34 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 



condition. Any excess consumption of power can at once be 

 detected and the defect remedied, while also an accurate record 

 can be kept of the cost of the different operations. 



Power may be purchased from nearby existing hydro-electric 

 transmission companies, or available water powers may be devel- 

 oped and the energy transmitted to the mines. That water 

 powers may, in some instances, compete with very cheap steam 

 power is also illustrated by the system of the Appalachian Power 

 Company, which furnishes a considerable amount of power from 

 its hydro-electric plants on the New River in Virginia to the 

 Pocahontas coal fields, a distance of about 50 miles. 



Electro-chemical Industries. The industrial processes founded 

 upon electro-chemistry have a large and important part in the 

 manufacture of a very wide range of commercial products, such as 

 fertilizers, explosives, paper, wood pulp and numerous electro- 

 chemicals among which may be mentioned: aluminum, carbo- 

 rundum, alundum, silicon, graphite, calcium carbide, cyanamid, 

 ferro-silicon, ferro-chromium, ferro-manganese, caustic soda, 

 sodium, chlorine, chlorate, chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, etc. 



Table XIII, taken from the Report of the Bureau of Census, 

 gives comparative statistics for 1914 and 1909 of the production 

 of chemicals and allied commodities by means of electricity. 

 | The question of cheap water power is vital in connection with 

 electro-chemical industries, but, on the other hand, the location 

 of raw materials and the transportation facilities of the product 

 to the market centers is also of the greatest importance, and this 

 latter point has to a great extent been detrimental to a much 

 greater development of our western water powers for electro- 

 chemical products. Niagara Falls, on the other hand, forms an 

 ideal example of what cheap water power has done for this industry. 

 At this point are now situated the greatest electro-chemical indus- 

 tries in the world, not one of which was in existence when the 

 Niagara Falls Power Company began to take water from the 

 Niagara River to generate electricity. In the treaty of 1910 

 between the United States and Great Britain it was stipulated that 

 the volume to be diverted on the American side should be limited 

 to 20,000 cubic feet per second and on the Canadian side to 36,000 

 cubic feet per second. The volume of the water that can be 

 diverted at the Falls is thus limited to 56,000 cubic feet per second 

 until such time as the two Governments may determine to increase 



