608 


engineers whose experience evidently did not include 
such electrical details. 
Seventeen years ago it was suggested that Victoria 
Falls (Figs. 1 and 2) : would supply Johannesburg, and 
I have preserved a copy of the original prospectus of the 
company, including a map of the proposed transmission 
over a distance of 600 miles from the water- -power across 
and into coal-mining districts. The company which was 
then floated has paid handsomely ; but it wisely burns 
coal and says nothing about water-power. Even the 
hotel at Victoria Falls is lit by an oil engine. Similarly, 
if an examination is made of the super power zone in 
the United States, which embraces the great industrial 
area in the Eastern States, it will be found that it 
approaches within 200 miles of Niagara Falls, where 
many millions of horse-power run to waste, but it is 
NATURE 

[May 5, 1923 
developed for 5,000,000/. less in first cost than the 
estimate for that tidal power; the estimate, in my 
opinion, was not half enough to do the work specified. 
We might allow this scheme to rest in peace, since 
the Geddes axe was first sharpened for use on the pro- 
moters of it; but, from time to time, it is brought 
forward as practicable. If one reads the Interim 
Report on Tidal Power by the Board of Trade Water- 
Power Resource Committee, it will be seen that nothing 
more costly than further investigation and study of the 
complications involved was recommended by that 
Committee ; and the Electricity Commissioners dis- 
sociated themselves from any knowledge of the power- 
house, two miles long, with railway trains using the 
power-house as an economical bridge across the river. 
We have an example of a corporation electricity 
supply being changed from a financial 


Fic. 2.—Victoria Falls; part of main falls. 
not suggested that power should be derived from | cerning which, I believe, it was an American who 
Niagara for that super power zone. 
It is also true that Niagara power is delivered 270 
- miles from the Falls. The selling price (by Govern- 
ment, without profit) in bulk to the towns at that 
distance is three times the selling price for similar 
power near the Falls. There is always an excess of 
water at Niagara Falls. Under other conditions, for 
example, where summer flow is limited and cheap coal 
is available, it might be easy to prove that it is cheaper 
to generate ‘electricity locally from coal than to transmit 
water-power so far. 
Tidal-power fascinates every one who studies it ; 
and when our coal supplies are much nearer depletion 
than at present, it may be utilised on a large scale. 
By courtesy of the British South Africa Company. 

The Ministry of Transport published a scheme (since | 
withdrawn) for developing tidal power on the river 
Severn, and said that the power was so vast that it 
exceeded “all the potential sources of inland water- 
power in the United Kingdom put together.” But 
two and a half times the power proposed for develop- 
ment in the Severn exists in other parts of the British 
Isles, where it is free from the irregularity due to the 
variation in the times of the tides, and it can be 
NO. 2792, VOL. IIT] 
burden on the rates to a satisfactorily 
profitable undertaking in the report 
of the Chester electrical engineer, 
Mr. S. E. Britton, by utilising a small 
head of water (which varies from 
nothing up to 8-5 feet, because the 
tide comes up to the water-power 
plant’s discharge). In seven years, — 
on a capital of 56,000]. in steam- 
plant, there has been a relative loss 
of 15,000].; while 18,000/. capital 
invested in the water-plant has 
shown 82,00o/. profit, leaving a net 
profit of about 67,000/.; but it is 
essential to realise that this water- 
power cannot be utilised for a satis- 
factory statutory supply of electricity 
in Chester without the steam-plant 
to produce current from coal when 
the water-power is not available (due 
to high tide or to insufficient flow in 
the river). 
Shawinigan in Canada is an ex- 
ample of a beautiful waterfall con- 
wrote : 
At every waterfall two Angels stay, 
One clothed in rainbows, the other veiled in spray. 
The first, the beauty of the scene reveals; 
The last revolves the mighty water-wheels. 
And there those two fair sisters ever stand, 
Utility and Beauty, hand in hand. 
To-day, instead of standing to be admired, ““ Beauty ” 
is to be found voluntarily undertaking some useful 
work. 
The water at Shawinigan Falls now flows down 
inside pipes. Where, in the days of Beauty, only an 
occasional sportsman visited the falls, is to be found - 
to-day a town of 12,000 inhabitants, ‘amply provided - 
with work and wages by the water-power which is | 
utilised for various electro-chemical manufactures, as 
well as for supplying the cities of Montreal and Quebec — 
| with electricity. 
In Ireland the writer carried out surveys of the 
power available in the largest rivers, for ‘the Irish. 
+ 
« 

i 
* 
} 
: 
Hydro-Electric Syndicate and for the Water-Power 
Resources of Ireland Sub-Committee under the chair- 
manship of Sir John Purser Griffith, and has shown 
