CREATORS OF THE AGE OF STEEL 51 



Sir William Siemens and his brother, Dr. Ernst Werner 

 Siemens, of Berlin, have been called the pioneers of modern 

 electrical research. The dynamo machine is theirs, and 

 much of the development of the electric light. Siemens 

 has put on record a series of experiments in electrohorti- 

 culture which show astonishing results. In the hostile 

 English climate he has produced ripe peas by the middle 

 of February, raspberries on March 1st, strawberries Feb- 

 ruary 14th, grapes March 10th ; bananas and melons showed 

 similar results. 



The German electric railway is one of the enterprises of 

 the Siemens. They are the builders the creators of the 

 Indo-European telegraphs, reaching from London to Te- 

 heran, in Persia. The history of this enterprise, with its 

 dangers braved and its difficulties overcome, is one of the 

 most interesting of this interesting book. 



The Siemens laid the first submarine cable in 1847 from 

 Deutz to Cologne, covering their wires with gutta percha. 

 The services of Sir William Siemens to science as well as 

 to the useful arts cannot be too highly appreciated. Be- 

 sides his industrial triumphs, he constructed our theory 

 of heat. Wealth and honors came to him, but in the midst 

 of his career he was cut down. An accidental fall on a 

 London pavement, November 5, 1883, ruptured the nerves 

 of his heart, and he died a fortnight later, his death being 

 mourned as a national loss in England and Germany. 



SIR JOSEPH WHIT WORTH. Joseph Whitworth's first in- 

 dustrial exploit was the production of true plane surfaces 

 in metals automatically, an achievement perfected in 1840. 

 The old method was grinding with emery powder and 

 water. He planed the metals with a steel plane. "So 

 exactly can surface plates be made by his apparatus, that if 

 one of them be placed upon another, when clean and dry, 

 the upper will seem to float upon the under, without being 

 actually in contact with it, the weight of the upper plates 

 being insufficient to expel except by slow degrees the thin 

 film of air between their surfaces. But if the air be ex- 



