SIX WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.R.S. 359 



ON WASTE. 



Substance of an Address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the 

 COVENTRY SCIENCE CLASSES on October 20th, 1882, 



By C. WILLIAM SIEMENS,* D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. 



WHEN I was requested a few weeks ago by your honorary 

 secretary to come amongst you and distribute these prizes, I 

 was in the north of Scotland taking a holiday after a hard spell of 

 work at Southampton, and I felt that I should not undertake duties 

 of this kind until another year. But it was really such a pleasure 

 to come down to this old town, and the easy terms which were 

 imposed, induced me not to postpone my visit, but to come 

 to-night. I thought I should have told you something about science 

 and science education, but I saw that last year my friend and pre- 

 decessor in office, Mr. Norman Lockyer (applause) had de- 

 livered a very able oration on technical education. Moreover, I 

 have been asked to go to Birmingham, as President of the Midland 

 Institute, to deliver an address of a similar kind. Therefore I 

 shall have enough of that subject, and I think I had better look 

 out for some other matter as the subject of my discourse to-night. 



I might have taken the hint thrown out by the Mayor, and given 

 you an address on the wonders of electricity, but I think electricity 

 has now become a matter of study, and I could not, in the short 

 space of time allowed me, add any useful matter to the knowledge 

 you already possess on the subject. I think we should have done 

 with the wonders of electricity. I do not like to hear about 

 them. I prefer to hear of actual results ; of the amount of power 

 necessary to produce certain effects ; I like to hear students speak 

 intelligently of the units of heat necessary to produce certain units 

 of electricity and so forth. Therefore I have thought that on the 

 whole it would be better to talk, not about something to be desired, 

 but of something we do not desire, and yet something that interests 

 all of us ; in a word " Waste." I am going to tell you something 

 about waste. 



* Reprinted from the "Coventry Herald iiid Free Press." 



