S//? WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.K.S. 293 



of the circumstances surrounding the first application of the rege- 

 nerative gas furnace at the Woolwich Gun Factory, from which it 

 will be made clear why that furnace was constructed without refer- 

 ence to the practical information that might easily have been 

 obtained, if not from myself, at the works of my licensees. Re- 

 pinling my own connection with the transaction, I beg to repeat 

 that I never saw the furnace in operation, and that when I was 

 asked to inspect it after it had been put out, I could only have 

 reported as I did, that its reconstruction was necessary to attain 

 the end in view. 



C. WILLIAM SIEMENS. 



12, QUBEN ANNK'S GATE, S.W., November 8th, 1881. 



THE CONSERVATION OF SOLAR ENERGY. 

 BY DR. SIEMENS, F.R.S.* 



A PAPER was recently read by me before the Royal Society, 

 under the above title, which may be termed a first attempt to open 

 for the sun a creditor and debtor account, inasmuch as he has 

 hitherto been regarded only as the great almoner, pouring forth 

 incessantly his boundless wealth of heat, without receiving any of 

 it back. Such a proposal touches the root of solar physics, and 

 cannot therefore be expected to pass without challenge to meet 

 which I gladly embrace the opportunity, now offered to me through 

 the courtesy of the Editor of this Review, of enlarging somewhat 

 upon the first concise statement of my views regarding this 

 question. 



Man has from the very earliest ages looked up with a feeling of 

 awe and wonderment to our great luminary, to whom we owe not 

 only the light of day, but the genial warmth by which we live, by 

 which our hills are clad with verdure, our rivers flow, and without 



* Reprinted by permission from the " Nineteenth Century" of April, 1882. 



