His extraordinary mental activity is shown in the fact that between 1845 and 1883 no less than 133 patents were granted in England to the Messrs. Siemens, 1846 and 1851 being the only years in which none were taken out. During the same period he contributed as many as 128 papers on scientific subjects to various journals, only three years in this case also being without such evidences of work, and in 1882 the number of these papers reached seventeen, the average being about seven patents and original scientific papers per year for more than the third of a century, a truly wonderful record of untiring industry. To show the impression his work made upon the world, I quote the following passage from the many which appeared in the newspapers at the time of his death. It is headed:
One Man’s Intellect.
Siemens telegraph wires gird the earth, and the Siemens cable steamer Faraday is continually engaged in laying new ones. By the Siemens method has been solved the problem of fishing out from the stormy ocean, from a depth comparable to that of the vale of Chamounix, the ends of a broken cable. Electrical resistance is measured by the Siemens mercury unit. “Siemens” is written on water meters, and Russian and German revenue officers are assisted by Siemens apparatus in levying their assessments. The Siemens process for silvering and gilding, and the Siemens anastatic printing, mark stages in the development of these branches of industry. Siemens differential regulators control the action of the steam-engines that forge the English arms at Woolwich, and that of the chronographs on which the transits of the stars are marked at Greenwich. The Siemens caststeel works and glasshouses, with their regenerative furnaces, are admired by all artisans. The Siemens electric light shines in assembly-rooms and public places, and the Siemens gas light competes with it, while the Siemens electro-culture in greenhouses bids defiance to our long winter nights. The Siemens electric railway is destined to rule in cities and tunnels. The Siemens electric furnace, melting three pounds of platinum in twenty minutes, was the wonder of the Paris Exposition, which might well have been called an exposition of Siemens apparatus and productions, so prominent were they there.
Almost alone among all these results, his theory of the “Conservation of Solar Energy” dealt with a question not affecting, or at least not immediately affecting, human welfare. A great authority has characterised this as “one of the highest and most brilliant flights that the scientific imagination has ever made.” While astronomers quietly accepted the conclusion that the sun is cooling down, and will become at some distant but calculable epoch a mere cinder hung in space, he endeavored to show that energy can no more be lost in the solar system than it is in the laboratory or the factory. Sir William Siemens’s theory assumed that the interplanetary spaces are filled with an exceedingly thin or rare atmosphere of the compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, such for example as aqueous vapor and hydro-carbons. In this atmosphere the sun is revolving with a velocity four times that of the earth, and hence the solar atmosphere at his equator is thrown out to an enormous distance from his surface. One consequence of this is a perpetual indraught, at the poles of the sun, of the surrounding atmosphere. Thus the sun is everlastingly being fed, and everlastingly sending out its light and heat, which thus recuperate themselves: in this way the solar energy, which is sometimes assumed to be lost in the empty void of interstellar space, really acts upon the rare vapors therein, and converts the universe into a kind of vast regenerative furnace! Had the author of this ingenious theory lived but a few years longer, he would doubtless have labored to strengthen it with further observations and arguments. As it is, it must remain as a daring and original suggestion, the effort of a keen and sagacious mind to bring to fresh subjects the experience and the knowledge accumulated by work of quite a different kind. It is more scientific to believe, with him, that there is some restorative and conservative agency at work, than to suppose that the universe is gradually cooling down into a ball of slag, were it only because his theory does not require an effort of creation at once tremendous and futile. It leaves us free to avoid contemplating a time when the solar system was not, and another when it will cease to be.
Let us now take a brief glance at one or two of Sir William Siemens’s public addresses on more general subjects. His interest in education was so keen, and especially in that branch of education known as technical or technological, that these addresses almost invariably had this for their subject, and were frequently given at some public ceremony in connection with it, such for example as distributions of prizes. The most important of them, perhaps, was given on October 20, 1881, at the re-opening of the Midland Institute in Birmingham. He there surprised his audience by depreciating the German polytechnic system of colleges, on the ground that their students were wanting in originality and adaptability to new conditions. After recounting at some length the recent industrial applications of electricity, he said:
“My chief object in dwelling, perhaps unduly, upon these practical questions, is to present to your minds in a concrete form the hopelessness of looking upon any of the practical processes of the present day as permanent, to be acquired in youth and to be the staple occupation of a lifetime.... The practical man of former days will have to yield his place to the unbiassed worker who with open mind is prepared for every step forward as it arises. For this purpose it is necessary that he should possess, beyond the mere practical knowledge of his trade, a clear appreciation of the principles of action underlying each operation, and such general acquaintance with the laws of chemical and physical science as will make it easy for him to adapt himself to the new order of things.”
