128 BULLETIN 102, VOL. 1, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



nized. Ordinarily, under such conditions, sporadic activities ap- 

 pear over the even surface of apathy as precursors to an organized 

 effort to follow. In this case there has been an obstacle to check 

 such sporadic beginnings. It is the obstacle of initial cost express- 

 ing itself in the matter of electric transmission lines. In meeting 

 this aspect of the situation we come face to face with the third ele- 

 ment of our major theme of discussion — the facilities best suited to 

 advantageous transportation. 



FACILITIES OF TRANSPORTATION AS APPLIED TO POWER. 



We have seen from our discussion thus far that full utilization of 

 the energy materials in distributive use involves the constructive 

 application of the principle of multiple production, and that the 

 advance elimination of weight is concerned with the generation of 

 electric power in centralized relationship to coal fields and water- 

 power sites.^ The nature of these issues and the problem they afford 

 have been explored, and it now remains to trace the issue concerned 

 with the provision of adequate facilities for the transportation of 

 energy in concentrated form. 



Energy is practically the only natural resource product susceptible 

 of concentration which is shipped broadcast in the crude condition. 

 The dictates of demand, it is true, still call for a large proportion 

 of the supply in the crude state, and to this extent concentration in 

 advance is obviously impracticable.^ But the order of requirement 

 is changing rapidly, and even now over one-fourth of the call is foi 

 the concentrated product — electricity. Yet, as we have seen, there 

 has been no progressive change in practice to correspond. It is as 

 if our gold supply were shipped in the crude state of its native 

 occurrence for concentration at the market centers instead of at 

 the mine; for whereas the degree of material concentration effected 

 on behalf of gold is considerably over 99 per cent, the attainment 

 possible on the side of energy is a full 100 per cent. There is just 

 one important difference between the two instances. Refined gold is 

 adapted to haulage by the conventional means of transportation at 

 hand, fully as much so, indeed, as the ore from which it is derived. 

 But refined energy is not. It can not be loaded in freight cars or 

 done up in express packages. The alternatives lie in providing 

 special facilities of transportation or else hauling the crude material 

 in all its excess bulk for concentration at the points of use, and the 



1 It is only as applied to organized transportation that tlie issues of advance concen- 

 tration and multiple production are strictly complementary. The recovery of by-products 

 is just as feasible and desirable in connection with carboelectric superpower stations cen- 

 tralized in respect to coal sources as it is in connection with any set of operations 

 centralized with reference to consumptive demand, as, for example, in the case of gas 

 manufacture. 



2 Except in so far, of course, as a change in the supply would modify the demand. 



