The Chitina leader., 1913-01-28
OUTSIDE THE RESERVES

he present. Interior department.
at Washington seems to have some
fads.
One is to put bride on the water
power of the country; the other is to
hoard the coal measures for use in
some future generation, just when
cannot be estimated at this writing,
because a good deal of coal has been
burned in the United States since the
locomotives, the steamers, the cities
and manufacturing plants have been
drawing heavily upon the coal re-
serves of this country during the past
twenty-five years; the scientists in
form us that the whole amount thus
far consumed does not amount to one
per cent of the coal that has thus far
been discovered, and it is reasonable
to suppose that the full amount has
not yet been found up to date.
Then, while it is no doubt a great
joy for the department to anticipate
what splendid works will be run by
the water power now held in reserve;
the fact that water has tendency to
run down grade has never been sue
cessfully refuted, and even a govern
ment reserve does not alter this dis
position of running water.
| The process by which the sunbeams
pick up the waters of the sea, loads
them on clouds, calls upon the winds
| to watt the clouds shoreward and
drives them where the cold is lying
in wait to seize and compress them
and thus feed the springs in the hills,
is all and all about the most beauti-
full phenomenon in nature.
AS long as this goes on, the water,
despite government reserves, will
continue to run down hill, to find its
way back to it's ocean mother. So
the reserve drawn around water
courses is only a partial success at
best
AS to the saving of coal, that. has
its dangers. An engineer in Eng
land invented a machine which re-
quires no assistance from anything
terrestrial to run and to keep going
until the steel out of which it is made
becomes like the "one-hoss shay"
penetrated by the wear of the ages
and falls to pieces. The inventor
says that with but little machine
nearly all the work of a house can
be performed, such as cooking, light
ing and heating the house, sweeping
the floors, busting the furniture,-in
short, an automatic servant girl made
up of all the graces and none of the
faults of flesh and blood house
regulator.
He further says that there are no
Limitations to the power that can be
obtained from his new engine.
That looks very much as though
the demand for coal was to grow less
instead of increasing in the near flu
ture; as though the dream of perfect
tranquility and happiness to come
through the absolutely just methods
of using coal, which the Interior De-
partment has evolved, will have to be
put off. Now a new feature in the
line of power is proclaimed, or at
least new application of a fact long
understood, has dawned on an en-
gineer after years of study and ex-
pertinent. This gentleman is Mr..
Frank Shurman of Philadelphia, and
his claim is that he has solved the
problem of how to harness the sun
and make it's beams do mans work.
His engine has developed 80 horse
power. He claims that in countries
of much sunshine this engine can do
the work cheaper than fuel at $2.75
per ton.
Unless the Interior Department can
draw reserve around the sunbeams
and electric currents of the ether
above us, it never can work up
monopoly on the power which the
good God placed on the earth and in
the air for the benefit of mankind.