Cult of Reason
25th April 2006, 09:59
I am sorry, but you could you be more detailed etc. with your example? It seems to make a few jumps without me seeing how to connect them.
Also, what do you think of the idea of the progression of society being defined by its energy use? As in, what share of the total energy available is taken by human society.
To use an example used in the Technocracy study course (here: http://haraldur.mysticsoftware.net/etsc1_3.pdf ): Imagine ancient man, in the age of the mammoth and the sabre tooth tiger. Let us imagine him without any tools whatsoever. In this position the only sustenance available to him is that which can be taken with his own hands...
Actually, since I am lazy, I will copy wholesale this part of the book (I am not sure, but some things might be a bit odd due to not haing read the preceding chapters, but I am here to answer questions):
Lesson 9
DYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM
AMONG
ENERGY-CONSUMING
DEVICES
We have already seen that every sort of mechanism, both inanimate and
organic—plant, animal and steam engine—is an energy dissipating device.
Plants require solar energy; animals require chemical energy in the form of
food derived either from plants or other animals; steam engines require the
chemical energy of fuel. It is important to note here that particular kinds
of energy-consuming devices can, in general, make use of energy only when
it occurs in certain forms. Thus, a steam engine cannot utilize the energy
contained in a waterfall, neither can a horse operate on the energy contained
in coal or gasoline. Certain animals, the herbivores, can utilize only the
energy contained in a limited variety of plants; other animals, the carnivores,
can utilize only energy occurring in the form of meat. Most plants can utilize
only the energy of light radiation. All of the energy used by every kind of
energy-consuming device on the earth is, as we have pointed out, derived
almost without exception, initially from the energy of sunshine. The energy
of sunshine is a vast flow of energy. The existence of plants and animals is
dependent upon a successful competition by each of the different species for
a share of this total flow. A simple illustration will perhaps make this more
clear.
66
LESSON 9. DYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM 67
9.1 Dynamic Equilibrium of Plants and Animals
Imagine an area of land in a temperate region having the usual array of
vegetation peculiar to that area. Suppose that a block of this land of several
square miles in area be completely fenced off in such a manner that no animals
at all are allowed within this area. Under these conditions the grass, in the
absence of animals, would become tall and of luxuriant growth.
Now, into this pasture with its luxuriant growth of grass, suppose that
we introduce a pair of rabbits, one male and one female, without allowing
any other animals within the region. Suppose, further, that we take a census
at regular intervals of the rabbit population within this area. As we know,
rabbits breed rapidly, and in a year’s time one pair of rabbits produce about
12 offspring. Assuming no rabbits to die in the meantime, and this same
rate of multiplication to continue, at the end of the first year the total rabbit
population would be 14; at the end of the second year the population would
have reached 98; at the end of the third year it would have reached 686.
One might object to this on the ground that some of the rabbits would have
died in the meantime, and this objection is well founded. Given a situation
such as we have assumed here where the food supply is abundant and other
conditions are favorable, it is a well established fact that animals multiply in
such a manner that their birth rate exceeds their death rate, and as long as
these conditions maintain, the population tends to increase at a compound
interest rate. In the case of the rabbits we are considering, if the births per
year were 600 percent and the deaths per year were 200 percent, there would
be an expansion of 400 percent. This, while slightly less spectacular than
the case where no deaths occurred, would still result in a very rapid increase
in the rabbit population of the area. Under these conditions, if at the end of
a certain time the rabbit population were 100, there would be by the end of
the following year 500 rabbits in the area, and by the end of the year after,
2,500 rabbits, etc.
At this rate it is very obvious that it would not take many years for the
rabbit population to reach an overwhelming figure. How long could this rate
of growth continue? Is there any upper limit to the number of rabbits that
can live in a given pasture area? There very obviously is. The rabbits eat
principally grass and certain other small plants. For the sake of simplicity,
we shall assume that the rabbits eat only grass. Grass, therefore, being the
LESSON 9. DYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM 68
food, constitutes the energy supply for the rabbit population. Each rabbit in
order to subsist must have a certain number of calories per day, and therefore,
must eat a certain minimum amount of grass per day. In the initial conditions
that we have specified, the grass supply far exceeded the needs of the rabbit
population. Under these conditions there were no limitations on the rate
of growth of the population. Finally, however, there would come a time
when the number of rabbits would be such that the amount of grass per year
required to feed them would just equal the rate at which grass grows. Under
these conditions it is easy to see that if the rabbit population were to get any
larger than this, the surplus would starve to death.
Our curve of the growth of the rabbit population, therefore, if plotted as
a graph, would at first rise more and more rapidly with time. After that,
the curve would begin to level off, signifying that the food requirements of
the rabbit population was approaching the rate of growth of the grass of the
region.
When these two things become equal, that is to say, when the rate at
which rabbits eat grass is equal to the rate at which grass grows in the
region, there will have been reached a state of dynamic equilibrium between
rabbits and grass. If there should be a particularly good growing season, the
grass would grow more rapidly, and the rabbit population would increase as
a consequence; if this were followed by a drought, the grass would decrease
and the surplus rabbit population would consequently die off.
Now suppose that in this pasture where a state of dynamic equilibrium
between rabbits and grass has already been achieved, we introduce a disturbing
factor in the form of a pair of coyotes. Coyotes live on meat, and since
we have postulated that rabbits are the only other animals in the area, the
coyotes will live upon the rabbits.
