Part 11

In March, 1877, Dr. Siemens startled the world, in his address to the Iron and Steel Institute, by his proposal to transmit to distant points some of the energy of the Falls of Niagara. As I have before explained in this room, the electrical transmission of energy depends upon the fact that a dynamo-machine may be used either to convert mechanical into electrical energy, _or to effect the reverse change_. Hence to transmit power in this way, two dynamo-machines, connected by a metallic conducting rod, or cable, are necessary; the first, at the water-fall or other source of power, produces the electrical energy, which, in its turn, is reconverted into mechanical power by the second dynamo at the other end of the line. In his own grounds at Tunbridge Wells he made numerous experiments in this subject, distributing the power from a central steam-engine over various parts of his farm, there to perform different functions. The most interesting practical examples, as yet, are to be seen in the electric railroads erected and worked by Siemens Brothers in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, &c., and in the Electric Tramroad at Portrush. The special interest of this line lies in the fact that it was the first real application to railroads of “waste energy,” inasmuch as the cars are propelled by the power of a water-fall eight miles off! The last occasion on which I had the privilege of meeting Sir William Siemens was when, honored by his invitation, I was present at the opening of this line in September 28, 1883. On that occasion, which, half-a-century hence, will be as memorable as the opening of the Stockton and Darlington railroad, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland recognised the fact that this was an entirely new departure in the development of the resources of Ireland, and Sir William Siemens, in a most characteristic speech, admitted that, had he known the difficulties before him, he should have thought twice before he said “Yes” to Dr. Traill’s question as to whether the proposed line could be worked electrically, but that, having said “Yes,” he was determined to carry out the project. As illustrating the character of the man, I may here quote the saying common in his workshops, that as soon as any particular problem had been given up by everybody as a bad job, it had only to be taken to Dr. Siemens for him to suggest half-a-dozen ways of solving it, two of which would be complicated and impracticable, two difficult, and two perfectly satisfactory.

His extraordinary mental activity is shown in the fact that between 1845 and 1883 no less than 133 patents were granted in England to the Messrs. Siemens, 1846 and 1851 being the only years in which none were taken out. During the same period he contributed as many as 128 papers on scientific subjects to various journals, only three years in this case also being without such evidences of work, and in 1882 the number of these papers reached seventeen, the average being about seven patents and original scientific papers per year for more than the third of a century, a truly wonderful record of untiring industry. To show the impression his work made upon the world, I quote the following passage from the many which appeared in the newspapers at the time of his death. It is headed:

ONE MAN’S INTELLECT.

Siemens telegraph wires gird the earth, and the Siemens cable steamer _Faraday_ is continually engaged in laying new ones. By the Siemens method has been solved the problem of fishing out from the stormy ocean, from a depth comparable to that of the vale of Chamounix, the ends of a broken cable. Electrical resistance is measured by the Siemens mercury unit. “Siemens” is written on water meters, and Russian and German revenue officers are assisted by Siemens apparatus in levying their assessments. The Siemens process for silvering and gilding, and the Siemens anastatic printing, mark stages in the development of these branches of industry. Siemens differential regulators control the action of the steam-engines that forge the English arms at Woolwich, and that of the chronographs on which the transits of the stars are marked at Greenwich. The Siemens caststeel works and glasshouses, with their regenerative furnaces, are admired by all artisans. The Siemens electric light shines in assembly-rooms and public places, and the Siemens gas light competes with it, while the Siemens electro-culture in greenhouses bids defiance to our long winter nights. The Siemens electric railway is destined to rule in cities and tunnels. The Siemens electric furnace, melting three pounds of platinum in twenty minutes, was the wonder of the Paris Exposition, which might well have been called an exposition of Siemens apparatus and productions, so prominent were they there.

