NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17351, 24 December 1919, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

LIGHT AS A DEFENCE

One unexpected result of the London railway strike was the introduction of " flood" lighting. At the Hyde Park milk depot searchlights were employed to assist in transport and in loading and unloading. The ordinary army projector is rather a crude device for this purpose although it served well enough in an emergency. The other application was of a more orthodox character. The roadway alongside Lot's Road power station from which London's underground railways are worked, was flooded with light from projectors, which enabled the sentries to scrutinise everybody and everything that came near the building. Whether, any trouble was contemplated by the strikers or not, the flood lighting was an effective discouragement to any tendency in that direction.

RAISING TORPEDOED SHIPS. Owing to the large number of valuable ships sunk by submarines in comparatively shallow water near the British Isles special attention has lately been given by British inventors to the improvement of salvage methods. The present system involves the towing of lighters to the scene of operations and a complicated series of underwater operations which make the process so costly and hazardous that in many cases the venture is neither feasible nor profitble. A new method was recently tried, with conspicuous success, on a vessel which had been sunk by enemy action off the coast of Scotland. The salvage boat I had on board two flexible pontoons made of special canvas and cable, and each weighing about one ton. These pontoons were fixed to the hull of the sunken vessel and inflated with compressed air, raising the vessel slowly and permitting it to be towed into shallow' water for beaching. Each pontoon when inflated is capable of lifting 100 tons, and the makers are confident of being able to make similar pontoons with a lifting capacity of 200, 300, and even 500 tons. By multiplying the number of large pontoons, vessels of any size can be raised, provided that divers can reach the hull in order to fix shackles to it. There is thus a possibility of raising the Lusitania. A battery of 80 pontoons, each of 500 tons lifting capacity, would be sufficient to lift the vessel so that it could be towed into shallow water where it could be repaired, pumped out' and refloated at high tide.

ELECTRICITY IN ONTARIO. The remarkable development of hydroelectricity in Ontario is described in the British journal, Engineering. The Ontario power system is one of the most important enterprises of its kind on the North American continent. It develops over 200 000 horse-power, which it sells to the people of Ontario, chiefly m the south-west portion of the province, and is rapidly extending its operations. Were the power now being supplied to be obtained from coal even in fairly large, modern, generating stations, over 2,000,000 tons would be re quired and 4000,000 tons in industrial plants, the value of which would be approximately from £2,000,000 to £4,000 and as Ontario has no coal, this money would have to go out of the province The original idea ° the earlier Ontario Power Commission, actually to develop and generate power at Niagara Falls to abondoned, as there were then in existence three large generating companies at the falls, on the Canadian side, which were in a position to furnish large quantities of power, and as it was not desired to interFere unfairly with these companies, they were asked to submit tenders for the sunply of power. A favourable tender having been submitted by the Ontario Power Company, a contract was entered into with fust TSY 0 ' 100,00 ° horse -PO-er, the hist 25,000 horse-power to cost 39s per horse-power year, and the remainder 37s 6d per horse-power year, for 24 hour P hTl^K th 8 r Provided that the power JflS ddlvered in blocks commencing with 8000 horse-power, increasing as the commission should require in blocks of JnnnnS ?" power until , the maximum of 100,000 horse-power should be reached lhe action of the commission in making a contract for so arge an amount of power" was very severely criticised on the ground that it would be many years before the rf f^t C ° n ti raCt was . uti 'ised. As a matter ot tact the commission exhausted this contract m five years from the date when power was taken in 1910, and in 1918 the power obtained from Niagara Falls alone was over 151,000 horse-power, while alto gether, from the various systems owned by the commission, there were supplied dor rag the winter of 1918-1919 over 198 OOL horse-power The total population lot Ontario is about 2,500,000. .