Library of Congress, Chronicling America, 2026-10-08

Query: Steinmetz "artificial lightning", dates 1921-1923 (Chrome; a Cloudflare check passed by itself, no interaction). 35 results; site warned the search timed out and some results may be missing. First result read via the page's OCR text file.

Found

New York Herald, 3 March 1922, image 6: "HURLS LIGHTNING BOLTS IN INDOOR THUNDERSTORM. Dr. Steinmetz Splinters Blocks as 1,000,000 Horse Power Bolts Fill Schenectady Laboratory With Flashes and Crashes - Only Clouds of Storm Are Lacking." Associated Press, Schenectady, 2 March. [web: https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83045774/1922-03-03/ed-1/?sp=6] - The "lightning generator" demonstration "splintered a large block of wood, hurling the fragments 25 feet, and ripped a miniature tree from tip to base." - Steinmetz quoted: "In our lightning generator ... we get a discharge of 10,000 amperes at over 100,000 volts; that is, a power of over 1,000,000 horse power, lasting for a hundred-thousandth part of a second." - The bolt is said to carry about one five-hundredth of the energy of natural lightning, "Dr. Steinmetz estimates"; purpose: development of lightning arresters. Check of the quoted figures (Investigator's arithmetic, not a verdict): 10^4 A x 10^5 V = 10^9 W, about 1.34 million horsepower; for 10^-5 s this is 10^4 J (10 kJ). The figures are self-consistent.

Other hits listed (not opened): Washington Daily News 26-27 Oct 1923 (obituaries), Washington Times 21 Mar 1922, Casper Daily Tribune 2 Nov 1922 and 15 Jun 1923, Lander Evening Post 24 Nov 1922, NY Herald 29 Oct 1922 section five, others.

Bears on: claim 5 (his lightning work moved from theory to laboratory impulse generators in 1921-22) and the historical record. Result: positive.