Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1910-05-25
ELECTRIC RAY
DEADLIEST POWER
AND SOON MAY RENDER WAR
AN ABSOLUTELY FUTILE
RECOURSE.
POSSIBILITIES DIS
cERNEp BY ACUTE sclEN-
TiSTs-TESLA'S VIEW.

St. Louis, May 20.-Elecuiclty as
the coming agency OF Worldwide
peace will be one of the chief sub
iects discussed at the convention OF
the National Electric Light assocla
ton this week, because of the general
belief among the leaders of the cleo
trical industry that a ray will be de
veloped in the very near future wnlch
will be the deadliest engine OF de-
struction ever conceived. In other
words, the experts feel that electric
ity will be so handled that war Will
be absolutely futile. In Europe the
newspapers have been discussing ex-
periments by some scientists, VINO
claim to have thrown a certain kind
of electrical current so that it dealt
death to a horse at a distance of four
miles.
The c-aim is made that whole arm
les could be struck down in the same
fashion, and American electrical eX-
perts are not inclined to scott, be
cause they recall the prediction OF
Nickola Tesla, made in public adj
dress in 1898, that this would be one
of the accomplishments of the future.
American experts have also long
been discussing the probabilities OF
an invention which would render air
ships wholly useless as an agency OF
warfare. and that would even put the
greatest battleships ever built out OF
commission long before they got
within range where they could do any
execution themselves.
Speaking in 1893 Tesla said: L
firmly believe that it is practicable
to disturb, by means of powerful
machine, the electro-static condition
of the earth, and thus transmit in
telligible signals and, perhaps, power.
Ia fact, what is there against the
carrying out of such a scheme? We
now know that electric vibration may
be transmitted through single con-
ductor. Why, then, not try to avail
ourselves of the earth for this pur-
pose? We need not be frightened Dy
the idea of distance. To the weary
wanderer counting the mile posts,
the earth may appear very large, but
to that happiest of all men, the as
tronomer, who gazes at the heavens,
and by their standard judges the
magnitude of our globe, it appears
very small. And so l think it must
seem to the electrician; for when he
considers the speed with which an
electric disturbance is propagated
through the earth all his ideas OF
distance must vanish. A point of
great Importance would be first TO
know what is, the capacity of the
earth. and what charge does it con-
tain if electrified. Though we have
no positive evidence of a charged
body existing in space without other
oppositely electrified bodies being
near, there is a fair probability that
the earth is such a body, for by
whatever process it was separated
from other bodies-and this is the
accepted view of its origin-it must
have retained charge as occurs in
all processes of mechanical separa-
ton If it should be charged body
insulated in space, its capacity would
be extremely small-less than one
thousandth of a farad Whether the
earth contains a charge or not, and
whatever may be its period of vi
bration, it certainly is possible-for
of this we have daily evidence-to
produce some electrical disturbance
sufficiently powerful to be percepti
Bile by suitable instruments at any
rnint of the earth'S surface"