In science, as in
morals and politics, there is absolutely no periodicity. One thing we
may prophesy of the future for certain--it will be unlike the past.
Everything is in a state of evolution and progress. The science of dead
matter, which has been the principal subject of my thoughts during my
life, is, I may say, strenuous on this point, that THE AGE OF THE EARTH
IS DEFINITE. We do not say whether it is twenty million years or more,
or less, but me say it is NOT INDEFINITE. And we can say very definitely
that it is not an inconceivably great number of millions of years.
Here, then, we are brought face to face with the most wonderful of all
miracles, the commencement of life on this earth. This earth, certainly
a moderate number of millions of years ago, was a red-hot globe; all
scientific men of the present day agree that life came upon this earth
somehow. If some form or some part of the life at present existing came
to this earth, carried on some moss-grown stone perhaps broken away from
mountains in other worlds; even if some part of the life had come in
that way--for there is nothing too far-fetched in the idea, and probably
some such action as that did take place, since meteors do come every day
to the earth from other parts of the universe;--still, that does not
in the slightest degree diminish the wonder, the tremendous miracle, we
have in the commencement of life in this world.'

CHAPTER V. CHARLES WILLIAM SIEMENS.

Charles William Siemens was born on April 4, 1823, at the little
village of Lenthe, about eight miles from Hanover, where his father, Mr.
Christian Ferdinand Siemens, was 'Domanen-pachter,' and farmed an estate
belonging to the Crown. His mother was Eleonore Deichmann, a lady of
noble disposition, and William, or Carl Wilhelm, was the fourth son of
a family of fourteen children, several of whom have distinguished
themselves in scientific pursuits. Of these, Ernst Werner Siemens, the
fourth child, and now the famous electrician of Berlin, was associated
with William in many of his inventions; Fritz, the ninth child, is the
head of the well-known Dresden glass works; and Carl, the tenth child,
is chief of the equally well-known electrical works at St. Petersburg.
Several of the family died young; others remained in Germany; but
the enterprising spirit, natural to them, led most of the sons
abroad--Walter, the twelfth child, dying at Tiflis as the German Consul
there, and Otto, the fourteenth