be used, all the work
of the world could be done and the problem of fuel supply would be
solved for ever.

But the greatest conservation of coal possible at present lies in the
use of the water-power which now goes to waste, and which, if employed,
would, as we have seen, give us 30,000,000 horse-power, or more than all
that is now produced from fuel by all our engines combined.

Alabama offers a striking illustration of this failure to take advantage
of our opportunities, for Alabama has both coal and water-power.
Engineers estimate that the three principal rivers have power equal to
436,000 horse-power. At Muscle Shoals, on the Tennessee River, there is
now developed 188,000 horse-power, second only to Niagara--and if the
waters were conserved, the figures would reach 1,084,000 horse-power on
the three rivers. This means that, according to the amount of coal
required to produce each horse-power of energy, it would require
11,201,000 tons of coal each year to produce by steam as much power as
these streams might easily be made to produce.

Alabama, as we have said, is also a great coal state. It is now mining
about 14,000,000 tons per year and only four states produce a larger
amount. It will be seen that four tons out of five mined in this state
will be needed to produce by steam the power that is going to waste in
its rivers. The Honorable W. P. Lay, of the Alabama Conservation
Commission, in calling attention to this fact, says:

"Suppose for a moment that the coal fields of Alabama were sliding down
an incline and pouring off over a precipice at the rate of 11,201,000
tons per year, how long would it take the people of the United States
to do something to try to stop such a waste? Yet what else are we doing
when we sit idly by and let the water of these streams go to waste over
a precipice while we ourselves burn up the coal?"

And what is true in Alabama is true to a lesser extent in most of the
states. Wherever water-power is going to waste, coal is being used to
take its place, and that coal is needed in some place where there is no
water-power.

On a certain stream in one of the central states was a fine waterfall.
The early settlers built a mill there. The water turned the mill-wheel
and then passed on to water the valley and turn other mill-wheels. But
one night the old mill was destroyed by fire. It was not rebuilt, but
some distance from the stream a new steam mill was built, the motive
power of whic