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MIKOLA TESLA,
electrical scientist,
says not armies alone but
I Ibhole populations will
be destroyed by use of
wireless currents—His
own air torpedo deadly
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on chemistry; but future warfare will wield the enormously more gigantic power of destruction pro
vided by electricity, according to a writer In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Then it will not be a question of the annihilation of armies; it will be one of the extermination of
whole populations. It will not be a matter of demolishing cities and fortresses, but of wiping whole
■ations at one stroke from the face of the earth. The scientists, in fact, offer us one ultimate alternative: Either man must conquer his /m Wl
~ innate murderous instincts and cease from war, or else in the end the human race will perish in a universal act of suicide such as Schopen- W]
hauer foretold—self-slain by the unspeakable agencies of destruction with which science will inevitably arm us. X]
For 600 years, gunpowder and its derivatives have ruled the destinies of mankind. A flash from the pestle of the scientist-monk, WXM
Roger Bacon, blew feudalism off the globe, and made possible the coming of democracy. Gunpowder gave to the European races sway W Xx!
over the whole world; it subjected to them America, Asia and Africa. Little did Bacon dream of these consequences from his expert- WXXI
ment with saltpeter and sulphur. Perhaps as little do we today realize the possibilities of the wireless current which in an instant bears ax* wq
the spoken word from Arlington to Honolulu. aaXti
In the Imagination of every scientist in the world today there is a vision of a machine with a key by means of which a wave of vy XXj
electricity will be flashed through the air to explode the enemy’s bombs, torpedoes, cartridges and magazines. The man who first perfects yQ vJ
this device will go down in history—if any historians are left alive —as a greater man than Roger Bacon, for his invention will make lyddite XX-
and picric acid obsolete, and will send rifles, cannon and dreadnaughts to the junk heap. XX XX
Only one scientist so far makes a claim to have advanced some steps towards the perfect electric man-killer. But that man is no other c W
than Nikola Tesla, electrical wizard, who has just been awarded a part of this year’s Noble prize for physics. In an interview the other yX JwT
day he laid down these prophesies: A JV' AvU
1. This is the last war in which the explosive power of chemicals will decide the issue. iVvVY*
2. In the next war electricity will be the force of organized slaughter. / XWy'
The confidence with which Tesla uttered these predictions is based upon an invention which he says he has just completed, but the / X/KXj'.
details of which he is for the present jealously guarding, for fear they might be worked out by one of the belligerents in the present war. /
In case the United States were involved in war,
however, he says he would place his device un
reservedly at the disposition of the military
authorities.
“It is, of course, possible,” he said to a repre
sentative of the Post-Dispatch Sunday Magazine
a few days ago, “to produce electrical effects at a
distance by means of wireless energy. But the
insurmountable difficulty thus far has been to aim
an electric wave in one direction only, with al!
Os its force concentrated on a given target.
"I will go so far as to say that after twenty
years of application to the problem of transmitting
energy by wireless, I have just made a valuable
advance in this direction. The stage has been
reached where to an extent it is practicable to use
this force in war, and to predict such a develop
ment as will make electricity supplant cannon in
battle.
“It is impossible to give details at this time, but
in a general way my invention can be used in
three methods.
"In the first place, it will be possible to send
an explosive body through the air—an aerial tor
pedo flying many times faster than an aeroplane—
and to direct this projectile to the spot desired,
where it can be exploded by wireless. It will be
possible to guide the projectile by wireless after
it has passed beyond the range of the eye, and the
aim is so accurate that it is possible to reduce
the error to a few feet in a thousand miles.
“In the second place, it will be practicable with
this apparatus to produce effects at a distance
which will interfere with the enemy and tend to
make him ineffective.
“In the third place, it promises to be able to
produce at a distance such effects of electrical
tension as will jeopardize life and property.”
