36 
his personal character, however, quite as much 
as to his reputation as a scientific man and 
a talented engineer. The firm of Siemens & 
Halske was thus able to secure concessions 
from the Austrian government for probably 
the most extensive system of elevated electric 
railways yet projected, and has begun its con- 
struction in the city and suburbs of Vienna. 
_ The success of such railways at the electrical 
exhibition was such as to give great confidence 
that such railway systems will supersede those 
now in operation by steam. 
Physicists will honor Sir William Siemens 
as the inventor of the ‘electric resistance 
pyrometer,’ to which is so closely related 
Professor Langley’s ‘bolometer.’ They will 
remember him as the discoverer of the influ- 
ence of the electric light on vegetation, and as 
the inventor, also, of the ‘ bathometer’ and the 
‘attraction meter.’ 
His papers are numerous, and many of 
them important: they usually relate to sub- 
jects closely connected with his work and his 
inventions and discoveries. 
The greatest commercial and financial suc- 
cesses of Siemens and his partners have been 
in their telegraph-cable work, and, above all, 
in the introduction of the Siemens system of 
generating heat for metallurgical operations. 
This system is estimated to save, in the steel- 
works of the country, thirty to fifty per cent 
of the fuel used by earlier methods, to permit 
an increase of work done per furnace used in 
nearly equal proportion, to give a finer product 
in consequence of the purity of the flame, and 
many incidental advantages. It has saved to 
the people of the United States alone between 
twenty-five and thirty millions of dollars dur- 
ing the comparatively few years that these fur- 
naces have been in general use. 
The name of Charles William Siemens is 
honored in every civilized country ; and every 
nation capable of appreciating the good work 
done by him has given expression to this 
appreciation. ‘The British institution of en- 
gineers admitted him to membership many 
years ago, and made him a member of its 
council. He was awarded the Telford medal 
for his inventions, a distinction only accorded 
to the greatest of engineers for the greatest 
of inventions or constructions, and was given 
the Royal Albert and the Bessemer medals 
later. He was made a fellow of the Royal 
society of Great Britain, a member and a pres- 
ident of the British association for the ad- 
vancement of science, and a member of the 
councils of both those societies. He was 
elected president of the British institution of 
SCIENCE. 
-[Vou. IIL, No. ae 
mechanical engineers and of the Society of 
telegraph engineers, and was made a member 
-of many foreign societies, both scientific and 
engineering. He was an honorary member of 
the American philosophical society and of the © 
American society of mechanical engineers. 
He was given the degree of D.C.L. by Oxford, 
and of LL.D. by the universities of Dublin 
and Glasgow. He received many decorations, 
one of the latest of which was that just offered 
him by Austria at the Vienna electrical exhi- 
bition. ° He was knighted, a few months before 
his death, by Queen Victoria; and his sudden 
and premature death — for he was a man physi- 
cally strong and sturdy, and evidently con- 
structed for an octogenarian — did not occur so 
early as to deprive him of more numerous and 
greater honors of this formal sort than usually 
fall to the lot of even the greatest of men. 
Sir William Siemens was a man of large, well- 
shaped frame, muscular rather than fat in his 
early years, but inclining to stoutness as he 
grew old. He had a noble, well-shaped head ; 
large, strong, and characteristic features, which 
were mobile, kindly, and unusually expressive. 
His manners were those of a man who had grown 
to know his place in the world and to feel sure 
of a high place among men, quiet, composed, 
confident, without being in the slightest degree 
self-asserting, or at any time disagreeable to 
his associates, to friends, or to competitors in 
business. Equally at home in the courts of 
royalty, in the halls of science, and in the offices 
of business-men, he impressed every one whom 
he met with his strength, talents, knowledge, 
and savoir faire. He numbered among his 
friends the great in every department, —states- 
men, men of science, engineers, inventors, and 
capitalists. He was equally honored and be- 
loved by all, and loved equally well to entertain 
them all in his fine London mansion and in 
his beautiful country place, in both of which 
hospitable homes he met his guests with a plain, 
simple, and kindly greeting and conversation, 
which made them at once at home, and at ease 
with their entertainer. One of his most pleas- 
ing powers was that of adapting himself to the 
temperament and the methods of conversation 
of those whom he met, whatever their rank in 
life or their personal interests and lines of 
thought. 
In his death is lost, to his intimates, one of 
the truest and best of friends ; tohisemployees, 
a kind benefactor ; to science, one of her most 
splendid workers ; to the arts, one of the great- 
est among their promoters ; to the world, one of 
the noblest among its few great benefactors. 
Rosert H. TuHurston. 
