such mar
wells as these to which the attention OF the
public has been called is impossible. in the
New York World of Sunday, Dec. 26. 1897,
was a page article headed, Wizard Tesla
Makes the Sun do Mans WILL" and pic
ture showing a Tesla laboratory with huge
machinery all operated by sunshine The
apparatus comprised rejecting mirrors,
cylinders full of water treated chemically
by a secret process (which Tesla has de-
Vised," and the inventor was quoted thus:
81 will say that the results far achieved
are all l desire. 1 am certain that the new
apparatus will come into speedy and gem
eral use. The whole business will be so
simply arranged that there will be no prob
ability of it's breaking down"
Inquiry in every quarter reveals among
apparatus of this kind. and reference was
made at once by several of them to the ia
nous failures of Ericsson many years ago
along better comprehended lines of investi-
cation, of which all the details were long
since made public.
THAT WONDERFUL BATTERY.
In the New York World of Oct. 81, 1897,
a scheme was set forth, with cuts and q
long statement by Mr.. Tesla in the first
person, to defend the human body from mi
crobes and preserve the beauty of womanly
and manly youth throughout life. II have
made extensive study and experiment to the
end of finding some means of clearing the
human skin of these deadly microbes, and
have succeeded in inventing a means by
which it can be kept free from their raw
ages" Part of Mr.. Tesla's plan was the
use of "a battery i have myself invented
With this battery ! have charged human
bodies so successfully that microbes have
been thrown off in a perfect shower. some
of them being thrown as far away four
and five feet" The same plan was described
with variations, in the New York Herald
with the addition that paint could thus be |
cleaned from different objects, and that any |
skin disorder could be cured, although just |
the form of apparatus / am using / must |
keep secret for time yet
The present year opened with sugges-
ton, in the Sunday newspapers, by Mr.. |
Tesla of the way in which an electrical |