The inventor declined to go into specific details,
saying that it is safer to be specific after the
fact. But one would gather from the words he
did speak that he has contrived a torpedo of the
air flying under its own power as a torpedo swims
in the water, which can be steered by wireless
and exploded by the same force. Such a projectile
would have a range not of some twenty miles, like
the highest power cannon, but one limited only
by its own flying endurance. It would be harder
to hit with shell an£ rifle fire than an aeroplane,
because of its smiler size and swifter velocity,
and it need not be’manned by a crew who would
be exposed to death at every instant.
Such a missile, aimed according to the mathe
matical formulas used today by gunners whose
target is beyond the range of eye and telescope,
could be dispatched for the destruction of a bat
tleship long before her own guns would be able
to come into play. Safe from the shells of the
greatest ordnance, it could start from a point
miles beyond their range and destroy the batteries
without the possibility of a reply.
The second and third methods of which Tesla
speaks are discussed in rather cryptic language,
but leave the inference that he believes himself
already able, In some degree, to produce at a dis-
TEST OF YOUTH
You often see a woman at the market pinching
the end of a chickens breastbone to find out how
tender —in other words, how young—the fowl is.
Oddly enough, the same test with human beings
is one of the most reliable known. If in advanced
life the lower part of your breastbone feels elas
tic when pushed inward, you may assume that
no important changes have yet taken place in
your arteries, or otherwise in your anatomical
make-up.
The human breastbone is shaped like an ancient
Roman sword, and the upper part of It is like the
■word hapdle. Its point is a piece of cartilage,
which anatomists call the “xiphoid” cartilage. The
early hardening and stiffening of it indicate that
the changes that accompany old age have prema
trrely begun.—Youth’s Companion.
OR THEY WOULD BE MUCH TROUBLE.
As a rule women look at things differently from
men— and it’s a good thing for most husbands
that they do. —Indianapolis Star.
Mrs. Kawler—Do you consider Alice very good
looking?
Mrs. Blunderby—Oh, Alice is pretty enough;
but 1 wouldn't call her an Adonis.
N THE science which man has spun
out of his brain he has created a
monstrous Frankenstein, which is now
rending him limb from limb on the battle
fields of Europe. But one of the fatal
qualities of science is that it always progresses.
What part will it play in the next world war?
Will the inventive intellect by then have unloosed
forces which, compared to the 42-centimeter how
itzer of today, will be as the 42-centimeter gun is
to the two-handed sword of the Roman legions?
Yes. reply the experts; the present war is based
tance by wireless an electric shock similar to that
produced by touching a charged wire. One can
think of no other way in which effects perilous to
life and property could be obtained with elec
tricity.
With this idea worked out to its ultimate per
fection, one might foretell such appalling events
in warfare as this: An entire army, in its
trenches, is without warning seized with the death
agonies of a wretch in the electrical chair, and is
exterminated by a silent enemy, using no bullets.
Or, at a given moment, every living thing in a
great city is struck dead as if by. lightning, by
means of a force unleashed hundreds of miles
away by an officer who merely pulls a lever in a
wireless towdr.
Tesla appears to see in the future a warfare of
electrical appliances more deadly than all the can
non ever made; he sees entire areas electrified
and made untenable for any living creature.
Death and destruction will be dealt out at unheard
of distances, with zones of action more spacious
than we now dream of. There is foreshadowed
a conflict in which not armies but nations may
be destroyed in a single action, by men armed
with thunderbolts more mighty than those of the
heavens. No wonder that Tesla, his own imagi
nation recoiling in horror, says:
“I hope this is the invention that will make war
impossible.”
Another device for which inventors are seeking
is one that will be able, by means of the wireless
current, to explode at a distance the enemy’s
magazines of ammunition. If this were perfected,
one man in London, by pressing a button, could
set fire to all the explosives in the Krupp factories
and blow that institution into bits; or he could
blow up all the cartridges and explosives in the
German army. Or another man in Berlin could
with one stroke blow the English fleet out of the
water with its own powder. ,In an article in a
Paris newspaper recently, Marconi, father of wire
less telegraphy, declared that such an invention
would mean the abolition of firearms and a re
version to hand-to-hand fighting.
