566 Professor George Lunge [March 15, 



by means of steam, electro-chemical methods can compete with the 

 older ones for the mannfactm'e of what is called " heavy chemicals." 

 This is easily understood when we remember that about 90 per cent, 

 of the heat-value of coal, or its equivalent of energy, is lost in the 

 circuitous routes of steam boiler, steam engine, and dynamo. But 

 there are several ways in which the problem of obtaining cheaper 

 electricity is being grappled with ; and, if most of these have to be 

 dismissed for the present, as belonging to the " music of the future," 

 we have at least one which is a hard fact, and that is the generation 

 of electricity by water-power. Unfortunately, in the British Isles 

 the amount of available water-power is very limited in comparison 

 with many other countries. It is a curious coincidence that those 

 two European countries which are the greatest producers of coal, 

 Great Britain and Germany, should be less favoured by Nature in 

 respect of water-power than other countries which possess little or 

 no stores of mineral fuel, as Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, France, 

 Italy, and Spain. A very different condition of affairs obtains in 

 the United States, where we find the greatest coal-fields combined 

 with the greatest amount of water-power existing in any civilised 

 country. It is impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact that the 

 day will inevitably come when the coal-fields will be so far exhausted 

 that all those industries which consume large amounts of mechanical 

 energy will be forced to emigrate to countries where water-power is 

 abundant. 



No other substitute has, as yet, been found for generating force, 

 and, indirectly, electricity. True, the energy given out by the descent 

 of water in rivers is but a small fraction of that which is radiated 

 upon the earth from the sun, or of that which is developed by the 

 play of the tides and the force of the wind, but no way has yet been 

 found of utilising these other sources of energy, except to the 

 slenderest extent. The harnessing of these natural agents belongs, 

 so far as we can see, to the class of problems which will hardly be 

 solved by our own generation, whatever developments the remoter 

 future may bring. But of the water power existing on this planet 

 there is a large proportion which has never yet been touched, and 

 this, as well as the water power which has been already forced into 

 the bonds of man, runs on for ever. This is, of course, an incal- 

 culable advantage over coal, which, by its use as fuel, is dissipated 

 into the atmosphere in the shape of carbon dioxide, and thus 

 altogether destroyed as a source of energy, since from carbon dioxide 

 fresh fuel can only Ije generated by the intervention of solar energy, 

 and this takes place at such a very slow rate that it cannot be taken 

 into account in our economical consideration. 



We, who have been born to see the ascendency of coal as the 

 principal producer of energy in bulk, can hardly realise what a short 

 epoch in the past and future history of mankind belongs to the age of 

 coal. It has taken many thousands of years to form the beds of coal 