Almost alone among all these results, his theory of the “Conservation of Solar Energy” dealt with a question not affecting, or at least not immediately affecting, human welfare. A great authority has characterised this as “one of the highest and most brilliant flights that the scientific imagination has ever made.” While astronomers quietly accepted the conclusion that the sun is cooling down, and will become at some distant but calculable epoch a mere cinder hung in space, he endeavored to show that energy can no more be lost in the solar system than it is in the laboratory or the factory. Sir William Siemens’s theory assumed that the interplanetary spaces are filled with an exceedingly thin or rare atmosphere of the compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, such for example as aqueous vapor and hydro-carbons. In this atmosphere the sun is revolving with a velocity four times that of the earth, and hence the solar atmosphere at his equator is thrown out to an enormous distance from his surface. One consequence of this is a perpetual indraught, at the poles of the sun, of the surrounding atmosphere. Thus the sun is everlastingly being fed, and everlastingly sending out its light and heat, which thus recuperate themselves: in this way the solar energy, which is sometimes assumed to be lost in the empty void of interstellar space, really acts upon the rare vapors therein, and converts the universe into a kind of vast regenerative furnace! Had the author of this ingenious theory lived but a few years longer, he would doubtless have labored to strengthen it with further observations and arguments. As it is, it must remain as a daring and original suggestion, the effort of a keen and sagacious mind to bring to fresh subjects the experience and the knowledge accumulated by work of quite a different kind. It is more scientific to believe, with him, that there is some restorative and conservative agency at work, than to suppose that the universe is gradually cooling down into a ball of slag, were it only because his theory does not require an effort of creation at once tremendous and futile. It leaves us free to avoid contemplating a time when the solar system was not, and another when it will cease to be.

Let us now take a brief glance at one or two of Sir William Siemens’s public addresses on more general subjects. His interest in education was so keen, and especially in that branch of education known as technical or technological, that these addresses almost invariably had this for their subject, and were frequently given at some public ceremony in connection with it, such for example as distributions of prizes. The most important of them, perhaps, was given on October 20, 1881, at the re-opening of the Midland Institute in Birmingham. He there surprised his audience by depreciating the German polytechnic system of colleges, on the ground that their students were wanting in originality and adaptability to new conditions. After recounting at some length the recent industrial applications of electricity, he said:

“My chief object in dwelling, perhaps unduly, upon these practical questions, is to present to your minds in a concrete form the hopelessness of looking upon any of the practical processes of the present day as permanent, to be acquired in youth and to be the staple occupation of a lifetime.... The practical man of former days will have to yield his place to the unbiassed worker who with open mind is prepared for every step forward as it arises. For this purpose it is necessary that he should possess, beyond the mere practical knowledge of his trade, a clear appreciation of the principles of action underlying each operation, and such general acquaintance with the laws of chemical and physical science as will make it easy for him to adapt himself to the new order of things.”

He urged the prime importance of the teaching of science being included in the curriculum of _every_ school, and of an adequate supply of trained teachers, as well as of properly equipped laboratories of all kinds, wherein to train them. Replying to the proverb, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” he said: “A little knowledge is an _excellent_ thing, only it must be understood that this little is fundamental knowledge,” and he endorsed Lord Brougham’s pithy saying, “Try to know something about everything, and everything about something.”

In 1878 and 1879 he gave addresses on the same subject in Liverpool, Tunbridge Wells, Paris, and elsewhere. In pointing out the results of the superior French system of technical education, he urged that we should not servilely copy it, but that we should imitate the French example with due regard to the idiosyncrasies of our own country. He approved the spontaneous and self-supporting nature of the English system, as more adaptable to free and vigorous development than a governmental system. His address to the Coventry Science Classes in October, 1882, upon _Waste_, in which he took as examples, waste of time, of food, of personal energy, of mechanical energy, and of fuel, was full of wise and sound practical advice, clothed in the simplest language.

In conclusion, let me try, with the aid of private letters and papers which it has been my privilege to peruse, to bring before you some of the personal characteristics of the man whose life-work we have been considering. Of his extraordinary perseverance in overcoming obstacles I have already spoken, and it has been well remarked that, to a mind and body requiring almost perpetual exercise, these difficulties supplied only a wholesome quantity of resistance. In the two valuable qualities of tenacity and pliancy of intellect he has perhaps never been surpassed. Suppleness and nimbleness of mind are rarely allied with that persistent “grip,” which, without them, is not unlikely to degenerate into obstinacy. In Sir William Siemens these qualities were happily balanced. His talents were the admiration of his contemporaries, and his memory will ever be respected and honored by all, friends and rivals alike; for the facility with which he applied his powers to the solution of the most difficult problems was equalled by the modesty with which he presented the successful result of his efforts. An eminent engineer said of him, “With all his great work, no envious word was ever mixed!” At the time when he received his honorary degree from the University of Oxford, a distinguished Oxonian wrote: “I believe an alumnus more distinguished by great ability, and by a high and honorable determination to use it for the good of his fellowmen, and to help forward man’s law of existence, ‘Subdue the earth and have dominion over it,’ never received a degree from the University of Oxford.” Of the other distinctions heaped upon him, it was often said that the Society rather than Dr. Siemens was honored; and when he was knighted, a well-known man of science, writing to congratulate him, said: “At the same time I feel that the ennobling of three such men as yourself, Abel, and Playfair confers more honor on the order of knighthood than even it does on science.”