Now, what will happen? Since there is an abundance of rabbits the coyotes
will have plenty to eat, and while this condition lasts they will multiply
at their most rapid rate. At the same time, however, because of this, the
death rate among the rabbits increases, and the rabbit population declines.
Finally, there comes a time when the rate at which the coyotes require rabbits
for food is equal to the rate at which the rabbits grow. Under this condition
the rabbit population will stabilize at a lower figure than formerly, and
the coyote population will also stabilize at a different figure. When this is
attained there will then be a state of dynamic equilibrium between coyotes,
rabbits and grass.
We could complicate the picture still further by introducing foxes, owls,
LESSON 9. DYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM 69
field mice and the whole complex array of animals that one normally finds
in such localities. With this more complex picture we would find exactly
the same thing; that is, if left alone, each of these different species would
tend to come to a stable population. In the case of each species a stationary
population involves an equality between its birth rate and death rate. Its
birth rate is dependent upon its available energy supply; and its death rate
is determined in part by age and in part by the rate at which it becomes and
energy supply in the form of food for other species.
A disturbance on either side of this equation, a change in the food supply,
or a change in the rate at which it is eaten or dies, will disturb this dynamic
equilibrium one way or the other.
9.2 The Dynamic Equilibrium of Man
The principles discussed above are just as valid for the human species as for
coyotes or rabbits.
Suppose we consider man in his most primitive state, before he had invented
tools and clothing, learned to use fire, or had domesticated plants
and animals. What was his food supply? He must have lived on fruits, grass
seeds, nuts, and other such plant products as were available and suitable
for human food. He probably caught and ate small animals such as rabbits,
rats, frogs, fish and perhaps insects. His population in a given area was
therefore limited on the upper boundary by the rate at which he could catch
these small animals, or could gather the plant foods. On the other side, such
large predatory animals as bears, panthers, lions and saber-toothed tigers
were lurking about, and it is entirely probable that our primitive ancestors
formed a part of the natural food supply of these animals. This, as in the case
of the coyote-rabbit equilibrium mentioned above, tended to further restrict
the human population within a given area.
Now, suppose that this primitive species, man, learned to use such a
weapon as a club, what effect would this have toward changing the state
of the dynamic equilibrium? In the first place, with a club, a man could
probably kill more animals for food than he could have caught using only
his hands. This would tend to increase his food supply, and in so doing,
would to that extent curtail the food supply of his predatory competitors.
For example, suppose that with a club a man could kill more rabbits than he
could catch with his bare hands; this would increase the human food supply
LESSON 9. DYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM 70
and consequently tend to increase the human population in the given area.
At the same time there would be a decrease in the rabbit population, and
a corresponding decrease in the population of other animals depending on
rabbits for food.
A club is a weapon of defense as well as a weapon of offense. With a
club, a man would be able to defend himself from beasts of prey, and would
accordingly decrease the rate at which he became the prey of other predatory
animals.
The result of both of these, the increase of human food supply, and the increase
in the expectancy of life of the human being, act in the same direction,
namely, to disturb the balance in favor of an increase of human population
in the given area.
Now, let our primitive man discover the use of fire. Fire, by its warming
effect, would protect man from the winter cold, and doubtless decrease
the number of deaths from freezing and exposure. This would prolong the
average length of life, and consequently increase the population. Fire also is
a powerful medium of defense in that it effectively prevents the depredation
by predatory animals. This also tends to increase the expectancy of life.
The use of fire also would permit man to invade new and colder territories.
Thus, not only would learning to use fire tend to increase the population in
areas inhabited by man, but it would enable him to reach a food supply in
areas not previously accessible, and, consequently, to still further multiply
by inhabiting a larger and larger portion of the earth.
The discovery of the use of fire is of even greater significance in another
way. In this hypothetical development that we have outlined, prior to the
use of fire the only part of the total flow of solar energy that had been
diverted into the uses of man, prior to the use of fire, was that of the food he
ate. The energy requirements of our primitive ancestors in the form of food
was probably not greatly different from that of today, namely, about 2,300 to
2,600 kilogram calories per capita per day. No other energy was utilized than
that of food eaten. With the discovery of fire, a totally new source of energy
was tapped, and use for the first time was made of extraneous energy—energy
other than food eaten.
This constituted one of the first steps in a long and tortuous evolution
in the learning to convert an ever larger fraction of the total flow of solar
energy into uses favorable to the human species. The results of this learning
to direct the flow of solar energy, as we shall see in succeeding lessons, are
among the most momentous of the events in the history of life on this planet.
LESSON 9. DYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM 71
References:
Animal Life and Social Growth, Allee.
Origin of Species, Darwin.
The Biology of Population Growth, Pearl.
Elements of Physical Biology, Lotka.
Lesson 10
ENERGY IN HUMAN
HISTORY
In Lesson 9 we learned that all plant and animal species are in a perpetual
state of competition for larger and larger shares of the total flow of energy
from sunshine. The number of individuals of a particular animal species that
can live in a given area is dependent in part upon the rate at which energy
occurs in that area in a form suitable for use by that species; in part upon
the number of competing species for energy in the same form; and in part
upon the rate at which this same species becomes food, and therefore serves
as the energy supply for still other species.
