shortly after the service of the state altogether, and devoted his energies to the construction of telegraphic and electrical apparatus of all kinds. The well-known firm of Siemens and Halske was established in 1847 in Berlin, and to them the Russian government entrusted the construction of the telegraph lines in that country. Sub[Pg 38]sequently branches were formed, chiefly under the management of the younger brothers of Werner Siemens, in St Petersburg (1857), in London (1858), in Vienna (1858), and in Tiflis (1863). In 1857, Siemens accomplished the remarkable feat of successfully laying a cable in deep water, at a depth of more than 1000 fathoms. This was between Sardinia and Bona. Shortly after he superintended the laying of cables in the Red Sea; and these successful experiments soon led to the greatest undertaking of all, the connection of America with Europe. Besides devising
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numerous useful forms of galvanometers and other electrical instruments of precision, Werner Siemens was one of the discoverers of the principle of the self-acting dynamo. He also made valuable determinations of the electrical resistance of different substances, the resistance of a column of mercury, one metre long, and one square millimetre cross section at 0degC., being known as the Siemens Unit. His numerous scientific and technical papers, written for the various journals, were republished in collected form in 1881. In
1886 he gave 500,000 marks for the founding of an imperial institute of technology and physics; and in 1888 he was ennobled. He died at Berlin, 6th December 1892. A translation of his Personal Recollections by Coupland appeared in 1893.
Space forbids us mentioning other worthy names in the steel and iron trade, although we cannot pass by Sir John Brown, founder of the Atlas Steel-works, Sheffield (1857), and one of the first to adopt the Bessemer process. He was also the pioneer of armour-plate making. The immense strides he made in business may be judged from the fact that when he started in 1857 his employees numbered 200, with a turnover of PS3000 a year; in 1867 they numbered 4000, and the turnover was PS1,000,000.[Pg 39] The weekly pay roll amounted to PS7000 in 1883, and when he handed over the business to his successors, he was paid PS200,000 for the goodwill.
KRUPP'S IRON AND STEEL WORKS AT ESSEN.
One of the largest iron and steel manufacturing establishments in the world is that founded by the late Alfred Krupp, the famous German cannon-founder, whose name is so well known in connection with modern improvements in artillery. His principal works are situated at Essen, in Prussia, in the midst of a district productive of both iron and coal. The town of Essen, which at the beginning of the present century contained less than four thousand inhabitants, has become an important industrial centre, with a population of nearly eighty thousand persons, this increase being chiefly due to the growth of the ironworks, and the consequent demand for labour. In the vicinity of the town, numerous coal and iron mines, many of which are owned by the Krupp firm, are in
active working, and furnish employment to the large population of the surrounding district. Much of the output of iron ore and coal from these mines is destined for consumption in the vast Krupp works within the town. Those works had their origin in a small iron forge established at Essen in the year 1810 by Frederick Krupp, the father of Alfred Krupp. The elder Krupp was not prosperous; and a lawsuit in which he became involved, and which lasted for ten years, though finally decided in his favour, reduced him nearly to bankruptcy. He died in 1826, in impoverished circumstances, leaving a widow and three sons, the eldest of whom was Alfred, aged fourteen. The business was continued by the widow, who managed, though with difficulty, to procure a good education for her sons. When[Pg 40] the eldest, Alfred, took control of the works in 1848, he found there, as he himself has described, 'three workmen, and more debts than fortune.'
