CHAPTER V 



WATER POWER AND OTHER CONSERVED RE- 

 SOURCES 



AT present man draws power only from coal, 

 oil and gas, which are consumable earth prod- 

 ucts whose exhaustion is already dimly foreseen, 

 and from streams whose possibilities are limited. 

 After present power sources are no longer able to 

 supply human needs, we shall draw it from the tides, 

 the sun, the internal heat of the earth, the earth's ro- 

 tation, and atmospheric electricity. Here, we deal 

 principally with water power, the earth's possibilities 

 of which the United States Geological Survey es- 

 timated in 1921 at 441,000,000 horse-power; of this 

 a quarter part, untouched, was located in the basin 

 of the Congo. 



Water power in the United States was esti- 

 mated several years ago by O. C. Merrill, Executive 

 Secretary of the Federal Power Commission, at 50,- 

 000,000 potential horse-power, of which 30,000,000 

 would become commercially available. Upon these 

 figures our national establishment has been founded. 

 Since then extensive surveys by national and state 

 governments, corporations and private engineers 

 have extended knowledge greatly, warranting a Geo- 

 logical Survey estimate in 1928 of 80,000,000 horse- 



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