Under the strenuous competition for existence there develops in a given
area between the various plant and animal species a state of balance, or, of
dynamic equilibrium. This state of balance is precarious, and is subject to
disturbances by a change of weather conditions and hence of food supply, or
it can be disturbed by numerous other factors.
The human species, as we have seen, exists as a part of this dynamic ‘web
of life’.
The history of the human species since prehistoric times is distinguished
chiefly from that of other animal species in that during this period man has
been learning progressively how to deprive a larger and larger share of the
sun’s energy from the other animals and direct it into his own uses. This has
resulted in the ascendancy of man, and has wrought unprecedented havoc
among the other animals of the earth.
In our last lesson we saw that the use of a simple tool like a club gave man
a decided advantage in the struggle for existence, and by increasing his food
72
LESSON 10. ENERGY IN HUMAN HISTORY 73
supply, made available for man’s use a larger supply of the total flow of the
sun’s energy. We saw that the discovery of the use of fire, probably his first
use of energy other than food eaten, gave him another decided advantage
tending both to increase his length of life and to enlarge the area he could
inhabit. The use, both of the club and of fire, tended to increase the human
population of the earth.
10.1 Domestication of Plants
Let us review a few more of the high points of man’s conquest of energy.
Consider the domestication of plants. The first stage in the domestication
of plants consists of taking those plants in a wild form which are suitable
for food for man or his animals (or otherwise useful, as for clothing) and
cultivating them for the purpose of increasing their yield. This cultivation
consists chiefly of two things: (1) the removal of competing plants from the
area under cultivation; (2) the loosening of the soil to increase the yield of
the plants cultivated.
The net effect of this is that a very much greater portion of the solar
radiation incident upon the area under cultivation is converted into forms
suitable for food for man and his animals, or into other useful products, than
was the case prior to such cultivation. The domestication of plants, therefore,
is simply an artificial means of diverting a larger and larger proportion of the
sun’s energy (which formerly was, as far as man is concerned, wasted) into
human usage.
10.2 Domestication of Animals
Consider the domestication of animals. Out of all the array of the animal
species in regions inhabited by man only certain ones, such as sheep, goats,
cattle and swine, were especially suitable for human food and at the same
time amenable to domestication. Others, such as the horse, the camel, the
ox, and the dog, were suitable for other uses than food, such as carrying
burdens or otherwise performing work.
Here, as in the case of the domestication of plants, we are dealing primarily
with a diversion of energy. Prior to the domestication of animals
a given pasture area would have been roamed by the miscellaneous grassLESSON
10. ENERGY IN HUMAN HISTORY 74
eating herds, along with wolves, lions and other predatory animals preying
upon these. In such an area man would have taken his chances in competition
with the rest. Suppose, however, he domesticated one species of these
animals, sheep, shall we say, and protected it from its natural enemies. Under
these circumstances the biological equilibrium would be disturbed, and
the protected species would multiply out of all proportion to the numbers it
would have if not so protected. Because of their great number these domestic
herds also would eat a far larger proportion of the grass in the area than they
would have been able to do otherwise.
Thus the domestication of animals is a device whereby man has been able
to convert solar energy represented in such vegetation as pasture grass, which
is not in that form suitable for human uses directly, into forms such as meat,
wool and skins, which are suitable for human use.
We see, therefore, that the domestication of plants and animals, by beginning
with a disturbance of the biological equilibrium between plant and
animal species, results in an increased food and clothing supply for man,
himself, from a given area. Since, under primitive conditions, the human
species tends always to expand faster than these devices tend to increase the
food supply, it follows that the astounding result of each of these achievements
must have been to increase the number of people who could exist in
a given area, and, therefore, to increase the human population of the earth.
The population of the Nile Delta during the time of the Egyptians, with their
cultivation of plants, must have been vastly greater than the number which
could have subsisted in the same area in its wild and undeveloped state.
The North American Continent affords a very interesting contrast of a
similar kind. The Indians had few domestic plants, and almost no domestic
animals. Their principal tools were fire, the bow and arrow, and the canoe.
While the size of the Indian population prior to the European invasion can
only be estimated, available figures indicate that the total population north
of Mexico at the time of the discovery of America was less than 2,000,000
people. With the methods of energy conversion known to the Indians it is
doubtful if the area in which they lived could have supported very many more
than actually existed at that time. In other words, there was pretty nearly
a state of dynamic equilibrium between the Indians and their food supply.
The population of the United States alone is at the present time 131,000,000
people (1940). This has been made possible only by a far greater utilization
or conversion of energy, than was possible by the Indians in their state of
knowledge.
LESSON 10. ENERGY IN HUMAN HISTORY 75
10.3 Discovery of Metals
Succeeding stages in the conquest of energy by the human species are represented
by the discovery of metals and their uses. Metals provided better
tools and weapons, both of offense and defense, than man had known prior
to that time. This still further, in the manner we have indicated, disturbed
the biologic balance in man’s favor, and again he extended his conquest and
increased his numbers.
Greater mobility also was achieved by the use of the camel and the horse
as beasts of burden. Wheeled vehicles were devised, and boats of increasing
sizes and improved modes of propulsion were developed. The combination
of the use of metals, and the increased mobility brought the human species
face to face with some of the hard facts of geology, namely, that metals in
concentration suitable for human exploitation occur but rarely and only in
certain localities of the earth’s surface. Moreover, the ores of these metals
occur at various depths beneath the earth’s surface, and can only be mined
with difficulty.
