It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Further experimentation with the original single-terminal coil, before
referred to, finally led step by step to the adoption of a coil of
large dimensions, which, in two typical forms, is illustrated in
diagrams 10 and 11. With such a coil I found that there was
practically no limit to the tension available, and it is by its means
that I discovered the most important of all facts arrived at in the
course of my investigation in these fields. One of these was that
atmospheric air, though ordinarily a perfect insulator, conducted
freely the currents of immense electromotive force producible by such
coils and suitable accessories. So great is the conductivity of the
air, that the discharge issuing from a single terminal behaves as if
the atmosphere were rarefied. Another fact is that this conductivity
increases very rapidly with rarefaction of the atmosphere and
augmentation of the electrical pressure, to such an extent that at
barometric pressures which permit of no transit of ordinary currents,
those generated by such a coil pass with great freedom through the air
as through a copper wire. Following up these promising revelations I
demonstrated conclusively by experiments that great amounts of
electrical energy can be transmitted to any distance through upper air
strata which are easily accessible, and since this truth has been
recognized every fiber has been strained to realize such a
transmission on a large scale. These two obvervations explain clearly
the silent discharges noted frequently in dense air strata, but three
or four miles above the earth's surface. One more equally important
fact I may mention, which was simultaneously observed. The discharges
of such a coil, when of an electro-motive force of a few millions of
volts, excite powerful affinities in the atmospheric nitrogen, causing
it to combine readily with the oxygen and other elements, particularly
in the presence of aqueous vapor. So energetic are these actions and
so strangely do such powerful discharges behave, that I have often
experienced a fear that the atmosphere might be ignited, a terrible
possibility, which Sir William Crookes, with his piercing intellect,
has already considered. Who knows but such a calamity is possible? And
who can tell with certitude that periodical cessations of organic life
on the globe might not be caused by ignition of the air and
destruction of its life-sustaining qualities, accidentally or as a
consequence of some accumulative change? A lump of coal will lie for
centuries unaffected in contact with oxygen, but the combustion once
started, the process continues as long as there are elements to combine.