Electricity is Streaming Out Marvelously from the Nation's Water Power

Electricity Is Streaming Out Marvelously from the Nation’s Water Power.

Developed Now in Scores of Falls and Rapids and Sent to a Distance at a Price That Threatens to Make Junk of the Most of America’s Steam Engines.

By leaps and bounds, here and there, where running water falleth, a wonderful electric force has been created in the last five years by utilizing the energy which otherwise was lost in the tumbling stream, unless man occasionally employed it in turning water wheels. Not only has man found a way to create this electric force, but what is of vastly more importance, he can transmit the power miles and miles, and deliver it at a price which is sending steam engines to the junk shop.

As noiselessly and unobtrusively as the electric fluid speeds over the wire, this energy has been developed, and, measured in horse power, it has increased enormously in the last few years. Even the electricians have given but a passing thought to the rapidly widening field of this power, and what the ultimate result will be of the generation by waterfall of electricity and its transmission long distances to the points where it is needed in manufacturing, to produce light and to run railroads. To-day The Sunday Press presents comprehensively this subject in all its phases. Never before has an attempt been made anywhere to tell the whole story, though detached accounts of this or that project have been printed from time to time.

WHAT IS DONE; WHAT MAY BE DONE.

It has been estimated by competent authority that there are now five million horse power in the United States ready to be utilized in generating electricity. Like other figures of possibilities, this is less impressive when standing alone than when compared with statistics of actualities. Five million horse power is the estimated steam and water horse power of the United States in 1890. In 1880 the census showed the figures to be 3,410,837. The next census did not cover this subject, but applying the same ratio between 1880 and 1890 as obtained between 1870 and 1880, the total is 4,958,674. The water power in 1890 represented rather more than a third of the total water and steam together.

There is, then, in America an unused and ready-to-be-developed water power equal to the combined steam and water power of the country in 1890. Since that year a sixth of the total undeveloped water power then, or over a million horse power, has been developed, or plans have been made for its development, by water, for transformation into electricity, nearly all of which has been or will be transmitted varying distances.

As divided into what actually has been done and what is planned a comparison of localities is curious. The West has developed by water more than twice as much electric power as the East, owing to the mountain streams, the almost prohibitive cost of coal in many places, and the positive need of electricity in mining. But the East is preparing and planning to develop thirteen times as much as the West. The South has developed half as much as the East, and has in plans an eighth as much more.

That the United States, now at any rate, is by all odds the greatest field for electrical development of this kind is evident from the fact that British America, Mexico, Central and South America and Europe combined have developed only a third as much as the United States, and what they have in plans is only a fifteenth of what America intends to do.

FOR EIGHTY AMERICAN TOWNS.

Over score companies have been formed in as many communities of the United States to generate electricity by water power. More than a score of these towns are in the East, more than twoscore in the West and twenty or so more in the South. The foreign field, on this Continent and off, contributes over a score more.

In the United States there are more than a dozen, and in the world over more than a score of instances in which electric power generated by water is sent from ten to twenty miles. In four cases, one East, the others West, the line is twenty to thirty miles long, and in three cases, two in Western America and one in Europe, the line is from thirty to forty miles long. The longest line of transmission in the world to-day is at Ogden, Utah, where the point of generation is forty miles distant from the city to which the power is sent for use. This will not long remain the most remarkable achievement, however, for Los Angeles soon will have power sent seventy-five miles.

USING THE GREAT LAKES.

America’s two greatest water wonders are the Mississippi and the Great Lakes. The Father of Waters has an unequal temperament that unfits him, in large part, for the easy task of turning turbines. But the Great Lakes and their tributaries are as grand in their artificial possibilities as they are in their natural accomplishments. Already they generate at a dozen points more than 40,000 horse power, and man is going to work them for all they are worth, which means that he has planned to get nearly 200,000 horse power out of them. And this practically measures the plans of the entire country.