The ancients obtained important copper ores from the mines of the Isle of
Cyprus. The Greeks obtained silver from the silver mines of Laurium. The
ancient tin mines of Cornwall were exploited by the Romans, and probably
even by the Phoenicians.
The methods of mining used were of the crudest. Only the simplest of
hand tools were available, and with these a single miner working in solid
rock could generally not mine much more than a basket of ore per day. The
labor employed in the mine was primarily that of slaves, frequently working
in chain gangs. In passages too small for adults, children were employed.
Few written records of the earlier mining practices have been preserved
to the present time, due largely to the fact that the writing of the time was
done primarily by the philosophers and others who felt it distinctly beneath
their dignity to dirty their hands with the work-a-day labor of the world
sufficiently to inform themselves on such processes. This much is known,
however, that the mining methods of the ancients were sufficiently thorough
in the localities worked by them that little has been left to be done by more
modern methods except at depths greater than the ancients were able to
penetrate.
This increase in the use of metals had the social effect not only of increasing
the prowess of man but also of increasing the technical problems presented
by the mining methods themselves that he was called upon to solve. The
LESSON 10. ENERGY IN HUMAN HISTORY 76
ancients found their operations curtailed and finally balked at depth by the
inflow of ground water into the workings of the mines. If greater depths were
to be obtained suitable pumps must be devised, and since the water flowed
in continuously, pumping operations had to be maintained.
This required power. The solution of the problem, together with that of
hoisting ores and rock from the mines, may very well be said to have laid the
foundation stones for the future mechanical development.
Various kinds of windlasses and pumps were developed; at first only the
muscle power of human beings was employed, then oxen working on treadmills
were used, and later in a similar manner horses were employed. Where
suitable waterfalls occurred, water wheels were developed, employing the energy
contained in the waterfall for pumping and hoisting. In other cases
windmills were developed employing the energy of the wind for a similar
purpose. Had only these sources of energy been available, the mining and
consequently the industrial development of the future would have been seriously
handicapped. The crying need was for newer and larger sources of
energy.
10.4 Summary
We have thus traced the high points of the development of man’s conquest
of energy through its initial stages.
We have found that every new technical device—the domestication of
plants and animals, the use of tools, such as the club, the boat, wheeled vehicles,
and finally the use of metals—has each played its part in contributing
to a diversion of an ever-increasing part of the sun’s energy into uses of the
human species.
The extensive use of metals was among the most significant and farreaching
in its effect of the events in human history. It not only disturbed
the biological equilibrium resulting in an increase in human population at the
expense of the other species, but it also, in a similar manner, gave certain
peoples an advantage, due to their greater command of energy, over other
peoples not so favorably equipped. This resulted in a disturbance of the equilibrium
within the human species in favor of those with the greater command
of energy.
LESSON 10. ENERGY IN HUMAN HISTORY 77
References:
The Biology of Population Growth, Pearl.
Elements of Physical Biology, Lotka.
Man and Metals, Rickard.
History of Mechanical Inventions, Usher.
Lesson 11
EARLY STAGES IN THE USE
OF EXTRANEOUS ENERGY
In previous lessons we have seen how the degradation of solar radiation in
processes occurring on the earth’s surface has resulted in the various forms
of movement that matter on the earth’s surface is continually undergoing.
We have pointed out that the various life forms are in competition with one
another for shares of the solar energy. We have seen, furthermore, how the
human species, by learning to use fire, to domesticate plants and animals,
and by developing various tools and weapons, first of stone, wood and bone,
and later of metals, has been able to disturb the biologic equilibrium and
gain for itself a disproportionate share of this solar energy as compared with
other species. At first thought one might conclude that this would result in an
improved human standard of living and general well-being, and in some cases
this was true, but by and large the improvement as regards the individual
does not seem to have been great.
11.1 Food, Fire, Animals, Wind, and Water
Consider the energy available per person during all this time. Before man
learned to use fire, his sole available source of energy was that contained in
the food he ate. This, as we have seen already, for an average population
of young and old, amounts to about 2,300 kilogram calories per person per
day. Since available evidence indicates that our ancestors at that time were
approximately the same size we are now, they must have consumed energy
78
LESSON 11. EXTRANEOUS ENERGY-EARLY STAGES 79
in the form of food at about the same rate we consume it now.
Extraneous energy—energy other than food eaten—was, as we have just
seen, introduced but very gradually. First, there was fire. This was the utilization
of the heat contained in wood. Then there was the work of animals,
the horse, the ox, the dog. At no time throughout early history was the
number of domestic animals per capita very large on an average. Then came
the use of the energy of the wind and running water, but these were only
used locally, and were never (during this period) of great importance.
The tendency of the human species to multiply at a compound interest
rate tended always during this early history to keep the population at approximately
the maximum number that the means available were able to
support. Estimating on the average the use of fuel to provide approximately
400 kilogram-calories per capita per day (average for all climates), and one
domestic animal for every five people, providing an additional 1,600 kilogram
calories per person per day, we would arrive at a total of extraneous energy of
only about 2,000 kilogram-calories per capita per day prior to the extensive
use of fossil fuels.
Thus we see that, great as were the strides made by the human race
through the preceding history, the increase of the average standard of living,
stated in the physical terms of energy consumption, was almost negligible.
This can be seen in another way when one considers the abject poverty and
squalor under which the great bulk of the people during all preceding history
apparently lived.
