‘Most cities still prefer the Edison system,’ he growled, and went into a technical exposition of the failings of his rival’s methods.
I sensed that he had rehearsed these sentiments many times in the past, and to listeners better equipped to take them in than I was. The upshot of his complaint was that in the end people would come around to his alternating current system, but that they were wasting a lot of time and opportunities while they did so. On this subject, and on several others related to his work, he sounded humourless and forbidding, but at other times I found him delightful and amusing company.
Eventually, the focus of his questions turned to myself, my career, my interest in electricity, and to what uses I might wish to put it.
I had resolved, before leaving England, that were Tesla to enquire into the secrets of my illusions he would be one person to whom I would make an exception and reveal anything in which he might show interest. It seemed only right. When I had seen his lecture in London he had had all the appearance of a member of my own profession, taking the same delight in surprising and mystifying the audience, yet, unlike a magician, being more than willing, anxious even, to reveal and share his secrets.
He turned out to be incurious, though. I sensed that nothing would be gained by my harking on the subject. Instead, I let him direct our conversation, and for an hour or two he rambled entertainingly over his conflicts with Edison, his struggles against bureaucracy and the scientific establishment, and most of all his successes. His present laboratory had been funded, in effect, by the work of the last few years. He had installed the first water-powered city-sized electricity generator in the world: the generating station was at Niagara Falls, and the beneficiary city was Buffalo. It is true to say that Tesla had made his fortune at Niagara, but like many men of sudden wealth he wondered how long he could make last what he had.
As gently as I could I kept the conversation centred on money, because this is one of the few subjects where our interests genuinely meet. Of course he would not impart details of his finances to me, a virtual stranger, but funding is clearly a preoccupation. He mentioned J. Pierpoint Morgan, his present sponsor, several times.
Nothing was discussed between us that touched directly on the reason for my visit here, but there will be plenty of time for that in the days ahead. Yesterday, we were just getting to know one another, and learning of each other’s interests.
I have said little of the dominant feature of his laboratory. All through the meal, and during the long conversation that followed, we were overshadowed by the bulk of his Experimental Coil. Indeed, the entire laboratory can be said to be the Coil, for there is little else there apart from recording and calibrating apparatus.
The Coil is immense. Tesla said that it had a diameter in excess of fifty feet, which I can well believe. Because the interior of the laboratory is not brightly lit the Coil has a gloomy, mysterious presence, at least while it is not being used. Constructed around a central core (the base of the tall metal pole that I had seen protruding through the roof), the Coil is wound around numerous wooden and metal battens, in a complexity that increases the closer in to the core you explore. With my layman’s eyes I could make no sense of its design. The effect was to a large extent that of a bizarre cage. Everything about it and around it seemed haphazard. For instance, there were several ordinary wooden chairs in the laboratory, and several of these were in the immediate vicinity of the Coil. As indeed were many other bits and pieces: papers, tools, scraps of dropped and forgotten food, even a grubby-looking kerchief. I duly marvelled at the Coil when Tesla conducted me around it, but it was impossible for me then to understand any of it. All I grasped was that it was capable of using or transforming huge amounts of electricity. The power for it is sent up the mountain from Colorado Springs below. Tesla has paid for this by installing the town generators himself.
‘I have all the electricity I want!’ he said at one juncture. ‘As you will probably find during the evenings.’
I asked him what he meant.
‘You will notice that from time to time the town lights momentarily dim. Sometimes they even go off altogether for a few seconds. It means we are at work up here! Let me show you.’
He led me out of the ramshackle building and across the uneven ground outside. After a short distance we came to a place where the side of the mountain dropped steeply away, and there, a long way below, was the whole extent of Colorado Springs, shimmering in the summer heat.
‘If you come up here one night I’ll demonstrate,’ he promised. ‘With a pull on one lever I can plunge that whole city into the dark.’
As we headed back, he said, ‘You must indeed visit me one night. Night-time is the finest time in the mountains. As you have no doubt observed for yourself, the scenery here is on a grand scale but intrinsically lacking in interest. To one side, nothing but rocky peaks; to the other, land as flat as the top of a table. It is a mistake to look down or around. The real interest is above us!’ He gestured towards the sky. ‘I have never known such clarity of air, such moonlight. Nor have I ever seen such storms as occur here! I chose this site because of the frequency of storms. There is one coming at this moment, as it happens.’
I glanced around me, looking for the familiar sight of the piling anvil-topped cloud in the distance, or, if closer, the black mass of rain-bearing cloud that darkens the sky in the minutes before a storm actually breaks, but the sky was an untrammelled blue in every direction. The air, too, remained crisp and lively, with no hint of the ominous sultriness that always presages a downpour.
‘The storm will arrive after seven this evening. In fact, let us examine my coherer, from which we can ascertain the exact time.’
We walked back to the laboratory. As we did so I noticed that Randy Gilpin and his carriage had arrived, and were parked well away from where we were. Randy waved to me, and I waved back.
Tesla indicated one of the instruments I had noted earlier.