Beginning at Duluth, where the expectations are as heavy and bright as at Niagara, man’s use of nature passed down to the Soo, then to the greatest of cataracts, and then through the Valley of the St. Lawrence, where at four places more than 7,000 horse power is developed now, 12,000 more will be within thirty days, and still 170,000 more in a year or so.

MIGHTY REVOLUTION.

What electricity has done for the horse — or with the horse — it will do with the steam engine. The length of time that it takes to send the invention of James Watt to the junkyard will exactly measure the time we must wait before electric power can be sent economically long distances. Already electricians say no more inventions are required to deliver Niagara power in New York, 440 miles off, cheaper than steam power can be generated here. No one has tried to do this yet, and some electricians say new inventions must come first. But, sooner or later, they will come, and then the astonishing revolution which has been gathering headway for five years will move onward with an impetus which will land the steam engine in the museum, beside the megatherium. There are 20,000 to 25,000 steam engines in use in the United States, and a large number of them will be out of a job. The machinery and the men that made these engines might be employed in the manufacture of electrical machinery. The smoke nuisance would be done away with, but only in those localities where it is least noticeable, for electricity generated by water power would hardly supplant steam in the coal-mine regions, where coal is plenty and almost dirt cheap. But outside of the coal country little would be heard of the disagreeable smoke. We would be heated by electricity, and we would cook by electricity. Railroads would use electricity for motive power. In fact, steam would be well-nigh as useless as it was in Mrs. Watt’s tea kettle before it stirred Jimmy’s mind to great thoughts.

All this, of course, would give an enormous impetus to the electric industry. Already the capital invested in this manner reaches the figure of one billion, five hundred million dollars — a figure of which most minds can form no adequate conception. This is without counting in the capital invested in the manufacture of machinery which the electrical machinist has to use. In electric lighting over $500,000,000 is invested; in electric railways, $700,000,000; in electric motors, $100,000,000; in electricity in mines, $100,000,000, and in electric elevators, $5,000,000. Then there are countless other electric devices and industries to add in making up the total.

SAVING OF $50 A HORSE POWER.

The saving in the generation of electricity by water for use on the spot, or nearby, or for transmission many miles, over the generation of electricity by steam, is hard, electricians say, to estimate, in even the most general way. Hundreds of localities in the great West were practically shut off from the benefits of electricity until it was generated by water power, and transmitted. There is little or no coal there, and the price of steam is high. On the other hand, at the mouth of the pit, or anywhere in the coal regions, water power need hardly hope to compete with coal to develop electricity. This comparison may be taken, however, as showing fairly the saving. One of the St. Lawrence companies estimates that it can produce its horse power for $10 each. It estimates that if coal were used — and the cost of coal would not be so very great — the expense of producing one horse power would be $60. That makes the saving $50 a horse power.

75,000 HORSE POWER AT MASSENA, N. Y.

In all the world the biggest scheme for immediate electrical development is that of the St. Lawrence Construction Company. It requires the completion by the end of 1898 of a canal which will be capable of developing 150,000 horse power and of a power house and entire equipment which by the same time can develop 75,000 horse power electrically. The situation of the plant will be near the town of Massena, St. Lawrence County, N. Y. Massena is between the Grasse and the Raquette rivers, which flow north into the St. Lawrence. The direction of the St. Lawrence is northeast. At this point in the river are the Long Sault Rapids, the fall of which is fifty-three feet. A little more than three miles to the east is the Grasse River, which empties, with a five-foot fall, into the St. Lawrence, below the rapids. From the head of the rapids a canal three and a quarter miles long will be dug to take this forty-eight-foot fall into the Grasse. At the junction of the canal and the Grasse the power house will be built. The canal will be 250 feet wide by 35 feet deep. The power house, 527 feet by 65, will be the largest in the world. There will be the unexampled sight of fifteen turbines, each generating 5,000 horse power, and an equal number of dynamos.