A Dutch inventor named Lanzius, now in New
York, claims to have made such a device. An
Italian inventor won considerable notoriety for
himself two years ago by demonstrajing an appa
ratus which he declared would explode ammu
nition at a distance by means of a wireless cur
rent —but he was shown to be a fraud. A young
New Yorker, who already has several authentic
Inventions to his credit, declares he has perfected
a method of emitting wireless current which will
melt all metals within a certain radius. A Cali
fornia inventor asserts that he can create a flame
at a distance by means of wireless, and offers to
set fire to any fleet approaching the Pacific coast.
The Germans are reported to have used heat to
destroy the barbed-wire entanglements of the Rus
sians. Tesla believes that the result was obtained,
THE BULLETIN, IRWINTON, GEORGIA.
if at all, by the projection of a flame produced
by hydrogen gas under high pressure. Such a
flame can readily be projected for 10 feet, which
might be sufficient when the trenches are close
enough together. In such a flame barbed wire
would melt like wax.
In all of the belligerent countries, and in those
which fear they may sometime become belliger
ents, the best brains are hard at work on the
problem of contriving new methods of murder
more deadly and more wholesale than those now
employed. Some of their dreams of future war
fare may seem fantastic. But the rude cannon of
the Turks seemed an incredible prodigy at the
siege of Constantinople in the fifteenth century;
and to the artillerymen of our Revolutionary war
the machine gun of today would appear an equal
marvel. On can scarcely doubt that if man con
tinues to maintain his delight in war, science will
be at hand to supply him with weapons as ad
vanced in murdqyous power over those today, as
the arms of today surpass the sling and stone with
which David, introducing the artillery of his era,
slew the armored giant. Will human nerves be
able to endure these colossal horrors? Probably;
today they endure the shock of explosives, the
sound of which would have sent Achilles to the
madhouse.
i ELECTRIC FURNACES £
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An electric furnace for the heat treatment of
steel used in automobile construction has been
introduced. Its method of producing uniform,
dependable heat that is so urgently sought by
automobile manufacturers is quite novel in elec
tric furnace practice, although its principle is
comparable to that of the well-known Nernst
lamp. Both the floor and the domelike covers of
this furnace are of a refractory material which is
practically nonconducting at ordinary tempera
tures. To start the. furnace, a current is passed
through a bed of coke laid on its floor. On bein
sufficiently heated the floor becomes a conductor
and in turn heats the wall and top, rendering
them conductive, until finally the entire furnace
becomes incandescent. It is stated by those who
have tried the furnace that its use in the heat
treatment of automobile parts promises to be
extensive, in the future.
DEFINED.
Knlcker—What are a congressman’s duties?
Bocker—To run, sit, lie and stand.
HEMMED IN.
“How did you get that stitch in your gUjef*
“Oh, I got hemmed in a crowd.”
STATE ROAD FUND
TOTALS SIOO,OOO
Over $20,000,000 Is Invested By Geor
gians In Automobiles Which Brings
State Good Revenue
TO SPEND TAXON HIGHWAYS
Millions Os Dollars Ace Spent In Geor
gia For Gasoline Every
Month.
Atlanta-
Georgia has tied qp in automobiles
an investment of some $20,000,000, ac
cording to figures and estimates in
the office of the secretary of state,
and investment is a tremendous me
dium of circulating money.
Reports from the state oil inspectors
show that during the month of April
2,290,000 gallons of gasoline were in
spected in the state of Georgia. The
bulk of this, of course, was consumed
as fuel for automobiles. These figures
would indicate an expenidture of al
most $575,000 for gasoline in Georgia
in April. This, added to the cost of
oil, repairs, chauffeur hire and the
many other details incident to the
operation and upkeep of automobiles
makes a very considerable item.
Although the secretary of state has
already issued series 36,800 of 1916
Georgia automobile license tags, the
demand for tags continues unabated.
During the first ten days of May the
department sold $5,400 worth of tags.
The department has just placed an
order for 2,000 more tags for the year,
making a total of 42,000 tags.
