The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-03-19
THE AGE OF ELECTRIC POWER.

ly drive the horse out of business in this country. While such rosy views may be optimistic and premature it is certain that wonderful advances have recently been made in perfecting, simplifying and cheapening horseless vehicle, and no one can safely predict the limitations or pos
 abilities of the future Even elderly people may live to see autom )bi!es or something of like kind take the place of
 horses in all sections where the nature of the country will permit their use. But we think it would be more appro- priate to speak of the present as The Steamless Age" for 1t seems much more
 that horses will. at least for all land
 transportation. We have but few years
 to look back to remember in
 this city the first street car, driven
 by electricity. They were somewhat
 crude and imperfect, liable to
 but the idea was there and the begin
 ming was there. Just ae the original
 railroad trains of Stephenson and the original steamboat of Fulton were the prototypes, the embryos as 1t were, of the mighty railroad trains and the mightier ocean steamers, So were the first electric roads tne beginning of what seems bound to follow, and that within a comparatively short period
 At first, as is we'll known, it was not supposed that electricity would be used as a motive power for cars except in cities and towns, where the streets were comparatively level and where the power would have to be conveyed only a short distance from the point of generation, but that idea has already been outgrown. | Now there is no limitation ln the minds | of mechanics. and they are aSkeady pre- suming upon the heretofore exclusive do- the demonstrated fact, that electric power | can be carried over the country almost | without limit has so wonderfully widened
 and extended the use of electric currents | that no one now thinks of limit to their | extent or use as a motive power.
 |
 very much broadened and extended our | knowledge of electrical possibilities-or,
 rather, electrical certainties. Until
 recently 1t was thought that steam must
 be used to create electric power and that l the latter must be used near its point of | creation, but that is an exploded theory for making electricity by water power is practically without limit and its trans- | portation scarcely less so. The editor of The Electrical World and Engineer
 Mir. Martin, recently stated that there 1 is no section of America, except, perhaps. in some of the plain regions of the West | where there is not enough water power to 1 move every wheel and every machine" This would seem like an exaggerated statement were it not for the wonderful portability, so to speak, of the electric current. but when that Is considered the claim of MT. Martin will not be thought extravagant At Snoqualmie Falls. in | Washington, is a plant which supplies | electric power and light to Seattle Taco ma, Everett, and other towns, and 1t is calculated that the total available power
 of these falls is not less than 100000 horse power At Helena, Mont, is another plant for generating electric power, and | that plant is now transmitting power sixty-five miles and crossing the Rock- Mountains at an elevation of something | more than 1000 feet.
 But even this is surpassed by the great plant on the Tuba River in California, from which electric power is now actually
 conveyed 1S9 miles, and will soon be ex- | tended to 214 and possibly to 250 miles. This great plant. although virtually in Its
 infancy. is already furnishing lights for more than twenty cities. and Is furnish
 ing power for every conceivable purpose
 all along its main line and on it's numer- ous branches. It furnishes power for
 street cars and shops, for mines and
 pumping stations, and for almost every l other purpose where mechanical power
 is needed. It is difficult to predict the possibilities of this one plant. Already
 we are informed that The Great North
 ern Railroad has decided to equip one of
 the most difficult sections of it's line with
 electric freight and passenger cars, as
 thus briefly outlined in a California
 paper:
 | The section to be equipped is sixty-six
 miles of the Cascade division, with some | of the most difficult grades in America. | If the experiment proves successful,
 seventy-five miles more will be electrized l the entire mountain division.
 l If this shall prove practicable there
 would seem to be no limit to what can
 be done. And on this subject the March
 number of McClures Magazine has an in-
 teresting paper by Samuel F. Moffett,
 entitled: The War on the Locomotive, D
 which is we'll worth reading, not only for
 what is predicted but for what is shown
 to have been accomplished. The writer
 gives with some detail the results which
 have followed the change from steam to
 electricity in various Northern and West
 ern States where the heaviest freight
 and passenger trains are now success
 fully and economically driven by the new
 power Every paragraph of the article
 is interesting as we'll as instructive, and
 at the risk of making this article too
 long we shall make one somewhat
 lengthy extract, as follows:
 Go. for instance, to Indianapolis and