Electro-chemical works will take this power. Thirty-five thousand horse power will go to one concern. Other industries may come to Massena. The population of Massena, which now is about 1,800, will be increased only 1,000 or so, for the electro-chemical industry does not require many hands in proportion to the money invested. The canal will represent a capital of $6,000,000, and the manufactures which will come here will bring into the County $3,000,000 or $4,000,000 more.

The St. Lawrence Construction Company has a capital of $5,000,000, which is held in nearly equal parts by Stewart & Co. of Wall street, New York, and by an English syndicate. John Bogart, ex-Engineer and Surveyor of New York State, is the engineer of the work.

This site, by the enlargement of the canal, is capable of producing 400,000 horse power. Power eventually may be sent from Massena to Montreal, fifty or sixty miles distant.

12,175 HORSE POWER BEFORE SEPTEMBER.

Stupendous as is this undertaking, there are several other like schemes in the valley of the St. Lawrence. Within thirty days, light and power will be sent to Montreal five miles from the Lachine Rapids. What has been merely the delight of summer tourists, will be put to a more practical use. It’s only three hundred years since La Salle went through this region, and the scoffers named the rapids in derision of his idea that through them and by means of the unknown waterway beyond he would find China. What name these mockers would have given to the majestic rapids, could they have stood around when it was first proposed to get them to give up a mighty, invisible, almost intangible power, can only be guessed. La Salle didn’t find China, but he found fame. More lucky even than he, these projectors of the electric scheme will soon produce to a certainty just what they have been planning and toiling to get.

The name of the company is the Lachine Rapids Hydraulic and Land Company. By means of six turbines to each of twelve generators, 12,175 horse power will be developed and sent rather more than six miles into the city of Montreal. A company to develop the power of these rapids was incorporated nearly thirty years ago, but it was only hydraulic power that was thought of then. Simple as this scheme now seems, it fell through, and nothing was done until 1895, when the present company was organized.

The plant does not interfere in any way with the scenery or the rapids. A large tract of land adjoining the works is being laid out in plots, and it is expected that this locality will be particularly pleasant for residences.

20,000 HORSE POWER AT CHAMBLY.

The third St. Lawrence Valley power plant will be located fifteen miles from Montreal at Chambly. This little town is on the Richelieu River, the outlet of Lake Champlain. Work here began in April, and since then a dam 2,350 feet long, and from twenty to thirty feet high has been built, a remarkable feat of engineering. Here 20,000 horse power will be developed, which will be sold by the Chambly Manufacturing Company for manufacturing on the spot, and at Montreal, besides diverting some of the current for light.

THESE HAVE POWER ALREADY.

At St. Hyacinth, Quebec, the St. Hyacinth Electric Light Company generates from the branch of the St. Lawrence, which flows through the town 605 horse power, which is transmitted nearly five miles.

At Valleyfield, Quebec, the Montreal Cotton Company gets nearly 2,000 horse power.

From the Montmorency Falls, seven miles from Quebec, the Montmorency Electric Power Company develops 3,900 horse power.

At the Batiscan River, Quebec, the North Shore Power Company produces 800 horse power, and transmits it seventeen miles to Three Rivers.

Some Ontario towns also make use of the waste power which fringes their outskirts. Trenton, on the shore of Lake Ontario, gets 812 horse power from a point twelve miles up the stream, which flows into the lake at Trenton.

Peterboro gets 535 horse power from the Otonabee River. This power is sold by the Auburn Power Company for manufacturing and for light.

NIAGARA NOW AND TO BE.

Of all water sites capable of generating electricity, whether developed or undeveloped, Niagara easily stands at the head. It makes little difference on what lines the comparison is made, whether as to the potential horse power or the opportunities of using it, or as to the grandeur of the scenery, Niagara leads. No one knows the sum of the energy that loses itself in the plunge of the cataract, and the rush in the chasm below to get away from the awful leap. But this much is known, that man has planned to develop enough of this force to do every stroke of mechanical work in New York State and much more that now is done by hand.