‘This shows that a storm is currently in the region of Central City, about eighty miles to the north of us. Watch!’
He indicated a part of the device that could be seen through a magnifying lens, and jabbed a finger at it at odd moments. After peering at it for a while I saw what he was trying to show me – a tiny electrical spark was bridging the visible gap between two metal studs.
‘Each time it sparks it is registering a flash of lightning,’ Tesla explained. ‘Sometimes I will note the discharge here, and more than an hour later I will hear the thunder rumbling in from far away.’
I was about to express my disbelief when I remembered the intense seriousness of the man. He had moved to another instrument, next to the coherer, and noted down two or three readings from it. I followed him to it.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Mr Angier, would you be good enough to look at your timepiece this evening, and note the moment it happens to be when you see the first flash of lightning. By my calculation it should be between 7.15 p.m. and 7.20 p.m.’
‘You can predict the exact moment?’ I said.
‘Within about five minutes.’
‘Then you could make your fortune with this alone!’ I exclaimed.
He looked uninterested.
‘It is peripheral,’ he said. ‘My work is purely experimental, and my main concern is to know when a storm is going to break so that I might make the best use of it.’ He glanced over to where Gilpin was waiting. ‘I see your carriage has returned, Mr Angier. You plan to make another visit to see me?’
‘I came to Colorado Springs for one reason only,’ I said. ‘That is so that I might put a business proposition to you.’
‘The best kind of proposition, in my experience,’ Tesla said gravely. ‘I shall expect you the day after tomorrow.’
He explained that today was going to be taken up by a trip to the railhead to collect some more equipment.
With this I departed, and in due course returned with Gilpin to the town.
I must record that at exactly 7.19
p.m. there was a flash of lightning visible in the town, followed soon after by a crack of thunder. There then began one of the more spectacular storms it has been my lot to experience. During the course of it I ventured on to the balcony of my hotel room, and looked up at the heights of Pike’s Peak for some glimpse of Tesla’s laboratory. All was darkness.
13th July 1900
Today Tesla gave me a demonstration of his Coil in operation.
At the start he asked me if I was of a nervous disposition, and I said I was not. Tesla then gave me an iron bar to hold, one that was connected to the floor by a long chain. He brought to me a large glass dome, apparently filled with smoke or gas, and put it on the table before me. While I continued to hold the iron rod in my left hand, I placed, at his direction, the palm of my right hand against the glass chamber. Instantly, a brilliant light burst out inside the dome and every hair on my arm rose proud from my skin. I pulled back in alarm and the light went out. Noticing Tesla’s amused smile, I returned my hand to the glass and held it there steadily as the uncanny radiance burst forth once more.
There followed several more such experiments, some of which I had seen Tesla himself demonstrating in London. Determined not to reveal my nervous feelings, I endured the electrical discharging of each piece of apparatus stoically. Finally, Tesla asked me if I should care to sit within the main field of his Experimental Coil while he raised its power to twenty million volts!
‘Is it entirely safe?’ I enquired, but jutting my jaw a little, as if I were accustomed to taking risks.
‘You have my word, sir. Is this not why you have come to see me?’
‘Indeed it is,’ I confirmed.
Tesla indicated I should sit on one of the wooden chairs, and I did so. Mr Alley also came forward. He was dragging one of the other chairs and he placed it beside me and sat down. He handed me a sheet of newspaper.
‘See if you can read by unearthly light!’ he said, and both he and Tesla chuckled.
I was smiling with them as Tesla brought down a metal handle and with an ear-shattering crashing noise there was a sudden discharge of electrical power. It burst out from the coils of wire above my head, folding out like the petals of some vast and deadly chrysanthemum. I watched in stupefaction as these jerking, spitting electrical bolts curved first up and around the head of the coil, then began moving down towards Alley and myself, as if seeking us as prey. Alley remained still beside me, so I forced myself not to move. Suddenly, one of the bolts touched me, and ran up and down the length of my body as if tracing my outline. Again, my skin horripilated and my eyes were scorched by the light, but otherwise there was no pain, no burning sensation, no feeling of electrical shock.
Alley indicated the newspaper I was still clutching, so I held it before me and discovered, sure enough, that the radiance from the electricity was more than bright enough to read by. As I held the page before me, two sparks ran across its surface, almost as if an attempt was being made to ignite the paper. Marvellously, miraculously, the page did not burn.
Afterwards, Tesla suggested I might like to take another short walk with him, and as soon as we were outside in the open air he said, ‘Sir, let me congratulate you. You are brave.’
‘I was determined not to show how I really felt,’ I demurred.
Tesla told me many visitors to his laboratory were offered the same demonstrations I had just seen, but that few of them seemed ready to submit themselves to the imagined ravages of electrical discharge.
‘Maybe they have not seen your demonstrations,’ I suggested. ‘I know you would not risk your own life, nor indeed that of someone who has travelled all the way from Great Britain to make you a business offer.’
‘Indeed not,’ said Tesla. ‘Perhaps now is the time when we should quietly discuss business. May I beg details of what you have in mind?’