The fame of Sir William Siemens was world-wide, as it deserved to be; but those who knew him best will be the most ready to acknowledge that the qualities of his heart were no less conspicuous than those of his intellect. Hear what his pupils and assistants said of him:—“How my dear old master will be missed, and what a gap in many walks of life will be unfilled!” “There are many younger members of our profession who will look elsewhere in vain for such genial uniform kindness and sympathy as his invariably was.”“The seven years I spent in his service were the happiest in my life.” “It was the loss of the kindest and best friend I ever had, and I have not known such sorrow since the loss of my older brother. The keenest incentive I had in my new work was the desire of showing him that his kindly recommendation was justified by the event.”In acknowledging the gift from Lady Siemens of some objects of remembrance, one writes: “They, as visible objects on which his eyes must have rested frequently, will, I feel certain, when I shall look at them, tend to encourage me in overcoming difficulties, of which there exist always plenty for those who wish to contribute their share, however small, to the progress of things of this world. It is this example which Sir William Siemens has given to all the world, which will, I believe, be the most beneficial for future generations, and for those who are wise enough to follow it.”

Of his character as a man of business let Messrs. Chance Bros. speak, as one testimony out of many: “Our firm having been the first to carry out in England on a large scale the Siemens regenerative process, we were brought into close and frequent communication with him, and had the opportunity of appreciating not only his extraordinary inventive powers, but also his thorough straightforwardness and integrity of character.”

I have spoken of his interest in education, and I quote two opinions thereon. Lord Sherbrooke, in conversation with a mutual friend, regretted immensely that he had not been a pupil of Sir W. Siemens, and spoke of him, and of those who were working with him to enlarge our sphere of knowledge, as the salt of the earth. A distinguished American expressed himself as strongly impressed not only with a sense of his great learning, but with admiration of the native strength of his mind, and the soundness of his educational views.

Many testified to his great benevolence. The German Athenæum wrote: “If the world of science has lost in your late husband one of its brightest stars, the poor, the striving student, as well as the struggling artist, have lost a liberal benefactor and a patron; and on hearing of his sad and but too early death, many will have exclaimed, ‘We ne’er shall look upon his like again!’” An eminent man spoke of him as one “whose life has been spent in an unselfish and unceasing devotion to God’s creatures.” Many of the letters which I have read convey the thoughts of some of his friends on hearing of his death, in language such as this: “We all felt struck down; realising how much poorer his loss had left the world, leaving us as he did when full of the vigor of his endless interests, and brightening all around him, not only by his genius and high intellect, but by his marvellous benevolence and tender consideration, so full was he of kind feeling and thought for others. He was in a high degree the possessor of those sweet domestic virtues which, while so simple and unostentatious, were so spontaneous and charming. What an eminently well-rounded life was his! Our children will always remember how he was held up to them as a man almost without an equal.” A confidential servant, who had lived in his family many years, wrote of him as the most Christ-like man she had ever met; and that he always reminded her of the Arab prince who asked the recording angel, when writing in his book the names of those who loved the Lord, to write him as one who loved his fellowmen; the angel wrote and carried the book to heaven, bringing it back again to show; and when the prince looked, lo, his name led all the rest!

Of his family relations, the Rev. Mr. Haweis thus wrote, in a sermon on “Friends!” “What a beautiful sight, too, was the friendship of the late Sir William Siemens for his brothers, and theirs for him! not less beautiful because lived out unconsciously in the full glare and publicity of the commercial world, into which questions of amity are not supposed to enter, especially when they interfere with business. But here were several brothers, each with his large firm, his inventions, his speculations, yet each at the other’s disposal; never eager to claim his own, never a rival! These men were often separated by time and space, but they were one in heart.”

