Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News AND UPPER THAMES ADVOCATE. SATURDAY, JANUARY 29, 1898. WASTE FORCES IN NATURE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XIV, Issue 2072, 29 January 1898, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News AND UPPER THAMES ADVOCATE.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 29, 1898. WASTE FORCES IN NATURE.

* This afioveall—to thins own aolf b® true, lad it must follow as the night the day Thou const not then be falae to any man. Shakksfkakb.

Lord Kelvin, the eminent British scientist, said recently that he looked for such scientific and successful use of water-power that the industrial conditions of all Scotland would thereby be transformed. All classes and all parts of the country , he thought, would be profoundly affected. The localities where the ‘scientific and successful’' development of water-power can be achieved at the. smallest expense are those which will take the lead now held by localities most accessible to coal deposits.. Wherever natural power is available its economical utilisation ■ is becoming a matter of close attention. The wasteful old - fashioned are being rapidly abandoned in favour of new and improved methods, of conservation. California, according to the Mining and Scientific Press,. is occupying a prominent place in utilising the unyoked 'vater-power of mountain and vailey in producing electric power and light, and thus creating a new industrial era. Electrical plans are fast being put into tangible shape everywhere in America, even in regions, where, as in the greater part of the United States, no scarcity of coal, which as the source of steam-power, lies at the basis of nearly all manufacturing enterprises, has yet been developed. European countries do not seem to have taken hold of the generation of electricity by water-power with the energy the New World has shown, and the Australian colonies are very far behind in the race. In. South America those who are developing the natural resources of the West Coast readily see and fully appreciate the use to which water-powei can. be put in the generation of electricity. Te Aroha is comparatively well-endowed with the means of generating motive power by utilising water. We have at least one mountain creek, the most suitable of any, with a perennial flow. In the absence of a water - fall of sufficient power the method employed in the States for the conservation, of water appears to be the construction of enormously powerful dams. The dam on the Big Hole Kiver, for instance, will he 60 ft high built of masonry, solid in proportion. And it is expected to transmit 5,000 horsepower to Butte at an approximate loss of 10 per ceut in transmission Farseeing men all over the world are looking for substitutes for coal, and as it was said in a recent number of the London Spectator “ The closing years of the nineteeth century are ushering in a change perhaps more important in its significance to our country than

any that has preceded it.” This change is foreshadowed by the striking developments of water-power fer industrial purposes that have been . witnessed both in Europe and America during the last six years. Te Aroha has a great future before her as a fashionable watering-p'acp, once the qualities of her thermal springs become better lrno wn, and sheoaunotalford to neglect any of the resources with which nature has so splendidly endowed h<=r, least of all her facilities for generating motive power Sufficient to light the streets', public buildings and dwelling houses by electricity, at once efficaciously and economically. There is no immediate demand for electric lighting in Te Aroha ; but, the time may not be far distant when we shall have to take some steps to consider the ad visability of doffig something in that direotiou in order to keep pace with the progressive age in which we live.