154 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



at work for some years and where they have lately increased rapidly 

 in number, a station intended to develop 200 horsepower is now in con- 

 templation for the use of a bacon factory. The project may be too 

 ambitious, but that it should be in contemplation is proof that the 

 plan has been a commercial success in a country in which the average 

 windpower is decidedly less than in Great Britain. And it may be 

 added that certain devices recently invented by Prof. La Cour of 

 Copenhagen have completely solved the mechanical difficulties in 

 the way of adjusting the variable power of the motor to the work- 

 ing of a dynamo without injury to the accumulators from any sud- 

 den drop in wind energy. 



Meanwhile the winds have another call upon us — a call from the 

 sea, no less insistent than that on land. They are constantly re- 

 minding us that we are an island people with vast dominions across 

 the seas, and that our home is not only these islands but also these 

 possessions and the ocean which lies between. In the Crown colonies 

 there are territories which have been in our possession for 150 years — 

 territories teeming with produce awaiting our handling, and yet in 

 whose ports a British ship is rarely seen. Trade has not followed the 

 flag, and one reason is that the sailing vessel has been neglected 

 to the point of disappearance. 



Here, again, as in the case of the windmill, it is advisable to con- 

 sider the specific causes of disuse. Let us carry our minds back to 

 the year 1830. A committee of the House of Commons was then 

 sitting to consider the possibility of sending the Dublin and Holy- 

 head mail by steamer. This, be it remembered, was nearly a genera- 

 tion after Fulton and Symington, and at a time when steamers had 

 been plying on the Mississippi for 20 years. It was the time, more- 

 over, when the experts, headed by Doctor Lardner, had demon- 

 strated to their own satisfaction that useful as a steamer might be 

 on a river it could not possibly undertake a long ocean voyage. 

 Up to that time the winds had not merely ground our com, but had 

 borne all our ocean traffic, maintained our colonial connections, con- 

 ducted our commerce, won our naval victories, and established our 

 position in the world. " Sea power," to use Mahan's phrase, then re- 

 solved itself into capacity for utilizing wind power. It is largely 

 the truth that our Empire was created, preserved, and sustained by 

 our skillful use of the wind. But that era was already drawing to a 

 close. With the improvement of marine engines, and especially with 

 the great economy in fuel following the introduction of compound 

 engines, Dr. Lardner's prediction that the steamer could not pro- 

 vide cargo space was falsified, although it was a perfectly reasonable 

 objection at the time it was uttered. 



There followed a period in which the sailing ship was so far de- 

 veloped and improved that it frequently distanced the steamer bound 



