the extreme-or, rather, we should say, it is wasteful in the extreme-to have a number of generating stations working on different systems, serving adjoining portions of the area. The committee which has been investigating this subject has presented a report in which there is no trace of doubt, reservation, or hesitation whatever. It shows that our existing system of electrical generation involves an absolute waste of fifty million tons of coal a year. There are six hundred electrical undertakings in Great Britain, and their average size is one-thirtieth of the size of a really economical power station unit. In only one part of England has an ideal electrical station been established, and that is on the northeast coast, with Newcastle as its head-quarters. Electrical power is available all over this area for less than a halfpenny a unit. Compare this with Lancashire, a larger and more densely populated area-in fact, the greatest industrial area in the world. In Lancashire there are twenty-three borough generating stations, and the charges per unit vary from three times to six times the charge in the Newcastle area. There can be no doubt that if the Lancashire district were supplied from one centre the cost of electric power in the county would instantly sink to even less than the price in Newcastle.

The attention of our engineers has very naturally been directed to the generation of power from coal or falling water. Nor can anything be more completely satisfactory than a water-power station in a situation where nature has provided the necessary head. But in our islands such opportunities exist only in small and isolated units, and the fluctuating character of our waterfalls is sufficient to convince us that the construction of a large installation is at the best a doubtful experiment. The amount of our rainfall is easily exaggerated. Figures of one hundred and thirty inches taken from one locality in Cumberland, and one hundred inches from one locality in Inverness, seem to show that the quantity is sufficient to justify a large experiment. But as a fact the areas over which such a fall occurs are exceedingly circumscribed. There are only five small patches of ground in which an average fall of more than eighty inches is recorded-one in the lake district, one in the Snowdon range, one in Ross, and one in Inverness; there may be a sixth not yet identified. But even including those isolated patches there are only

nine stations in Great Britain in which an average fall exceeding sixty inches has been recorded. It is therefore evident that in order to secure a steady head of water for a large installation, an extensive area has to be enclosed and converted into a water-tight reservoir. The recent project of the Aluminium Company involved the enclosure of two hundred and fifty square miles of country, and the expenditure of two and a half millions sterling. And, after all, it would have given employment to but a handful of people; whereas the expenditure of the same capital on two thousand separate wind-power stations might conceivably double the productive capacity of a considerable section of the population. There is, however, a possibility of providing water-power on a large scale on the coasts of these islands, provided only that we use sea-water and employ windmills to pump it. There are on the western coasts certain inlets with narrow entrance and considerable internal capacity. If the entrance were closed, up to the summit of the cliffs, a windmill or two on the top of the sea wall would suffice to maintain a head of one hundred and fifty feet of water. The cost of construction would be trifling when compared with the cost of an inland power station, while the cost of upkeep would be very small. There is one such fjord which, so treated, would furnish a power station comparable with any in Europe, but for the sake of our dwindling scenes of peaceful beauty we may hope that it will escape the notice of the large-power enthusiasts; for all England is not yet an industrial area, and we need something which, without involving the extension of the industrial areas, will render our handiwork more productive in the village and the countryside which yet remains unspoilt.

Let us imagine one form which a wind-power station might take. A steel shaft with four semi-cylindrical boxes at right angles, the shaft revolving in a cup which is itself secured by four chains extending to the ground, would constitute the motor, and it would be entirely unconnected with the main building except by the belting from the fly-wheel below to the shafting in the machinery annexe. The mill-house would consist of the central hall through which the shaft rises and in which the fly-wheel revolves. The four annexes would diverge from this central hall: one would contain dynamo

and gear, accumulator cells, and other electrical equipment; a second would contain circular saw, planing machine, and other wood-working appliances; a third would be devoted to chaffcutters, grindstone, root-pulpers, and other agricultural machinery; and the fourth would be reserved for looms, heavy sewing machines, or any other machinery likely to be in special demand in the district. When there was a working wind, power could be communicated direct to the shafting in one or other of the machine rooms; and when the machines were not in actual use it could be communicated through the dynamo to the accumulator cells, or else could be utilized to pump water into an elevated reservoir. If both reservoir and batteries were fully charged the belting could be withdrawn and the shaft left to revolve by itself.

