AMERICA'S INTELLECTUAL PRODUCT 207 



steam through nozzles, then the mathematical theory of stresses in 

 rapidly rotating bodies, finally, the application of these principles to 

 the design of turbines, and then a thorough and methodical description 

 of the principal existing types. Hardly, if at all, less important than 

 the steam turbine is the gas engine, which seems for a long time to 

 have been treated almost as a joke by American engineers, while in 

 Germany it has reached an efficiency far exceeding that of the steam 

 engine and has been built in sizes up to four thousand horse-power. 

 The effect of this indifference in this country was to put us far in the 

 rear of even France in the development of the automobile, although this 

 was a country where the wealth necessary for the pursuit of the auto- 

 mobile craze was present in great abundance. In spite of the number 

 of manufactories of automobiles in this country, I am informed that 

 the Fiat Company of Turin is occupied for the next two years with 

 American orders, the result of the success of its machines in interna- 

 tional races everywhere. 



I will conclude my practical examples with one more contrast. 

 A year ago I visited a great optical plant in this country. There I 

 saw in one room thousands of lenses for spectacles being ground almost 

 without attention. During the day I saw one man who seemed to me 

 to know anything about optics. The business was in the hands of the 

 original founder and his sons. I supposed that the latter, having 

 grown up in the enjoyment of wealth, would have been given the best 

 education possible to train them for their business, and possibly sent 

 to Europe to learn methods there. Great was my astonishment to 

 learn that the gentlemen had not even been at college. In the city of 

 Jena is one of the most remarkable and successful industrial plants in 

 the world. The Carl Zeiss works are known to every worker with the 

 microscope, to every physicist, to every photographer in the world, for 

 here are produced those wonderful lenses that make photomicrography 

 and the more wonderful achievements of instantaneous photography 

 possible. The history of the Zeiss works is as interesting as its prod- 

 ucts. Fifty years ago Zeiss, a small optician, wishing to get help in 

 improving his microscopes, consulted Professor Abbe, the physicist at 

 the University of Jena. The latter, applying his mathematical knowl- 

 edge, so improved the efficiency of the microscopes that Zeiss invited him 

 to join forces. Becoming interested in the subject, Abbe resigned his 

 professorship and became the scientific partner. Taking up the theory 

 of optical instruments in general, he completely remodeled it, bringing 

 out points never appreciated before, and inventing new lenses that 

 were beyond competition. At the death of Zeiss, his son not having 

 a taste for the business, Abbe was able to become sole proprietor, and 

 at his death two years ago, full of success and lamented by scientists 

 everywhere, he created of the business a Stift, or foundation, for the 



