Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/758

740 valued. It is pleasant to think that this Association is the means of furthering an object which should be dear to the hearts of all of us; and I venture to say that a large proportion of the visitors to this country will be astonished by what they see, and will carry home an impression which time will not readily efface.

To be connected with this meeting is, to me, a great honor, but also a great responsibility. In one respect, especially, I feel that the Association might have done well to choose another president. My own tastes have led me to study mathematics and physics rather than geology and biology, to which naturally more attention turns in a new country, presenting as it does a fresh field for investigation. A chronicle of achievements in these departments by workers from among yourselves would have been suitable to the occasion, but could not come from me. If you would have preferred a different subject for this address, I hope, at least, that you will not hold me entirely responsible.

At annual gatherings like ours the pleasure with which friends meet friends again is sadly marred by the absence of those who can never more take their part in our proceedings. Last year my predecessor in this office had to lament the untimely loss of Spottiswoode and Henry Smith, dear friends of many of us, and prominent members of our Association. And now, again, a well-known form is missing. For many years Sir W. Siemens has been a regular attendant at our meetings, and to few indeed have they been more indebted for success. Whatever the occasion, in his Presidential Address of two years ago, or in communications to the Physical and Mechanical Sections, he had always new and interesting ideas, put forward in language which a child could understand, so great a master was he of the art of lucid statement in his adopted tongue. Practice with science was his motto. Deeply engaged in industry, and conversant all his life with engineering operations, his opinion was never that of a mere theorist. On the other hand, he abhorred rule of thumb, striving always to master the scientific principles which underlie rational design and invention.

It is not necessary that I should review in detail the work of Siemens. The part which he took, during recent years, in the development of the dynamo-machine must be known to many of you. We owe to him the practical adoption of the method, first suggested by Wheatstone, of throwing into a shunt the coils of the field-magnets, by which a greatly improved steadiness of action is obtained. The same characteristics are observable throughout—a definite object in view and a well-directed perseverance in overcoming the difficulties by which the path is usually obstructed.

These are, indeed, the conditions of successful invention. The world knows little of such things, and regards the new machine or the new method as the immediate outcome of a happy idea.