i68 NIKOLA TESLA 



gence transmission, for which the name of World Teleg- 

 raphy has been suggested, easily realizable. It constitutes, 

 I beheve, in its principle of operation, means employed and 

 capacities of application, a radical and fruitful departure from 

 what has been done heretofore. I have no doubt that it will 

 prove very efficient in enlightening the masses, particularly 

 in still uncivihzed countries and less accessible regions, and 

 that it will add materially to general safety, comfort and con- 

 venience, and maintenance of peaceful relations. It involves 

 the employment of a number of plants, all of which are capable 

 of transmitting individualized signals to the uttermost con- 

 fines of the earth. Each of them will be preferably located 

 near some important center of civilization and the news it 

 receives through any channel will be flashed to all points of 

 the globe. A cheap and simple device, which might be carried 

 in one's pocket, may then be set up somewhere on sea or land, 

 and it will record the world's news or such special messages 

 as may be intended for it. Thus the entire earth will be con- 

 verted into a huge brain, as it were, capable of response in 

 every one of its parts. Since a single plant of but one hun- 

 dred horsepower can operate hundreds of millions of instru- 

 ments, the system will have a virtually infinite working 

 capacity, and it must needs immensely facihtate and cheapen 

 the transmission of inteUigence. 



The first of these central plants would have been already 

 completed had it not been for unforeseen delays which, fortu- 

 nately, have nothing to do with its purely technical features. 

 But this loss of time, while vexatious, may, after all, prove 

 to be a blessing in disguise. The best design of which I knew 

 has been adopted, and the transmitter will emit a wave com- 

 plex of a total maximum activity of ten milHon horsepower, 

 one per cent of which is amply sufficient to "girdle the globe." 

 This enormous rate of energy delivery, approximately twice 

 that of the combined falls of Niagara, is obtainable only by 

 the use of certain artifices, which I shall make known in due 

 course. 



For a large part of the work which I have done so far I am 

 indebted to the noble generosity of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, 

 which was all the more welcome and stimulating, as it was 



