| Horse-powers | Per 1000 inhabitants | |
|---|---|---|
| Great Britain | 963,000 | 23.1 |
| Germany | 1,425,900 | 24.5 |
| Switzerland | 1,500,000 | 138 |
| Italy | 5,500,000 | 150 |
| France | 5,857,000 | 169 |
| Austria and Hungary | 6,460,000 | 454.5 |
| Sweden | 6,750,000 | 1290 |
| Norway | 7,500,000 | 3409 |
Of the German states, Baden and Bavaria control the largest amount of water-power. Baden alone can obtain 200,000 horse-powers at the Upper Rhine. Bavaria has at its disposal 300,000 horse-powers that have so far not been applied, besides 100,000 that are applied. Professor Rehbock estimates that the theoretical energy of the entire amount of water flowing upon the surface of the earth amounts to eight thousand million horse-powers. If only the sixteenth part of this could be efficiently applied, 500 millions of permanently serviceable horse-powers could still be won, an amount of energy ten times as great as the energy obtained by the mining of coal during the year 1907, approximately calculated at 1000 million tons. Although such calculations are of a purely theoretical character at present, they still show what achievements we may anticipate in the future from the use of “white coal.” The Niagara Falls alone, which flow from lakes covering an area of 231,880 kilometers—about 43 per cent. of the entire area of Germany—might furnish more water-power than exists in England, Germany and Switzerland combined.[219] According to another calculation quoted in an official report, the United States have water-power at their disposal of no less than twenty million horse-powers, which represent an equivalent of three hundred million tons of coal annually.[220] The mills that will be driven by means of this white or “green” coal, with the force of the gushing mountain streams and waterfalls, will have no smokestacks and no fire.
Electricity will also make it possible to more than double the speed of our railroads. At the beginning of the nineties of the last century, Mr. Meems, in Baltimore, declared it to be possible to construct an electric car that would make 300 kilometers an hour, and Professor Elihu Thomson, in Lynn, believed that electric motors could be constructed that would make it possible to cover 260 kilometers in an hour. These expectations have nearly been realized. The trial-rides made on the military railway Berlin-Zossen, during 1901 and 1902, showed the possibility of speed up to 150 kilometers an hour. During experiments made in 1903, the Siemens car attained a speed of 201 kilometers, and that of the General Electric Company, 208 kilometers. In the succeeding years steam locomotives have also attained a speed of 150 kilometers an hour, and more. The present aim is to attain 200 kilometers per hour. Already, August Sherl has entered the arena with his new project of rapid transit, which relegates the existing railway lines to freight service and proposes to connect the large cities by monorail train service, with a speed of 200 kilometers.[221]
The question of transforming railroad service from steam into electricity is a current topic in England, Austria, Italy, and America. Between New York and Philadelphia an electric train is to run at a speed of 200 kilometers an hour.
The speed of ocean vessels will increase in the same manner. Here the determining factor is the steam turbine.[222] “It holds the foremost place in technical interest at present. It seems destined to displace the piston. While most engineers still regarded the steam turbine as a task of the future, it had become a present-day problem that attracted the attention of the entire world of technics by its success. It remained for electrotechnics, with its rapidly running machinery to create a large field for the practical application of this new power engine. The by far greatest number of all steam-turbines in use to-day serves to drive dynamos.”[223] The turbine has especially proved its superiority over the piston in navigation. The English steamship “Lusitania,” which is equipped with steam-turbines, during August, 1909, made the journey from Ireland to New York in 4 days 11 hours and 42 minutes,[224] with an average speed of 25.85 knots an hour. The steamship “America,” constructed in 1863, the fastest vessel at the time, made 12.5 knots an hour.[225] The day is not distant when the problem of electric propellers for large vessels will be satisfactorily solved. They are already in use with smaller vessels. Simplicity, safety, good self-regulation, and absence of shaking make the steam-turbine the ideal power for the creation of electric energy on board. Electricity will eventually be generally applied to both railway and steamship service.
By electricity the technics of moving loads has also been revolutionized. “Steam-power, having made it possible to construct lifting-engines with natural force, electric transmission of power led to a complete revolution in the construction of lifting-machines by giving these machines freedom of motion and constant readiness for use.” Electric power has, among other things, led to a complete transformation in the construction of the cranes. “With its massive curved beak of rolled iron, resting upon a heavy foundation of stone-masonry, with slow motions and the hissing noise of the puffed-out steam, the steam-crane conveys the impression of resembling a gigantic, prehistoric monster. When it has grasped a load it exhibits a tremendous power for lifting, but it needs the assistance of human beings, who, by means of chains, fasten the weights to its hook. Owing to its clumsiness and slow motions it is serviceable only for the lifting of very heavy loads, but not where quick action is needed. Even externally the modern electric crane presents an entirely different aspect. We behold graceful steel trellis-work stretched above the hall, and from this is stretched out a slender pair of tongs, which is movable in all directions. The whole mechanism is controlled by a single man. By means of a gentle pressure on the levers, he directs the electric currents and drives the slender steel limbs of the crane to rapid action. Unaided, they grasp the glowing steel and whirl it through the air, while no other noise is heard but the low buzzing of the electro-motors.”[226] Without the aid of these machines the steadily increasing transportation of masses of goods would not be possible. By a comparison of the wharf-crane at Pola and that at Kiel, the development, in regard to the increase of lifting-power from the middle to the end of the nineteenth century, may be judged. The lifting-power of the former was 60 tons, that of the latter, 200 tons. The manufacture of Bessemer steel only is possible when rapidly working lifting-machines are at hand, for otherwise the tremendous quantities of liquid steel that are produced in a short time could not be transported in the casting-moulds. In the iron-works of Krupp, in Essen alone, 608 cranes are in action, having an aggregate lifting-power of 6513 tons, equal to a freight train of 650 cars. The low cost of freight, which is a condition of present-day international commerce, would not be possible, could not the capital invested in vessels be put to such intense use by the rapid process of unloading. The equipping of a vessel with electric cranes led to a reduction in the annual cost of traffic from 23,000 to 13,000 marks, almost by one-half. And this comparison takes into consideration only the progress of a single decade.
