CII. RELATION OF ELECTRICITY TO IRRIGATION WORKS. 
In this manner there would be the means of obtaining the 
best possible load factor and electricity could be produced 
under the best and cheapest possible conditions. 
Assuming that a suitable tract of country can be found 
not far from coal supplies, with a fertile soil, and water 
which only needs pumping, electric transmission lines could. 
be run overhead to pumping stations, and from the same 
lines power could be provided for operating interurban light 
railways, lighting townships, driving saw mills and other 
machinery, and in fact for all those purposes to which 
electricity is at the present moment so widely and usefully 
applied. Such a system need not necessarily involve an 
enormous capital outlay at the commencement, for the 
system is flexible to a degree and capable of extension to 
almost any extent as may be necessary. 
The first long distance transmission was between Lauffen 
and Frankfort, over a distance of 106 miles, and the follow- 
ing results were attained: At an EK.M.F. of 25,000 volts 
from line to line, or 14 to 15,000 volts between each line 
and earth 180 horse power could be transmitted with an 
efficiency of 75% through conductors weighing about 11 cwt 
to the mile. This enterprise was carried through success- 
fully ten years ago, since when many improvements have 
been made and higher efficiencies of transmission attained. 
In California many prophesied disastrous failure for the 
transmission companies, but experience has proved the 
existence of a demand for power far in excess of all antici- 
pations, and the difficulty is not so much to find the 
customers as to find power for them. Why are not develop- 
ments of this nature possible in Australia? Is it absence 
of water, absence of suitable climate, absence of fertile 
soil or absence of enterprise ? 
~ So far as the cheap production of electricity, and its 
economical transmission over long distances are concerned, 
these are matters which are no longer experimental or 
doubtful, but can be determined with a high degree of 
accuracy, when the conditions and requirements of any 
particular case are known. 
