car business and will desire to use canal power to operate electric cars. For the city needs as they are at present, the Sanitary Canal will be in position November 1, to offer all the electric power needed for municipal purposes. "Sixty per cent of the work on the power station has been completed, been completed, reckoning construction and installation of machinery; and the entire work will be done during the present year. "Here is a situation which illustrates fairly the possibilities of electrical engineering. Fifteen years ago, such a development was not rated in the predictions for the future. Now we are almost ready to operate the second largest longdistance transmission station in the country. "The station of the Niagara Falls Power Company at Niagara, built in 1896, is larger, with a present capacity of 80,000 horse-power and possibility of an additional development of 20,000. This makes it three times as large in capacity as the Sanitary District station, both having practically the same distance. to cover in transmission-the Chicago District, from Lockport to the city limits; and the Niagara Company, from Niagara Falls to Buffalo. "In both these cases are presented illustrations of transmission of large horse-power, but for comparatively short distances. In the far West is found the transmision of smaller horse-power for tremendous distances. "From the Electra power station 10,000 horse-power is sent 147 miles into San Francisco via Stockton; and from the De Sabla station a distance of 232 miles is covered, the furthest point reached being Sausalito. "Here you have the electrical engineer and the hydraulic engineer working hand in hand to perform marvels. From a mountain stream harnessed by the hydraulic engineer, comes the power which the electrical engineer sends for 200 miles to light a city's street and furnish a city's electrical power. "The hydraulic and the electrical engineer will continue to work hand in hand in this work. Its progress requires them both, and its development requires the minutest specialization on the part of both. Each is necessary to the other. "The possibilities opening to both these branches of engineering are limited only by the streams which may be used for power development purposes-and scarcely by that. Here in Chicago our electric energy comes as a by-product in the solution of a sanitary problem, a byproduct not contemplated by the engineers who first thought of a drainage canal. "Taking forty-seven power plants of which I have the records, it is found that they develop 318,000 horse-power-and the achievements of these men are in their infancy. "In the opinion of practical electrical engineers, it is believed, however, that the long-distance transmission of power begins and ends with the development of natural water-power sources. Mr. Edison predicts the days when the transmission of power instead of fuel will be an accomplished fact. "In this he does not find the support of practical men who have studied the possibilities of power stations at coal mines, and the development of power there and its transmission over wires as power to supplant the hauling of coal in cars. "They have found that the cost of transmitting the power as compared with the cost of hauling the coal does not warrant the belief that the long-distance transmission of electric energy for light, heat, and power, will ever be advisable economically. In this they take merely the facts as they now exist. As has been said, electrical development challenges prophecy." Two other phases of electrical engineering were considered briefly by Mr. Ellicott. One concerns the use of electrically operated machinery, and the other the field constantly widening for the electrician fitted to solve problems connected with the extension of telephones. "The constant tendency in manufacturing and industries of every character using machinery," he said, "is away from the use of shafts and belting for power transmission, and towards the independent operation of machines by individual motors. No machine or instrument is regarded as too small to warrant its operation by its own motor. "The giant presses of the newspapers and printing establishments, and the sewing machines of tailor shops, are operated by their own motors. When an accident happens, it happens to one machine alone. There lies one advantage. A series or group of machines cannot be put out of business by a breakdown in the power plant or belting. A breakdown occurs and one machine is out of business; the others continue. "In the extension of telephone systems there is unlimited opportunity for the electrical engineer. Here he requires special training; and the schools are beginning to recognize the need of specialization, and are offering the instruction which will educate young men to undertake the business. "The requirements of the trade are so different from those of other electrical occupations, the power used so small, and the mechanism so delicate, that the edu cation which fits an electrician for other work is not necessarily calculated to equip him for this. "With the required training secured, the electrician is assured of a widening field of usefulness. The telephone, economically, is outrunning the telegraph. This means its rapid extension. Business houses, professional men, manufacturers, traders in fact, in all classes of industry-men are adopting the telephone for rapid and accurate communication. "As the systems become more complicated and more extended, new problems. arise, and the electrical engineer finds himself called on constantly for improvements required by development. "In the three branches of electrical engineering which have been discussed, there are the greatest opportunities for the young man considering an engineering profession." A Plea for the Foolish Virgins HEN John D. Rockefeller, Jr., encountered the Rockefeller would say about the folly of improvidence as illus- “And the foolish said unto the wise,' quoted Mr. Rocke- Mr. Rockefeller forcibly presented the lesson that is taught Mr. Rockefeller called for the singing of a hymn, saying that he had unconsciously taken up too much time, and adding that the usual offertory would be skipped. Primitive and Picturesque Agricultural Methods in One of the Richest Provinces of the British Indian Empire A By WILLIAM G. FITZ-GERALD T certain times of the year, the whole of Lower Burmah looks like one vast waving field of grass, extending in some places as far as the eye can see in every direction, the monotonous green relieved by only an occasional tree and the low "bunds" or flood embankments which divide the immense expanse into different fields. Rice-or "paddy" as it is called when in the growing state-is sown in the month of July during the rainy season. As the ground is usually very flat, low bunds are built to keep the water from running off; and thus the rice fields are. soon more or less under water and ready for ploughing. This is done in an exceedingly primitive way, by means of a plough that is little more than a wooden rake, dragged through the water by a pair of the huge, patient Burmese water-buffaloes. This so-called ploughing does little more than scratch the surface of the mud a few inches below the water; yet this is enough for the purpose. A small field is ploughed first of all, and this is to be a kind of nursery for the young rice plants. All "paddy," it should be explained, is found to be much more productive if transplanted when it has grown about a foot high. In this nursery the paddy is sown very thickly, and then. allowed to grow. The rest of the land is then ploughed, and made ready to receive the young plants. The work of transplanting the rice plants is done by the women, who first pull up the young plants with speed and skill and tie them into bundles, and then carry them to the larger fields, where they are replanted in rows, two or three plants together. About the end of October the heavy, torrential rains cease, and the hot sun of Burmah ripens the grains quickly. In December the rice is cut. It is next carried to the threshing floor, which has been made ready for it out of a special kind of mud well beaten down and dried until hard and firm as cement. After the threshing, the straw is carted away and the grain winnowed. All agricultural operations are of the most primitive kind. The winnowing, for example, is done either by pouring the grain from a height onto mats, and allowing the wind to blow away the chaff, or else large hand-fans are used to fan away the refuse. The paddy is then carted up to the river banks in the most remarkable country wagons to be seen anywhere. These wagons are probably made of teak wood, and of a pattern which must date almost from prehistoric times. Their wheels are hewn out of two massive and perfectly solid wooden discs; and the motive power is a couple of buffaloes, whose average rate of speed seldom exceeds a mile and a-half an hour. There is but one shaft to a wagon, and that in the center, and it has a section of timber pointing upward like the prow of a boat. This prow is often carved in the shape of a sacred bird; and on it wreaths of flowers, ears of grain, and other offerings are placed to propitiate the spirits of the air while carting home the paddy or taking it down to the boats which will carry it to the various big mills. The paddy boats are as primitive as the wagons, and are either sailed with mat sails, or else poled or rowed by standing oarsmen, and steered from a platform at the helm, where is often located a kind of altar whence evil spirits also are propitiated. The rice millers it is who send out these paddy boats, providing the head boatman with money to buy paddy from the hundreds of small cultivators up the river. There are over 150 different varieties of rice grown in Burmah, ranging from |