1918.] The N.Z. Journal of Science and Technology. 23 
Transport. 
In railway transport New Zealand is still waiting, but in other countries 
maintenance-costs have been cut down, more reliable services maintained, 
more frequent trains run, stations abolished, and frequent motor-trains 
run as a tramway service, stopping at all road-crossings. Fast expresses 
have been made faster with heavy electric locomotives, and 800-ton mineral- 
trains increased in some cases up to 2,500 tons on the same grade and at 
better-scheduled times ; the smoke nuisance has been abolished, and road¬ 
side fires have been done away with. These possibilities are all available 
in Canterbury as soon as industrial and financial conditions will permit 
of the necessary conversion being undertaken. 
In road transport even greater changes are to come. The petrol-car 
has certainly reached a high state of development, and is very satisfactory. 
But it is still an explosion machine and an explosive machine : the pro¬ 
duction of power is violently intermittent and irregular. This reacts on the 
life of the engine, chassis, body, and tires, and on the comfort of the whole 
vehicle. The electric motor operated from a battery is the smoothest, 
steadiest, and most silent form of power possible. The cost of power at 
present prices is less than one-half of the cost of petrol, and the cost of 
repairs and maintenance proportionately low. It takes five minutes to 
learn all there is to learn in driving an electric car, and there is nothing to 
go wrong. From the national point of view it consumes only natural 
power from the mountains instead of petrol, for which we have to pledge 
our credit to a foreign nation to the amount of 2s. 6d. for every gallon 
consumed. 
The petrol-lorry running, say, fifteen miles to the gallon costs 2d. per 
mile for fuel only. The electric-battery car or lorry is garaged, examined, 
and charged up every night by the Christchurch City Council at £30 to 
£60 per year, according to capacity, ranging from \ ton to 3 tons of load— 
i.e., from 2s. to 4s. per day, giving a daily range of sixty miles. Even if j 
only forty-eight miles per day of this range can be utilized effectively the 
cost of electricity per mile run is only Jd. for a J-ton lorry or car, and up to 
Id. for a 3-ton lorry—a very substantial saving as compared with petrol. 
There are about a dozen such vehicles now in use in Christchurch for 
various purposes, and provision is being made in anticipation of this 
number increasing to five or six hundred in the near future. Fig. 4 shows 
the City Council electric-battery lorry for refuse and coal, which is not only 
propelled but also tipped by electric power. 
The problem of economy in the domestic delivery of milk, bread, and 
other commodities is engaging the attention of our local economists. The 
ultimate solution of this problem will certainly be expressed in terms of 
hydro-electric power. 
Chemical Industries. 
One of the sources of Germany’s strength has been her control of the 
chemical industries. Hundreds of thousands of horse-power of electricity 
were used to manufacture soda, potash, acids, carbide, nitrates, explosives, 
and dozens of other essential products. As a result of the war the cost 
of these chemicals in New Zealand has become practically prohibitive, 
and Germany has been enabled to carry on the war, which she could not 
have done without these products of electric power. 
Lake Coleridge power has already enabled sulphate of iron, formerly 
imported by the gasworks for purifying the gas, to be replaced by hydrate 
of iron produced from the old tins from the destructor. A further develop- 
