THIS story was written during the world war, long before the death ray was ever "invented."
It is believed in some quarters that here we have the original germ of the death ray. In fact, the means chosen by the author to bring down enemy airplanes by means of electricity were exploited a number of years later by Grindell Matthews, although he admits today that the death ray was pure fiction. Nevertheless at some future date it will be possible to do just what the author tells as in this story.
Nikola Tesla, who read the original proofs of this story, endorses the idea. He himself was able to burn out electrical amateurs thirteen miles from his famous Colorado power plant, in 1892, when he was also able to light electric lamps at this distance, without wires.
HY" Sparks had stopped reading the New York Evening World: He contemplated his old meerschaum pipe meditatively while with his long and lanky index finger, stained by many acids, he carefully rubbed a long, thin and quivering nose. This was always a sign of deep, concentrated thought of the nose's owner. It also, as a rule, induced the birth of a great idea.
Again, and very slowly he re-read the article, which millions that same day had read casually, without a quiver, let alone, a nose quiver. The newspaper item was simple enough:
NEW YORK, Aug. 10, 1917.—An electro-magnetic storm of great violence swept over the eastern section of the United States last night. Due to a brilliant Aurora Borealis,—the Northern Lights,—telegraph and long distance telephone, as well as cable communications were interrupted for hours. No telegraphic traffic was possible between New York and points West. It was impossible to work any of the transatlantic cables between 12:15 A. M. and 9:15 A. M., every one of them having "gone dead." The Aurora Borealis disturbance affected all telegraph and telephone lines extending between Chicago and the eastern cities. On telegraph wires of the Postal Telegraph Co. without regular battery being applied at terminal offices, grounded lines showed a potential of 425 volts positive, varying to 225 volts negative; the disturbance continuing between 12:15 A. M. and 9:15 A. M.
At Newark, N. J., in the Broad Street office a Western Union operator was severely shocked, trying to operate the key, while long sparks played about his instruments.
Sparks rose excitedly and began pacing the cement floor of the vast Tesla laboratory, totally oblivious to the fact that he was sucking a cold pipe. The more he paced about, the more excited he became. Finally he flung himself into a chair and began feverishly to make sketches on big white sheets of drawing paper.
"Why" Sparks had been just an ordinary "Bug," an experimenter, when he entered Tesla's great research laboratory at the beginning of the great war in 1914. Tesla liked the keen, red-haired tousled boy, who always seemed to divine your thoughts before you had uttered five words. His clear blue eyes, lying deep in their sockets, sparkled with life and intelligence and what Sparks did not know about electricity was mighty little indeed. I believe there is no electrical book in existence that Sparks had not devoured ravenously in his spare hours, while having lunch or else while in bed, in the small hours of the morning. His thirst for electrical knowledge was unbounded, and he soaked up every bit of information like a sponge. Yes, and he retained it, too. In short, the young prodigy was a living electrical cyclopedia and highly valued by his associates. No wonder Tesla in three short years had made him superintendent of the laboratory.
Sparks' First Name
OF course, Sparks' first name was not really "Why." But some one had dubbed him with this sobriquet because of his eternal "But why is this,"—"Why, why should we not do it this way"—"Why do you try to do that?" In short his first word always seemed to be "Why,"—it had to be, in his unending quest of knowledge. And his "Why" was always very emphatic, explosive-like, imperative, from which there was no escape.
Ah, yes, his first name. To tell the honest truth, I don't know it. Last year in the spring when I went up to the laboratory, I thought I would find out. So when I finally located the young wonder, behind a bus bar, where he was drawing fat, blue sparks by means of a screwdriver. I told him that I intended to write something about him and his wonderful electrical knowledge. Would he be good enough to give me his real first name?
He was watching a big fuse critically, and in an absent-minded manner exploded: "Why?" That finished my mission. And for all I know his real name is "Why" Sparks.
But we left Sparks with his drawings, in the laboratory. That was on a certain evening in 1917. To be exact it was about 10 o'clock. At 10:05 Tesla accompanied by two high army officials strolled into the laboratory where Sparks was still feverishly engaged with sketches lying all about him.
Tesla who was working out a certain apparatus for the Government had dropt in late to show Major General McQuire the result of six weeks' labors. The apparatus had been completed that day and the General, a military electrical expert, had come over specially from Washington to see the "thing" work.
But before Tesla had a chance to throw in the switch of the large rotary converter, Sparks had leaped up, and was waving excitedly a large drawing in Tesla's face. He gushed forth a torrent of sentences, and for fully five minutes Tesla and the two Army officials were listening spell-bound to the young inventor. For a minute or two the three men were speechless, looking awe-struck at Sparks, who, having delivered himself of his latest outburst, now became normal again and lit up his still cold pipe.
It wa3 Tesla who first found his voice. "Wonderful, wonderful. Absolutely wonder-ful, Sparks. In a month you will be the most talked of man on this planet. And his idea is sound." This to the General. "Absolutely without a flaw. And so simple. Why, oh why! did I not think of it before? Come, let me shake the hand of America's youngest and greatest genius!" Which he did.
There then followed an excited thirty-minute con-
