SIEMENS. The founder of the Siemens Concern was Werner Siemens, who as a young artillery officer in 1847 started a repair shop for telegraphy apparatus in a few humble rooms in the back-yard of a Berlin apartment house. Scarcely one year after beginning Siemens received an order from the German Govern ment to instal a complete telegraph line running from Berlin to Frankfurt a/M. In spite of the increase of his undertaking, Werner Siemens found time to pursue scientific studies and he succeeded in making one of the most practical inventions, the modern dynamo-machine, which converts mechanical into electric energy.
The year 1866, when this machine was invented, is the begin ning of our modern science of electro-technics. In 1879 at a Berlin trade exhibition Messrs. Siemens and Halske demonstrated the first electrical railway and the name of Siemens very soon became known even beyond the frontiers of Germany as that of an electrical undertaking comprising all branches of electro technics, telephony, electric power and light.
The branches of telephony and electrochemistry were separated from the rest in 1903 and were conducted as separate departments under the style of Siemens and Halske, whereas the departments dealing with heavy current problems and the Niirnberg firm of Schuckert and Co. formed the foundation of the Siemens Schuck
ertwerke.
The Siemens Bauunion was created to deal with the civil engi neering branch of the works, connected with underground rail ways, power plants, hydro-electric works, etc.
The Siemens Concern employs to-day more than iio,000 work men, including engineers and commercial staff, who work partly in the various factories forming a district of Greater Berlin called Siemensstadt and partly in the factories, which belonged previ ously to the Schuckert Co. in Niirnberg, and which have since been largely extended.
Recently the turbine works at Miihlheim on the Ruhr were acquired ; there steam turbines are manufactured. There are fur ther, under the control of the Siemens Concern, a number of other works, engaged in the supply of accessories and sundry parts for the principal factories. (L.. F. Sz.) SIEMENS' STEEL: see IRON AND STEEL.