Lubbock, with the statement that "the leading idea
of Dr. Siemens's life had been to economize and utilize the force of
Nature for the benefit of man." It is not our purpose to give a sketch
of his life, or a catalogue of his many inventions, all of which were
useful. It was his comprehensive and accurate study of the universe
which led him to discover, as he thought, that it is a vast regenerative
gas furnace. The theory has been that the sun is cooling down; but Dr.
Siemens saw that the water, vapor, and carbon compounds of the
interstellar spaces are returned to the sun, and that the action of the
sun on these literally converted the universe into a regenerative
furnace. On a small scale, in a way adapted to ordinary human uses, and
by ingenious contrivances, he produced a regenerative gas furnace which
so utilized what had hitherto been wasted that, in the last lecture
delivered by Michael Faraday (1862) before the Royal Society, he praised
the qualities of the furnace for its economy and ease of management; and
it soon came into general use. It is probably impossible to calculate
the amount of saving to the world due to his practical application of
the theory of the conservation of force to the pursuits of industry. It
has changed the processes for the production of steel so as to make it
much cheaper, and so revolutionized ship-building. The carrying power of
steel ships is so much greater than that of iron ships that the former
earn twenty-five per centum more than the latter.
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