Krupp's subsequent career affords a remarkable instance of success attained, despite adverse circumstances, by sheer force of ability and energy, in building up a colossal manufacturing business from a humble beginning. On his death in 1887 his only son succeeded him. At the present time, Krupp's works within the town of Essen occupy more than five hundred acres, half of which area is under cover. In 1895, the number of persons in his employ was 25,300, and including members of their families, over 50,000. Of the army of workers, about 17,000 were employed at the works in Essen, the remainder being occupied in the 550 iron and coal mines belonging to the firm, or at the branch works at Sayn Neuwied, Magdeburg, Duisburg, and Engers; or in the iron-mines at Bilbao, in Spain, which produce the best ores. In Krupp's Essen works there are one hundred and twelve steam-hammers, ranging in weight from
fifty tons down to four hundred pounds. There are 15 Bessemer converters, 18 Martin-furnaces, 420 steam-engines--representing together 33,150 horse-power--and twenty-one rolling trains; the daily consumption of coal and coke being 3100 tons by 1648 furnaces. The average daily consumption of water, which is brought from the river Ruhr by an aqueduct, is 24,700 cubic metres. The electric light has been introduced, and the work ceases entirely only on Sunday and two or three holidays. Connected with the
Essen works are fifty miles of railway, employing thirty-five locomotives and over 1000 wagons. There are two chemical laboratories; a photographic and lithographic studio; a printing-office, with steam and hand presses; and a bookbinding room, besides tile-works, coke-works, gas-works, &c.
Though, in the popular mind, the name of Krupp is[Pg 41] usually associated with the manufacture of instruments of destruction, yet two-thirds of the work done in his establishment is devoted to the production of articles intended for peaceful uses. The various parts of steam-engines, both stationary and locomotive; iron axles, bridges, rails, wheel-tires, switches, springs, shafts for steamers, mint-dies, rudders, and parts of all varieties of iron machinery, are prepared here for manufacturers. The production is, in Dominie Sampson's phrase, 'prodigious.' In one day the works can turn out 2700 rails, 350 wheel-tires, 150 axles, 180 railway wheels, 1000 railway wedges, 1500 bombshells. In a month they have produced 250 field-pieces, thirty 5.7-inch cannon, fifteen 9.33-inch cannon, eight 11-inch cannon, one 14-inch gun, the weight of the last named being over fifty tons, and its length twenty-eight feet seven inches. Till the end of 1894 the firm has produced 25,000 cannon for thirty-four different states.
Alfred Krupp devoted much attention to the production of steel of the finest quality, and was the first German manufacturer who succeeded in casting steel in large masses. In 1862 he exhibited in London an ingot of finest crucible steel weighing twenty-one
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tons. Its dimensions were nine feet high by forty-four inches diameter. The uniformity of quality of this mass of metal was proven by the fact that when broken across it showed no seam or flaw, even when examined with a lens. The firm can now make such homogeneous blocks of seventy-five tons weight if required. Such ingots are formed from the contents of a great number of small crucibles, each containing from fifty to one hundred pounds of the metal. The recent developments of the manufacture of steel
by the open-hearth process have removed all difficulty in procuring the metal in masses large enough for all requirements, and of a tensile strength so high as thirty-three to thirty-seven tons to the square inch. Crucible steel, however, though more[Pg 42] expensive, still holds its place as the best and most reliable that can be produced; and nothing else is ever used in the construction of a Krupp gun. By the perfected methods in use at the Essen works, such steel can be made of a tensile strength of nearly forty tons to the square inch, and of marvellous uniformity of quality. The ores used in the Krupp works for making the best steel are red haematite and spathic ore, with a certain proportion of ferro-manganese. The crucibles employed are formed of a mixture of plumbago and fire-clay, shaped by a mould into a cylindrical jar some eighteen inches in height, and baked in a kiln. When in use, they are filled with small bars of puddled metal, mixed with fragments of marble brought from Villmar, on the Lahn. They are then shovelled into large furnaces, whose floors are elevated three or four feet above the ground-level. In the earthen floor of the immense room containing the furnaces are two lines of pits, one set to receive the molten metal, the other intended for the red-hot crucibles when emptied of their contents. When the crucibles have undergone sufficient heating, the furnace doors are opened simultaneously at a given signal, and the attendant workmen draw out the crucibles with long tongs, and rapidly empty them into the pits prepared for the reception
of the metal. The empty crucibles when cooled are examined, and if found unbroken, are used again; but