Book Description

Excerpt from Transactions, Vol. 2 Address of the President of the Warren Academy of Sciences at the Eighth Annual Meeting, October 20, 1911. In my paper tonight I shall first touch upon a few notions of modern scientists regarding the now available sources of energy, some of which are eternal in their potency; others doomed in time to pass away and become a matter of ancient history. In a paper of this nature I cannot treat the matter exhaustively, - nay, I am not capable, if I chose, to do so. I shall merely try to indicate in a general way the trend of science in its search for cheap, economi cal sources of power, and point out some of the means which science will in future be forced to utilize as sources of energy - forced to use them for at least two reasons: first, because they will prove more efficient and economical, producing higher per cent of work from the total energy applied, second because the world's failing supply of fuel will render such economy an absolute necessity. That the resources of the earth are limited is well understood. We derive all our energy directly or indirectly from the sun, whether by using wood, coal, oil, gas, or energy generated by water power. Let us consider these for a moment. The use of wood as a fuel is, of course, a limited matter and as civilization advances and its vanguard destroys the forests, the available wood is rapidly con sumed. What is left must be carefully conserved and husbanded for future lumber. The use of wood as fuel, then, must largely cease in future. The same with oil and gas. In Warren we can well understand the case. The supply of oil and gas is not indefinite nor infinite, and, so far as we know, is not recuperating in quantity in any way, to replace what is used. New fields and large ones may be discovered but the time will ultimately come when there will be no oil, no gas. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.