e coal mine and the railroad a part of
their present burden and insure the operation of street lights, street
cars, elevators, and essential industries in the face of railroad
delinquencies--this is the dream of our engineers, and a very possible
dream it has seemed to me; of such value, indeed, that we might well
spend a few thousand dollars in studying it, not with the thought that
the Government would construct or operate even the trunk line, but that
it might so attract the attention of the engineering and financial world
as to make it a reality.

To tie together the separated power plants of 10 States so that one can
give aid to the other, so that one can take the place of the other, so
that all may join their power for good in any great drive that may be
projected--this would be the prime purpose of the plan; and from this
would evolve the development of the most practicable method of supplying
this vast interdependent system with more power--perhaps from the
conversion of coal, as it drops from the very tipple, using the mine as
one might use a waterfall, or by the development of great hydroelectric
plants on the many streams from the Androscoggin to the James.

WHITE COAL AND BLACK.

This would be a plan for the wedding of the stream and the mine, the
white coal with the black. "White coal" they call it in imaginative
France, this tumbling water which is converted into so many forms; and a
much cleaner, handier kind of coal it is than its black brother. And
cheaper, for the water goes on to return again and fall once more and
forever into the pockets of the turbine which whirls the dynamo and so
gathers or releases that mystery which we name but never define.
Farsighted, purposeful Germany fought four and a half years upon the
strength of great power plants run by the snows of the Alps. She did not
rely on these alone for power, nor were they her main reliance, but they
gave her a lasting power which otherwise she would not have had. And we
may expect her to improve on that war-time experience for the conduct of
the hard fight she is to make in the industrial field. France saved
enough territory from the invader to permit her to make new adventures
into this field and so to some degree offset the coal loss of Lens.
Italy found that she had still left unused opportunities for
hydroelectric development sufficient with the coal she could secure from
England and America to see her through the war. And with coal