6i8 



NA TURE 



[October 19, 1905 



companies and thirty of the mines are taking power at 

 about one halfpenny a horse for an hour, the demand 

 three months ago having reached 13,000 horse-power, and 

 rapidly increasing. 



That the North-Eastern Railway, and such a large 

 number of manufactories along the Tyne, should, as seen 

 from that other diagram, take power from the lyneside 

 Electric Power Supply Company — which also has been but 

 four years in existence— was perhaps to be expected, but 

 that coal mines should obtain power by the burnmg of 

 the product of distant collieries resembles at first sight the 

 method of earning a living attributed to a certain village, 

 viz. by taking in one another's washing. 



But this result is but an example of the subdivision of 

 labour. At a coal mine getting coal, and at a gold mme 

 getting gold, is the business, and at both, especially in the 

 early days of sinking the mine, it should pay better to 

 buy electric energy from an outside source than to generate 

 the current on the spot. 



Niagara sends 24,000 horse-power to Buffalo, 30 miles 

 away, and sells it at o.-ji. per horse-power hour to an 

 eight-hour user there — a price which is not cheaper than 

 the total cost of generating a horse-power hour at Buffalo 

 with a large steam engine. But tapping electric wires to 

 obtain any amount of power that may be needed, and just 

 at the time that it is required, is far more convenient than 

 erecting steam engines and getting up steam, and certainly 

 cheaper in the early days of sinking a mine. 



It has been objected' that the total steam-power curves 

 of all the gold mines on the Rand show the same sort 

 of falling-off during the hours 4 to 7 a.m. and 5 to 8 p.m., 

 and, therefore, that, apart from using larger and more 

 economical engines, and from diminishing the cost of 

 superintendence for the energy sent out, there would be 

 no saving by supplying many mines with electric power 

 from a common generating station. But if there be a 

 railway in the neighbourhood, largely used by workmen, 

 the slack hours on the mines will be the busy hours on 

 the railway. Hence, if that railway be run electrically 

 from the same generating station, the load curve will be 

 llattened and much improved. 



<Jn the Rand, however, there is an indisposition, 

 apparently, to utilise distribution of power on a large 

 scale. The labour conditions in this country are certainly 

 peculiar. My friend Mr. Denny, in his book on " Deep 

 Level Mines of the Rand and their Future Development," 

 expresses this opinion — and there is no man whose opinions 

 on such matters I value more highly : — " It has, how- 

 ever, been fairly conclusively proved that in average con- 

 ditions hand labour is both speedier and cheaper than 

 machine drilling." 



But when one watches this hand labour one thinks of 

 this picture rather than that. Contrary to American and 

 .Australian experience, it may be true that in this country 

 white men and machinery may be dearer and slower than 

 black machinery and man rolled into one. But it makes 

 one uncomfortable, even unhappy, to think it possible, for 

 it means that the muscular machine is more valuable than 

 the inventor's brain. 



.\nother objection felt by mine owners here to investing 

 much capital in machinery is the somewhat uncertain 

 character of their business, and a third against a mine 

 depending for a supply of power on an electric current 

 coming from a distance is the climatic conditions. 



South Africa has various unique big things, but it has 

 not a monopoly of big atmospheric disturbances, and these 

 disturbances do not prevent electrical distribution of power 

 schemes being pushed forward by leaps and bounds in the 

 other three quarters of the world — the list given on p. 615 

 is merely a selection from some of those using the highest 

 working voltages. During my short stay in this country 

 I have Ijeen giving this matter much consideration. With- 

 out stopping this evening to discuss the subject in detail, 

 I may mention that, after the admirable work of Mr. 

 Wilms, Mr. Spengel, Mr. Heather, and others here on the 

 improvement of lightning arrestors for electric transmission 

 lines, I think I also see my way to putting a nail into 

 the colTin of these bugbear lightning troubles. 