The technics of navigation and transportation present new achievements almost daily along all lines. The problem of aerial navigation, which seemed insoluble but two decades ago, is practically solved. At present the dirigible balloons and flying machines do not serve the easier and cheaper transportation of the masses, but only sport and military purposes. But later on they will enhance the productive forces of society. Great progress has also been made by wireless telegraphy; its industrial value grows each day. In a few years, accordingly, traffic will be placed on a new basis.
Mining, too, is in a state of transformation at present that still seemed inconceivable ten years ago. Electricity has been introduced and has revolutionized the machines, the pumps, and the winding-engines.
Marvelous are the prospects revealed by the former French minister of public instruction, Professor Berthelot (died March 18, 1907), in an address on the future significance of chemistry, delivered at a banquet of the syndicate of manufacturers of chemicals. In this address, Mr. Berthelot depicted the possible achievements of chemistry in the year 2000, and, though his description contains some humorous exaggerations, it also contains much that is true, of which the following is a brief synopsis. Mr. Berthelot gave a resumé of what chemistry had accomplished in a few decades and enumerated, among other things: The manufacture of sulphuric acid, of soda, bleaching and dyeing, beet-sugar, therapeutic alcaloids, gas, gilding and silvering, etc. Then came electro-chemistry, which completely transformed metallurgy, the chemistry of explosives, which provided mining and warfare with new engines, and the marvels of organic chemistry in the manufacture of colors, perfumes, therapeutic and antiseptic remedies, etc. But all this, said the lecturer, was only a beginning. Far greater problems would soon be solved. In the year 2000, agriculture and peasants would have ceased to exist, as chemistry would have made cultivation of the soil superfluous. There would be no coal-mines and, accordingly, no miners’ strikes. Fuel would be replaced by chemical and physical processes. Tariff and warfare would be abolished; aerial navigation, employing chemicals as a means of locomotion would have done away with these antiquated institutions. The problem of industry consists in finding sources of power that are inexhaustible and can be renewed with the least possible amount of labor. Until now we have generated steam by the chemical energy of burned coal. But the coal is difficult to obtain, and the supply is diminishing daily. It becomes necessary to utilize the heat of the sun and the heat inside the earth. There is good reason to hope that both these sources will find unlimited application. Thereby the source of all heat and of all industry would be made accessible. If water-power were also applied, all imaginable machines might be run on the earth. This source of power would barely diminish in centuries. By means of the warmth of the earth many chemical problems might be solved, among others the chemical production of food. Theoretically this problem is already solved. The synthesis of fats and oils is long since known, sugar and the hydrates of carbon are known also, and the synthesis of the nitrogen-compounds will soon become known. The problem of food is a purely chemical one. As soon as the necessary cheap power could be obtained, by means of carbon from carbonic acid, oxygen and hydrogen from water, and nitrogen from the atmosphere, food of all kinds would be produced. What had heretofore been done by the plants would henceforth be done by industry, and the products of industry would be more perfect than those of nature. The time would come when every one would carry a box of chemicals in his pocket from which he would satisfy his need of nourishment in albumen, fat and hydrates of carbon, regardless of time and seasons, of rain and drought, of frost, hail and destructive insects. This would lead to a transformation that was as yet beyond our conception. Orchards, vineyards and pastures would disappear. Man would become more gentle and humane, because he would no longer live upon the murder and destruction of living beings. Then the difference between fertile and unfertile regions would also disappear, and perhaps the deserts would become the favorite resorts of man, since they are healthier than the damp and marshy plains where agriculture is carried on at present. Then art and all the beauties of human life would attain their fullest development. The earth would no longer be disfigured by the geometrical figures drawn on its surface by agriculture, but would become a garden in which grass, flowers, shrubs and forests might be grown at will; all humanity would dwell in plenty, in a golden age. But man would not fall a victim to laziness and corruption. Work is needful to happiness, and man would work as ever, since he worked for his own welfare, for the development of his mental, moral and æsthetic possibilities.
The reader may accept as true from this address of Berthelot whatever he chooses. The fact remains that future development will lead to a tremendous improvement in the quantity, quality and variety of products, and that the comforts of life of coming generations will increase to a degree that we can barely conceive to-day.