After finishing college Tesla began his practical career in Budapest as an electrical engineer in 1881. His first invention followed soon after in the form of a telephone repeater. He continued in electrical engineering in Paris until 1884, when he came to the United States. His first employment in America was with The Edison Company at Orange, N. J., but in 1887 he went into business for himself as an electrical engineer. From that time on he has been an important figure in the scientific world. He has made many addresses before various gatherings of experts and has written numerous papers on scientific subjects for the magazines. Of course the bulk of his time has been given to his inventions and the necessary research therefor. [Illustration: LIKE A BOLT OF LIGHTNING The electrical discharge of this Tesla oscillator created flames 70 feet across, under the pressure of 12,000,000 volts and a current alternating 130,000 times per second.] [Illustration: DR. NIKOLA TESLA Wizard of electricity, and inventor of the wireless transmission of power.] [Illustration: DOCTOR TESLA'S FIRST POWER PLANT From this oscillator Doctor Tesla sends out the electrical waves with which he hopes to revolutionize industry.] Throughout his life Tesla has been more interested in the adventurous and scientific side of electricity than the commercial side, and all of his inventions smack of the marvellous. To name all his inventions would be almost like giving a list of the machines and devices that mark man's progress in the use of electricity. His invention for the alternating current dynamo, for instance, brought forth an entirely new principle, while his rotating magnetic field made possible the transmission of alternating currents from large power plants over great distances and is very extensively used to-day. High power dynamos, transformers, induction coils, oscillators, and various kinds of electric lamps all came in for his attention. He became one of the foremost authorities on high tension currents and in 1889 invented a system of electrical conversion and distribution by oscillatory discharges which was a step toward his great goal, the wireless transmission of power. He was very near the prize when in 1893 he announced a system of wireless transmission of intelligence. His studies continued and finally, in 1897, he announced his famous high potential transmitter by which he claimed to be able to send power through the earth without wires. The art of telautomatics announced in 1899 was really a part of Tesla's invention for the wireless transmission of power, for the plan was to control such objects, for instance, as airships or boats, from a distance by electricity transmitted without wires.