BROWN FAMILY IN CALIFORNIA—ELECTRICAL POWER IN MINING 



me all about it, because I was reading where some farmers in Kane County, 

 Illinois, had used electricity with great success, and I know of a dairy in 

 Santa Cruz County where they use electrical power." 



"Of course they use electrical energy, Mrs. Brown," said Simpson. "It's 

 the cheapest sort of power and beats a horse all hollow. Why, I know where 

 electrical power is sold for $50 a year per horse-power. Here's a horse that 

 never eats, never sleeps, and works all the time. He works night and day 

 for 365 days in the year for only $50, and better than all, the power of the 

 theoretical horse is more than that of a real horse." 



(To be continued.) 



ELECTRICAL POWER IN MINING. 



HERE is hardly any industry or phase of industry that has not 

 benefited to a greater or less extent by the development 

 of hydro-electric energy. Yet in few industries has this form 

 of energy been applied in a greater number and variety of 

 ways than in mining. 



The most good which has come to miners from the use of 

 hydro-electric energy has been in the gold and silver mines of the desert re- 

 gion. Here electricity is of great value for power, since other forms of power 

 are almost entirely unavailable where water is so precious and fuel so costly 

 as in these arid areas. Electrically developed power can readily be con- 

 veyed to the mine in the desert to illuminate shafts, tunnels, crosscuts 

 and stopes. With electricity compressed air drills are run, hoists are 

 operated to conduct men and materials to and from lower levels, and 

 fans set going to keep out the impure air. It furnishes pumps to keep the 

 mine dry without the exhaustion of a particle of precious oxygen. Through 

 the agency of this power dynamite blasting has been conducted with less 

 danger than formerly accompanied the explosion. However, blasting with 

 electricity as the igniter of the dynamite is not carried on generally. An- 

 other use of hydro-electric energy in mining to be developed in the future 

 is in smelting. To this phase of mining, power electrically produced has 

 scarcely been applied, but when it is ores will undoubtedly be handled more 

 easily and cheaply. 



Miners appreciate the value of hydro-electric energy. The famous 

 Yellow Aster Mining Company at Randsburg, California, has gone to 

 great expenditure in demonstrating the use of electricity in working mines 

 and has contracted to buy 3,500 horse-power from a power company 

 which produces 8,000 horse-power to be employed in mining. Another 

 mining company operates its own power plant at Bodie, California — the 

 Standard Consolidated Mining Company. There are many other instances 

 throughout the State which might be cited to show how hydro-electric 

 energy because of its cheapness and availability has supplanted forms of 

 fuel and power formerly used in mining and is making possible where fuel 

 and power are unobtainable. 



San Francisco was noted in its early days for the fine theatrical per- 

 formances it patronized. Few cities paralleled its demand and support of 

 the best plays and the finest actors. It seems appropriate, then, that the 

 most useful accessory of the stage to-day should have emanated from San 

 Francisco. It is now considered impossible almost to produce a successful 

 play without large expenditure in elaborate electric illumination. The Cali- 

 fornia Theater, San Francisco, was the place of the first electrically illumi- 

 nated theatrical production. 



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