Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/182

SIEGEN. 144 SIEMENS. SIEGEN. ze'gcn. A town in the Province of Wi'stplialia, Prussia, situated on the river Sieg. 47 miles east by south of Cologne. It has two castles of the Prineos of Xassau-Siegen. Siegen is an iinijorlant iron centre, the vicinity abounding in iron, copper, lead, and zinc mines. In and about the town are numerous puddling and rolling mills, machine works, and paper, cloth, and leatlicr manufactories. Siegen, former- ly a possession of the Dutch branch of the House of Nassau, passed to Prussia in 1815. Popula- tion (commune), in 1890, 18,242; in 1900, 22,111. SIEGEN, LvmviG von (c.1609-c.80) . A Ger- man engraver, born in Utrecht. In 1642 he pro- duced his first known mezzo-tint engraving, a portrait of the Landgravine Amalia Elisabeth, Regent of Hesse, inscribed to her son, the artist's patron. Siegen did not fully realize the possi- bilities of his discovery. He kept the process secret, how'ever, divulging it only to Prince Rupert of the Palatinate, through whom it be- came know'n in England. The engraver passed into the service of the Elector of Mainz in 1054, and died at W'nifenbiittel. SIEGE PERILOUS. One of the three seats left unoccupied at the Arthiirian Round Table, so called because it was reserved for him who was to find the Holy Grail, and any other bold enough to sit in it forfeited his life. See Gala- had. SIEGFRIED, zeg'fret. A music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is the third in the tetralogv' of the Ii'iiifJ des lS'ibeli(nfieii and was first produced at Bayreuth. August 16, 1876. The first American production was at the Met- ropolitan Opera House, New Yorkj, November f>, 18S7. See Ring of the Nibelusgen. SIEGFRIED, Karl (1830-1903). A German Protestant theologian, born at Magdeburg. He was called to the University of .Jena in 1875 as professor of Old Testament literature. In 1885 he was appointed to the Lutheran Con- sistory, and in 1892 was made privy councilor of that body (Gehcimer Kirchcnrat) . The follow- ing publications bear his name: Spinoza als Kri- tilcer iind Auslctirr dcs Altrn Testaments ( 1867) ; Euscbii Cimonuni Epitome (with H. Gelzer, 1884) ; Lehrhurk drr iieuhet)r.'jischen Sprache und Litteratur (with Strack, 1884) ; and Hebrdisches Wiirterbuch zum Alien Testament (with Stade, 1893). SIEGLIND, zeglint. In the Nibelungen legend, the wife of Siegmvmd and mother of Siegfried. SIEMENS, ze'mens, Ernst Werner von (1816-92). A German electrical engineer. He was born at Lenthe. near Hanover, and was edu- cated in the Gymnasium of Liibeck and in the school of artillery and engineering at Berlin, becoming an artillery officer in 1838. He studied chemistry and electro-magnetism, and invented a process for electro-pl.ating in 1841. In 1848 he became commandant of the artillery arsenal in Berlin. He was the first to explode a submarine mine by electricity (1848). Devoting himself to electrical engineering, he was engaged after 1849 in the establishment of telegraph lines, particu- larly through Russia, Brazil, Spain, and North- ern Germany. In 1856 he devised the improved shuttle armature which increased the efficiency of the magneto-machine, and in 1876 demon- strated that its electro-magnets could be used w itiiout separate exciters, the current being passed til rough the field coils. He proposed as the unit of resistance a column of mercury one meter long and one square millimeter in cross-section at 0" Centigrade. This was known as the Sie- mens unit. Siemens was also active in promot- ing electric traction in Germany, and the first electric railway was erected at tlie Berlin Indus- trial Exhibition of 1879 by Siemens & Halske. His researches in electricity resulted in discov- eries and improvements of great value, one of which was the determining of the locations of injuries in submerged cables, and also of charging tliem in order to reduce the disturbing iniluence of induced currents. In 1884, by the gift of about .$125,000, he made possible the foundation of the Imperial Physico-Technical Institute (Reichs- anstalt), which has been an important factor in German scientific research and manufacturing. (See Laboratory.) He wrote numerous scien- tific works and also a volume of Personal Remi- niscences which lias been translated into English. SIEMENS, Sir William (Karl Wilhei.m) (1823-83). .-^n English engineer and metallur- gist. He was born at Lenthe, Hanover, and was a brother of Werner Siemens (see above), with whom he was as.sociated in many scientific inves- tigations and commercial enterprises. He was educated at Magdeburg and Ciottingen and then entered a manufacturing establishment in the former town. He visited England in 1843 to introduce his brother's process of electro-plating, and again in 1844. when he endeavored to dis- pose of the English rights of a chronometric governor for steam engines and the anastatic process of printing. Settling in England, but maintaining close connection with his brother, he devoted himself to perfecting a regenerative steam engine, but was not altogether sviccessful. and turned his attention to a water meter, which soon came into extensive use. His next and most important invention was the regenerative furnace, which he applied to iron and steel working, and to which from time to time he added important improvements. (See Iron and Steel.) He was interested with his brother in various electrical enterprises and conducted the British branch of the business, which in 1874 laid the direct At- lantic cable from the ship Faradaii, a vessel specially designed by him for that purpose. Sir William played an important part in the application of electricity to lighting and traction in England. Besides his many useful inventions, among which were a pyrometer and the batho- meter (q.v. ), apparatus for producing low tem- peratures ( see Refriger.^tion ) . he also carried on important investigations in pure science. In 1859 he became a British subject, and in 1883 he was knighted. He received many honors, in- cluding the Bessemer medal of the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain, the French Legion of Honor, and honorary degrees from the uni- versities of Oxford. Dublin, and Glasgow. He was president of the Society of Telegraph En- gineers, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Iron and Steel Institute, and the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in addition to being a member of many other Brit- ish and foreign societies. A laboratory of elec- trical engineering was constructed by his widow at King's College, London, as a memorial. His