Niagara’s power is derived from forces that start half way across the continent. At a few points on its way East the power is interrupted as it gathers and made to do the bidding of man. Indeed, there are plans that, if carried out, will produce at its very Western source a power equal, for all practical purposes, to that which frets and tosses and plunges and wastes itself away at the Eastern outlet.

But even if these plans were not, Niagara’s energy, it is believed, some day will reach half way to the Pacific, and return with interest the power the West has contributed to the cataract. Niagara can do this, and at the same time not forget needs of the Atlantic coast.

And the engineers say Niagara can do all this with her right hand — the tunnels — while her left hand — the cataract — knoweth it not.

25,000 HORSE POWER BY SEPTEMBER.

The present development of the Niagara Falls power is 15,000 horse power, of which 2,000 goes to Buffalo, twenty-two miles up the river. The middle of last November the Buffalo Street Railway Company received its power from Niagara Falls for the first time, and in a month from now will get 10,000 horse power more. Besides this use for the current, the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railway, and the Niagara Falls Railway take the power, the city of Niagara Falls is lighted, and these manufacturing concerns are supplied thereby: The Carborundum Company, the Carbide Manufacturing Company, the Acetylene Light, Heat and Power Company, the Chemical Construction Company, which makes chlorate of potash; the Pittsburg Reduction Company, the Niagara Electro-Chemical Works and Albright & Wilson Electro-Chemical Company. Some other companies have the power, and still others are planning to take it.

If the plans carry for a Pan-American exposition near Niagara Falls two years from now Niagara power will get a great boom. The site proposed is Cayuga Island, six miles above the falls, just opposite the creek in which La Salle built and launched the first vessel to sail the Great Lakes. Thus two localities identified with the adventurous Frenchman will be the sites for the generation of tremendous electrical energy, the other spot being the Lachine Rapids. And the gap will be hardly more than three centuries. All the power required for this exposition will be generated at the falls and transmitted from there. No smokestacks nor boilers will disfigure the island.

The charter of the Niagara Falls Power Company, obtained in 1886, gives that company the right to take from the river enough water to generate 200,000 horse power. The one tunnel now in use will develop half of this, and when there is a call for the other half of the total amount, the tunnel will be enlarged or another one constructed. This company also has the right to generate 250,000 horse power from the Canadian falls.

NIAGARA CAN FURNISH 650,000 HORSE POWER.

Last fall the Legislature enabled the company owning the hydraulic canal, which runs from Port Day, a mile and a half above the falls, to a point near the upper Suspension Bridge, to enlarge their canal so that, instead of producing 8,000 horse power, it can produce 200,000. Here, then, is a total horse power, developed and planned, of 650,000. What this tremendous total means is shown by a simple comparison.

The united steam and water horse power of the State of New York — developed, of course — is estimated at 500,000, to put it roundly. According to the census of 1880 it was 454,143. The census of 1890 not covering this subject, the 1870-1880 ratio of increase would make the 1890 figure 480,574. And for seven years later it is a moderate estimate to put the State’s power at 500,000 horse power. This Niagara Falls, as planned at present, could furnish and have 150,000 horse power over.

FOR LONG AND PROFITABLE TRANSMISSION.

One simple invention must come before Niagara’s vast power can be sent to New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and other faraway points, as is fondly planned. That invention will result in perfect insulation, so that the leakage from the wires will not be so great as to eat up the profits of long transmission. The loss in transmission to Buffalo, twenty-two miles, has been placed at 25 per cent. It is 440 miles from Buffalo to New York. The present perfected generators can produce the high pressure necessary for transmission such a long distance, but the wires, with the most perfect insulation known, will not hold the current. This is what the practical electricians say.

On the other hand, one of the greatest electricians of the age — theoretically, at least — told The Sunday Press last November, when Niagara power was sent to Buffalo, that no more inventions were needed to transmit 150,000 horse power from the Falls to New York, and sell it here so cheap that it would pay the greedy profit of 35 per cent. on the investment. When this power does come to New York, it will not flow on overhead wires, but in a subway, unless by that time Tesla has perfected his plan of sending it through the earth.