Secretary of State Cook states that
a low estimate of the’ value of each
car would be SSOO, at which the 40,-
000 cars in Georgia would total up
$20,000,000 or more in valuation.
Secretary Cook states that the
counties are slow in sending in their
compilation of public road mileage,
which is to be the basis for the dis
tribution of the state road fund ac
cruing from the sale of automobile li
cense tags. Only 86 counties have so
far sent in their mileage figures. It
is expected that the state road fund
will approximate SIOO,OOO by the time
it can be distributed. The distribution
is to be based on the number of miles
of public road in each county, outside
the corporate limits of towns and cit
ies.
Testing The Prohibition Law
Activities of officers to rigidly en
force Georgia’s prohibition law that
went into effect May Ist have dis
closed some unique methods of “blind
tigers” to evade the law. An incon
spicuous farm wagon driven on the
streets of Atlanta was equipped with
a false bottom filled with pint bot
tles of liquor. A counter in a “social
club" has a false top full of bottles,
and by following a series of trap doors
discovered under a house in the out
skirts of the city officers found a
large quantity of liquor stored in a
cave that had once been used for il
licit distilling. The “blockaders” had
used the chimney of the house to car
ry off the smoke. Getting rid of the
smoke is one of the “blockader’s”
most perplexing problems.
Georgia Leads In Bird Conservation
Georgia leads all of the states of
the South, and is excelled by none of
the Northern states, in the enforce
ment and general observance of the
laws for the protection of non-game
birds, declared James Henry Rice, Jr.,
of Ritter, S. C., United States inspec
tor of birds.
“This year,” said Mr. Rice, “there
has been a remarkable falling off in
the slaughter of non-game birds
throughout the South, and especially
in Georgia. It is a fact that so far
as I. have been able to learn from
game wardens or other citizens, this
spring there have been , only two rob
ins killed in violation of the law of
which anybody has positive knowl
edge. This is a remarkable situation,
in my judgment.”
Levy To Continue Active Service
Maj. Abram Levy will retain active
command of the Augusta battalion of
the National Guard of Georgia by an
order of Gov. Nat E. Harris, reversing
the findings of the state retiring
board. The retiring board, while
praising Major Levy as a conscien
tious and loyal officer and a good sol
dier, blamed him for an alleged state
of bad discipline existing in his bat
talion and for an existing condition
of alleged disorder within the ranks
of his command, and it recommended
that he be retired .from active serv
ice, with full rank of major.
/ .
Farmers Worried Over Pea Weevil
Farmers in-the southern part of the
state, have been greatly worried over
the appearance in the cotton fields of
a bug which generally was taken to,
be the boll weevil, but, which has
been proven to be nothing mofe harm
ful thafi the comparatively innocent
cow pea pod weevil
General Wood Praises Camp
Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood arrived at
Oglethorpe, the southern military
training camp, and wag given a tent’
near the commanding officer, Lieut.
Col. D. W. Ketchum. “The camp ap
pears to. be well located and the offi
cers doing splendid work from what I
saw of the training men on the field
drill,” General Wood said. He said
12,000 may be enrolled for the Platts
burg camps this year, and asserted)
that the second and third camps here
should have larger attendance than
the present one.
GEORGIA’S WHEAT CROP
BETTER THAN YEAR AGO
Uncle Sam’s Forecast Os Rural Prod
ucts Is Not Discouraging
At All
Atlanta —
According to corp experts of the
United States department of agricul
ture Georgia is due this year to pro
duce a winter wheat crop of 3,850,000
bushels. This was the forecast pub
lished, covering up to May 1.
The production last year was 3,575,-
000, two years ago 1,694,000 and the
average yearly crop of winter wheat
has been 1,382,000 bushels, so if the es- i
timate for 1916 is anywhere near ac- .
curate this will be Georgia’s banner J
winter wheat year.
Georgia’s 1916 rye crop is estimated
at 125,000 bushels. Last year the rye
crop totaled 120,000 and two years
ago 121,000.
