noun: a variant of `burden'
verb: weight down with a load
"It is the same with electrical alternation in regard to its receptiveness by the physical organism. Phenomenal as it may seem to those ignorant of the fact, this is a standard truth in sympathetic physics, which Nikola Tesla's penetration did not fail to discover. The plane of research that he occupies in regard to electrical phenomena, is as much above that of his fellow electricians as is the plane occupied by Keely (in researching the problem of aerial navigation) beyond the realm in which those inventors are working, who are constructing balloons and flying machines on various principles, while still ignorant of a force in nature that is antagonistic to gravity and overcomes it; thus making navigation of the air, with ships of thousand of tons burthen, both possible and perfectly safe.
"Electricians will no longer remain captive in their domain when Keely's system is published to the world; as it will be when he has effected the settlement that he seeks. If this settlement is not effected, without the delay of litigations his secrets will die with him, in all probability, for no one but himself knows the process by which dead metal is sensitized so as to be operated upon, as the brain is operated upon by celestial radiation.
"Were Nikola Tesla and Edison brought to a proper appreciation of Keely's methods, were they to make themselves acquainted with his system of sympathetic physics, what might not be expected of them in view of their brilliant achievements on a lower plane of research? The march of science would then be a triumphal one indeed." [CJBM, Dogmatism of Science]