Novel. K. F. Puromies Limited, Helsinki 1935. All rights of translation and motionpictures reserved.
An excerpt:
One 100,000 HP turbine after another was started. At first there was much flashing and creaking in the turbine and dynamo houses, but on the whole all passed off quietly. The huge wheels revolved silently on their enormous bearings. The high current was now started and here and there in the United States lamps were seen to be lighted for the first time by the mysterious antennae alone, the construction of which remained Harry’s secret. At nine o’clock he decided to launch his greatest surprise: the artificial midnight sun of North America. Harry entered a special engine tower, dressed in a special insulating suit and similar gloves and boots. There he turned various wheels, discs and springs. Immediately a thick stream of electric sparks issued from the tall masts of 650 metres’ height to the top of the Adirondack. When he had adjusted and controlled the delivery of the current, it looked as if an unchanging constant flash of lightning illumined the sky and earth in the whole of New York State. On Manhattan Island you could see to read, even in the shadow of the ordinary street lighting. Then Harry made some more movements of his handles. Instantly an extension of the river of light shot from the Adirondack to the top of Black Dome in North Carolina. It grew so light in all the eastern states that the Atlantic was the same bluish-green colour as by daylight. In New York harbour it was so light at half-past nine in the evening that the Goddess of Liberty with her torch reminded one of “The girl with the matches” in Hans Andersen’s fairy tale. In New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond and other towns the ordinary street lights were extinguished. They looked like a travesty in comparison with the great straight river of light high up in the sky above the Alleghany Mountains. Who would have believed that Niagara was such a source of light?