UNDEVELOPED WATER POWER NEAR NEW YORK.

There is another side to the question of bringing a vast horse power to New York from Niagara Falls. It has been said that within fifty miles of New York there is unemployed water power enough to displace every steam engine in the metropolis at a profit, if these powers were only rendered available. As in the case of other startling generalizations, there are plenty of competent electricians who will be disposed to dispute this statement. The contradiction is based on the fact, patent to these disputants, that the horse power used in this city, or to be used, electrically, in certain events, is too great to be supplied by the aggregated water power within easy reach of New York. The local agent for one electrical supply company told the writer that 500,000 horse power was used in New York city alone, or would be used if certain things came to pass. In the light of the official figures, and moderate estimates which have been given in this article, the estimate of this electrician seems pretty steep. But he adds that it has been computed if the elevated railroad would change its motive power to electricity, 75,000 horse power would be required. And, further, if all the surface lines were to use electricity, 125,000 additional horse power would be needed. This alone would make 200,000 horse power.

ELECTRICITY FROM GARBAGE.

This authority ventures the opinion that the day is coming, however, when electric power will be generated by the burning of the city’s garbage. This, of course, would not produce all the power needed to do the city’s business, but it would go a fair way and utilize power that now goes absolutely to waste. This is on the plan of the Shoreditch scheme. In this East End quarter of London an electric light station has been opened which will be driven by steam generated by burning the dust and refuse of the streets. Not only is light so derived, but it is planned to drive electric motors with this power. Shoreditch is the centre of the cabinet-making industry, and eventually all this manufacturing will be done by the electric motor.

New York will get to this point some day, though Colonel Waring’s energy now is directed toward utilization of all the valuable constituents of the city’s waste and burning of all the rest, dumping none in the sea. No attention has been given yet to using the power of the garbage ovens.

ELSEWHERE IN NEW YORK STATE.

Niagara Falls is by no means the only place in New York State beside Massena where water will make electricity. The Hudson River Power Transmission Company, with a capital of $750,000, has let the contracts for a plant eight miles above Troy, where an eighteen-foot fall will be utilized in producing 5,000 horse power. The electric current will be sent to nearby cities — Albany, Troy, Schenectady, Cohoes and Saratoga — there to be used for manufacturing and light. The longest distance the power will be sent is nineteen miles.

The same firm will do the hydraulic work for a plant at Dolgeville in the Mohawk Valley. By means of the fall in Canada Creek, which flows through this town, 3,000 horse power will be developed. The power will be used for manufacturing and lighting.

A small horse power is obtained for lighting from the fall of the Genesee River, in Rochester.

Five thousand horse power is to be developed at Trenton Falls, Oneida County, N. Y., and taken sixteen miles to Utica, there to be sold for light, street railway purposes and manufacturing. Robert N. King is a large owner in this power, and has the entire contract for the installation. Trenton Falls is on the Black River, which here has a descent of ninety feet.

For power, pumping and light, the Oswegatchie Light and Power Company gets from the Oswegatchie River 250 horse power at Gouverneur, St. Lawrence County, N. Y. The length of the line of transmission is two miles and a half, and the plant has been in operation three years.

DULUTH ANOTHER NIAGARA.

One of the newest of schemes, an enterprise old in developing, and which has not yet reached the stage of letting contracts, is the utilization of the falls of the St. Louis River at the head of Lake Superior. It is asserted by the promoters of this enterprise, that the undertaking will be second only to Niagara Falls possibilities. The point in the St. Louis River at which the plant will be built is ten miles above the cities of Duluth and Superior. From the headwaters of this river to the chosen spot is a drop of 700 feet, taken up in dozens of waterfalls. Duluth and Superior never have developed to the high expectations of their believers, but if this enterprise is pushed to completion, Proctor Knott’s “Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas” will be everything her fondest friends have planned.