He urged the prime importance of the teaching of science being included in the curriculum of every school, and of an adequate supply of trained teachers, as well as of properly equipped laboratories of all kinds, wherein to train them. Replying to the proverb, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” he said: “A little knowledge is an excellent thing, only it must be understood that this little is fundamental knowledge,” and he endorsed Lord Brougham’s pithy saying, “Try to know something about everything, and everything about something.”
In 1878 and 1879 he gave addresses on the same subject in Liverpool, Tunbridge Wells, Paris, and elsewhere. In pointing out the results of the superior French system of technical education, he urged that we should not servilely copy it, but that we should imitate the French example with due regard to the idiosyncrasies of our own country. He approved the spontaneous and self-supporting nature of the English system, as more adaptable to free and vigorous development than a governmental system. His address to the Coventry Science Classes in October, 1882, upon Waste, in which he took as examples, waste of time, of food, of personal energy, of mechanical energy, and of fuel, was full of wise and sound practical advice, clothed in the simplest language.
In conclusion, let me try, with the aid of private letters and papers which it has been my privilege to peruse, to bring before you some of the personal characteristics of the man whose life-work we have been considering. Of his extraordinary perseverance in overcoming obstacles I have already spoken, and it has been well remarked that, to a mind and body requiring almost perpetual exercise, these difficulties supplied only a wholesome quantity of resistance. In the two valuable qualities of tenacity and pliancy of intellect he has perhaps never been surpassed. Suppleness and nimbleness of mind are rarely allied with that persistent “grip,” which, without them, is not unlikely to degenerate into obstinacy. In Sir William Siemens these qualities were happily balanced. His talents were the admiration of his contemporaries, and his memory will ever be respected and honored by all, friends and rivals alike; for the facility with which he applied his powers to the solution of the most difficult problems was equalled by the modesty with which he presented the successful result of his efforts. An eminent engineer said of him, “With all his great work, no envious word was ever mixed!” At the time when he received his honorary degree from the University of Oxford, a distinguished Oxonian wrote: “I believe an alumnus more distinguished by great ability, and by a high and honorable determination to use it for the good of his fellowmen, and to help forward man’s law of existence, ‘Subdue the earth and have dominion over it,’ never received a degree from the University of Oxford.” Of the other distinctions heaped upon him, it was often said that the Society rather than Dr. Siemens was honored; and when he was knighted, a well-known man of science, writing to congratulate him, said: “At the same time I feel that the ennobling of three such men as yourself, Abel, and Playfair confers more honor on the order of knighthood than even it does on science.”
The fame of Sir William Siemens was world-wide, as it deserved to be; but those who knew him best will be the most ready to acknowledge that the qualities of his heart were no less conspicuous than those of his intellect. Hear what his pupils and assistants said of him:—“How my dear old master will be missed, and what a gap in many walks of life will be unfilled!” “There are many younger members of our profession who will look elsewhere in vain for such genial uniform kindness and sympathy as his invariably was.”“The seven years I spent in his service were the happiest in my life.” “It was the loss of the kindest and best friend I ever had, and I have not known such sorrow since the loss of my older brother. The keenest incentive I had in my new work was the desire of showing him that his kindly recommendation was justified by the event.”In acknowledging the gift from Lady Siemens of some objects of remembrance, one writes: “They, as visible objects on which his eyes must have rested frequently, will, I feel certain, when I shall look at them, tend to encourage me in overcoming difficulties, of which there exist always plenty for those who wish to contribute their share, however small, to the progress of things of this world. It is this example which Sir William Siemens has given to all the world, which will, I believe, be the most beneficial for future generations, and for those who are wise enough to follow it.”