On May 1 the conditions of meadows
throughout the state was rated at 84,
as compared with 87, the mean aver
age for ten years. Pastures were 81,
while the ten-year average has been
87. Ninety-one per cent of spring
plowing was done May 1, as compar
ed with 89 on May 1, 1915, and the
ten-year average of 82.
Spring planting was estimated at 85 :
per cent completed May 1, as compar- j
ed with 83 per cent on May 1, 1915, ;
and the ten-year average for that date ’
of 75 per cent.
Comparative prices for May 1, 1916,
and 1915 are given as follows:
Wheat, $1.26 and $1.46 a bushel ;
corn, 92 and 94 cents; oats, 67 and 73
cents a bushel; potatoes, $1.45 and
$1.06; hay, $16.70 and $17.30 a'ton; =
cotton 11.7 and 9.3 cents a pound; ’
eggs 16 and 18 §ents a dozen.
Georgians Ter Defend Nation
That Georgians stand ready to de- I
fend the nation in time of peril was ■
strikingly demonstrated in Washing- ;
ton, D. C., when Jesse E. Mercer, for- |
mer state game warden of Georgia, |
tendered to Secretary of War Baker |
the services of one thousand men as ;
volunteers prepared to take up arms I
at the first call.
For several weeks Mr. Mercer has
been quietly enlisting recruits tor a
reserve regiment of volunteers around
Waycross, Brunswick, Blackshear,
Ocilla, Valdosta, Americus, Cordele, ;
Moultrie, Fitzgerald, Hazlehurst and
other south Georgia towns, and when
he went to Washington to tender the
services of his regiment he presented
them with facts, figures and names
and addresses. The services of the
regiment were immediately and en
thusiastically accepted and the roster
was filed in the war department.
* Compulsory Dipping Opposed
That the county commissioners be
asked to call an election to ascertain
.the wishes of the people of Thomas
county .in the matter of compulsory
cattle tick eradication and dipping was
the agreement that brought to a close
a mass meeting in Thomasville of
nearly a thousand men from all sec
tions of the county.
After a large number of dipping
vats had been established throughout
the county, and it was almost ready
to be pronounced tick free there sud
denly developed a short time ago, a
decided opposition to the vats, or rath
er to the compulsory dipping of cat
tle, and the heated discussions reached
such a stage that a mass meeting
was called which was one of the larg
est ever held in Thomas county and
in many respects was decidedly spec
tacular in its nature. j
$2,000,000 Is Georgia’s Share
The Bankhead bill, which has pass
ed the United States senate, appro
priating $85,000,000 of federal funds
for road improvement in the various
states of the Union, should give Geor
gia approximately $2,000,000 for road
work, according to information from
Washington.
The appropriation carrier! by the
Bankhead bill is to aid the state high
way authorities and plans of the va
rious individual states, and under the
terms of the act no state may share
in the distribution until it shall have
a duly authorized state highway com
mission to handle the fund. This pro
vision, therefore, precludes Georgia
from Its share, as matters now stand,
since this state stands almost alone
in the South as one having no state
highway commission.
Money Order Crooks At Work
Robert E. Barry, inspector in charge
in Atlanta for the postoffice depart
ment, has issued a warning to all ho
tels of Atlanta to beware of spurioffs
money orders, his letter listing by
number a total of 3,475 money order
blanks which have disappeared from
thirty-one postoffices throughout , the
United States during the last two
months.
Hotels, it- Is pointed out, are the
.. most common prey of the bad money
order fraud’, and iCis for that reason
the warning is directed more general:
ly to these than to any other class of
business institutions.
Speer Reversed By Appeal Judges
By an order issued the United
States circuit court of appeals has
placed the estate of James M. Smith,
Valued at approximately two and a
half million dollars, back in the hands
.of the original administrators appoint
ed by the ordinary of Qgletfaorpe couq
ty prior to United States -District
Judge Emory Speer’S decision grant
ing the petition of Louisiana heirs for
' 'the appointment of federal court re
ceivers; granted the application for an
appeal, and granted si stay of pro
ceedings until appeal shal be heard.
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