When the Eickemeyer concern was taken over by the General Electric Company Steinmetz went with it and was hailed as its greatest asset. He was first sent to the Thomson-Houston Company--the Lynn, Massachusetts, branch of the General Electric--and there he worked out the first successful plan for transmitting power and light, on a large scale, over long distances, and for controlling currents. Incidentally he made several important discoveries and improvements in the arc and incandescent lights and in electric motors. A Mathematical Wonder. In addition to being a thorough electrician, Steinmetz is a mathematical wonder, and there are few tricks of the lightning calculator that he cannot duplicate and go one better. It had been his intention to become a professor of mathematics, and doubtless he would have done so had he remained in Germany. The salary and fees of the professorship would have given him at best a couple of thousand dollars a year. His work in this country pays him a big salary, and this is supplemented by a large income from patents. Personally he is one of the most popular men in the business. "The professor," as he is generally known, has been generous in offering assistance to young electricians, and he has patiently spent his time in aiding in the development of their ideas. He has shown the same skill in bringing the best out of men that he has used to such effect in handling machinery. THE FIRST ROTHSCHILD. Founder of the House of Rothschild Had Vainly Attempted to Reconcile Himself to Being a Rabbi. Mayer Amschel Bauer, founder of the house of Rothschild, was born in the Ghetto of Frankfort, Germany. This section was set off for the Jews with barriers, and at night these barriers were closed and no one was permitted to leave the street. His father was a merchant in poor circumstances, and it was the dream of his life to make the son a rabbi. So he sent him to study with the rabbis learned in the law of Moses. The studies continued a few weeks, and then young Bauer rebelled. He would go no more. His father entreated and threatened. It was useless, for the boy took the few gulden he possessed and set up as a money-lender. There, on the sidewalk of the squalid Judengasse, or street of the Jews, began the power of the richest and most famous banking family in the world.