Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
The Autoharp Resounds Through rents of the earth and make them serve
Pike's Peak.
the purposes of industry and of trade just
INVENTOR TESLA TAPS THE EARTH CURRENT.
INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS IN WHICH THE
AUTOHARP PLAYS A PROMINENT PART.
T
HE Autoharp has become the favorite
of wo continents, and has been the
companion of travelers in their journey-
ings through foreign lands, but we doubt if
it was ever played upon at such an altitude
or occupied in such an important service to
science, as it has been recently by Nikola
Tesla, the distinguished inventor, who
claims to have discovered a way to harness
free electric currents. The Autoharp
played no unimportant part in the proceed-
ings, as can be seen from the following ac-
count in last Sunday's World:
The world is on the eve of an astounding
revelation. The conditions under which
we exist will be changed. The end has
come to telegraph and telephone monop-
olies with a crash. Incidentally, all the
other monopolies that depend on power of
any kind will come to a sudden stop. The
earth currents of electricity are to be har-
nessed. Nature supplies them free of
charge. The cost of power and light and
heat will be practically nothing.
The scientist-electricians who have for
years been trying to master the mystery of
electrical earth currents with which the
ground beneath your feet is filled, are on
the threshold of success. The success of
the experiments they have under way
means much to them, but vastly more to
the people. It means that if Nikola Tesla
succeeds in harnessing the electrical earth
currents and putting them to work for man
there will be an end to. oppressive, extor-
tionate monopolies in steam, telephones,
telegraphs and the other commercial uses
of electricity, and that the grasping mil-
lionaires who have for two decades milked
the people's purse with electrical fingers
will have to relinquish their monopoly.
Nikola Tesla has discovered the secret
of the electric earth currents of nature, and
they will be adapted to the uses of man.
He has succeeded in transmitting sound by
the currents that make an electric net of
the earth. The transmission of power will
follow. His experiments reduced to com-
mercially practicable uses will mean that
men will be able to tap the electric cur-
as a well-digger over on Long Island taps
water, or a Pennsylvania miner opens a
vein of coal. The mighty electrical energy
that has been stored up in the earth forages
will be harnessed and made to move the
machinery of men.
Electricity will be as free as the air. For
the privilege of its use legislatures will not
have to be bribed or men corrupted at the
polls, and public boards will not have to be
"seen" to bestow exclusive franchises upon
corporations organized to use public
property for purposes of private gain, and
make the people pay the original cost of
their investment and excessive charges for
service in order to squeeze dividends out of
copiously watered shares.
Monopolies for purveying steam power,
too, will be forced to capitulate to free
electricity, for with the latter manufactur-
ers Avill only have to connect their dynamos
with the earth current to set their machinery
in motion. The successful adaptation of
Tesla's discovery will administer a death
blow to the most galling slavery that has
ever yoked the activities of men to the tread-
mill ot monopoly. Tesla is the wizard who
is going to emancipate modern industries
from the shackles of corrupting, dividend
grabbing, monopolistic corporations.
Sound travels with amazing speed, but
electrical vibrations travel so swiftly that
it is difficult to conjure up a figure which
will graphically illustrate their speed.
Here is one that will, perhaps, convey a
vivid and lucid impression. In fancy place
yourself at a table with a revolver in one
hand and a finger of the other hand on the
key of a telegraph instrument connected
with a wire that girdles the globe seven
times and laps over on the eighth turn a
distance equal to 11,000 miles. Pull the
trigger of the pistol and simultaneously
press the telegraph key. While the sound
of the report of the revolver is traveling
1,250 feet the electrical impulse imparted
by the pressure on the key will pass seven
and a half times around the world through
the wire with which the key is connected.
Sound travels 1,250 feet a second, an
electric impulse 186,000 miles a second. If
the electrical currents with which the earth
is filled can be harnessed and put to work a
new era in electricity will have dawned.
It is to the mastering of the mystery of
these earth currents and their adaptation
that scientists like Tesla have been striving.
In the course of Tesla's experiments it is
reported he found that in the vicinity of
large cities there were so many conflicting
earth currents that satisfactory results could
not be obtained. So he went out to Den-
ver, and near there found a better field for
experimenting. There he met a friend in-
terested in electrical research. They went
to Pike's Peak. Conspicuous among their
baggage were two Autoharps.
Tesla and his friend scaled the rugged
sides of the peak. At an elevation agreed
upon they separated. Tesla skirted the
peak and, on reaching a point precise^ 7 op-
posite the place at which he left his friend
he stopped. The two experimenters, on a
line drawn straight through the peak, were
thus separated by four miles of stratified
rock. The two Autoharps had been very
delicately attuned before the scientists
parted, and a time fixed for Mr. Tesla's
comrade to play an air (also agreed upon)
on the Autoharp.
Tesla waited patiently the arrival of the
appointed time. Then he connected his
Autoharp with the ground in such a way as
to secure harmonic resonance with the earth
current. The manner and medium of this
connection are secrets. The receiving Au-
toharp was equipped with a microphone.
As the time approached for his friend on
the other side of the peak to strum the ap-
pointed tune Tesla listened with rapt at-
tention.
At last, as a tuning-fork responds to its
harmonic note sounded on the strings of a
piano, the Autoharp in Mr. Tesla's hands
gave out the harmonic tones of "Ben Bolt,"
which his companion at his station four
miles away straight through the peak was
plucking from the tense wires of his instru-
ment. The experiment was a success.
After many tunes had been played Tesla
and his companion descended the peak. • A
statement of the facts and results of the ex-
periments was written and attested before
a notary public as a matter of scientific
record.
The electric currents are in the earth.
Their strength is great enough to furnish
all the power and light man needs. Mr.
Tesla has overcome the initial difficulty,
and has located and tapped the earth cur-
rents. The rest will follow, as followed the
telephone, Prcf. Bell's discovery of how to
transmit speech over a wire.
J. G. CARTER, formerly connected with
Smith & Nixon, has opened a piano ware-
room at 418 Madison street, Toledo, O.
Mr. Carter has a thorough knowledge of the
business, and should become quite success-
ful in his undertaking.
J. D. HUME, alias J. D. Blake, has been
arrested for receiving money under false
pretenses on a complaint made by J. D.
Smith, representative of the O'Connell
Music Co., Denver, Col. Hume repre-
sented himself as an agent for the house,
and solicited orders and received money for
books to be delivered in various school
districts.