But while advocating electric transmission of power I 

 should not start by constructing a transmission line from 

 the \'ictoria Falls to Johannesburg ; and I say that, not 



NO. 1877, VOL. 72] 



because 1 am of opinion that it could not be made to 

 work nor that, if direct current were used, it could not 

 be relied on to give as satisfactory results as, or even 

 better results than, some shorter existing ones on the 

 alternate current system, but because it does not appear 

 to me that along the route there is at present sufhcient 

 demand for power to justify as large an expenditure ot 

 capital as would be compatible with a transmission line 

 c86 miles long as the crow flies, and which would be no 

 less than 74S miles long if made along a railway through 

 Pietersbur" and Gwanda, should the missing stretch ot 

 railway between these two places ever be constructed. 



Those who hold the opposite view will doubttes urge 

 that when the Cataract Construction Company of Niagara 

 acquired in 1890 the right to use 100,000 horse-power and 

 a further right to use subsequently another 100,000 horse- 

 power it required an extraordinary belief in the future ot 

 electrical engineering to expect that 200,000 horse-pow.r 

 could ever be distributed at a price that could compete- 

 with large local steam engines, and they will ask, did 

 not even -Mr. George Westinghouse, in 1890, advise Mr. 

 Stetson the first vice-president of the Cataract Construction 

 Company, that it would only be by compressed an- 

 that power could be commercially transmitted from_ Niagara 

 to Buffalo? .And now what is the state of things? Power 

 House No. I, with ten 5000 horse-power dynamos, ha~ 

 been working for some time. Power House No. 2, with 

 eleven more 5000 horse-power dynamos, was completed 

 last year. Hence 105,000 horse-power can be developed. 

 and of this 75,000 horse-power is regularly distributed. 



Further, the Canadian Niagara Power Company is 

 constructing an electric station of an ultimate capacity of 

 110,000 horse-power, the Ontario Power Company an 

 electric station, a little lower down, of 200,000 horse- 

 power, and the Toronto Power Company one, a little 

 higher up, of 100,000 horse-power, all these three being 

 on the Canadian side. .^ 



.Also the Electric and Hydraulic Company, which in iSSi 

 started with a station, on the American side, to supply 

 only 1500 electrical horse-power, has in hand a third 

 station~which will bring its plant capacity up to 135,500 

 electrical horse-power. 



Consequently the total electrical horse-power that could 

 be sent out from these various Niagara power houses, 

 when completed, will approach 700,000 horse-power, and 

 represents about 30 per cent, of the water going over thi- 

 falls at the time of minimum flow. But taking into 

 account the further fact that water is already abstracted 

 to feed the Wetland Power Canal and the Chicago 

 Drainage Canal, and that other canals are projected, Mr. 

 A. D. .Adams has estimated that about 41 per cent, of the 

 minimum flow of Niagara will cease to pass over the falls. 

 In fact, I conclude that ihc water that will, in tin' new 

 futnrf, cease to pass over the Niailara Falls will be nearly 

 five times as large as the total amount passing over the 

 Victoria Falls this month, August.' 



The "Thunder of the Waters," the " Cataraa of 

 Fearful Height," in America, which have inspired us and 

 our ancestors with reverential awe, may appeal to our 

 descendants as only a vast electric generating station. 

 Very gratifying to us as engineers, extremely distressful 

 to us as lovers of the beautiful. 



Now what has caused this vast development in the 

 distribution of power, what is the secret of this extra- 

 ordinary success? It is that in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of the falls there have grown up works which take 

 some 60,000 horse-power, works which not only y\'ant 

 cheap power, but power in an electric form for electro- 

 chemical processes, and need it in an undiminished amount 

 day and night, week-day and Sunday. The Carborundum 

 Company, which manufactures emery's rival grinding 

 material, furnishes an absolutely steady load of 5000 electric 

 horse-power ; the Union Carbide Company 15,000, and so 

 on ; loads which, from their magnitude and their absoluie 

 steadiness, make the electric light engineer's mouth water. 

 Now what is the prospect of such a steady load grow- 

 ing up locally within, say, 3 miles of your falls? Even 



I The Resident Cc 

 to r/ii- rimes from Mafeking 

 said : — *' The volume of water 

 true, infinitely less en August 

 is less to day than il has ever I 



of the Becbuanaland Protectorate, wiii 

 the day after the delivery of thi.s lecM 

 passing over the (Victoria) Falls, was i 

 ^05, than on the same date in 1SS3. 



in the 



noryofr 



