Ill 



and to give us primarily the benefit of his great inventiveness in all 

 directions ; while the want of similar protection under German law 

 at that time rendered it practically impossible for him to work out so 

 difficult an invention in his own country. 



In the foregoing we have selected those results of Siemens' inven- 

 tive genius, not only on account of their position in time, or of the 

 principles involved, but also, and perhaps mainly, because of the 

 circumstances connected with them forming determining factors of 

 such moment in his career. There is much in the lifework of such a 

 man as Siemens, which while it might prove of great interest, and 

 have some measure of importance in its bearing on his career as a 

 whole, must yet of necessity be passed over in such a notice as this. 

 We shall, therefore, here merely remark that during the ten years 

 from his arrival in this country till about 1856, Siemens was employed 

 on various engineering works. He was for some time engaged in 

 railway work, and again in carrying out improvements at the famous 

 calico printing works of Mr. Hoyle at Manchester. 



William Siemens had early taken up the then new science of 

 thermo-dynamics, and in 1847 he had already begun work on the 

 regenerative principle with which his name has since become indis- 

 solubly connected in the employment of heat for the purpose of 

 obtaining increased economy in its practical use. In that year he 

 fitted up a regenerative steam-engine in the factory of Mr. Hicks at 

 Bolton, and although the difficulties attending the use of super- 

 heated steam prevented the practical application of the invention, 

 the importance of the principle embodied in it was recognised by the 

 Society of Arts, who in 1850 awarded to William Siemens a gold 

 medal " for his regenerative condenser." From papers contributed 

 by him to various societies about this time for instance, u On a New 

 Regenerative Condenser as applied to High and Low Pressure- Steam- 

 engines," to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1851; "On 

 the Expansion of Isolated Steam, and the Total Heat of Steam," to 

 the Journal of the Franklin Institute in 1852 ; and a most important 

 paper " On the Conversion of Heat into Mechanical Effect," to the 

 Institute of Civil Engineers in 1853 (for which he obtained the 

 Telford Medal) we see how persistently he clung to the problem of 

 the better utilisation of heat. It was, indeed, at that time a conviction 

 firmly fixed in his mind, that the various existing modes of using 

 heat were wasteful and extravagant in the extreme, and he was con- 

 tinuously directing all his energies, not only to overcome the evil, but 

 to convince others of its existence. The problem bad always a 

 fascination for him, and to the very latest pressed its claims upon his 

 mind. 



The great movement for smoke abatement, which has arisen within 

 recent years, had his deepest sympathy, and his earnest labours on 



