ELECTRIC POWER.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 17985, 31 January 1924, Page 5

ELECTRIC POWER.

PROPOSED WORLD CONFERENCE. Power, if we only realised it, is the fundamental problem of life—power being of course, the invisible force by •vvhieh any piece of mechanism functions, states a writer in the "Illustrated Carpenter and Builder." Its simplest manifestations are in wind and running water. But it is also pent up in the earth —in oil and coal. Harnessed to some mighty river or extracted from its material prison-house, it lights and warms big cities and drives the wheels of industry. Before power can be utilised some appliance is necessary for its transmission. To use the' wind we need a sail to link it to our boat; we need sails of another type to transmit it to the mill or the artesian well. The energy in oil and coal must first be released; its transmission then demands devices more complicated. "White Wizard. It is in this question of transmission that the manifold problems of power begin. Niagara, for example', yields energy to the tune of 8,000,000 horsepower. Formerly this all ran. to waste. Harnessed and transmitted, it now drives all the principal industries, provides all the lighting and heating, and runs all the surface tramways within a distance of a hundred miles. There is, indeed, no technical reason why the power of a great river or a fall should not be transmitted over twice or thrice that area; the only difficulty is the cost. The engineer's bill must not be so heavy that the price of power at the other end is prohibitive.

Cheap power, and plenty of it, is essential to national progress, and the nation that has it in the biggest magnitude at the cheapest price will,_ other things being equal, eventually outsrip all others, not merely in the markets of the world, but also in the amplitude of! its social amenities, and consequently in the health and happiness of its people.

Where power is cheap the burden of daily life is lightened. In countries where water power is abundant it is brought to your very door. The farmor uses- it to drive his implements. By means of a simple device he taps the wires that pass his farm, and so links up his tiny maehino with the thundering waters fifty miles away. Even his wife shares in the benefit, for by it she washes, mangles, and irons her clothes; by it she bakes and boils and toasts; by it she churns her butter and hatches her chicks. Problem of Cost. "White coal," is, in short, tho wizard of development in the newer countries. In Great Britain we depend more on coal and gas and oil. But even with these we come down evenutally to the question of cost. Not lack of technical ingenuity, not want of mechanical skill, but cost is the limit to the wider diffusion and the more universal application of power. That i 3 why the great World Power Conference which Britain has summoned for the present year is fraught with such promise. In this assembly the experts of a score of

nations will pool their experience, so that ways and means for the more economical development and distribution of power may be devised. Perhaps we have reached" the last word in the harnessing of rivers, the delving for coal, the burning of oil. I say perhaps, for tho point is bv no means certain. But it is not there alone, at the fountain head, that the matter ends; important economies may be effected by the perfection and standardising of parts; by tho utilisation of by-products and waste: by tho elimination of overlapping, and the simplification of methods and processes, especially of distribution. A Dream of Power. It was Britain who conceived the idea of the AVorld Conference, and by its success every one of us stands to gain. AVhen petrol drops threepence a gallon we demand cheaper taxis; when gas is cheaper we get. more light for our penny in the slot; when the power station that feeds our trains and trams is more economically operated we properly look for a reduction in fares. Think what it would mean for the overworked housewife if her domestic machinery were run by the touch of a switch; if her bedrooms and passageways were warmed in winter and cooled in summer by the pressing of a button; if the gas, oil, and electric light bills were less per annum than they now are per quarter. "A Dream," you say, "and fantastical at that!" Perhaps. But there are economies and inventions still to bo devised as great as the industrial application of steam or those boons associated with the name of Marconi. THE WOOD BORER. INVESTIGATIONS IN N.S.W. A bulletin on wood borers issued from the New South Wales Technological Museum will probably be found of agreat interest to many people, for the damaged caused by borers to timber in New South Wales is, without doubt, increasing from year to year, states the "Sydney Morning Herald." The trouble is of direct importance to the architect, builder, furniture manufacturer, and householder. Most people are entirely ignorant of the habits of the borer, and it is with a view to disseminating the results of investigation into the insects' life and outlining precautions to bo taken against its destructiveness that the bulletin has been issued. .Tho authors, Mr T. G. Roughley, economic zoologist and Mr M. B. Welch, B.Sc, economic botanist, have discharged their task thoroughly yet simply. Though few species of forest trees are immune from borers, Messrs Jtougliley and Welch direct attention mainly to tho type of borers which infect seasoned timber and those which confine their attention to unseasoned wood. Referring to the latter, it is recommended that to minimise risk tho bark should be stripped from logs as soon as possible after being felled, so that the surface may dry quickly and lose its attraction for the beetle. The life cycle of the beetle has not beon accurately established, and pending further research it is considered imperative that no time should be lost in milling, particularly in the case of cabinet timber, and that treatment by

creosote should be resorted to. Should the borer sain entry to the green log tha only effective treatment is that of steaming in a stesm boK. A Destructive Porcigner. The borer most destructive to Beasoned timber is the grub of the "powder post beetle," an insect first detected in but spread thence by commerce all over the world. It is the grub Q r larva, living on the tissues of the wood, which does practically the whole of tho damage in tho interior of tho timber; it is the beetto •.vliicli hores tho so-called "flight holes" seen on the surface. Tho first external evidence of borer attack is usually indicated by small heaps 6f powder coining from pinholes. These holes aro made by beetles leaving tho timber, and not, as is often conjectured, by the grubs Whilst tho holes seen on ths surface may be few in numbei, *h<» grubs may have been devouring the interior of the wood for 12 months or more, and very considerable 4amage may have been done during this time, without showing any signs of infestation. It is frequently thought that the grub bures the holes'to the surface and crawls away in search of other timber, into which it penetrates and begins its work of destruction anew. This, - however, is entirely erroneous. In the first place it carefully avoids coming to the surface, for when once there it is entirely helpless. Although provided with d pan- of eyea and t.hree pairs of legs, these organs are very and it can neither pes nor crawl about. In,the second place, it cannot bore ita way into timber from the outsido. Responsibility of Millers. The powder post borer does ranch. damage to hardwoods, "such, as scantlings, floorings, and joists, but it confines its, activity to sapwood, or timber from the outer portion of the log. It also attacks the sapwood of J'asmanian oak, cedar, Japanese oak, maple, myrtle, silk, oak, and other woods. In condemning the milling sapwood the authors of £he pamphlet say: "The principal 60Urce of the trouble iies in the milling of immature logs. Mill? operating in the vicinity of Sydney have in tho past supplied timber in which a very great percentage of the wood consisted of sap. in a recent inspection of a. number '(about 400) of church Beats. 90 per cent, were found to be damaged by the powder post borer. This was found to be due entirely to the use of spotted gum saplings, which could not have been much more than" six inches in diameter. Such narrow-sighied business methods are doing incalculable harm to the reputation of our magnificent hardwoods, which are undoubtedly equal to any timbers in the world. The use of edgings for cutting into small dimensioned battens for tiles, etc., cannot be too strongly condemn, ed. It should be made illegal to dispose of sapwood intended for cons|ructional work, unless it is previously given some approved treatment."

The life history of the furniture, grub and beetle. resembles that of the powder post beetle in its essentials, with this main difference, that whilst the powder post beetle deposits its eggs in the pores of the wood the" former lays them in cracks and crevices. There is a difference in habit, too, for tho powder post beetle shows a partiality for newly-seasoned timber, but the furniture beetle has a decided preference for wood which is old and thoroughly dry. The_ use of creosote, ortho-dichlor-benzine, turpentine, corrosive sublimate, and arsenate or eoda is recommended as deterrents and eradicators. But the most positive of all remedies is heat.