HALF A CENTURY AGO AND TO-DAY. 



27 



machinery in the form of turbines, twenty in number, and eacli 

 1,000 h.p., by which the city is supplied with water, electric 

 light and motive power, all in almost unlimited quantity. 



There had existed since the year 1837 successive attempts 

 to utilize the waters of the Lower Ehone, but from various 

 causes they were insufficient to supply the demands of an 

 increasing population and prosperous connnunity. But at length, 

 in 1882, a concession was granted by the city of Geneva to the 

 enterprising engineers, MM. j\Ierle d'Aubigny and Turretini, to 

 construct the present powerful works. These turbines were 

 specially designed for the works at Geneva, and were manu- 

 factured at Zurich, the great centre of mechanical appliances in 

 Switzerland, by the firm of MM. Escher, Wyss and Co. The 

 force thus obtained operates a proportionate number of 

 powerful dynamos, and is distributed for industrial motive 

 power, as also for lighting and for water supply by centrifugal 

 pumps capable of throwing the water to a height of about 

 270 feet in the air above the surface of the lake. The total 

 cost of these works to December, 1905, reached 9,964,728 francs 

 (nearly £400,000), a very large sum for a population of about 

 106,000 souls ; but having been once carried out is almost 

 automatic, and is certainly inexpensive to keep going. Nature 

 has given compensation to Switzerland for the absence of coal. 

 Coal-fields are exhaustible, but the supply of water from the 

 snowfields can never fail as long as the present order of nature 

 lasts. 



Junction of the Rhone and A we. — A convenient causeway has 

 been constructed by which the visitor is enabled to stand just 

 over the spot where the pure waters of the Ehone, issuing from 

 the Lake of Geneva, come in contact w^ith the turgid waters of 

 the Arve — a most impressive sight ! Between lofty banks of 

 stratified gravel, once the bed of a vast lake of post-Glacial 

 times, these two fine streams move majestically onwards ; yet 

 do not their waters comminojle. Thev run side bv side for a lono- 

 distance ; but the level of those of the Ehone being somewhat 

 higher than those of the Arve, and their force and velocity 

 greater, the Ehone gradually pushes the Arve towards the 

 opposite bank, and gains the mastery. The difference of level 

 above the junction is shown by the fact that at several places 

 the somewhat open material of which the causeway is formed 

 allows the water of the Ehone to percolate underneath and 

 invade that of the Arve. May we not in this case of the rivers 

 find an illustration of the two great principles which govern 

 mankind and which Scripture clearly unfolds to us, for instance, 