‘This is what I am not entirely sure about—’ I began, and paused, trying to formulate the words.
‘Do you propose to invest in my researches?’
‘No, sir, I do not,’ I was able to say. ‘I know that you have had many experiences with investors.’
‘That indeed I have. I am thought by some to be a difficult man to work with, and little I have in mind is likely to turn a short-term profit for an investor. It is something that has in the past caused vexed relationships.’
‘And in the present too, may I dare to venture? Mr Morgan was clearly on your mind when we spoke the other day.’
‘Mr J. P. Morgan is indeed a current preoccupation.’
‘Then let me say candidly that I am a wealthy man, Mr Tesla. I hope I might be able to assist you.’
‘But not by investment, you say.’
‘By purchase,’ I replied. ‘I wish you to build me an electrical apparatus, and if we can agree a price I shall gladly pay for it.’
We had been strolling around the circumference of the cleared plateau on which the laboratory stands, but now Tesla came to a sudden halt. He struck a pose, staring thoughtfully towards the trees that covered the rising side of the mountain ahead of us.
‘Which piece of apparatus do you require?’ he said. ‘As you have seen my work is theoretical, experimental. None of it is for sale, and everything I am using at present is invaluable to me.’
‘Before I left England,’ I said, ‘I read an article about your work in The Times. In the article it was said that you had established theoretically that electricity might be transmitted through the air, and that you planned to demonstrate the principle in the near future.’ Tesla was watching me fiercely while I spoke, but having declared my interest to such an extent I had to go on. ‘Many of your scientific colleagues have apparently said it is impossible, but you are confident of what you are doing. Would this be true?’
I stared directly into Tesla’s eyes as I asked this final question, and saw that another great change had come across his features. Now his expression and gestures became animated and expressive.
‘Yes, it is entirely true!’ he cried, and at once launched into a wild and (to me) not entirely comprehensible account of what he planned.
Once thus begun he was unstoppable! He strode off in the direction we had been heading, speaking quickly and excitedly, making me trot to keep up with him. We were circling the laboratory at a distance, with the great balled spire constantly in view. Tesla gesticulated towards it several times while he spoke.
If I understand him correctly, the essence of what he said was this. He had long ago established that the most efficient way of transmitting his polyphase electrical current was to boost it to high voltages and direct it along high-tension cables. Now he was able to show that if the current was boosted to an even greater voltage then it became of extremely high frequency, and no cables at all would be required. The current would be sent out, radiated, cast broadly into the aether, whereupon by a series of detectors or receivers the electricity could be captured once more and turned to use.
‘Imagine the possibilities, Mr Angier!’ Tesla declared. ‘Every appliance, every utility, every convenience known to man or imaginable by him will be propelled by electricity that emanates from the air!’
Then, in a way I found curiously reminiscent of my erstwhile fellow train-passenger Bob Tannhouse, Tesla launched into a litany of possibilities: light, heat, hot-water baths, food, houses, amusements, automobiles … all would be electrically powered in some mysterious and undescribed way.
‘You have this working?’ I asked.
‘Without question! On an experimental basis, you understand, but the experiments are repeatable by others, should they bother to try, and they can be controlled. This is no phantasm! Within a few years I shall be generating power for the whole world in the way that at present I power the cities of Buffalo and Colorado Springs.’
We had circled the large area of ground twice while this exposition poured out of him, and I kept my pace beside him, determined to let his scientific rapture run its course. I knew that with his great intelligence he would
return eventually to what I had first told him.
Finally he did. ‘Do I understand you to say you wish to buy this apparatus from me, Mr Angier?’ he said.
‘No, sir,’ I replied. ‘I am here to ask for another purchase.’
‘I am fully engaged in the work I am describing.’
‘I appreciate that, Mr Tesla. I am seeking something new. Tell me this: if electrical energy may be transmitted, could physical matter also be sent from one place to another?’
The steadiness of his answer surprised me. He said, ‘Energy and matter are but two manifestations of the same force. Surely you realise that?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said.
‘Then you already know the answer. Though I must add that I cannot see why anyone should wish to transmit matter.’
‘But could you make me the apparatus that would achieve this?’
‘How much mass would be involved? What weight would there be? What size object?’
‘Never more than two hundred pounds,’ I said. ‘And the size … let us say two yards in height, at most.’
He waved a hand dismissively. ‘What sum are you offering me?’
‘What sum do you require?’
‘I desperately need eight thousand dollars, Mr Angier.’
I could not prevent myself laughing aloud. It was more than I had planned, but still it was within my means. Tesla looked apprehensive, apparently thinking me mad, and backed away from me a little … but only a few moments later we were embracing on that windy plateau, clapping our hands against each other’s shoulders, two needs meeting, two needs met.
As we drew apart, and clasped hands in contract together, a loud peal of thunder rang out somewhere in the mountains behind us, and rolled around us, rumbling and echoing in the narrow passes.
14th July 1900
The Prestige Page 25
