Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/764

742 and concerns engaged in work of that class will in many instances find it to their interest to locate where the energy of waterfalls may be available at low rates. The successful operation of the Niagara plant has had the effect of attracting to that section of the State several enterprises that require power in large quantities, and it is more than probable that, before many years pass by, Buffalo and the surrounding country will become an important manufacturing center. What is true of this case will be equally true of many others, and, while established enterprises may not remove from their present location, those started hereafter will undoubtedly be guided by the relative cost of power at different points, in connection with the advantages and disadvantages arising from the location of the power center. Thus, as the South is the source whence all the cotton comes, it would be natural to assume that manufactories in this line would locate in that section at points where water power can be obtained convenient to the cotton fields. That such localities can be found is quite evident, since, according to the census of 1880, the power available along the Chattanooga River is not far from one hundred thousand horse power, and along the various rivers of North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama three or four times this amount can be obtained. All over the West and Northwest extensive power sites are to be found, and in time many of them will be rendered useful, and will form the centers of manufacturing districts, thus gradually augmenting this line of industry in sections of the country that at present are principally agricultural.

For several years to come it is very probable that efforts will be confined to the utilization of large units, but gradually the cost of installation and of operation will be reduced, and then smaller powers will be considered profitable. Following along this course of reasoning we may naturally conclude that, eventually, even farmers may be able to render available the energy of small streams passing through their possessions, and the future rural generations may use the electric motor to do the work around the farm that at the present time is performed by animal power.

name America for the western continent is said to have been proposed by Martin Waldseemüller in his Introduction to Cosmography, published in 1507; but the exact time when it first appeared in a map is not precisely known. The earliest instance so far has been discovered by Professor Elter, of Bonn, in a manuscript map by Henricus Glareanus, dated 1510, in which the legend "Terra America" is attached to South America. Glareanus, born in 1488, became German poet laureate in 1512, and a professor at Freiburg in 1529. He has left what is probably the earliest circumpolar map in existence. In his map of America, North America is separated from South by a strait, and is represented as forming part of Asia.