CHAPTER I.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND INTRODUCTORY.

As an introduction to the record of Mr. Tesla’s investigations and discoveries contained in this volume, a few biographical words will, it is believed, be appropriate and welcome.

Nikola Tesla was born in 1857 at Smiljan, Lika, a borderland region of Austro-Hungary. He was of Serbian descent, a people who have maintained a constant struggle for freedom against Turkey and all other invaders. His family is an old and representative one among these "Switzers of Eastern Europe" An allusion to the Swiss, famous for their historic struggles for independence and rugged, mountainous homeland., and his father was an eloquent clergyman in the Greek Church. One of his uncles is currently the Metropolitan A high-ranking bishop in the Orthodox Church. in Bosnia. His mother was a woman of natural ingenuity; she took delight not only in skilled housework, but in the construction of mechanical appliances like looms, churns, and other machinery required in a rural community. Nikola was educated at the public school in Gospich for four years and then spent three years in the Real Schule A German-style secondary school focusing on technical and scientific subjects.. He was then sent to Carstatt, Croatia, where he continued his studies for three years at the Higher Real Schule. There, he saw a steam locomotive for the first time. He graduated in 1873, and, after surviving a bout of cholera, he devoted himself to experimentation, particularly in electricity and magnetism.

His father wished for him to maintain the family tradition by entering the Church, but his native genius was too strong. He was eventually allowed to enter the Polytechnic School at Gratz to finish his studies, with the goal of becoming a professor of mathematics and physics. One of the machines experimented with there was a Gramme dynamo An early electrical generator. used as a motor. Despite his instructor’s confident demonstration that it was impossible to operate a dynamo without a commutator or brushes Mechanical components used in early motors to switch the direction of current., Mr. Tesla could not be convinced that such accessories were necessary or desirable. He had already realized, with quick intuition, that a way could be found to dispense with them; and from that time he may...