550 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is one of childish simplicity, of fishing out in the stormy ocean, from 

 a depth comparable to that of the vale of Chamouni, the ends of a 

 broken cable. Electrical resistance is measured by the Siemens mer- 

 cury unit. " Siemens " is written on water-metres, and Russian and 

 German revenue officers are assisted by Siemens apparatus in levying 

 their assessments. The Siemens processes for gilding and silvering 

 and the Siemens anastatic printing mark stages in the development 

 of those branches of industry. Siemens differential regulators control 

 the action of the steam-engines that forge English arms at Woolwich 

 and that of the chronographs on which the transit of the stars is 

 marked at Greenwich. The Siemens cast-steel works and glass-houses, 

 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 crucible, melting three pounds of platinum in twenty 

 minutes, was a wonder of the Paris Exposition, which might well 

 have been called an exposition of Siemens apparatus and productions, 

 so prominent were they there. It is a rare phenomenon when a whole 

 family becomes so distinguished by eminent talent in a particular field 

 of activity as the four Siemens brothers have been. They all seem to 

 share their peculiar talent in a nearly equal degree, and to use it for 

 a common purpose ; and so heartily have they assisted each other that 

 in the list of their inventions it is often hard to draw the line between 

 what shall be accredited to one, what to another of the brothers. They 

 all worked so harmoniously together, says the biographer of Sir Will- 

 iam in the London " Times " " the idea suggested by one being taken 

 up and elaborated by another that it is hardly possible to attribute 

 to each his own proper credit for their joint labor. The task, too, is 

 rendered all the harder by the fact that each brother was always ready 

 to attribute a successful invention to any of the family rather than to 

 himself." William was most appreciated in England because he lived 

 and worked there ; Werner, in Germany, because there was his home 

 and field of activity. 



Charles William Siemens was born at Lenthe, in Hanover, April 

 4, 1823. He received his early education at the " Catharinum," in 

 Liibeck ; then studied engineering in the Polytechnical School at 

 Magdeburg ; and in 1841 and 1842 studied in the University of Got- 

 tingen, where he enjoyed the instructions of Wohler and Himly. Hav- 

 ing finished his academical career at the age of nineteen, and dis- 

 playing already some of that inventive faculty by which his brother, 

 six years older, was distinguished, he entered the engine-works of 

 Count Stolberg, where his attention was directed in the line of the 

 practical applications of science to industry. He and Werner having 

 devised an improved process in electro-plating with silver and gold, 



