OCR Text |
Show IFORD'S DREAM. ILenry Ford, visiting Boston, makes ithis startling prediction: "Within a 'low years I wouldn't be surprised If lit were within five or six years we .won't be mining coal any more. Coal Will bo burned underground, right where it la found, and the b products utilized. j "Probably v.e i!l utilize all the ;gas, too, for heat, light and power. Some of the heat can be utilized, too, where i is generated under the ground. Whn.l heal is wasted by this I method won't be nearly as important as the waste of human energy which results from our present method of mininr coal, and the waste Involved in transporting' and distributing 11." Just how Ford would work this dream out in a practical way, he doesn't say. But it 1 possible Then, loo, Ford has become an enthusiast en-thusiast about "white coal" water power. Ho sees the day when even drops of rain will be transformed into electricity. electric-ity. He says the power going to wasie in rain can be estimated by a locality's inches of annual rainfall and the dis unco the rain drops in makilng lU eventual way back to sea-level. Part of this power unquestionab.lv could be ( halned up. Ford proposos: "Collect the water on flat lands during the winter. Drain it off as water power during the spring. And in the summer you will have wonderfully fertile land for your crops. In the autumn, after the har: rest, let the water collect again." I This latest dream of Ford's results from a trip he made the other day into a coal mine. He went about three miles underground and found it "a terrible ter-rible place to be in, no fit place for a human being to work." More than half a million Americans toil underground to get coal. In oihor! words, to get power. Meantime, tremendous power is going go-ing to waste in falling water, in the ocean tides, in the wind, in the sun's heat All these will bo haruessed some day. Nature has placed unlimited unlimit-ed power at our disposal Human drudgery will end when we learn how to harness these natural forces. Harnessing them is a long, slow job. But it will come. Nature ghes uh what we need. Her price is constant toil and patience. End of the road is far off, but it will bo worth the journey, jour-ney, for humanity. |