The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-09-01

trical power transmission in the last few years.
 The development of electricity in the mountain streams of the Coast is be- coming of great service for gold and silver miners, especially in the MOjave and Colorado deserts. where water is precious and fuel is costiier than aI- most anywhere else in the United States. With electricity any sort of power drill may be run. elevator hoists lifted. the shafts. tunnels and stopes il- Iuminated and dynamite blasting be conducted with less than half the pres ent dangers.
 The Yellow Aster Gold Mining com pany at Randsburg has spent thousands of dollars lately in demonstrating what use miners may make of electricity, and it has contracted with company (recently organized to harness the 5000 horse power contained in the mountain stream in the San Miguel canon in the | northeastern part of Kern countyl to buy 3500 horse power for use in mines. The Helvetia mine at Julian, in San Diego county. will soon be worked and | lighted by electricity. All that is now done by steam or compressed air in the mines may then be accomplished by electric power.
 John W. Baker, a mine owner of | Sacramento, said recently: "The use of | electric power in mining will begin a new era in the industry. The expenses of mining will be cut down so much | that poor mines may be worked at a profit, and, besides, the ore can be got out with less work. No one can yet es- innate the changes in gold and silver mining that will follow the introduc- tion of electricity in the industry"
 Engineers and workmen are engaged in harnessing mountain streams at five points in Oregon and three in Washing l ton. The vast power In the Columbia River is to be used four, times by cleo tric companies in Portland, Astoria and Albany. A company, in which the paid up capital stock is to be $1,500,000, is l organizing to utilize the power in five | streams along the Sierras, near Stock ton. for uses in San Francisco. For several months a corps of engineers has been making plans for the development of electric power from the Kaweah Riv- CT, in Tulare county. The engineers estimate puts the total expense of the work at SSOO0O0. About 7,O00-horse power can be obtained. and this may be utilized in Tulare, Porterville and other San Joaquin Valley towns.
 Up at Reading, in Northern Cali fornia, under the shadows of Mount Shasta, work on the greatest electrical power plant in America, outside of Niagara, is proceeding. New York, San Francisco and Buffalo capital is back of the enterprise which will cost several millions of dollars, The only element of doubt in the scheme is the distance that the voltage may be economically transmitted. for the little towns in the part of the State where he electricity is developed cannot use all the motive power this enterprise proposes to de- velop.
 The project to harness the waters of the stream in Maricopa Canon, among the Sierras back of Petaluma, is going ahead. Engineers are at work ascer- tainig what power may be developed there and the best means of conveying
 it from the mountain streams and wa terfalls to Stockton, and possibly to San
 Francisco, Enough work has been done
 to show that at least 4,000-horse power may be sent through the Sacramento Valley-New York Sun.