SIR WILLIAM SIEMENS.
rE work of Sir William Siemens deserves notice, not only because of the interest which attaches to great achievements, but also because his career bears witness at every step, to the practical value of scientific generalisations.
Whereas Englishmen are peculiarly apt to disdain general truths and to doubt their applicability. Sir W. Siemens has given it as his diliberate conviction that, "The further we advance, the more thoroughly we approach the indi- cations of pure science in our practical results." Here lies the secret of his success ; and his inventions are really important, inasmuch as they attest the value of this rule. As for the events of his early life, it suffices to say that he was born at Lenthe, in Hanover, in 1823; that he was educated at the Poly- technic School- at Magdeburg, and at the University of Gottingen ; that he came to England in 1843, for the purpose of introducing a method of silvering by galvanic deposit, that this invention was so well paid for that he com- pared himself to Croesus, and resolved to make England his home. From that time on until the moment of his death, on the 19th of last month, the history of his life is the record of a series of great inventions. And as be himself attributedi these inventions to his endeavour "to realise in practice the indications of pure science," it becomes necessary to speak of the results arrived at in some branches of science about the year 1840. It will be remembered that Davy was the first to demonstrate the immateriality of heat, by melting two pieces of ice in an atmosphere below freezing-point by rubbing them together. Guided by this and similar experiments, a German physician named Mayer arrived at the conception of the interaction of forces ; indeed, if we may believe Professor Tyndall," Mayer had in 1842 actually calculated the mechanical equivalent of heat." This honour, however, Mayer must be content to share with Joule, who came, at nearly the same time, to the same result. In 1849, Joule published the formula which has since been universally accepted ; he esta- blished, namely, that 772 foot-pounds of work—that is, 772 times the amount of force required to raise a weight of one pound one foot from the ground—is required to generate as much heat as will raise the temperature of a pound of water by one degree. Now, Siemens had studied the writings of Mayer and Joule, and while still in his teens he adopted the new theory. Forthwith, he set himself to compare this theoretic power of heat with the mechanical power of heat developed in the steam-engines of the day. He found +1 of the total heat in
the boiler was lost, the remaining part alone being all the heat really converted into mechanical effect. Here was a large margin for improvement, and he at once determined to try to save some of this wasted heat,—that is, he set to work to con- struct a regenerator or accumulator which would utilise a great part of it, and so approach in practical results more nearly to the theory as above formulated by Joule. For many years his labours were only partially successful, and on these we need not dwell. At last, more than ten years after his first attempts, he tried the plan of volatising the solid fuel, and by first converting the coal into gas, and then using the gas in regenerators, he obtained practical results of the utmost value. In his regenerative gas furnace, be utilised almost double as much heat as the steam-engine can utilise. The last lecture ever delivered by Michael Faraday was delivered in 1862 before the Royal Institution, and had for its subject this invention of Siemens. The great discoverer lauded the good qualities of the furnace, its economy, its facility of management. It has since come into very general use. It has been recently stated in a most interesting book," The Creators of the Age of Steel," which will be published this week by Messrs. Chapman and Hall, that the inventor received a million dollars, or two hundred thousand pounds, in royalties for this patent in the United States alone,—no mean proof, one would say, of its usefulness ; yet Sir William Siemens prophesied for it a still more extended sphere. In 1882, he expressed his belief that it must yet be introduced into all factories and on shipboard, nay, that "the time is not far distant when both rich and poor will largely resort to gas as the most convenient, the cleanest, and the cheapest of heating agents, and when raw coal will be seen only at the colliery or the gas- works." If this hope be realised, and the probability is that it will be, the regenerative gas furnace will have revolutionised industry as completely as did the steam-engine. Let us con- sider one result of this invention. When Mr. Siemens took out the patent for his furnace, in 1861, he stated that it was specially applicable to the melting of steel on the open hearth. That is, he thought that by means of this furnace "steel could be made directly from the raw ores, without the intermediate use of huge blast-furnaces and laborious refining processes." With this
object in view, he erected experimental steel works at Birming- ham in 1865, and two years later he succeeded completely in converting old iron rails directly into steel. Almost immediately his method was adopted at Crewe, by the London and North- Western Railway Company ; a little later, by Krupp, at Essen. Since that time it has made its way. In 1873, only 77,500 tons of open-hearth steel were made in Great Britain, as against 436,000 tons in 1882. One effect of this cheaper process of pro- ducing steel deserves mention ; it has revolutionised shipbuilding. Not only are steel vessels safer, because stronger, than those built of iron,—they are also lighter. Their carrying-power accordingly is so much greater, that they are said to earn twenty-five per cent, more than iron ships. Now, "in 1879, only about 20,000 tons of steel vessels were built, whereas in 1883 over 260,000 tons were built, being one-fourth of the total tonnage of new shipbuilding for that year." These are achievements which would in themselves entitle William Siemens to the gratitude of mankind, yet in another field he has made for himself a still greater name ; and his method remained the same; he ever sought to realise in practice theoretic truths.
