122 
POPULAE SCIENCE NEWS. 
[August, 1S90. 
electric current protliiced by tlicm is trans- 
formed into heat, which is used to produce 
steam in the boilers, and set engines in 
motion, which, in their turn, operate the 
dynamos, thus completing the circle of trans- 
formations of energy. It is claimed that the 
apparatus, when once started, will not only 
nm itself, but produce a surplus of power 
which can be used for industrial purposes. 
This brilliant scheme would have a very 
plausible appearance to one unacquainted 
with the principle of the conservation of 
energy, but it is a scientific and mathematical 
impossibility. No power can possibly be 
produced without the expenditure of energy 
previously stored up, and there is no better 
or cheaper way of doing this than by the 
burning of coal, in which the radiant energy 
of the sun, stored up in past geological times, 
has been awaiting the coming of man for 
countless ages. 
LIMITATIONS OF ELECTRICITY. 
A iMtoMixENT railway financier has recently 
been reported as saying that in five years 
every railroad in this country will be nm by 
electricity, and there will be no further use 
for the thousands of locomotives now in 
service. If the- gentleman ever did hazard 
any such rash prediction, it only illustrates 
the old proverb about the shoemaker sticking 
to his last, for there is a wide gulf fixed 
between the financial reorganization of a rail- 
road, and the practical operation of its trains. 
We do not believe that it is practically 
possible to operate an ordinary railroad by 
electric power. It would require the erection 
of immense power houses every few miles, 
fitted with costly steam engines and dynamos, 
which must be arranged to develop many 
hundred times the power required to operate 
the street railways of a city, and the expense 
would be much greater than tliat of the loco- 
m )tives now in use. The uncertainty of this 
form of power would also be an objection ; 
stoppages of the entire traffic for periods 
varying from five minutes to several hours are 
n )t imcommon on electric street railways at 
t'.ie present time, and, while this is a compar- 
itively unimpoitant affair on a short local line, 
it would be a very serious matter in the case 
of a great railroad with its humlreds of trains. 
The economy of electricity as applied to 
street railways is found in the fact that if 
displaces the much more costly form of power 
in the shape of horses previously in use. 
Electric power is produced by burning coal ; 
h jrse power by burning hay and grain. If the 
conditions were such that locomotives could 
be used in the streets of a crowded city, and 
tie cars run in long trains instead of sepa- 
rately and at frequent intervals as at present, 
t'.ie electric form of power could not be used 
in competition with that produced directlv in 
the boiler of the locomotive. It is a matter 
of convenience and especial adaptability to the 
conditions required in operating a street rail- 
way, that renders electricity so successful, 
and not any particular economy of this form 
of eneigy. 
The great error almost invariably made 
by persons unfamiliar with the subject, is in 
considering electricity as a source of unlimited 
power in itself, when, in reality-, it is only one 
of the many manifestations of energy, and a 
convenient way of applying power previously 
produced. A current of electricity is like a 
current of water. It gives out power in 
falling from a higher to a lower potential, 
just as the water turns the mill-wheel as it 
falls from a higher to a lower level, but neither 
have any power in themselves. The radiant 
energy of the sun has lifted the water from 
the ocean to the hills, and the same radiant 
energy has been stored up in the coal plants 
of previous ages, and is liberated and trans- 
formed into power in the furnaces and boilers 
of our modern steam engines. Whether this 
power shall be used directly, as in a locomotive 
engine, or passed through the intermediate 
form of electricity, as in the street railway 
motors, is a question to be decided by special 
conditions, and these conditions in the case 
of a long line of railroad are such that we 
have no hesitation in saying that it will always 
remain impracticable to operate such trains 
by electric motors, and there will probably be 
no radical change in the present type of steam 
locomotive for many years to come. Electric- 
ity is a very convenient means of applying a 
limited amount of power, but it is only a 
manifestation or form of energy, and in no 
sense a source of energy or power in itself. 
[Original in Papular Science Alron.] 
THE WATER-WAYS OF NEW MEXICO. 
BY MRS. M. J. GORTON. 
Onk hundred and fifty million acres of land were 
captured as lawful prey from Mexico by the United 
State* government in 1848. Part of the State 
of Colorado, the Territory of Arizona, and the 
Territory of New Mexico were the result of General 
ICearney's prize stake when Mexico came to settle 
with her conqueror. Of this large area of land, 
New Mexico has taken witJiin her borders seventy- 
nine millions of acres. This Territory is a parallelo- 
gram in shape, and has no natural boundaries on 
either of its four sides. The Rocky Mountains 
extend from north to south through the centre 
of the land, and the Rio Grande River, the natural 
sluice-way for the electric generated water-flow, 
of the upheaved barren skeleton ribs, of the rocky 
heights lying perpetually snow-crowned and mist- 
enwreathed, extending its huge length down through 
this land of the sun, gives rise also to the many 
mountain torrent tributaries of the Rio Grande. 
