126 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



dross could be used for engines of the most economical type, or in places where 

 plenty of condensing water is available, where coal transport is cheap, and where 

 they would be near the centre of gravity of the probable demand. The Sub- 

 Committee has no difficulty in showing that " the present system of electric 

 power distribution throughout the country, which is undertaken by over 600 

 authorities in as many separate districts, is technically wrong and commercially 

 uneconomical." From the point of view of practical engineering, there is no 

 reason why early steps should not be taken to supersede this inefficient system, 

 but opposition must be expected from the vested interests of individual capitalists 

 and from local authorities possessing electric undertakings or profiting by the 

 rates payable by supply stations. It requires a broad mind and an unusual spirit 

 to be able to think nationally, as it does to think Imperially, yet these qualities are 

 always essential to the establishment of schemes designed for the common good. 



The advantages to be derived from such a system of national power supply are 

 so great that nothing should be permitted to stand in the way of their realisation. 

 The Sub-Committee points out that large quantities of electrical power will be 

 required for the development and carrying on of new processes not at present 

 undertaken in this country. In addition to industrial applications, a national 

 system of electric power supply would greatly facilitate the electrification of rail- 

 ways with its attendant advantages and bring within reach of the community as a 

 whole the great benefits of an increase in the use of electricity for domestic 

 purposes. 



The application of the electric furnace to the metallurgy of iron and steel, and 

 the use of electro-chemical methods for the production of many substances of 

 industrial importance, have led to very remarkable developments during the 

 past few years ; and the prospects for the future are most promising. Beginning 

 with the production of various ferro-alloys which cannot be made in fuel-fired 

 furnaces, and the highest classes of carbon and alloy tool steels which compete 

 successfully with crucible steels, the electric furnace has become within the last 

 few years an essential element in steel manufacture. Owing to its high tem- 

 perature, the refining of steel can be carried to a further stage than is possible 

 with the Bessemer and open-hearth furnaces, with the result that a purer and 

 more trustworthy metal is produced. This is especially the case with rail steel ; 

 and railway companies are prepared to pay considerably more for the increased 

 trustworthiness. 



Early in the nineteenth century Sir Humphry Davy succeeded in decomposing 

 caustic potash and caustic soda by means of the electric current, and in obtaining 

 from them the metals potassium and sodium. The experiment was made to settle 

 a disputed question in pure chemistry, but it was the starting-point of an immense 

 industry. At the present time, the chief process of commercial importance for 

 making sodium is that of electrolysis of caustic soda, all chemical methods of 

 manufacturing the metal being superseded by it. Caustic soda itself, together 

 with chlorine for bleaching purposes, is obtained from common salt by elsctrolytic 

 methods on a large scale ; and its manufacture is an important industry. 



In 1833 Faraday obtained the metal magnesium from a compound of the 

 element by means of electrolysis ; and now the magnesium ribbon and powder 

 used for flash-light and other purposes are almost entirely made by the same 

 method. But the most important application of electricity to industrial chemistry 

 is the electrolytic production of that most useful metal, aluminium, which is 

 destined to compete with iron and steel in its importance. Aluminium is now 

 manufactured exclusively by electrolysis of a fused mineral containing it, though a 



