Fairhaven herald. [volume] (Fairhaven, Wash.) 1890-????, 1893-05-30
PESSIMIST CORNERED
NATURES STORED POWER SuFFl-
GENT FOR ANY EMERGENCY.

OF the Earth's Future.
Pessimist-I have meat to eat, wool to
wear, coal to burn. My material wants are
measurably satisfied. But the race is
doomed. You and will not see the day,
but it will come, when coal is exhausted by
the ever increasing demand, when the earth
no more yields food for the starving mil
Hons, when the temperate zones must be
abandoned for the lack of fuel and under
the tropic sun men turned again to beasts
struggle for the mere privilege OF living
Arts, manufactures, sciences, everything
will follow fuel and light into the void Of
the forgotten. Books will perish, cities
crumble and gibbering apes crawl again
where men walked, their degeneraoy ao-
complished, the cycle of evolution COM
plete. Then let the suns paling light fall,
the quicker the better, on dead world,
white and frozen from pole to equator.
Optimist-Boshl There never was a great
human want that was not met. 1t is a
short time, comparatively, since wood was
the fuel of the world. 1t became scarce,
and coal was discovered in quantities ap-
parently inexhaustible In spite of what
you say. But grant for the sake Of argu-
ment that the use of coal must some day
cease. That ought not to worry us, now
that the Niagara tunnel is opened.
Pessimist-What has that
Optimist-E Everything. Light, heat, mo-
ton, power are all manifestations Of the
same force and theoretically interchange
able. No ono of them is ever lost. The
trouble has been 20 manage the transforma-
tion. Power is plenty without coal, but it
isn't easy to lead it to its work. Try to do
De ha1f nj oh nd ba Ia
tance is great power becomes changed 20
heat by friction on the way. But now
comes the great mutual reagent, electricity.
At Lake Huella in Sweden 800 horsepower
are to be generated by turbine water wheels,
wired six miles TO a lighting station and
eight miles TO power station. IL six and
eight miles, why not 60 and S0i There is
Niagara now in harness. Buffalo will be
come a greater manufacturing city than
ever before, yet burn relatively less
coal. Every minute the water that glides
over that mighty cliff is the power equiva-
lent of thousands Of tons Of coal This en-
ergy can be sent by wire to New York if
you like and used to run sausage grinders.
Having learned TO change heat to power
and telegraph it where we like, we shall
learn to transmit power back into heat and
warm ourselves in winter by the Grand
falls of Labrador. Why 20 so far' The
coal fields are bottled sunshine from the
earboniferous period. Let's bottle our
own. We have enough of it in summer
Or catch the force OF the tide which
surges through our inlets and turn
that into power and heat. Then
you'll see Jumps Of coal in cabinets
labeled, Formerly used for fuel 3"
Then there Is the wind. More wind power
il used now than ever before, but its use is
just begun. 1t is free, inexhaustible Put
up your shaft anywhere and set Boreas
grinding corn. 1t is irregular, but if there
Is a cyclone in Kansas and a calm in Da-
kota, Dakota can telegraph, PLEASE wire
us 800 h. p. per minute {. f., and chg to our
acct" All this is supposing that coal runs
out. But it won't. We understand better
the conservation as we'll rs the correlation
of energy Many man is running a 80 b.
D. engine on less coal than he formerly used
for G h. p. The Campania burns no more
than the old Servia. We have wasted our
wood and our coal. Inventive genius is
now economizing. There are plenty of saw
mills that use no fuel but the sawdust they
make.
Pessimist--Yes, but foodi
optimist-Waste again. We waste by
feeding corn to cattle and then eating the
cattle. instead of eating thecom. Wewaste
by turning sewage into the sea, instead Of
making 1t productive as at Pullman We
waste by sloyenly farming. There is almost
no limit to the productiveness of a single
acre. Belgium teaches US that. The denser
the population the better the farming. No
soil is so poor that 1t cannot be made to
yield three or four big crops a year by till
age, which is applied power, and by fertil-
ization. Atwater has raised splendid crops
on sea sand, which had been baked to de
stroy every atom Of virtue in it. IL is
all a question Of power, power, power, in
some one of its forms, and when we have
harnessed Niagara to his pillow the farmer
can kill his oxen and 100 people live on the
produce Of their pasture. Draw circle of
90 miles radius around New York. Within
that circle can be raised all the food the
city needs, il you eliminate waste. The
desert Of Sahara could feed every human
being on the planet and cry for more
Power, its transmission, transformation
and economy, is the solution Of the ques-
tion, and Of power there is no apparent
limit.
Pessimist-But there is heat Heat is
from the sun, the tides from the sun and
moon combined. When the sun loses its
neat ~ VIII cease 10 Dulld clouds, and Nj
sgara will run dry. No wind will blow
your wheels about. Your farmer will lose
that which is more necessary than power
light and water. Where is humanity them
Optimist-I don't know. But are you
sure the sun is growing coldi Some say its
everlasting fires are stocked by constant
rain OF aerolites, the inconceivable force of
their impact transmitted to heat keeping
him up to his work. The suns heat can
not be lost. Nothing is lost. 1t may BE-
changed to another form Of energy, to
emerge when the whirling worlds in their
orbits clash and from the nebula Of their
unimaginabie collision is fashioned forth
new universe.
Pessimist-Well. we're all right for the
present anyhow.
Optimist-So you said in the first place.
Have you seen Jones todayi-John L. Hea-
ton In New York Recorder.