The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-05-30

of economy. We are told that through
bad engineering and careless working OF
shafts fully 70 per cent. of the coal In
any region worked remains in the mine or
in the form of useless culm banks or
slack; in other words. that only 30 per
cent reaches the consumer Expressed i'm
tangible figures. this means that whereas
about 6OO000,0O0 tons represented the
worlds available output of coal in 1895,
something like 1.400, OOS@0 tons were vast
ed in securing the rest.
Yet, after all this is only temporizing,
for it is self-evident that however the
supply of coal be conserved, it must finally
give out altogether, and whether it be in
one century or ten, the result is equally
sure. Some day the work of the world
must be done through some agency other
than coal, if work be done at all. What
other agency may be available as a sub
stitute?
That question has been asked by thought
full men over and over, and several efforts
have been made to give it a practical an
swer. Theoretically the answer is not
very difficult. The sources of available
energy are comparatively few and well de-
fined. There are, of course, the great
forces of wind and running water. used
by primitive people and never altogether
abandoned to which we might turn. But
chiefly the investigators have turned their
thoughts towards the vast flood of energy
that comes to us each day directly from
the sun-that big fire, as John Ericsson
phrased 1t, (which is hot enough to run
engines at a distance of 100000 miles. -"
The heat which falls on the earth each
day from this big fire" was estimated by
Ericsson to equal the energy Of 2l7O00.OOJ
of 1000 horsepower engines working night
and day A vast proportion of this energy
is radiated back into space unused by
| man.
If way could be found to utilize this
| vast food of energy that comes with the
sunlight clearly we might snap our fingers
! at the coal beds Everybody knows from
his own experience how powerful the heat.
! ing power of the suns rays are when
| brought to a focus with a magnifyine
| glass, and the classical story of Archime-
| des setting fire to the Roman fleet off Syr-
acuse with a concave system of steel mir.
| rors whether true or noD illustrates an
| other way in which the suns rays may
| be gathered. This latter way has beer
| thought by engineers more available foI
| their porpose and some very remarka bic
! results have been attained by various ex.
periments with concave mirrors or sys
TENS of fiat mirrors arranged to bring the
| light to a common focus. With such a sys
tenn Button set fire to plank at dis
lance of 80 feet. More recently another
| Frenchman, Vilette by name, has exper
| lilittltu Win a NOtltdNt ullIIOF lOTly-StNtf
| inches in diameter. in the focus of which
when exposed to the sun, iron ore wa,
| melted In twenty-four seconds, cast iroI
| in sixteen seconds. a silver sixpence n
seven seconds and tin in four seconds
! while an emerald was melted into a stat,
like Turquoise and a diamond lost seven
eighths Of its weight
But perhaps the most practical of tn,
| experiments that have been made in thii
Il a.
France and John Ericsson, the famou.
builder of the Monitor. in America. Eaci
of these inventors strove to make a SUI
motor that should be practically availa
bic, for running an engine and both wer,
entirely successful I'm the effort, Moucho
| producing a system of mirrors that would
readily boil water, and Ericsson one that
under a clear sky. ran an engine with per
/ feet regularity a 24O revolutions per min
ute, hour after hour But the difficulty
| about the practical adoption of these sur
motors was the very tangible one, that
| counting the cost Of construction, they
| cannot compete with the energy stored IN
! coal even when the latter is used as waste
| fully as we now use It.. So the world re-
! garded these engines as little better thar
toys, and only here and there an investi-
! gator has thought IL worth while to take
up the work which the death Of Ericsson
In 1893, interrupted.
But the recent report which estimates
| the decay of our anthracite trade in the
next generation serves to recall Erics
sons prophecy that some day the "coa
| Will become as rare as diamonds" and
| that then the great Industrial centers OF
| Europe and America will decline In power
while manufactures will flock 10 Egypt
/ where a "never-ceasing sun power" would
be available for running their engines
Should that prediction be fulfilled 1t will
| no longer be westward, but equatorward
! that the course OF empire will take rs
way: and the Egyptian Of the future, fui.
| filling Macaulay's forecast, may ransack
/ the ruins of Westminster abbey with the
same antiquarian interest with which the
| European archeologist Of to-day ransaclIq
the sarcophagi OF Egypt
| But there are two or three other posi-.
| BILE sources Of energy which Ericsson
| with all his Imagination, overlooked In
| making this forecast, and II is not IN.
| likely that these may be called on 10 avert
the disaster which the great engineer pre-.
dicted. Even now, for example engin.
| GERS are "harnessng Niagara" and In m
! emergency this and other waterfalls could
| make amends for vast deficit Ia the
| coal supply. But the power Of Niagara
| is a mere bagatelle compared with an.
| other source Of water power which Jnti
/ recently has been utterly neglected. The
| tides which ceaselessly oscillate In nui
| oceans. under stress of the moons attrac.
ton have power which, could we harness
| A. would run al the machinery Of the
| world as readily az locomotive could
| haul a toothpick All this tremendoui
| power IL going 10 waste. but OF late more
| than one engineer has been asking now
IL might be utilized. and now that W.
i know how TO store energy In batteries and
| 10 transmit IL TO "A distance along wires
| there " little doubt that human ingenuity
would IN time find a way OF 'harnessinp
| the tides" and making them do ell The
| work Of the world. should the exhaustion
of the coal supply giys suliclent incgn.
! tive.