many large central station
plants making handsome returns on their investments at a far lower
average income per unit of light than the income obtained by the gas
company in the same community. In making my calculations which have
led me to this conclusion, I have assumed that 10,000 watts are equal
to 1,000 feet of gas. This comparison holds good, provided an
incandescent lamp of high economy is used as against the ordinary gas
burner. To make a comparison between electric illumination and
incandescent gas burners, such as the Welsbach burner, you must figure
on the use of an arc lamp in the electric circuit instead of an
incandescent lamp, which is certainly fair when it is remembered that
incandescent gas burners are, as a rule, used in places where arc
lamps should be used if electric illumination is employed.

With such brilliant results obtained in the past, the prospects of the
central station industry are certainly most dazzling. While the growth
of the business has been phenomenal, more especially since 1890, I
think it can be conservatively stated that we have scarcely entered
upon the threshold of the development which may be expected in the
future. In very few cities in the United States can you find that
electric illumination exceeds more than 20 per cent. of the total
artificial illumination for which the citizens pay. If this be the
state of affairs in connection with the use of electricity for
illuminating purposes, and if you will bear in mind the many other
purposes to which electricity can be adapted throughout a city and
supplied to customers in small quantities, you may get some faint
conception of the possible consumption of electrical energy in the not
far distant future. Methods of producing it may change, but these
methods cannot possibly go into use unless their adoption is justified
by saving in the cost of production--a saving which must be sufficient
to show a profit above the interest and depreciation on the new plant
employed. It is within the realms of possibility that the present form
of generating station may be entirely dispensed with. It has already
been demonstrated experimentally that electrical energy may be
produced direct from the coal itself without the intervention of the
boiler, engine and dynamo machine. Whether this can be done
commercially remains to be proved. Whatever changes may take place in
generating methods, I should, were I not engaged in a business which
affords