During the ‘golden age’ of Athens only a relatively small part of the
population was free. The preponderance of the people were slaves or serfs
of some degree or other. History, as it has been handed down, has focused
attention upon a few of the more illustrious of these free citizens; the others
whose toil made this freedom of the few possible have been more or less
tactfully omitted.
Under the glory that was Rome, one finds a similar or worse condition.
At the height of the power of the Roman Empire most of the necessary work
that was required, such as building, agriculture, and mining, was done by
slaves. The campaigns of the Roman armies of this time, so the records of
the Roman senate show, were largely directed for the acquisition of spoils,
such as mines and the products thereof, and slaves. These slaves were worked
to the limit of human endurance, and were, after a few short years of service,
broken, discarded, and replaced by others obtained by new conquests.
LESSON 11. EXTRANEOUS ENERGY-EARLY STAGES 80
11.2 The Use of Fossil Fuel
A totally new era in this unidirectional progression was entered when man
began to tap a hitherto unused energy resource, that of fossil fuel—coal, and
more recently, oil.
Coal and petroleum in small amounts, and largely as curiosities, have
been known, according to available records, since the time of the ancients.
Coal, however, as an energy resource first began to be exploited extensively
in England in about the twelfth century. First, chunks of coal found along
the seashore, came to be burned for domestic fuel; later, in the vicinity of
Newcastle, coal was dug from the ground out of open pits. The fact that
this coal could be more easily acquired, and, if purchased, was less expensive
than wood, caused it to be adopted as fuel by the poorer classes. Shortly
after, coal was shipped from Newcastle to London, where it came to be used
as fuel, much to the annoyance of the royalty and nobility of the time; and,
because of its smoke and sulphurous odor, laws were passed prohibiting its
use. Somewhat later, coal from Newcastle found its way to Paris in exchange
for boat loads of grain.
By the year 1600 the use of coal for domestic purposes in England had
become a custom permanently established. Chimneys had been built, much
to the disgust of the older generation, who considered that the young folks
were becoming effeminate by not being able to endure the smoky atmosphere
after the stalwart manner of their elders.
Coal found its way, also, into industrial uses. First the blacksmith, and
then the glassmaker, found its use more and more indispensable. The iron
mines of England, which, simultaneously with coal, were being developed,
had up to this time depended upon a supply of charcoal for smelting purposes.
The demand for wood for the making of charcoal, as well as for the building of
English ships—men-of-war and merchantmen—was placing a heavy burden
on English timber. Comments and complaints began to increase after the
year 1600 about the exhaustion of timber. This placed a premium upon a
method whereby iron might be smelted by the use of coal. In about the year
1745 such a process was discovered. Coal could be roasted into coke, and this
latter used for the smelting of iron. Iron ores, like coal, were abundant in
England. The union of these two components, coal and iron, was among the
most significant events of human history. The more iron that was smelted
the more coal was required. Also, the more iron that was made available, the
more equipment requiring iron was devised. Thus we have a process which
LESSON 11. EXTRANEOUS ENERGY-EARLY STAGES 81
of itself appears to have no ending.
11.3 The Use of Gunpowder
Another important contribution to the use of extraneous energy that occurred
during this period was the invention of gunpowder. While its exact date is
obscured, gunpowder came into use in the Western World about the end
of the thirteenth century. Gunpowder was composed of charcoal, saltpeter
and sulphur. These, when ignited, react together with explosive violence,
releasing energy as follows:
2KNO3 + S + 3C −! K2S + 3CO2 + N2 + heat
Saltpetre Sulphur Charcoal Potassium Sulphide Carbon Dioxide Nitrogen
Of course, the first and most obvious use of this new form of energy, as
with most others that can be so applied, was for weapons of warfare. Guns
were developed, and those people using firearms exercised a very decisive
advantage over those not so equipped, as well as over other animals. This
still further disturbed the biologic equilibrium in favor of the human species
over other animal species, as well as in favor of those groups of people having
this energy resource over other peoples of the earth not so equipped. The
conquest of the New World by the Europeans is due almost entirely to the
superior energy technique of the Europeans as compared with that of the
Indians. Bows and arrows were no match for firearms; wood and stone tools
could not compete with tools of metal; little or no domestication of plants
and animals rendered the Indian far inferior to the European in regard to
the production of food.
So decisive is the matter of energy control that one may fairly state that
other things being equal, that people which has a superior energy control technique
will always tend to supplant or control the one with a lesser technique.
Another use to which gunpowder was applied which may have been of
greater significance than its use in warfare, even though not so much noted
in textbooks of history, was its application to mining, and later to other
industrial purposes requiring blasting. Gunpowder as an industrial explosive
came to be used in the mines of Germany in the late sixteenth century. It
was employed in the mines of Cornwall in 1680. Before this time the tools
of mining had been largely the pick and hammer and simple wedges and
chisels. By employing gunpowder, holes could be drilled and blasts set off,
LESSON 11. EXTRANEOUS ENERGY-EARLY STAGES 82
thereby breaking out a very much larger quantity of ore with a given number
of workmen than had ever been done previously. This acceleration in mining
practice went hand in hand with the same acceleration in the use of coal that
we have just described.