Looking upward to the battlemented crowns of these 
majestic peaks, marking the scars and furrowed 
gashes wrought by the terrific force of the thunder- 
bolt, and noting the devastating ravages left to 
mark the fierce liattles of the elements amid the 
surging whirl of these frothy, mistyi billowy-woven, 
storm-drenched heights, it is with tlie force of logical 
certainty that we note the signs of the scenes when 
the over-gorged channels of the mountain brooks 
overflow as they tear and dash down to the bosom 
of the turbid Rio Grande, carrying devastation in 
the onward path, during the wet season. Althou-^h 
seen when the lost, lonely stream was meandering 
through the bleached waste land, murmuring under 
the glare of a semi-tropical sun, it was easy to 
imagine the broad margins, the foaming surges 
of the Rio Grande and its tributaries, wlien it cov- 
ered the thirsty land and justly appropriated the 
descriptive title of the "Nile of New Mexico." 
The destruction of fields, vineyards, and orchards 
during the short wet season is of vast proportions. 
The river, in its course down through the sun- 
parched land, carries with it the vast water-power 
conveyed by such a great volume of water, as there 
is a fall in the river from ten to twenty-five feet per 
mile almost the whole length of its course through 
klie Territory. Thus the wealth from the heavens, 
so necessary to the development of the fertilization 
of the arid land, not only rushes aw.ay in needless 
waste, but is a power for destruction in its onward 
course, when it might be made a benefit. Water- 
storage with capacity to fertilize 30,000,000 acres 
of land, dashing down in its headlong course, carry- 
ing havoc and destruction, to subside and leave 
thirst and famine for the wasted product. A system 
of reservoirs and canals to save this surplus of the 
drainage of the uplands would serve two purposes : 
stop the destruction of property during the wet 
period, and reclaim the barren wasie and make 
it tillable land by irrigation during the dry season. 
During the past yegr there were over twenty irrigat- 
ing companies formed, with the direct end in view 
of forming commercial leagues to utilize the re- 
sources of the Territory by saving the vast waste 
water of the flood period of (he year. But unless 
the plea of statehood be allowed, it is difiicult for 
the local government to interfere in the interests 
of this much-needed improvement. 
The principal river in the Territory is the Rio 
Grande. It rises in southwestern Colorado, at an 
elevation of nearly 12,000 feet. Flowing through 
the centre of the Territory, the broad valley extend- 
ing on either hand gives indications of the great 
lake of the glacial period once penned up in the 
western and northern sections, and which in lime 
wore itself an outlet, rived out, in Rio Grande. 
The tributaries on the west are the San Andres, 
Chama, Jemez, Puerco, Alamosa, Chucillo Negro, 
Los Animas (lost souls), and Polomas; from the 
east, Costilla San Christobal, Uondo, Taos, Picuris, 
Santa Cruz, Namba, Santa Fe, Galisteo, Tuerto, 
and Alamilla. 
The Rio Colorado (Canadian) River drains the 
northeastern part of the Territory, flowing into the 
Arkansas. Its chief tributaries arc the Cimarron, 
Mora, Sapello, Concho, I'.ijarito, Ute, and Truillio 
Revuelta. 
The central, eastern, and southeastern lands are 
drained by the Pecos, with its tributaries, which 
debouches ftbout the Santa Fe range of mountains, 
and finds its way into the Rio Grande. The main 
feeders are the Vaca, Tecolote, Bernal, Gallinas, 
Salado, Geso, Spring, Vondo, Feliz, Atra.sco, 
I'auasco, Seven Rivers, Black, and Delaware. 
The northwestern mesas and alkali plains are 
drained by the San Juan and its tributaries — Pinos, 
Narijo, Animas, La Plata, and Mancos. The 
Puerco of the west, the Zuni and Tiilerosa Rivers 
are in the far west. The San I'rancisco, Rio Gila, 
and Rio Membres are found in tlie cacti plains and 
alkali lands of the extreme southwest. Springs 
and numerous small streams, and the arroyos found 
all over the Territory, testify to nature's abundant 
providing of the precious fluid. 
It remains for human skill to treasure and apply 
