ELECTRICITY IN INDIA IF India is to make any real advance in prosperity during the next fifty years, it must be as a manufacturing nation that the advance is made. Very little can be done in agriculture, for labour is still so cheap on the land that modern machinery does not pay; English ploughs are not a success, except in the heavy black cotton soil; while the available arable land is nearly all occupied, except in districts that await big schemes of irrigation, such as the Trans-Indus plain between Dera Ismail Khan and Bunnoo, where irrigation would give two crops of wheat a year from what is now nothing but a waste of sand. The great difficulty at present in the way of India's advance as an industrial and manufacturing nation is the want of coal. Without good cheap coal the production of steam at profitable prices is impossible, and on steam rest most of the ordinary industries of to-day. Except in the Raneegunge district the coal available locally in India is inferior and dear. Much of it is used locally to drive railway engines and for similar work, because it is on the spot and engines can be arranged to burn it. But it is quite unsuitable to many industries. For instance, it will not coke, and cannot therefore be used in reducing furnaces to deal with the fine iron ores available in enormous quantities in Southern India. There are difficulties about charcoal, as sufficient on a large scale is not yet available; so the idea must be temporarily abandoned, although no attempts have been made to utilise the peat which is available in large quantities. Where, then, can India get the motive power that she requires to develop as an industrial nation? Clearly from electricity, and that electricity can only be economically generated by natural sources of power. The best natural source of power at present available for this purpose is, undoubtedly, the waterfall. A waterfall to be of use in generating electricity to any large amount must have a considerable volume, and must continue all the year round. Many of the minor Indian waterfalls are practically empty except in the monsoon; so that the great power which runs to waste for some four months in the year must continue to be wasted until some better form of accumulator than we have at present has been invented. With a really good electric accumulator, capable of storing up enormous quantities of electrical power for considerable periods, the industrial activity of India would make enormous strides. But such an accumulator would have to be on a very much larger scale than anything we have at present. It would have to be capable, for instance, of storing up 60,000 horse-power a day for four months in the year, and then give it out all the year round at 20,000 horsepower a day. No doubt we shall get it some day, but until we do get it the enormous power of the monsoons in India must run to waste. There are three schemes now under consideration which have for their object the utilisation of waterfalls to generate electricity. One is in Cashmere, the details of which are not generally known. The second is a scheme to utilise the great Siva Samundram Falls on the Cauvery to generate electricity which Captain de Lothbinière, R.E., the author of the scheme, hopes to utilise in the Kolar goldfields and other industries. These falls have the advantage of great height, the northern branch of the Cauvery at this point having a fall of 460 feet, while the southern branch has a 370 feet sheer drop. The enormous head of water thus available greatly facilitates the realisation of the idea, as it enables a high horse-power to be developed by a comparatively small volume of water. There are, however, special difficulties in connection with this scheme, owing to the great distance-over a hundred miles-which the current will have to be carried after it is generated. The longest distance over which electricity has yet been carried in large quantities for power is about fifteen miles. This is the distance from the Niagara Falls to Buffalo City, where power is freely available in almost any quantity. No doubt Captain de Lothbinière, who has been sent to Niagara in connection with his scheme, will solve the difficulty. The advantages which a successful solution of his problem will bring to the manufacturing industries of Southern India will be enormous. My own work at the Nerbudda Falls is a comparatively small one. All that is wanted is to generate and convey some ten miles into Jubbulpore the 400 or 500 horse-power required for the ordnance factory which the Indian Government are proposing to erect there. But even here we have some very special difficulties to contend with. To begin with, the actual fall is only about 30 feet, which means that a comparatively large volume of water per horsepower must be used. Then we have the fact that the volume of water passing over the falls varies enormously in certain seasons of the year. The area drained by the Nerbudda is not very large as river catchment areas go, and consequently in the middle of the dry weather the water falls very low. At the very lowest known it is not more than sufficient to give about 200 horse-power continuously. At ordinary seasons the water is sufficient to generate 1,000 horse power, while at high flood it would generate about 60,000 horsepower if it could be utilised. We can get over the difficulty of the low water, because it does not last for very long, and an Indian factory does not usually run for more than twelve hours a day at the outside; but we sadly feel the want of really large practical accumulators. The third difficulty with which we have to contend arises from the fact that immediately below the falls the Nerbudda runs between the Marble Rocks, which form a very narrow and twisted gorge, insufficient to freely carry away the flood water. This gorge holds back the water to some extent when