A POPULAR DELUSION.

Evening Post, Volume XXII, Issue 137, 10 December 1881, Page 4

A POPULAR DELUSION.

? r lho recent advanoes of electricity, writes the London Echo, have 1?& those only partially acquainted with tho subject to talk of the superceseion of the steam engine, and the other day the newly-elected member for North Durham spoke of electricity as a substitute for coal. Dr. Sienu-ns, Sir W. Thomson, and others made pointed allusions at the recent meeting of the British Association to this extraordinary delusion, but in many oases tho,y have been misreported. It must not be forgotten that electricity i 3 only a manifestation of energy —a mode of motion —and that it is in no sense a means of creating power. Ab Sir William Armstrong put ib in his address to section G, we can get power from wind and water ; but, from the aotion of chemical affinity, we are dependent for our supply of energy entirely on coal and tho other substances containing carbon. The great bulk of matter constituting tho earth has already had its chemical affinities satisfied ; but coal, peat, petroleum, and other substances containing carbon are still available for the production of energy by their combination with oxygen,and when our stores of coal are exhausted, wind and water will help xv little to keep up the necessary supply of power to our mills. . Sir W. Thomson, in fact, doubts whether we oan utilise the wind economically with cotil at its present price; and Mr. Hawksley stated that water-power could not be obtained at a much less cost than -61000 per horse-power for the capital ontlay. Mr. Crompton thinks it may be had for much less, but Mr. Hawksley i 3 probably the better judge of the cost An experiment is about to bo tried in the North of Ireland whioh will help to settle the question of tho actual cost of applying water-power to drive dynamo machines, and it is probable that some cheaper form of windmill may be devisod, which will be suitable for driving electric generators employed in charging accumulating batteries; but at present there is no doubt that, King Coal is the monarch of the industrial world, and that until wo can succeed in making wind and water our slaves at a small outlay we shall not be ablo to dispense with him.