Moreover, the electric system can be so arranged that the control gear may be operated from the bridge itself. The facility in manoeuvring is, in fact, so marked that it would recommend electric marine propulsion even if that system offered no advantages on the score of economy in weight, space, and steam consumption over the existing systems. The steam turbine, it may be noted, has been adopted so far only in high-speed vessels; and it is generally recognised that its extension to vessels which run at 12 or 16 knots depends upon its adaptation to slow-speed propellers. Advocates of electric marine propulsion claim that they hold the most efficient solution of this problem.

It may also be pointed out that a considerable section of marine engineers look forward to the use of internal combustion engines (driven by oil or gas) on board ship. For naval purposes especially it would be a great advantage to do away with funnels and so leave the decks more free for gun mountings. As internal combustion engines are irreversible, the electric system offers a means of escape from a fundamental drawback to their use at sea. Here again the perfection of manoeuvring power, especially with twin screws (either of which may be controlled from the bridge through a wide range of speed ahead or astern), gives the electric system a strong claim for consideration by the naval authorities.

It is hardly necessary, except as a matter of curiosity, to refer to the suggestions made, from time to time, of accumulator-driven ocean steamships. Some wonderful pictures have been published of large vessels with tons of ballast in the form of storage batteries. They are likely to remain in this ideal condition, for although the driving of a large vessel by stored electricity is quite possible, it is also about the most expensive method which has ever been proposed.

Electric power from storage batteries has been used as an auxiliary in the propulsion and manoeuvring of submarines. In aerial navigation electricity has so far been employed to a very limited extent. Small airships have been designed to carry electric accumulators connected with various motor-driven propellers for raising, lowering, going ahead or astern, and steering. The switches which control the passage of the current to these propellers are connected with a wireless telegraph receiver, so that each operation may be started or stopped by a particular ether wave or series of waves. Demonstrations of such 'wireless-controlled' airships have been given in theatres; their field of usefulness, if any, is in connection with war on land or sea. Whether they will have any better fate than other devices for dropping bombs over the enemy's camps or ships remains to be seen.

One inventor has, I believe, suggested a means of direct electrical propulsion for aeroplanes, the current being derived from a petrol-driven generator and carried to motors attached to propellers so arranged as to give certain advantages in stability and manoeuvring. As yet, however, the probability of electricity being applied to locomotion in the air as well as on land and on sea is somewhat remote.

CHAPTER XII
THE PIONEER ELECTRIC RAILWAYS

Electric tramways have reached a period of middle age in which they are more concerned about their internal economy than the prospect of enterprise in new directions. Such development as they feel capable of making under present legislative conditions is only by proxy and tentatively, with the aid of the trolley omnibus.

Electric railways, however, have still many worlds to conquer. They are now in much the same position as electric tramways held about the year 1896. That is to say, they have already given practical proof of their capabilities and enabled engineers to point out the directions along which they are certain to develop. In the railway world there is a growing conviction that the adoption of electric traction on all suburban and inter-urban railways must be simply a matter of time. For main line traffic the possibilities of using electricity are as yet only an article of faith among electrical engineers.