The electricity generated at these falls will be used not only in these two cities. It is intended to transmit it to the Twin Cities, St. Paul and Minneapolis, to Ashland, Washburn, Brainerd, Bayfield, and other cities within a radius of 200 miles. The longest line of transmission now is seventy-five miles, and it is not at Niagara, either, whose line at present is not a third that length. It is asserted by the promoters of the St. Louis River project, that power can be transmitted electrically 200 miles with a loss of only 15 per cent., and that even with a loss of 50 per cent. the power could be sent profitably 200 miles, and compete with the steam power already used in those cities. The loss in sending power twenty-two miles from Niagara Falls to Buffalo has been placed at not far from 25 per cent., which gives a wide margin for the enthusiasm of the Western projectors.

Perhaps it would be more exact to speak of the Eastern projectors in connection with the St. Louis scheme, for the financial end of the enterprise has been worked earnestly by the Jay Cooke syndicate for five years. In fact, for twenty years Jay Cooke has had in mind the development of this great waterfall, but the early plans contemplated only the generation of hydraulic power by bringing the falls nearer Duluth and Superior by means of basins and canals. In the meantime the transmission of power by electricity became a fact, and the plans changed.

Not only can the power so obtained be used in the usual lines of manufacturing, light and railways, but it will be employed in the reduction of iron ores, which will mean a great deal in the upbuilding of the West Superior region.

The St. Anthony Falls Water Power Company delivers ten miles to Minneapolis 17,100 horse power for manufacturing and street railway purposes. The power is obtained from St. Anthony Falls in the Mississippi.

INTERNATIONAL POWER AT THE SOO.

Up at the Soo — by which name every Lake dweller knows the Sault de Ste. Marie, on the St. Mary’s River, which connects Lakes Superior and Huron — 20,000 horse power is being generated electrically from the falls. This is used on the Canadian side of the river mostly, though some of it is transmitted to the opposite shore. It will be but a short time before 40,000 horse power more is generated for use on the American shore. In each case the power is employed for lighting and manufacturing purposes.

The Boardman River Electric Light and Power Company produces for Traverse City, Mich., 180 horse power, which is sent over a five-mile line.

For the estate of P. D. Beckwith at Dowagiac, Mich., 580 horse power is developed from a branch of the St. Joseph River, and sent nearly five miles.

From Lowell, Mich., eighteen miles, Grand Rapids gets 270 horse power furnished by the Lowell Water and Light Company.

At Sparta, Wis., the Newton Paper Company gets 80 horse power, and the Chippewa Falls Light and Power Company supplies Chippewa Falls, Wis., with 175 horse power.

As told in last Sunday’s Press, the great drainage canal of Chicago, which will connect the Des Plaines River and the Mississippi, will afford an opportunity to develop horse power for the cities of Lockport and Joliet. The 30 or 40 foot fall at these cities will be utilized by turbines, which will develop 7,500 horse power. This can be used on the spot, or it can be transmitted to nearby points. The Canal Commissioners will build and own the plant, and lease the power.

SOON WE ALL MAY BE SPOKANES.

The crack achievement of the great Northwest has been in supplying Spokane with all its power from the Spokane River, which flows through the city. It is said that not a horse power is developed mechanically in this city of 25,000 people, except electrically. The electric current generated by the river is used for lighting private dwellings, as well as business houses and streets. It cooks the food of the citizens. It turns the wheels of the street railways, and drives the belts of all the manufacturing establishments. In short, it does everything that steam heretofore has done, and a great else besides. Spokane is a living example — the only example — of what electricity derived from the water power at a city’s gates can do for that city. There is nothing like this spectacle yet on the face of the earth, but the day is coming when Spokane will not stand alone in its universal use of electricity.

Portland, Ore., makes the majestic Columbia furnish power for manufacturing, light and street railways. The Portland General Electric Company has developed here a horse power of 3,770, which is transmitted over a line nearly fifteen miles long.

