Abstract
IN a country like Italy, where coal, has to be purchased from abroad, the utilisation of natural sources of available energy is an important problem. In this volume the author gives in tabular form a list of the principal water courses of the Italian mainland, and estimates, so far as information will permit, the amount of horse-power obtainable from these (a) under normal conditions (“magra ordinaria”) and (b)during the dry seasons of the year (“minima magra”), exceptional droughts being excluded. Between these two limits, there is a large amount Of energy available during the greater part of the year, which might be utilised if provision were made for supplying the deficiency during the dry rnonths, and one method suggested is to apply this water power to electric traction on the railways, supplementing it in the summer by the use either of ordinary locomotives, or steam engines at the generating stations. Of other sources of energy, the sea with its tides and waves is considered, and even glaciers are mentioned in connection with the property that a cold body may act as a store, if not of energy(as the author implies), at any rate of availability. This distinction between energy and availability might with advantage be pointed out clearly in the introduction, which deals with “the unity of concepts in. modern physics,” but in which the part devoted to matters thermodvnamic is suggestive of Carnot's calorictheory of the motive power of fire rather· than of the second law as modified by Clausius.
Le Forze Idrauliche.
By Irigegnere Torquato Perdoni. Pp. 205; with four plates. (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1902.)
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Le Forze Idrauliche . Nature 67, 413 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/067413c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/067413c0