152 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



available all over this area for less than a halfpenny a unit. Com- 

 pare this with Lancashire, a larger and more densely populated area — 

 in fact, the greatest industrial area in the world. In Lancashire 

 there are 23 borough generating stations, and the charges per unit 

 vary from three times to six times the charge in the Newcastle area. 

 There can be no doubt that if the Lancashire district were supplied 

 from one center the cost of electric power in the county would in- 

 stantly sink to even less than the price in Newcastle. 



The attention of our engineers has very naturally been directed to 

 the generation of power from coal or falling w r ater. Nor can any- 

 thing be more completely satisfactory than a water-power station in 

 a situation where nature has provided the necessary head. But in 

 our islands such opportunities exist only in small and isolated units, 

 and the fluctuating character of our waterfalls is sufficient to convince 

 us that the construction of a large installation is at the best a doubt- 

 fid experiment. The amount of our rainfall is easily exaggerated. 

 Figures of 130 inches taken from one locality in Cumberland, and 

 100 inches from one locality in Inverness, seem to show that the 

 quantity is sufficient to justify a large experiment. But as a fact the 

 areas over which such a fall occurs are exceedingly circumscribed. 

 There are only five small patches of ground in which an average fall 

 of more than 80 inches is recorded — one in the lake district, one in 

 the Snowden range, one in Ross, and one in Inverness ; there may be 

 a sixth not yet identified. But even including those isolated patches 

 there are only nine stations in Great Britain in which an average 

 fall exceeding 60 inches has been recorded. It is therefore evident 

 that in order to secure a steady head of water for a large installation, 

 an extensive area has to be inclosed and converted into a water-tight 

 reservoir. The recent project of the aluminum company involved 

 the inclosure of 250 square miles of country, and the expenditure of 

 2,500,000 sterling. And, after all, it would have given employment 

 to but a handful of people; whereas the expenditure of the same 

 capital on 2,000 separate wind-power stations might conceivably 

 double the productive capacity of a considerable section of the 

 population. 



There is, however, a possibility of providing water power on a 

 large scale on the coasts of these islands, provided only that we use 

 sea water and employ windmills to pump it. There are on the 

 western coasts certain inlets with narrow entrance and considerable 

 internal capacity. If the entrance were closed, up to the summit 

 of the cliffs, a windmill or two on the top of the sea wall would 

 suffice to maintain a head of 150 feet of water. The cost of construc- 

 tion would be trifling when compared with the cost of an inland 

 power station, while the cost of upkeep would be very small. There 