the monsoon is on, and this banking up of the water alters the condition of the falls at the point where it will be best for other reasons to erect the power house. We have overcome the difficulty of this difference of level by using alternative turbines on each shaft; but during high flood it will be necessary to use a much longer tail-race than at any other time, in order to insure the tail-race water re-entering the river at a point well below the Marble Rocks, and thereby maintaining the necessary head in the turbines. But the minor details of the various schemes, though interesting as showing the difficulties that have to be contended with in working out what, at first sight, seem to be simple problems, have very little to do with the real point at issue. That point is that the Government of India are, at long last, slowly awakening to the fact that they have enormous sources of power and wealth at their disposal, which have hitherto been absolutely neglected. It is to be earnestly hoped that the utmost efforts will be made to develop these sources of power to the full, and that no preliminary difficulties will be allowed to throw cold water on the various schemes. It would be a real disaster for India if the development of electricity from natural sources were allowed to fall through, from any cause whatever, till every means of bringing the schemes to a successful termination had been exhausted. It is not that the particular schemes now under trial are extremely important in themselves, if gauged only by the immediate results that will be obtained, for they are not. The importance lies in utilising every possible source of wealth in the country, and in providing a cheap source of power for those who are inclined to embark in industrial undertakings. Cheap 'power' is what India wants for her full development as an industrial nation, and cheap power she cannot obtain from coal, except in Northern Bengal. In Southern and Central India the need is especially felt, and it is there that Nature has planted some of the grandest falls in India. Besides those already mentioned, there are useful falls on the Chittar at Kutallum, and on the Tamraparin at Papanasham, while further north than this we have the Markund Falls at Goga knear Belgaum, and the magnificent Gerseppa Falls on the Sheravutty, where the stream falls sheer 890 feet, or more than five times the height of Niagara. For Northern India there are falls in the Himalayas that could, no doubt, be utilised, but these are, at present, rather too far from places where industries could well be started. Northern India must wait for its electrical development till we are able to generate electrical power direct from running streams, without reference to falls of any kind. This will, no doubt, come before long: I am myself engaged on a scheme in this direction, which will, I hope, work out all right; but for the immediate present we have the waterfalls of India still undeveloped. Lord Curzon has the reputation of being a Viceroy who is greatly interested in developing the industrial resources of the country, so it is to be hoped he will insist on the strongest efforts being made to perfect either the existing schemes or others for the utilisation of waterfalls as generators of electrical power. Other Viceroys have added territories to India, but the Viceroy under whose auspices the great rivers of the country are harnessed to the people's needs, who has forced those rivers to become wealth producers by direct power, will live as long in history as any other, and far longer in the hearts of the people. C. C. TOWNSEND. THIRTEENTH-CENTURY PERSIAN AMONG the discoveries of long-lost works of art few possess a deeper interest for the collector, the student, or the practitioner of to-day than those examples of thirteenth-century Persian ceramic art, together with the contemporary textiles and metal-work, which have quite recently come to light. It cannot be asserted that they have been found as the result of a deliberate and carefully planned excavation on a site known to have been the seat of an ancient centre of civilisation, such as has been the case in other instances that have occurred of late years. Neither is their recovery a matter of mere accident. It is due rather to the alertness of collectors, alive to the freshly awakened interest in Oriental art,' which has sprung up in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The appreciation of the work of the Eastern artists was keen in Europe during the Middle Ages. The galleons of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa returned home not alone laden with the spices and sugar of Persia, Egypt, and Syria, they also brought the resplendent pottery and glass, the silks and textiles, the damascened arms and inlaid bowls acquired from the same source, and that seemed to our ancestors in the then rude state of Western society to be the work of no mortal hands. Much of this graceful and imaginative Oriental art has, of course, perished under the ordinary conditions of wear and tear, some also had been cast aside in contempt, but some has survived uninjured, relegated, from the changed taste of its owners, to the store or the lumber room, until at last it was forgotten. Of this important examples have been recovered from having fallen under the notice of students versed in the history of art and able to identify objects from analogies of style and ornamentation, but the derivation of which had passed out of general knowledge. Thus the late Eugène Piot discovered one of the finest fifteenth-century Persian carpets. that has come down to our time. Once, when at Venice, he engaged a gondola to make an excursion in the city. On taking his seat the 6 The term Oriental' is used in the sense in which it is employed by writers on art, and is not intended to refer to the Far East, China and Japan. |