The Kootenay River in the Kootenay district of British Columbia, soon will turn the turbines which will be the means of producing electrically 10,000 horse power for use in the mines near the town of Nelson. The enterprise is headed by Sir Charles Ross and a number of Montreal capitalists. The length of the line of transmission in this case will not be great, but the success of this installation will lead the way for the general use of the water power of the mountain streams in the mining districts of British Columbia to generate electricity for railway purposes as well as light.

CALIFORNIA’S FEATS.

California is celebrated for its daring projects in electrical engineering. Here was the first successful long-distance transmission of the current, and, up to date, this State has the longest line for the transmission of electricity for power purposes in the world. It was in 1893 that the Redlands Electric Light and Power Company made Mill Creek give up the power it had stored in its tumbling current. Power transmission was young then, and had been gathering headway only for three years. This line began at nine miles, the distance to the city of Redlands, but now it is twenty-one miles long, and some of its power is sold to the city of Riverside. The horse-power developed here is 1,170. The power is used for manufacturing, light, ice-making and irrigation.

From this first scheme to the greatest, in point of distance, to date is only a matter of four years. From Santa Ana canyon, 75 miles to Los Angeles, 10,000 horse power is soon to be sent. Already $400,000 have been spent on the works, and contracts call for $230,000 more. Los Angeles will take 3,500 of the developed horse power, and the rest will be used for light, manufacturing and irrigation in the neighborhood, and also for power for the Southern Pacific Railway’s local trains. It is expected that the loss in transmission will be not more than 10 per cent. If this expectation is realized it will beat the record of the Niagara plant, whose loss in transmitting to Buffalo has been placed as high as 25 per cent.

IN OTHER CALIFORNIA CITIES.

The year after the Redlands installation Sacramento decided to come in on the electric band wagon. She looked around her and saw at Folsom thousands of horse power going to waste. The Sacramento Electric, Gas and Railway Company was formed, and when the turbines began to turn 11,000 horse power was developed. All the light used in Sacramento is brought from Folsom, twenty-three miles away.

Two years ago the San Joaquin Electric Company brought power thirty-five miles into Fresno, and the surrounding towns have a share in the benefits. The horse power here produced is 2,275.

Sonora gets 1,466 horse power from the Tuolumne Electric Power and Light Company, the length of the line being eight miles.

The Power Development Company of Bakersfield brings 3,420 horse power sixteen miles for light and power purposes, and the Spring Creek Power Company supplies Redding with 395 horse power, brought from a stream four miles away.

The Blue Lakes Water Company will soon supply Blue Lakes, Cal., with 1,800 horse power, transmitting it from the source of the water power, twenty miles away.

Nevada City (Cal.) receives 300 horse power from the Nevada County Electric Power Company, the line being eight miles long.

Colorado’s mountain streams afford fine opportunities for the generation of electricity. E. G. Stoiber, at Silverton, Col., has been sending nearly 1,000 horse power on a three-mile line for three years. Wilson & Jackson, at Colorado Springs, send nearly 500 horse power over an eight-mile line.

The Ontario Silver Mining Company of Park City, Utah, generates 394 horse power. The big Cottonwood Power Company of Salt Lake City sends 6,630 horse power fourteen miles for manufacturing, street railway and lighting purposes in Salt Lake City.

LONGEST LINE IN USE IN THE WORLD.

The Pioneer Electric Power Company develops for Ogden, Utah, 11,050 horse power, which is transmitted forty miles and sold for light and manufacturing. This is nearly up to the horse power now generated at Niagara Falls, while the line is almost twice as long, and is the longest now in use. Ogden’s plant was completed last year.

The Diamond Hills Gold Mine of Bedford, Mont., gets from a branch of the Missouri 1,210 horse power, and transmits it a few miles.

The Golden Sceptre Mining Company gets 450 horse power seven miles from Bonita, Mont., and transmits it to its mines near that city.