It was in 1808 that Davy produced an electric light, although at an excessive cost. The thing lacking Was a strong and con- tinuous current at a cheap rate. In 1831, Faraday showed that electric currents might be produced by permanent magnetism. These currents, however, were very weak. This defect Siemens set himself to remedy ; in 1856, he produced what has since been known as the Siemens armature, by which the strength of the electric current could be increased almost indefinitely ; and this discovery led, some ten years later, to the discovery of the dynamo-machine.
In February, 1867, Mr. William Siemens sent to the Royal Society a paper," On the Conversion of Dynamic into Electrical Force, without the Use of Permanent Magnetism." Ten days later, Sir Charles Wheatstone announced—also in a paper to the Royal Society—the same discovery, arrived at quite independ- ently. Both papers were read upon the same night, February 14th. "It would be difficult," says Professor Tyndall, "to find in the whole field of science a more beautiful example of the in- teraction of natural forces than that set forth in these two papers." A suggestion contained in Sir C. Wheatstone's paper led Sir W. Siemens, in 1880, to a further improvement of the discovery. Without going into details, it will suffice to say that the invention of the dynamo-machine made electricity available for industrial purposes. It has already been proved capable of transforming into electrical work 90 per cent. of the mechanical -energy employed as motive-power. It is daily giving fresh evidence of its utility ; and, although but just introduced, some of its effects belong, indeed, "to the fairy-tales of science." First among these must be named the electric light. The leading part played by Sir W. Siemens in the improvement of this light is so well known as to render comment super- fluous. But his opinion of the light itself may here be repro- duced. In 1882 he said, "Electricity must win the day, as the Vght of luxury." We have already noticed his belief that gas will come to be used for all heating purposes. Sir William Siemens, too, employed the electric light in horticulture with good results; the fruit and grain, we are told, which were sub- jected to the electric light at night, grew with extraordinary rapidity, and were superior in size and quality to the fruit and grain produced under ordinary conditions. The electric railway of our day is the work of his brother, Dr. Werner Siemens, who, as early as 1847, distinguished himself by insulating telegraph wires by means of gutta-percha, and so making submarine telegraphy practicable. In passing, we may say, that the electric telegraph, as it is to-day, owes almost as much to the improvements of the Brothers Siemens as to Sir Charles Wheat- stone or to Mr. Morse, the American, both of whom claim the honour of having invented it. But whatever may be the value of electricity in horticulture, or as a light generally, no one can doubt that as a dynamical force it is destined to revolutionise in- dustry. In 1877, Sir William Siemens calculated that "all the coal raised throughout the world would barely suffice to produce the amount of power that runs to waste at Niagara alone," and he added that it would not be difficult to realise a large propor- tion of this wasted power by turbines, AT., and to use it at great distances by means of dynamo-electrical machines. Some five years later, a similar power was in England transmitted to a distance by means of electricity, and used for pumping water, tlro. When this fact is considered, we seem led to the portal of a new world, stranger and more fascinating than any pictured
by the imagination. To turn, however, from the possibilities of the future to reality, we cannot avoid mentioning one fact which seems to throw some light upon the personality of Sir W. Siemens. In 1879 he constructed a house-grate that brought the power of economising fuel within the means of the ordinary householder, but "in order that it might be used without restraint and at the least expense, he did not make it the subject of a patent." Whether the worth of this grate be much or little, the kindliness of the action enhances our admiration for the genius of Sir William Siemens by a touch of purely human sympathy. With this incident we might well conclude our sketch of the man and his work, but we cannot help remarking that his successes come to commend a reform he was never weary of advocating, viz., that the State should establish free technical Schools and Science-Laboratories in every part of the country.
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