July 30, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



97 



types of power, fuel, engines, cars, and other 

 equipment that enter into the problem. In 

 other words, the costs of the means of trans- 

 portation should be lessened rather than the 

 price to the public increased. The answers 

 to these questions will be obtained very 

 largely by the investigator. 



Intimately bound up with this whole ques- 

 tion is that of public highways and their 

 function as means of transportation. The 

 motor truck or some similar and, I hope, 

 more efficient vehicle, seems destined to revo- 

 lutionize the methods of the interchange of 

 products, certainly within the confines of rea- 

 sonably limited areas. But in this matter, as 

 in scores of others affecting intimately the 

 welfare of mankind in this country, we have 

 pursued a policy of laissez faire. We have 

 bonded the state, taxed the people, built the 

 roads, watched them crumble to dust and 

 have then bethought ourselves of the desir- 

 ability of an investigation of the principles 

 of road making and of road materials. Un- 

 questionably we shall awake in time to the 

 necessity of a careful, thorough, extended in- 

 vestigation of the whole question of transpor- 

 tation. When that time comes the country 

 will inevitably turn to the scientist for aid 

 ill solving the problem. The opportunity is 

 inviting and I trust we shall have men 

 trained for the work. 



THE PEOBLEM OF INCREASING THE SOURCES OF 

 PHYSICAL POWER 



The third problem to which I referred, 

 namely, that of the need of increased or 

 entirely new sources of physical force or 

 power is a larger and really more basic ques- 

 tion. The railroads of this country in 1918 

 used approximately 165,000,000 tons of coal. 

 What the marine and stationary engines used 

 during that year I do not know but the aggre- 

 gate must have been large. From all of this 

 vast amount of coal consumed in the United 

 States for the purpose of generating force, 

 approximately 90 per cent, of its heat was 

 never delivered as mechanical power by the 

 engines in whose boilers it was burned. What 

 an overwhelming waste? And simply be- 



cause of our present inability to avail our- 

 selves of anything like the total inherent 

 force or power that lies within this costly, 

 steadily decreasing product, coal. In what 

 dire need the world is of this latent but lost 

 power! How much labor, energy, money, 

 cargo-space, ships, and cars now used in 

 mining and transporting coal could be de- 

 voted to other lines of industry and commerce 

 if only one half of the latent power of this 

 mineral could become available and that is 

 the task that confronts the scientist. The 

 last word on the means of utilization of this 

 vast waste of power has certainly not been 

 said. 



Oil, our other great natural commodity 

 from which we obtain physical power is 

 already in greater demand than it can be 

 supplied from oixr own fields. The situation 

 is already acute and in less than a score of 

 years the supply in the United States promises 

 to be exhausted. Either new sources of oil 

 must be found or some substitute must be 

 produced. 



Electricity, another of oiu" great forces is 

 now awkwardly obtained by expensively har- 

 nessing some mighty stream or by wasting 

 nearly all of the latent power of coal to 

 capture, as it were, this omnipresent, illimit- 

 able agency of force. There ought logically 

 to be some method by which we could avail 

 ourselves of this force in a more direct way — 

 by reaching out, as it were, and taking it. 



At the best then our present sources of 

 physical power are very inadequately avail- 

 able or are hopelessly declining. In either 

 event something must be done and done in 

 the immediate future or we shall revert to 

 semi-primitive conditions. It is to the sci- 

 entist that we must look in large measure for 

 the solution of this vital question. 



In considering then, these three problems 

 one can not fail to be impressed with the 

 seriousness of the situation. In confirmation 

 allow me to relate briefiy a recent experience. 

 Within the last week I received a letter from a 

 company in ITew York City saying, " we can 

 not make shipment of your material from 

 New Jersey but we think we may be able to 



