The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-04-09
POWER FOR THE FUTURE. Thus discourses The Boston Globe:

not. although one might get. that im- pression from reading certain statisti- cal articles on the future exhaustion
 Necessity Is the mother of Invention.
 Already the inventors are at work. and genius down in the anthracite rev scheme. for hsrnsssing the rays. of the sun. He uses hot box which looks exactly like the hotbed of an Arlington market gardener except that layers being an inch apart. The box contains coils of pipe filled with ether. The ether. vaporized by the suns heat, runs an engine just as steam does, Heat can be stored in anticipation of cloudy days and for night work.
 When the coal is gone, man will har- ness the winds and make them drive great mills, which in turn will drive dynamos and furnish cheap electricity for light. power and warmth.
 That sunshine man is not really new one. Many schemes have in the past been devised. and many experi- ments made to devise plans to harness mans work, but nothing of real fm- portance or benefit has come of it. ana probably never will. Even If the sun should shine during the whole of each day. unhampered by clouds and rain. we have little reason to believe that it's heat could ever be so utilized as to even partially furnish motive power to drive all the great industries of earth. It might do something towards ac- coiLplishing results, we suppose. but we see no prospect that 1t will tFer become an important factor in solving : the problem of motive power It is true that it Is unsafe these days to assert that anything is impossible. for we have continual evidence that things are now so common as not to excite re-. mark would have been declared impos- sible by we'll informed men. even a cen tury ago: therefore. while we have lit- tie expectation that the Pennsylvania inventor will accomplish anything of real importance we hesitate to declare his scheme impossible.
 A few years ago a good deal was
 
 the tides and waves as a means of ob- taining motive power. but we have heard but little of the matter of late. It was proposed to construct great res ervoirs at favorable points on the sea coast. and arrange their works so that incoming tides or waves would furnish power. and when they subsided the out going water from the reservoirs would also drive the machinery, and it was 1 argued that the power thus created could be stored up and given out as needed. We hear little of that project now.
 When it comes to the wind there is ground for more confidence. Wind mills of some form are probably al- most as old as humanity. but the weak point in them was that they could only give out power when the wind was blowing. When there was no wind l there was nothing doing. we might say. Now. however, with the improved methods of storing up power and giv- ing it out as needed. or using that power to create electric energy. they can make it continuous. We are not disposed to depreciate the value of wind energy for the future.
 But when the fuel is gone. unless something new shall be discovered and utilized. human industry must depend for motive power on the waters of the running streams wherever it is possi- ble to obtain power from such streams. Even already there have been such ad- vances in developing and utilizing this | great agency that electric power cre- ated or developed at some favorable point is readily and economically transmitted scores and hundreds of miles to be used wherever needed. We think it not extravagant to say that the water-power in the United States can supply all the power needed for every purpose that now exists or is likely to exist provided that water power is intelligently conserved and used.
 An1 this brings us around to the important matter of forest preservation. Intelligent and observing men are now seeing and admitting that upon the preservation of the forests throughout the country largely depends the Value and the continuity of the streams that must supply power in the future. If the forests are destroyed some of the streams will disappear and many oth- CTS become weakened and unreliable Thus what Is now recognized as the chief source of motive power for the future will be materially injured in some places and completely destroyed in others. Therefore as must be ad mitted by all who will look at it prop erly. forest preservation will become self preservation. As matters now ap- pear, without water-power we can have no electric power and without electric power the wheels of industry must stop when the fuel is exhausted. unless some new source of power is l discovered. We can see. therefore the importance of forests. for their de-