George Iles

“ The currents are raised from vibrations of 25,000 or so per second to between 1,000,000 and 2,0000,000. At the same time their pressure is heightened in a corresponding degree. Thus armed with powers wholly new in electrical experiment, Tesla proceeded to win new victories. Whereas Crookes found it enough that his electrodes merely touched the outside of the tube which he was to set aglow, Tesla produces the same luminocity by entirely detaching his electrodes from the tube and retiring them to a distance of several feet. ”

“ In all cases, the light is brightened, too, when above it is placed an ordinary metallic shade. In this particular path of experiment may lie the object which Tesla has constantly in view, the production of a light brilliant enough to be compared with that of the incandescent bulb. ”

“ In their progressive steps these inventors have been greatly indebted to the induction coil, especially as improved by Ruhmkorff. His apparatus consists, essentially, of a coil of ordinary wire encircling a second coil formed of extremely fine wire. When a momentary current from a battery or a dynamo is sent through the first coil it induces in the second a current so highly intensified as to flash forth as lightning. In an apparatus of large dimensions this discharge can be thirty inches in length. Developed in form, the induction coil has been indispensable in Tesla's experiments. ”

“ In a scheme devised by John Van Vleck, an electrical engineer of New York, the ordinary current as delivered to a consumer can serve to actuate a motor, can be turned into lamps, or applied to producing the Tesla effect. ”

“ To waves of a new order the old rules of arrest and transmission will not apply, Alexander Graham Bell, in his experiments with the photophone, found that an invisible beam of light easily passed through a sheet of hard rubber; Tesla in the same way finds that insulation is a relative term. Substances that keep ordinary currents strictly to their path are easily pierced by the throbs which he enkindles. oil, which closes over an electric wound, has therefore to replace cotton, silk, and rubber. ”

“ And sending electric impulses through glass stained to canary hue with oxide of uranium, and through solutions of sulphate of quinine he produces fluorescence of a new brilliancy.
⁠In bringing electrical vibrations nearer to the frequency of light than any other inventor has done, Tesla is the Columbus of a new continent for inventive activity. ”