The ground space occupied by such an installation need not exceed two acres; the building would require little strength or solidity, and might be constructed of the partition blocks with which necessity has recently made us familiar; the whole installation, of dimensions capable of giving forty horse-power with a fifteen mile breeze, could be erected for a few hundred pounds. If such a power-house were built in a suitable locality it would not take many months to outlive the first period of ridicule and neglect, and within two years many parish and district councils would desire to become possessed of their own stations, from which they could supply electric light and power in their own neighbourhood, and in which they could let the use of specific machinery at so much per unit or per hour.

There is even a possibility of the employment of windpower on a larger scale. In Denmark where small wind installations have been at work for some years, and where they have lately increased rapidly in number, a station intended to develop two hundred horse-power is now in contemplation for the use of a bacon factory. The project may be too ambitious, but that it should be in contemplation is proof that the plan has been a commercial success in a country in which the average wind-power is decidedly less than in Great Britain. And it may be added that certain devices recently invented by Professor La Cour of Copenhagen have completely solved the mechanical difficulties in the way of adjusting the variable power of the motor to the working

of a dynamo without injury to the accumulators from any sudden drop in wind energy.

Meanwhile the winds have another call upon us a call from the sea, no less insistent than that on land. They are constantly reminding us that we are an island people with vast dominions across the seas, and that our home is not only these islands but also these possessions and the ocean which lies between. In the crown colonies there are territories which have been in our possession for a hundred and fifty years-territories teeming with produce awaiting our handling, and yet in whose ports a British ship is rarely seen. Trade has not followed the flag, and one reason is that the sailing vessel has been neglected to the point of disappearance.

Here, again, as in the case of the windmill, it is advisable to consider the specific causes of disuse. Let us carry our minds back to the year 1830. A committee of the House of Commons was then sitting to consider the possibility of sending the Dublin and Holyhead mail by steamer. This, be it remembered, was nearly a generation after Fulton and Symington, and at a time when steamers had been plying on the Mississippi for twenty years. It was the time, moreover, when the experts, headed by Dr. Lardner, had demonstrated to their own satisfaction that useful as a steamer might be on a river it could not possibly undertake a long ocean voyage. Up to that time the winds had not merely ground our corn but had borne all our ocean traffic, maintained our colonial connexions, conducted our commerce, won our naval victories, and established our position in the world. 'Sea-power,' to use Mahan's phrase, then resolved itself into capacity for utilizing wind-power. It is largely the truth that our Empire was created, preserved, and sustained by our skilful use of the wind. But that era was already drawing to a close. With the improvement of marine engines, and especially with the great economy in fuel following the introduction of compound engines, Dr. Lardner's prediction that the steamer could not provide cargo space was falsified, although it was a perfectly reasonable objection at the time it was uttered.

There followed a period in which the sailing ship was so far developed and improved that it frequently distanced the steamer bound on the same voyage. But the screw and

the compound engine together decided the issue of the duel. Then came the question whether the new power could not be used in combination with sails. Many experiments, now forgotten, were tried with this object. The navy was very unwilling to part with the power which had so long been its prime mover. Even merchant shipowners were reluctant to part with the clippers which had built up their commerce. But in the course of experiments to combine sail and steam it became apparent that the space demanded by engine and boilers and bunker coal, together with the quarters of an engineering staff in addition to the large number of hands required by a full-rigged ship, were too great a tax on the cubic capacity of the hull and left little space available for cargo.

Now, if we consider the conditions of the problem we shall see that they have much altered since the days when it was dismissed as impracticable. The invention of the internal combustion engine with oil as fuel has reduced the space taken up by the engines by nine-tenths. It is now possible to fit a sailing ship with auxiliary screw and oil engines without interfering materially with her carrying capacity, and experimental voyages undertaken by the firm of Preuthout le Bland, of Havre, have demonstrated the commercial economy of the sailing ship so equipped. Moreover, for certain voyagesroutes in which the trade winds play an important part-it has been demonstrated both by German and French shipowners, before the war, that it is actually cheaper to tow a sailing vessel to the trades than to employ steam for the whole voyage. A fortiori with coal at double the price the advantage will be greater.

It has now become a matter of importance to us that our coal reserves should not be wasted in work which can be done equally well by power which is supplied to us gratuitously. Of the twenty million tons of coal which we annually export to our coaling stations abroad, a considerable portion might be carried by the wind, just as well as by steam. Part also of our annual imports might without disadvantage be carried by the same agency. But an even more important consideration is the opening up of trade routes to certain of our crown colonies which are neglected by the steam-ship because they do not afford sufficient VOL. 228. NO. 466.

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