One who had exceptional opportunities of knowing him wrote: “His characteristic of intensity in whatever he was engaged in was remarkable. Even in his relaxations he entered into them with his whole heart; indeed, it did one good to hear his ringing laugh when witnessing some amusing play—the face lit up with well-nigh childlike pleasure—no trace of the weariness which had been visible after a long day of work of such varied kinds, all demanding his most serious attention, involving often momentous world-wide results. As a travelling companion he was indeed the light and happiness of those who had the privilege to be with him. Everything that could lessen fatigue, or add to the enjoyment and interest of the journey, was thought of, and tenderly carried out, and the knowledge of the pleasure he was giving was his sweet reward. Young people and children clustered round him, and he spared no trouble to explain simply and clearly any question they asked him.”

The Rev. D. Fraser, in a funeral address, said: “The combination of mental power with moral uprightness and strength is always impressive. And this is what signally characterised him whose death we mourn. There have been very few more active and inquiring minds in this generation: the keenness and swiftness of his intellectual processes were even more surprising than the extent and variety of his scientific attainments. But such powers and such acquirements have, alas! been sometimes in unworthy alliance with jealous dispositions and a low moral tone. What will endear to us the memory of William Siemens is that he was, while so able and skilful, also so modest, so upright, so generous, and so totally free from all narrowness and paltriness of spirit. And God, whose wisdom and power he reverently owned, has taken him from us!”

Yes, God has taken him from us to a deeper insight into, and a greater work amongst and beyond, those works of His which he so loved and studied here. Can we imagine a greater fulness of joy than that which must now be his in the vast increase of his knowledge, and the satisfying of every wish of the great warm heart and noble nature which was so plainly but the beginning of better things? How can we doubt that for a nature so richly endowed there is higher scope alike for knowledge and for service in the great Eternity? Such beauty and grandeur and energy and power cannot be laid low—they are not destroyed, nothing is lost, but all will live again in ever-growing splendor! A noble, beautiful, and gifted spirit has passed to the higher and fuller life, and with us is left an influence for good which cannot die. Just as this generation is now profiting by the solar radiation which fell on the earth countless ages ago, so will the labors of Charles William Siemens form a store of knowledge, potential with respect to this and succeeding generations, and destined to confer advantages, greater than we can now estimate, on the ever-advancing cause of science, and on the moral, intellectual, and material progress of humanity!—_Gentleman’s Magazine._

A FRENCH DRAMA UPON ABELARD.

BY A CONCEPTUALIST.

One warm evening in the summer of 1836, the late Count Charles De Rémusat, sauntering through the streets of Paris in that frame of mind which the French describe by the expressive word _desœuvrement_, was arrested by the _affiche_ on the portals of the Ambigu-Comique. It announced a drama by MM. Anicet Bourgeois and François cornue, called _Heloïse et Abelard_. It had been running for several months; and the vacant politician entered the house and settled himself in a _fauteuil d’orchestre_. The future friend and colleague of Thiers, whom he preceded to the grave only by a narrow interval, was already a person of some distinction; but though in many respects a severe critic, he was singularly tolerant of the literary defects and the artistic shortcomings of dramas intended to propitiate the popular taste by fertility of incident and freshness of invention. That evening, however, he confessed himself displeased. The play violated familiar records without either heightening or purifying passion, and sacrificed history to fiction, without rendering it more philosophical.

But though he walked homeward with that sense of dissatisfaction which is generally experienced by persons of education and sensibility after a visit to the modern theatre, the play continued to haunt him. With its subject he must have been already thoroughly familiar, for are not Eloisa and Abelard the most celebrated lovers in history? But though at college he had been distinguished by the elegance of his lyrics, De Rémusat had attained the meridian of life without acquiring, or even attempting to acquire, a distinct reputation as a man of letters. Like most of the aspiring spirits of his time, he had betaken himself to political journalism, trusting that it would conduct to parliamentary honors, and obtain for him a share in the direction of affairs of State. At first a somewhat docile pupil of Guizot, by the time the famous _Globe_ was started he had shaken himself entirely free from the influence of that doctrinaire statesman, and he shortly became one of its most indefatigable contributors. How successfully he had employed his pen may be surmised from the fact that his name appears in the list of signatures to the famous Protest against the _Ordonnances_ of Polignac, which caused the Revolution of July. The first Parliament summoned after the accession of Louis Philippe found him, at the age of thirty-three, Member for Muret a constituency in the Haute Garonne which he continued to represent till the Revolution of 1848. Justifiably ambitious of power, that he might advance the cause of Constitutional Government, he abstained from associating his reputation with non-political compositions; and this sternly practical resolve seemed, through long persistence, at length to have weaned him from all interest in the more subtle workings of the intellect.