560 ANNUAL EEPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1913. 



northern Italy into one of the world's great industrial regions. Chis- 

 holm gives an estimate of a possible supply of power amounting to 

 3,000,000 horsepower, and says that of this about one-tenth was 

 already being utilized in the year 1900. 



But assuming again, with Sir William Ramsay, that coal must con- 

 tinue to be the chief source of energy, it is clear that the question of 

 accessibility now wears an entirely different aspect. It is not alto- 

 gether beyond reason to imagine that the necessity for mining, as 

 such, might entirely disappear, the coal being burnt in situ and 

 energy converted directly into electricity. In this way some coal 

 fields might conceivably be exhausted to their last pound without 

 serious increase in the cost of getting. But for the present it is 

 enough to note that, however inaccessible any coal field may be from 

 supplies of raw material, it is only necessary to establish generating 

 stations at the pit's mouth and transport the energy to where it can 

 be used. One may imagine, for example, vast manufactures carried 

 on in what are now the immense agricultural regions of China, 

 worked by power supplied from the great coal deposits of Shansi. 



There is, however, another peculiarity of electrical power which 

 will exercise increasing influence upon the geographical distribution 

 of industries. The small electric motor is a much more efficient ap- 

 paratus than the small steam engine. We are, accordingly, already 

 becoming familiar with the great factory in which, instead of all tools 

 being huddled together to save loss through shafting and belting, 

 and all kept running all the time, whether busy or not (because the 

 main engine must be run) , each tool stands by itself and is worked by 

 its own motor, and that only when it is wanted. Another of the 

 causes of concentration of manufacturing industry is therefore re- 

 duced in importance. We may expect to see the effects of this be- 

 coming more and more marked as time goes on, and other forces 

 working toward uniform distribution make themselves more felt. 



The points to be emphasized so far, then, are, first, that the time 

 when the available areas whence food supply, as represented by 

 wheat, is derived are likely to be taxed to their full capacity within a 

 period of about the same length as that during which the modern 

 colonial system has been developing in the past ; secondly, that cheap 

 supplies of energy may continue for a longer time, although eventu- 

 ally they must greatly diminish ; and, thirdly, there must begin in the 

 near future a great equalization in the distribution of population. 

 This equalization must arise from a number ocf causes. More intensive 

 cultivation Avill increase the amount of labor required in agi'iculture, 

 and there will be less difference in the cost of production and yield 

 due to differences of soil and climate. Manufacturing industries will 

 be more uniformly distributed, because energy, obtained from a 

 larger number of sources in the less accessible places, will be distrib- 



