Free Tesla: The Life and Times of an Electric Messiah by Nigel Cawthorne Page A

Tesla was thought to be chaste, White, though married, invited him to one of his parties where naked girls emerged from pies. White was later shot dead by Harry Thaw, the jealous husband of White’s mistress showgirl Evelyn Nesbit.
    It seems from their correspondence that Katherine Johnson took some amorous interest in Tesla. He was also seen dining out with women. However, he had become interested in Buddhism and seems to have sworn a vow of chastity after meeting Swami Vivekananda (1863 – 1902) at a dinner with Sarah Bernhardt. Swami was in America for the Congress of World Religions held at the Chicago World’s Fair and preached chastity as a path to enlightenment.
    Both Bernhardt and Vivekananda visited Tesla’s laboratory in New York. Tesla also studied the theosophical theories of the spiritualist Madame Blavatsky (1831 – 91), now widely seen as a charlatan.

Chapter 6 – Niagara Falls
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    In the schoolroom there were a few mechanical models which interested me and turned my attention to water turbines. I constructed many of these and found great pleasure in operating them. How extraordinary was my life an incident may illustrate. My uncle had no use for this kind of pastime and more than once rebuked me. I was fascinated by a description of Niagara Falls I had perused, and pictured in my imagination a big wheel run by the Falls. I told my uncle that I would go to America and carry out this scheme. Thirty years later I saw my ideas carried out at Niagara and marvelled at the unfathomable mystery of the mind.
    Nikola Tesla
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    In 1886, civil engineer Thomas Evershed, who had worked on the Erie Canal, proposed digging a series of canals and tunnels to carry water from Niagara Falls to waterwheels that would be used to power industrial mills and factories. Three years later, Edison drew up a plan to electrify the city of Buffalo, NY, which was 20 miles (32 km) away. However, DC had never been transmitted more than one or two miles.
    Even Westinghouse, at that time, was dubious that electricity could be transmitted so far and suggested a complex system of compressed air tubes and cables to convey the power. Plans were drawn up for the construction of an industrial complex next to the Falls, but then came the news that AC power had been transmitted the 109 miles (175 km) from Lauffen to Frankfurt by AEG in Germany.
    The International Niagara Commission, headed by Lord Kelvin, offered $20,000 for the best plan to harness the power of the Falls. Like Edison, Kelvin was opposed to AC – until he saw it in action at the Columbian Exposition. Then he became an enthusiastic convert. Westinghouse refused to enter at first as he felt that, to win, he would be handing over $100,000-worth of advice. Of the twenty schemes submitted, fourteen used hydraulics or compressed air. Four involved DC power, one of which was endorsed by Edison. Two used AC. One of them was not fully worked out; the other used the Tesla system manufactured by Westinghouse.
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    Closing the Deal
    GE thought they were still in the running and when blueprints went missing from the Westinghouse works they were accused of industrial espionage. However the success of the hydroelectric plant at Telluride followed by Westinghouse’s triumph at the Chicago World’s Fair left no one in doubt about who should be awarded the contract. Thomas Martin’s article on Tesla in Century closed the deal. The following year, The New York Times wrote: ‘To Tesla belongs the undisputed honor of being the man whose work made this Niagara enterprise possible … There could be no better evidence of the practical qualities of his inventive genius.’
    Meanwhile the president of the Cataract Construction Company, Edward Dean Adams, visited Tesla in New York and offered him $100,000 for a controlling interest in fourteen US and foreign patents, along with any future inventions Tesla may come up with. Tesla accepted and in February