We of the East think it is a great thing to get at Niagara Falls a head of water for the production of electricity 150 feet high. But the mountainous regions of the West laugh at such a head. There are at least fifty places in the Western United States in which water is being used under head of 1,500 feet, and several where the head is 2,000 feet or more. In one of the Comstock mines of Nevada a 26-inch Pelton wheel runs under a head of 2,100 feet. This is nearly four times as high as the Washington Monument, and twice as high as the Eiffel Tower. A jet of water half an inch in diameter from this enormous height produces 100 horse power.

IN SOUTHERN STATES.

Some cities in the Southern States get considerable horse power from the waterways in their neighborhood. The street railways in Augusta, Ga., are run by power derived from water within the city limits. Columbia, S. C., makes good use of the Catawba River. The Columbia Water Power Company gets from it 4,280 horse power, which, transmitted two to five miles, is used for power and light. The Columbia Mills Company also gets 2,675 horse power from the river. From a branch of the same river, higher up, the Pelzer Manufacturing Company of Pelzer, S. C., gets 7,610 horse power, which is transmitted nearly three miles. Anderson, S. C., is soon to get 1,900 horse power from Portman Shoals, ten miles distant. It will be used for light and power.

From the Colorado River the city of Austin, Tex., gets for light and power 1,228 horse power, sending it on a line over three miles long.

The Fries Manufacturing and Power Company are building a plant to supply Salem, N. C., with 1,000 horse power. The line of transmission is fifteen miles long.

Webb City, Mo., receives 320 horse power from the Southwestern Light and Power Company, whose plant is ten miles distant. The Consumers’ Electric Light and Street Railway Company of Tampa, Fla., send into that city from a point four miles away 400 horse power.

Kansas City, Mo., is planning with Leavenworth, Kan., to develop jointly a heavy horse power, electrically for manufacturing, light and street railway purposes, including joining the cities, twenty-five miles apart, with an electric railway. Arrangements have been made to build a $1,500,000 plant at Leavenworth and transmit to Kansas City such of the power as she desires.

IN NEW ENGLAND.

In New England some utility is made of the water power. From the Farmington River, Connecticut, which has a head of twenty feet, power is taken eleven miles to Hartford, where it is used for electric light.

Baltic, Conn., nearly five miles from Merrick’s River, is supplied with power and light derived from the fall of that river. The horse power generated is 1,447, and for three years has been supplied by the Baltic Power Company.

Winsted, Conn., receives eighty horse power, which is sent four miles for the Winsted Gas Company.

From the Merrimac River, the Concord Land and Water Power Company for three years has been sending nearly 1,000 horse power into Concord, N. H., for manufacturing and light. The distance is nearly five miles.

Hookset, below Concord, on the Merrimac, receives from the Merrimac Electric Light, Heat and Power Company 3,000 horse power over a line ten miles long.

From the Batten Kill River the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, of Manchester, N. H., gets 350 horse power. The line is less than a mile long.

Norway, Maine, gets 658 horse power from a little stream which flows into the Androscoggin.

From the same stream, and near its mouth, the National Fibre Company, of East Poland, gets 400 horse power.

From the Penobscot River, the Public Works Company, of Bangor, get 145 horse power over a line nearly five miles long.

In Massachusetts, at Concord Junction, the Concord River gives to the American Power Company of that town 360 horse power; at Bondsville a tributary of the Connecticut River affords to the Boston Duck Company 1,340 horse power; from the Connecticut the Hadley Company, of Holyoke, get 675 horse power; the Attleboro Steam and Electric Company get 250 horse power from a small stream that flows into Narragansett Bay; Springfield’s United Electric Light Company gets 2,600 horse power from Indian Orchard, six miles away, and Great Barrington gets 320 horse power from Housatonic four and a half miles distant.

In Vermont, Thomson & Hoag, of Rutland, get 240 horse power, which is transmitted five miles.