11.4 A New Problem
In both of these cases, as is always true of the introduction of a new technique,
new and unsolved problems were created. The first coal mines, as pointed
out, were shallow, open pits. The increased use of coal required the mining
at continually greater depths. Ground water is usually encountered within
a few tens of feet of the top of the ground. The deeper the mines and the
larger the workings, the faster the rate of infiltration of water. This is true,
both in metal mines and in coal mines, but due to the greater number and
size of the coal mines it there presented a more serious difficulty.
In the earlier and smaller workings the water was bailed out by hand
labor. Finally the problem became too large to be solved by this method,
and pumps operated by treadmills driven by horses were introduced. At
first treadmills, with a single horse, then with five, twenty, and a hundred
were used. By this time the problem had obviously reached very serious
proportions, because, if the mines were to be kept open, the pumps had to
be operated continuously day and night, and the food required to keep two
shifts of a hundred horses working on treadmills was a very serious problem
in early eighteenth century England. A new solution had to be found.
References:
Man and Metals, Rickard.
Behemoth, The Story of Power, Hodgins and Magoun.
History of Mechanical Inventions, Usher.
Lesson 12
MODERN INDUSTRIAL
GROWTH
We have traced the rather slow and tortuous evolution of the human species in
the struggle for energy. We noticed in the last lesson that, with the learning to
use the energy contained in coal, there seemed to be a quickening of the tempo
of human affairs. Coal provided heat for domestic purposes, and for glass
making. After 1745 coal was made into coke for the smelting of iron. The
increasing uses for coal created a greater and greater demand for more coal.
The increased rate of mining operations caused mining to be carried on at
greater depths, with consequent pumping problems of continuously increasing
magnitude. As we have pointed out, the use of as many as 100 horses, working
on treadmills, created costs of upkeep for the horses which threatened to
overbalance the proceeds from selling the coal. It was imperative that a
better and cheaper method of pumping be devised. One of the first of these
was that of Thomas Savery.
12.1 Development of the Steam Engine
Savery, in 1698, devised an engine consisting of a boiler and two steam expansion
chambers, equipped with suitable valves operated by hand. These
chambers were filled with water, and when the steam was turned into each
of them alternately, water was forced upward; then, with the bottom valve
open, and the steam inlet turned off, the condensation of the steam in the
chamber produced a vacuum which sucked more water from the mine.
83
LESSON 12. MODERN INDUSTRIAL GROWTH 84
This engine was not very satisfactory, and was followed shortly after by
the ‘atmospheric engine’ of Newcomen and Cawley in the year 1705. This
engine consisted of a rocking beam, to one end of which was attached a pump
rod and to the other a piston in a vertical cylinder. When steam was admitted
to the cylinder the piston was lifted, and the pump rod lowered; next, water
was injected into the cylinder to condense the steam, thus creating a vacuum
below the piston, so that the atmospheric pressure on the top side of the
piston forced it back down, lifting the pump rod, and thereby pumping water.
Thus, the work stroke was done, not by the steam, but by the pressure of
the atmosphere, hence the name ‘atmospheric engine’.
At first the valves of this engine were operated by hand, but this became
tedious; and later, so the story goes, the boy who operated the valves became
tired, and devised a system of strings attached to the rocking beam in such
a manner that they opened and closed the valves automatically.
Such was the rate of progress at this time that it was not until 1769
that any material improvement was made on this engine. In that year James
Watt invented a condenser so that the hot steam could be exhausted from the
cylinder and condensed in a chamber outside, instead of cooling the cylinder
down each time, as had been done previously. In 1782, Watt still further
improved the steam engine by making it double acting, that is, steam was
admitted alternately, first at one end of the cylinder, and then at the other,
thus driving the piston in both its up and down strokes. At about this time
the flywheel was added to the simple rocking beam.
By this time the age of power was well begun, and more and more uses
were found to which the steam engine could be applied, as will be pointed
out presently. Individual engines were made continuously larger. First there
was only the single cylinder, then there developed successively the double-,
triple-, and quadruple- expansion types of engines. The reciprocating engine
reached its climax toward the end of the nineteenth century in the Corliss
type. Of these the largest stationary units reached upwards of 10,000 kw.,
and stood with their cylinder heads approximately 30 feet above the axis of
their cranks.
In 1889, De Laval, of Sweden, devised a steam turbine to operate his
cream separator. In 1884 Sir Charles Parsons built a steam turbine which
delivered 10 h.p. at 18,000 revolutions per minute. In 1897 steam turbines
were installed in a small steamship named the Turbinia. In 1903 a 5,000 kw.
turbine was installed in one of the central electric power stations of Chicago.
From that time on this form of steam engine has increased rapidly in size
LESSON 12. MODERN INDUSTRIAL GROWTH 85
and usefulness. By 1915 a 35,000 kw. unit was installed in Philadelphia. In
1929, in the Hell Gate Station, New York City, units of 160,000 kw. each
were installed. These represent the largest single engines ever built.
If 1 horsepower for 8 hours represents the work of 10 strong men, then for
24 hours 1 horsepower would represent the work of 30 men working 8 hours
each. One kilowatt is one and one-third horsepower, and hence represents
the work of 40 men for 1 day. Thus, one of these engines does the work in
one day’s time of 6,400,000 strong men. There are 5 of these engines in New
York City at the present time. These 5 engines when running to capacity, do
work equivalent to 32,000,000 strong men working at hard labor for 8 hours
a day each.
