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THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, il 



THE SCIENTIFIC WORKS OF SIR WILLIAM 

 SIEI^ENS. 



The Scientific Works of Sir Willi-an Siemens, LL.D., 

 D.C.L., F.R.S. 3 Vols. (London: John Murray, 

 1889.) 



THE " Life of Sir William Siemens," which was 

 noticed in the pages of Nature some months 

 ago, has been followed by three most interesting volumes 

 containing a reprint of his scientific papers. The task 

 of editing the collection was committed by the executors 

 to Mr. E. F. Bamber, for many years private secretary to 

 Sir William Siemens, and it has been admirably dis- 

 charged. The labour has been no light one; for the 

 volumes contain, besides the greater and more highly 

 finished contributions to the learned Societies, a very 

 large number of extracts from the published proceedings 

 of the various Societies and from the scientific journals — 

 reports of the speeches delivered by Sir William Siemens 

 during the discussions at scientific meetings. 



Many of these papers are of high scientific importance, 

 particularly to various classes of engineers, electricians, 

 and chemists ; and the whole collection forms a monu- 

 ment of unusual interest, exhibiting the many-sided nature 

 of Siemens' labours and inventions. Both the papers and 

 the unwritten speeches are very remarkable for clearness 

 of thought and of style. Siemens was pre-eminently a 

 man who made up his mind with complete decision, after 

 careful thought, on whatever came before him. This 

 decisiveness gave him the power of taking hold of a 

 matter by the right end in the exposition of it : and 

 the consequence is a clearness of thought and of 

 diction which are alike unusual and satisfactory. The 

 reader seldom requires, even in the case of descrip- 

 tions of complicated apparatus, to reperuse a sentence ; 

 nor is it ever difficult to follow the reasoning on which 

 an opinion is based. 



Of the three volumes before us, the first contains the 

 contributions of Siemens to the subjects of heat and 

 metallurgy. The second is mainly taken up with elec- 

 tricity and miscellaneous subjects ; while the many 

 lectures and addresses, which from time to time he was 

 called upon to deliver, are collected in the third volume. 



It is impossible, in a brief article like the present, to 

 review in detail these substantial volumes, or offer any 

 lengthened criticism of their contents. We must content 

 ourselves with such brief notice of them as will indicate 

 to our readers some of the chief features in the life-work 

 of this remarkable man. 



In the second volume, under the heading " Miscel- 

 laneous Subjects," will be found two papers of no great 

 length, but of special interest. These papers contain an 

 account of Siemens' improved water-meter. Of what vast 

 importance this invention proved to the inventor is prob- 

 ably not generally known. To use a common expression 

 in the widest sense, " it made his fortune." It was his 

 first thoroughly successful invention ; and it gave to the 

 young engineer the pecuniary assistance (greatly needed 

 at the time) which enabled him to push forward into 

 higher and yet higher regions of invention and success. 

 Vol. XL.— No. 1035. 



The meter was invented in 1850-51, and patented in 1852. 

 It satisfied the tests of a committee of inquiry of the 

 Manchester Corporation Waterworks ; and very soon a 

 large number of the meters were at work, and were giving 

 complete satisfaction. The general principle is that of 

 using " various arrangements of screws or helices, which 

 are caused to revolve by the passage of water or other 

 fluid through them, and of fixed guides and channels in con- 

 nection with such screws or helices to regulate and direct 

 the current of the fluid, together with various contrivances 

 for registering the number of revolutions of the screws." 

 For the larger meters a many-bladed screw is used, the 

 blades and guides being properly shaped that the blades 

 may " partake fully of the onward motion of the water 

 without sensibly impeding or agitating the same." For 

 the smaller meters a kind of Barker's mill is used, with 

 conditions as to the inlet and outlet arranged to fulfi 

 the object in view. 



" From a practical point of view," says Mr. Pole, in his 

 " Life of Siemens," " the Siemens water-meter has been 

 one of the most useful and valuable machines ever 



brought into hydraulic engineering Down to the 



end of 1885 nearly 130,000 meters had been sold by 

 Messrs. Guest and Chrimes (the first makers) alone, and 

 in many cases it has been established as the standard 

 apparatus for the sale of water." The two papers con- 

 tamed in the present volume were contributed in 1854 

 and 1856 to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and 

 they contain a full discussion of the conditions necessary 

 to be fulfilled by a water-meter, and descriptions, with 

 illustrative drawings, of the inventions in this direction 

 of the author. 



In the first volume are contained the papers of Siemens 

 on heat and metallurgy. These are well known to all 

 workers in these departments of science and industry, 

 and a brief notice must suffice here, in spite of their vast 

 intrinsic importance. Very early in his life we find 

 Siemens devoting his attention to the "regenerative 

 principle " in heat. The words " regenerator " and " re- 

 generative " are most unfortunate— utterly misleading 

 to those who attempt to .imagine the nature of the 

 " principle" from the name by which it is called. The 

 names, however, were not due to Siemens, but to Dr. 

 Stirling, inventor of the hot-air engine ; and it is worthy 

 of being mentioned here that Siemens objected to the 

 name, and wrote to Mr. Manby, a friend of Dr. Stirling, 

 that " perceiving him (Stirling) to repudiate the name 

 of ' respirator,' I really think he would confer a benefit 

 on posterity if he would give his child a proper name, 

 that of 'regenerator' being certainly incorrect, and 

 likely to produce misconception." 



The name " respirator " readily suggests the nature of 

 the principle here spoken of. The metallic plate of a 

 respirator, used by delicate people to protect the lungs or 

 throat, takes up the heat of the outgoing breath and 

 parts with it again to the air which is inspired ; and this 

 is precisely the principle of the heat-saving arrangements 

 with which the name of Siemens is so closely connected. 

 It may be, however, that a better name than either of 

 these could easily be found. 



In this first volume of the papers we find the titles 

 of many communications describing arrangements for 

 heat saving and for obtaining increased temperatures 



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