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736 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
which came voluntarily from the natural ago, as president of the engineering sec­
vents and cracks in the rocks, he sunk tion of the British Association, predicted
boreholes, lined with iron pipes, down that man in the near future would be
to depths of from three hundred to five obliged to resort to the slumbering vol­
hundred feet, penetrating a subterranean canoes and to the thermal stores of the
ledge or stratum of hard rock, from be­ earth's interior to obtain power to run
neath which the steam issued.
his engines. Never did a prediction of so
The holes made were from twelve to startling a significance bear fruit in so
twenty inches in diameter, and it was short a time.
found that, provided they were not Thus, in their hour of need, the earth
placed nearer than fifty feet apart, a con­ itself has opened up to help the Allies!
tinuous supply of thermal energy could At the moment you are scanning this
be obtained. Indeed, the steam came page, three great groups of turbo-gener­
hissing up the iron pipes at temperatures ators, each of 3,000 kilowatts, are em­
of from 300° F. to 375° F. Each hole ploying the volcanic steam in the way
yielded from one thousand to two thou­ just described. They are generating cursand
horsepower an hour.
rent at 6.500 volts, stepped up through
Then came the war, and Italy's par­ an oil transformer to 36,000 volts, and
ticipation in it, with a resultant shortage transmitted by overhead cable to the
of coal which crippled the industries of towns above named. One of the 3,000-
Central Tuscany, concentrated at Florkilowatt sets has been at work since
ence, Larderello, Leghorn, Volterra, January last, and the second since April,
(irosseto, and other smaller towns. The while the third has just been started in
manufacturers looked to Prince Ginori- the past month.
Conti for relief. Something had to be Think what that means, not only to
done and done quickly to keep the wheels Tuscany in Italy, but to our own United
of industry moving. Again his ingenuity States of America, with more than a
saved him.
quarter of the active steam jets, vol­
At the very moment his country was canoes, and geysers on the globe within
in the thick of the fight and the cry from her territory! Is it not possible that we
all Italy was for coal, the difficulties that of this generation will live to see the day
arose from the chemical impurities of the when the vast potential power sources
volcanic steam he had harnessed—diffi­ lying restive under the surface of our
culties considered insuperable at first— country—the geysers and similar phe­
were splendidly mastered.
nomena of Yellowstone Park, the active
In a word, he ceased to apply the steam volcanoes of Alaska, the Aleutian
directly to the engines. Instead, he made Islands, the Philippines, Hawaii, Nic­
it act as fuel in place of coal. That is aragua, and the hot springs of Arkansas,
to say, instead of burning coal to heat Colorado, California, and Virginia—will
water in his boilers, the superheated feed our industries with electrical en­
steam from the earth was turned round ergy?
the tubes of the boilers to heat the pure Why not a center of dynamos obtain­
water and convert that, in turn, into ing their driving force from the precious
steam. This arrangement completely steam wasted by the liquid rock of
avoided corrosion, which was the real mighty Kilauea, or of Lassen's Peak, or
problem to be solved in order that great of slumbering Mt. Tacoma, Mt. Hood, Mt.
power might be secured.
Shasta, and of the entire Yellowstone
But what, today, is the remarkable fact district ? Under their roots should be
in the eyes of British engineers is that the eternal fires and the compressed
this potential 'energy is used to drive the gases of the geologic past, in quantities
steam turbine, the engine invented by Sir greater than is contained in all the coal
Charles Parsons, who, thirteen years deposits of the world.