12.2 The Railroad
Not only did coal mining create a problem of pumping water, but the coal had
to be hauled varying distances over bad ground, either to the market or else
to the seashore to be loaded in ships and transported by water. This created
a serious problem in transportation, and early in the sixteenth century rails
of timber were laid at the coal mines of Newcastle-on-Tyne. Carts carrying
4 to 5 tons of coal each were drawn by horses on these rails. These first rails
were secured to cross timbers. In 1735 it was found that the rails could be
made stronger and to wear longer if iron bars were fastened to their tops. In
1767 cast iron rails, 4 to 5 feet long, were substituted for the entire wooden
rail. These cast iron rails were brittle and troublesome because of their short
length and numerous joints. In 1820 these were replaced by wrought iron
rails, 15 feet in length. Such were the first railroads.
The development of the steam engine and the rapid rate of increase in the
use of coal led naturally to the casting about for a new kind of motive power.
In 1804 Richard Trevithick built a steam locomotive which hauled 10 tons
of coal at 5 miles per hour. In 1814 George Stevenson built an important
locomotive that hauled 35 tons of coal four miles per hour up a 1 to 450
grade.
By 1825 there were all together 28 railroads in Great Britain, mostly
mine roads, with a total mileage of 450 miles. In that year the Stockton
& Darlington Railway, 25 miles long, was put into operation. This may be
considered the first modern steam operated railway.
At the opening of this road, a Stevenson engine hauled a train consisting of
LESSON 12. MODERN INDUSTRIAL GROWTH 86
22 wagons of passengers and 12 wagons of coal, totaling 90 tons, at an average
speed of 5 miles per hour. Later this road reverted largely to horses for motive
power, reserving the steam locomotives for hauling freight, chiefly coal. By
1830 the Liverpool & Manchester Railroad, 35 miles long, was operating with
an improved type of locomotive, and from that time on mechanical motive
power has been indisputably established.
In the United States, as in England, railroads were first built for horsedrawn
vehicles. In 1829 a 16-mile road from Honesdale to Carbondale,
Pennsylvania, was built, and a steam locomotive of English manufacture
introduced. The following year a 13-mile road from Baltimore to Prescott,
Maryland, was opened.
12.3 The Steamboat
Similar advances were made in water transportation. In 1785 John Fitch
ran the first successful steamboat in America. After this followed, in rapid
succession, numerous other small steamers in inland and coastwise waters,
both in Europe and the United States. In 1819 the S.S. Savannah was the
first steam-propelled ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. By 1838, two ships,
the S.S. Great Eastern and S.S. Sirius, were in regular service. In 1837 and
1838 John Ericson introduced in England the screw propeller. This gradually
replaced the paddle wheels, so that by 1870 all ocean-going steam-driven
vessels were propelled by screws.
While the advances made in both railroads and in steamships since 1900
have been great, the trend has been one more of orderly evolutionary development,
rather than of radical departures. Electrification of steam railroads
was under way prior to 1910. This has been followed by Diesel-electric engines,
and by steam locomotives of continually greater size, and of greater
thermal efficiency. At the present time we seem to be on the threshold of a
major departure in railroad equipment in the form of high speed, lightweight,
streamlined trains propelled by Diesel engines.
12.4 The Automobile
The more modern forms of transportation are the automobile and the airplane.
The beginnings of efforts to construct a self-propelled road vehicle
LESSON 12. MODERN INDUSTRIAL GROWTH 87
were practically coincident with the locomotive. In the period from 1827 to
1836 Walter Hancock, in England, constructed several steam wagons that
carried passengers over carriage roads. One of these is reported to have run
20 weeks, traveling a distance of 4,200 miles, and carrying 12,000 passengers.
With the rise of railroads, motor vehicles for road use were virtually abandoned
until about 1885, when the development of the gas engine by Daimler
and others led to the motorization of the bicycle and then of the carriage.
About 1895 the development of motor vehicles propelled by internal combustion
engines or by electric motors began in earnest, leading to the modern
automotive transportation.
12.5 Transportation by Air
The first abortive attempts at transportation by air date back to the early
balloons, about the year 1783. Finally, in 1896, Langley’s heavier-than-air
machine made the first successful flight of its kind. In 1903 the Wright
Brothers were the first to take off in a heavier-than-air machine propelled by
its own power. Since that time aviation has developed by leaps and bounds,
gaining particular impetus during theWorldWar. Planes have become bigger
and faster, and the cruising radius has progressively increased.
12.6 Summary
In the space here it is manifestly impossible to more than scratch the surface
of the vast field of technological developments that have taken place since
the first feeble beginnings.
Among the first industrial equipment to use power from steam engines
was that of the textile industry. The changes wrought here were so great
as to be characterized in history as the Industrial Revolution of the latter
part of the eighteenth century. Corresponding developments beginning at
various times can be traced in communications—telegraph, telephone, radio
and television.
It becomes evident that our Industrial Revolution of the last two hundred
years is a development radically different from that of any preceding period
of the earth’s history, and compared with which all earlier developments
are insignificant in magnitude. Each development has come, not as a thing
LESSON 12. MODERN INDUSTRIAL GROWTH 88
of itself, but only as a part of the picture as a whole. Steam or water
turbines could not effectively be utilized until electrical equipment had been
developed. This latter, in turn, had to wait until Faraday, Maxwell and
others had discovered the fundamental principles of electricity.
