HYDRO-ELECTRIC PRACTICE A PRACTICAL MANUAL OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF WATER AND ITS DISTANT TRANSMISSION BY H. A. E. C. VON SCHON CIVIL AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEER; MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION THE fact that the first edition of this treatise was exhausted in eight months is proof of an existing demand for it which exceeds any expectation of the author and which prompts him to send forth this second revised edition. The revision consists mainly of a detailed treatment of the market, flow discussion, pondage, and storage in Part I.; of development scope and equipment in Part II.; and of Part III. "Operating and Maintaining the Plant." The tables of rivers' drainage areas and low run-off, of navigable rivers, and the forms of Government permits and licenses have been taken out to make room for the above more valuable matter and because this information may now be readily obtained from Government publications. No corrections have been made in cost estimates of works, equipment, and operation; those given are approximately correct for the conditions prevailing in the United States during 1907. The reader can readily make the proper allowances for changes in prices of materials and labor. The same holds good for quotations of current values. In its revised condition "Hydro-electric Practice" is now presented anew in what is believed to be a more complete and useful treatment. H. A. E. C. VON SCHON. DETROIT, MICH., March, 1911. PREFACE THE economical transmission of electric energy to distances great and small, the rapidly increasing utilization of electro-motive power in industrial establishments, and the advent of the electric interurban railroads are responsible for the marked movement of impressing waterpowers to the service of generating electric current; and now waterpower, which had been almost relegated to obscurity by the perfection of the steam-engine, is not only regaining but even exceeding its former importance as an economical prime power source. It is entirely within the facts to state that a normally conditioned hydro-electric power plant can successfully compete with the most refined steam-power plant and the lowest priced fuel, natural gas. No wonder then that water-powers are to-day being sought after with feverish activity, and that some remarkable successes have been achieved, but also that many disastrous failures must be recorded. Hydro-electric power development is a much more complex undertaking than a large majority of the promoters of such enterprises realize when the subject is first approached, but which is most forcibly impressed upon them when the carrying out of the project is seriously attempted. Unfortunately, the most dangerous pitfalls are encountered at the beginning of the undertaking, and unless these are properly guarded against the finished work may disclose some incurable defects. Developments of the important natural resources of mines, of forests, and of manufacturing and transportation projects are rarely undertaken except upon the findings of recognized authorities on these respective subjects; not so, however, with hydro-electric power propositions, which are most frequently begun in a hap-hazard sort of fashion, with the stream and a fall as assumed assets, while the market, constancy of output, cost of product, riparian rights, and numerous other controlling features remain undetermined until some later day. Hence promoters of hydro-electric projects have not found the investing public at all eager to take their securities, because of the general and well-grounded impression that their presentations are not entitled to the same degree |