The Romance of Modern Chemistry

CHEMISTRY AND ELECTRICITY which yield the electric current. Now the cheapest way of driving a dynamo is to utilise water-power. This can be done on the large scale only where there is a big waterfall, or where there is an adequate reservoir, con- stantly replenished from natural sources. So far as this country is concerned, these conditions are best realised in the Highlands of Scotland, and hence it comes that the aluminium industry is located at Foyers, in Inverness-shire, and at Kinlochleven, on the borders of Argyllshire and Inverness-shire. The water of the reservoir erected at the latter place is carried in a conduit to a point near the factory and about 900 feet above it; from this point the water is run down to the turbines in pipes 39 inches in diameter. Our scientific forefathers, could they see it, would regard this new feature of the landscape with much curiosity; they would not understand what water-pipes could possibly have to do with the aluminium industry. Perhaps, also, when the present stage of scientific develop- ment has long passed away, our far-off descendants will puzzle themselves over the ruins of these outlying in- dustrial centres, much as we to-day endeavour to read the riddle of Druidical and Roman remains, 301