The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-02-02
THE GIANT TRUST OF the FUTURE
BY EARL MAYO, In Metropolitan Magazine

L. liz hIfCF -
means can mines or oil wells be re-
plenlshed once they are exhausted
he use of gas and oil for power pur-l
poses cannot be extended greatly be-
cause OF the limitations of the supply
and the demands upon It Tor illumi-
mating purposes. The production of
coal in 1907 was 100000, 900 tons.
The production doubles approximately
every ten years. That rate of progress
sion has been maintained pretty
steadily since the beginning of the
industry. Obviously it cannot go on
indefinitely until the supply is eX-
hausted. Rapidly increasing prices
will act as a constant brake on the
tendency to use more coal. While it
is difficult, therefore,, to determine
when the nations coal supply will
be entirely used up Chat is, the
Luminous supply; anthracite will be
exhausted in sixty or seventy years
at the present rate of use) it is pos
slble to name with reasonable accu-
racy a date beyond which the increase
in the use of coal cannot continue.
Men of expert knowledge have fixed
upon $50 years as the outside limit
of the period of increasing consump-
ton. Beyond that time American in
dustries will have to cease expanding
and remain ~stagnant or they will haveI
to find some other source of power.
You are not alarmed at what will
happen Il century and a half hence,
OF course not. 1t is not the American
way to worry about the future, even
a future so immediate as is fifteen
decades in the life of a people. But
this is the extreme limit. Long before
that time the pinch will begin to be
felt. In some places it is felt now.
Within the lifetime OF readers of this
page it Will be felt in many places.
What shall we do then?
The prospect would be alarming if
there were in sight no substitute for
coal as q source OF power. Fortu-
nately there is a substitute in plain
sight. 1t exists in the w-ater-cOurses
of the country, the agency chiefly re-
lied upon to turn the wheels of such
factories as existed before the era OF
the steam engine. Neglected during
the a~scendency of steam, it has come
into renewed and increasing impor-
lance with the rapidly growing use
Of electricity for power rpo
The discoveries in electricity, par
ticularly the Development of long
Observation-Disclosures of electrical
power, have removed the one obstacle
to the general utilization of water
power that previously existed. This
obstacle was found in the fact that
the location Of water-cOurSes afford
ing power possibilities were not al
ways satisfactory locations for indus
trial establishments. Now that the
power Of waterfall in the form of
electricity can be taken to the factory,
wherever the latter be placed, this
ODJeCtlOn Is overcome. WaLer-DOWcI
is destined to be the force to replace
coal for three reasons: First, it is
the only substitute available. The
other reasons, although negligible be-
fore the imperative force Of the pre-
ceding one, are thai it is economical
and adaptable, and that it does not
become exhausted with use.
The old saw which declares that
the wheel will never turn again with
the water that has passed is euphon-
ious but uptrue. Every boy who has
reached the physical geography stage
of high school rogreSs car explain
the process by which the water, after
turning the particular wheel of the
proverb, continues on it's way ocean,
ward, turning other wheels as it goes,
is drawn up from the sea, carried
back over the land in the form of
clouds and p~recipitated once more
upon the soil to Seep pack into some
running stream. By repetition of this
process it turns the wheel again and
again without any lessening of it's
potentialities.
AS water is the only substitute for
coal within sight, it becomes interest
ing to take stock of the volume OF
power which u streams can yield.
There are various ways of estimating
his. The annual fall of rain upon
the surface of the United States is
about two hundred trillion cubic feet.
q figure which sounds considerably
impressive. This rain fail ultimately
will be the source of all our power,
just as it is now one of III vital re
4 sources without which land would be
worthless and life upon it impossible.
It all the energy of all the falling
water throughout the country could
be utilized it would mou to three
hundred million horse power. This,
of course, is impossible in the present
state of our knowledge and invention.
and this figure for present purposes
is wholly theoretical. According to
; 4 the most careful estimate that has
been made, the volume Of water
power Immediately available is thirty
million horse power, or just about
sufficient for the present mechanlca
noodS Of tho 1nnrtnE RN the pXtpn-