American Forest Congress 295 



along nearly all industrial lines, but the need is perhaps 

 more pronounced in mining regions than it is else- 

 where. By far the greater number of our ore deposits 

 are of such low grade or are located so unfavorably 

 with reference to the utilization of coal or the other 

 more usual methods of power development that their 

 economical operation is out of the question. In many of 

 our mining camps coal costs from $10 to $15 per ton, 

 and at many of the mines its delivery, even at such 

 high rates, is impossible. 



The only practicable power in such cases is that 

 obtained from electrical energy, and it is to this force 

 that mine operators are turning. 



There is no doubt but that many times the amount 

 of power used in mining operations at present could 

 be utilized to advantage at prices that would well pay 

 capital to furnish it, provided the means for creating 

 the power could be depended upon. 



Electrical power may be generated in many ways, 

 but in none more practically or more beautifully than 

 by the use of water. Here a great dynamic is utilized 

 which would otherwise waste itself. We here avail 

 ourselves of one of Nature's resources without in any 

 way exhausting her reserve supplies as is done in the 

 present wasteful use of coal. Conditions may easily 

 be conceived — in fact, many such cases exist — where 

 a given water supply may be utilized several times 

 over in the development of power without diminution 

 in quantity or deterioration in quality, and be used 

 again finally for city water supply and in irrigation, 

 and the day is not far distant when all of the mountain 

 streams, with well sustained flow, will be utilized to 

 an extent now hardly dreamed of. 



The development of electrical energy on a commer- 

 cial basis upon a given stream and with a given fall 



