34 
edition, subject geology, part 5), gives exactly that 
view of the matter which I consider the logical basis 
on which Professor Huxley rested his argument, and 
which recent researches have in no way tended to 
upset. E. NUGENT. 
Pottstown, Dec. 27, 1883. 
SIR CHARLES WILLIAM SIEMENS. 
Carv WILHELM Siemens died in London on 
the 20th of November last, at the age of sixty. 
This distinguished man, better known to the 
people of Great Britain and the United States 
as Charles William Siemens, one of eight sons 
of Ferdinand Siemens, was born at Lenthe, 
near Hannover, April 4, 1823. Hewas one of 
a family of men of science several of whom 
have become well known by their success in 
the invention and introduction of improvements 
and modification of standard methods of engi- 
neering and metallurgical work. Among these, 
his brother, Ernst Werner Siemens, is the 
most famous. The two brothers have worked 
together, with frequent assistance from a 
younger brother, Friedrich, in nearly every 
field of applied science. They have been most 
successful in the departments of metallurgy 
and electricity. 
The elder brother, Ernst, entered the army 
of Prussia, joining the artillery ; and Carl was 
sent to the University of Gottingen. Carl re- 
ceived his preparatory education at the Gym- 
nasium of Lubeck and in the Art school of 
Magdeburg, near what was formerly the home 
of Otto von Guericke. After graduation from 
the university, he entered the Stolberg engi- 
neering-works, in 1842, as an apprentice, but 
remained only a year, leaving for the purpose 
of going to London to patent and introduce 
his first invention, the ‘ differential governor’ 
for steam-engines, and a method of silvering 
devised by his brother Ernst. He settled in 
London, opening an office as civil engineer, and 
making that city his home, becoming ‘ natural- 
ized’ in 1849, but frequently visiting Germany 
to meet his brothers, who finally joined him in 
business. 
In 1846 the brothers began the study of 
methods of economizing in the use. of fuel in 
metallurgical operations demanding high tem- 
peratures; and the result of their labors, in 
course of time, was seen in the invention of the 
Siemens regenerative furnace, —an invention 
which has since revolutionized the methods of 
production of steel and of heating iron, and 
_ which is still modifying all the industrial opera- 
tions dependent upon the attainment of maxi- 
mum heat in furnaces ; such as the manufacture 
of glass, and the reduction of ores of zine and 
SCIENCE. 
[Vou. IIL, No. 49. ‘ 
other ‘useful’ metals. In 1849 the brothers 
William and Werner, as they came to be called, — 
attracted the attention of all who were inter- 
ested in the applications of science by the an- 
nouncement of their invention of a method of 
‘anastatic printing,’ modifications of which 
have now become generally introduced for the 
production of the simpler kinds of line-engray- 
ings. This invention greatly interested Pro- 
fessor Faraday, and he was very soon sufficient- 
ly well convinced of its value to volunteer to 
describe it in a lecture before the Royal insti- 
tution. His helpful aid was one of the most 
effective means of making the talented young 
inventors known and of giving them a start in 
a career bringing them continually increasing 
fame. 
Siemens next turned his attention to the new- 
ly announced dynamical theory of heat, and in 
1847 adapted a ‘regenerator’ to a superheated 
steam-engine. Modifications of the governor for 
controlling the motion of clock-work were pro- 
posed by him at nearly the same time, and his 
‘ chronometric governor’ has been long in use 
on the instruments of the Greenwich observa- 
tory. In1851 he brought out his water-meter, | 
—an instrument in which was a screw with its 
recording or indicating mechanism sealed in a 
chamber having a glass window, through which 
the readings could be made, and so free from 
friction that it gave most accurate measures of 
the flow. The regenerative furnace now began 
to take such shape that the brothers found it 
to their interest to devote their attention to 
that ; and in 1856 they worked the invention into 
such form that they could see in it the promise 
of complete success. By the year 1861 they 
had patented some of its’most essential features. 
The inventors succeeded in raising the neces- 
sary capital, and erected their furnace in works 
at Birmingham in 1866, and made steel by their 
process, which was exhibited at Paris at the in- 
ternational exhibition of the following year. 
The primary object held in view by the invent- 
ors was the manufacture of steel directly from 
the ore. In this they were less successful 
than in the making of the steel by mixture of 
wrought-iron scrap with cast iron on the 
hearth of their reverberatory furnace. ‘This 
last-named process has become a well-known 
method of producing the soft ingot-irons mis- 
named steels, ‘ mild’ or ‘low’ steels, which ma- 
terials are now so exclusively adopted by many 
makers of steam-boilers and of rails. Such 
steel is steadily driving puddled iron from the 
market: it is called, sometimes ‘ Siemens,’ and 
often ‘ Siemens- Martin’ steel ; the first attempts 
to manufacture steel by this method having been © 
