"by-products" shall pay for
its production, and demonstrated that a pound of gas yields, in burning,
22,000 units, being double that produced by the combustion of a pound of
common coal. He has put the world in the way of making gas cheap and
brilliant. His sudden death prevented the completion of plans by which
London will save three-fourths of its coal bill by getting rid of its
hideous fog. His suggestions will, undoubtedly, be carried out. He was
also the inventor of the "chronometric governor," an apparatus which
regulates the movements of the great transit instruments at Greenwich.

These are some of the practical benefits bestowed upon mankind by Sir
William Siemens. He did much, by stimulating men, to make science
practically useful, and has left suggestions which, if followed out with
energy and wisdom, will add greatly to the comfort of the world. He
calculated that "all the coal raised throughout the world would barely
suffice to produce the amount of power that runs to waste at Niagara
alone," and said that it would not be difficult to realize a large
proportion of this wasted power by-turbines, and to use it at greater
distances by means of dynamo-electrical machines. Myriads of future
inhabitants of America are probably to reap untold wealth and comfort
from what was said and done by Sir William Siemens.

PASTEUR.

M. Pasteur, now a member of the French Academy, after years of
scientific training and study and teaching, began a career of public
usefulness which has been a source of incalculable pecuniary profit to
his country and to the world.

He began to study the nature of fermentation; and the result of this
study made quite a revolution in the manufacture of wine and beer. He
discovered a process which took its name from him; and now
"pasteurization" is practiced on a large scale in the German breweries,
to the great improvement of fermented beverages.

This attracted the attention of the French Government. At that time an
unknown disease was destroying the silk-worm of France and Italy. It was
so wide-spread as to threaten to destroy the silk manufacture in those
countries. M. Pasteur was asked to investigate the cause. At that time
he had scarcely ever seen a silk-worm; but he turned his acute, and
practical intellect to the study of this little worker, and soon
detected the trouble. He showed that it was due to a microscopic
parasite, which was developed from a germ born with the worm; an