Page:Canadian patent 33317.djvu/2

 SPECIFICATION. ________

TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:—

BE IT KNOWN, THAT I, NIKOLA TESLA, from Smiljan, Lika, Border Country of Austria Hungary, resident of New York, in the County and State of New York, Electrician, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in methods and apparatus for Converting Alternating into Direct Currents, and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

In nearly all the more important industrial applications of electricity, the current is produced by dynamo-electric machines driven by power, in the coils of which the currents developed are primarily in reverse directions or what is known as alternating. As many electrical devices and systems, however, require direct current, it has been usual to correct the current alternations by means of a commutator instead of taking them off directly from the generating coils.

The superiority of alternating current machines in all cases where their currents can be used to advantage, renders their employment very desirable, as they may be much more economically constructed and operated and the object of this invention is to provide means for directing or converting at will at one or more points in a circuit, alternating into direct currents.