novelty of my invention, but by the results which I
promised, namely, of being able to deposit with a smooth surface 30 dwt.
of silver upon a dish-cover, the crystalline structure of the deposit
having theretofore been a source of difficulty. In this I succeeded, and
I was able to return to my native country and my mechanical engineering
a comparative Croesus.

'But it was not for long, as in the following year (1844) I again landed
in the Thames with another invention, worked out also with my brother,
namely, the chronometric governor, which, though less successful,
commercially speaking, than the first, obtained for me the advantage of
bringing me into contact with the engineering world, and of fixing
me permanently in this country. This invention was in course of time
applied by Sir George Airy, the then Astronomer-Royal, for regulating
the motion of his great transit and touch-recording instrument at the
Royal Observatory, where it still continues to be employed.

'Another early subject of mine, the anastatic printing process, found
favour with Faraday, "the great and the good," who made it the subject
of a Friday evening lecture at the Royal Institution. These two
circumstances, combined, obtained for me an entry into scientific
circles, and helped to sustain me in difficulty, until, by dint of a
certain determination to win, I was able to advance step by step up
to this place of honour, situated within a gunshot of the scene of
my earliest success in life, but separated from it by the time of a
generation. But notwithstanding the lapse of time, my heart still
beats quick each time I come back to the scene of this, the determining
incident of my life.'

The 'anastatic' process, described by Faraday in 1845, and partly due
to Werner Siemens, was a method of reproducing printed matter by
transferring the print from paper to plates of zinc. Caustic baryta was
applied to the printed sheet to convert the resinous ingredients of
the ink into an insoluble soap, the stearine being precipitated with
sulphuric acid. The letters were then transferred to the zinc by
pressure, so as to be printed from. The process, though ingenious and of
much interest at the time, has long ago been superseded by photographic
methods.

Even at this time Siemens had several irons in the fire. Besides the
printing process and the chronometric governor, which operated by the
differential movement between the engine and a chronometer, he was
o