Viewed with regard to the multiplicity of its details it would appear to be
an endless and hopeless task for a single individual to obtain even approximately
a comprehensive grasp of our modern industrial evolution. When one
considers, however, that all of the equipment is composed almost entirely of
a small number of the chemical elements—iron, copper, lead, zinc, etc., and
that furthermore, the manufacture and operation of the equipment requires
energy in strict accordance with the laws of thermodynamics, the problem is
evidently greatly simplified. In other words, if it be known at what rate the
industrial system has required the basic materials such as iron, copper, tin,
lead, zinc, and if it be known at what rate it dissipates energy from the energy
sources of coal, oil, gas, water power and plants, all of the innumerable
details are automatically included.
Timeline of Industrial Technology
Prime Movers
1698-Savery steam engine
1705-Newcomen and Cawley, steam engine
1769-Watt, steam engine condenser
1782-Watt, double acting piston engine
1820 W. Cecil, engine, 60 r.p.m.
1823 Brown, gas vacuum engine
1849-Francis, water turbine (size 6 in. to 18 ft. diameter)
1876-Otto cycle internal combustion engine
1882-Pearl Street, New York, generating station
1883-De Laval, steam turbine
1884-Parsons, steam turbine
1895–Diesel, internal combustion engine
1903-First 5,000 kw. central station steam turbine, Chicago, Ill.
1929-160,000 kw. turbines installed. Mercury turbine
Transportation—Water
1785-First successful steamship, John Fitch
1819-First steam-driven ship crossed Atlantic
LESSON 12. MODERN INDUSTRIAL GROWTH 89
1837-Screw propeller introduced (Ericson)
1897-Turbine engine used in steamships
Transportation—Land
Railroads
1750-Cast iron rails, 4 to 5 ft. long, first used (1767)
1800-Trevithick’s steam locomotive (1804)
George Stevenson built improved locomotive (1814)
Wrought iron rails, 15 ft. long, first used (1820)
First modern railroad, Stockton to Darlington, England (1825)
First railroad in U.S., Honesdale to Carbondale, Penna. (1829)
George Stevenson introduced the ‘Rocket,’ improved locomotive (1829)
1850-First transcontinental railroad system in U.S. (1869)
First working electric railroad, Germany (1879)
1900-Electrification of steam railroads Diesel-electric locomotives
Other Vehicles
1800-Steam wagons, Walter Hancock, England (1827-1836)
1850-Gottlieb Daimler high-speed gas engine, Germany (1884)
Motorized bicycle (1885)
Benz, three-wheeled gas carriage (1886)
Geo. B. Seldon, patent on clutch and transmission system (1895)
Transportation—Air
1783-Montgoflier, first balloon, using heated air
1852-Gifford, first successful spindle-shaped gas bags, driven by steam engines
1884-M. M. Renard and Keebs, gas bag driven by electric motors, fed by
electric batteries
1896-Prof. Langley, model aeroplane, driven by steam. Flight of threequarters
mile. First time in history that a motor-driven, heavier-than-air
machine accomplished a successful flight
1900-Count Zeppelin, rigid form; capacity 399,000 cubic feet gas; driven by
two Daimler benzene engines, 16 h.p. each. First means of passenger service
in the air
1903-Orville and Wilbur Wright, glider fitted with a 16 h.p., four-cylinder
motor. This machine made the first successful Right in which the machine
carrying a man had ever risen of its own power from the ground
LESSON 12. MODERN INDUSTRIAL GROWTH 90
1908-Louis Bleriot, the Bleriot monoplane. This was the first successful
monoplane. It was also the first machine to cross the English Channel
1910-Fabre, first practical hydroplane
By the time of the World War it was recognized that aviation was strictly
an engineering science. Since then some of the most remarkable advances in
the field of engineering have been made in this branch
Communication
1820-Oerstedt, made the discovery that an electric current flowing through
a wire built up a magnetic field around the wire
1831-Faraday and Henry, discovered the converse of Oerstedt, i.e., that a
magnetic field can be cut by a wire, and cause current to flow in the wire
1837-Morse invented telegraph system. This was the basis of most modern
land systems
1876-Bell, telephone
1882-Dolbear developed wireless telegraph system, using electric static induction
1885-Hertz, Hertz’s oscillator; the real beginning of radio-telegraphy
1888-Lodge, developed a method of synchronizing two circuits, i.e., placing
them in resonance
1896-Marconi developed a system, using the Hertzian oscillator, of radiotelegraphy
for sending and receiving messages
1898-Braun developed the coupled circuit
1902-Poulsen and Tessenden, radio-telephone
1903-First trans-Atlantic wireless transmission
1907-DeForrest invented the three-element tube, permitting tubes to detect
as well as amplify
1921-Broadcasting
1922-Freeman and Dimmel, A.C. tube, radio
1926-J. L. Baird, television
Textile Inventions
1733-John Key, flying shuttle
1770-James Hargraves, spinning jenny
1775-Richard Arkwright, roller spinning frame, using water power
LESSON 12. MODERN INDUSTRIAL GROWTH 91
1779-Samuel Crompton, spinning
1785-Edward Cartwright, power looms, using Watt engine, first for spinning
and then for weaving
1793-Eli Whitney, cotton gin
NOTE: No attempt has been made here to include the numerous inventions
that have revolutionized the textile industry in the last century. The above
merely indicates the initial steps that were responsible for the Industrial
Revolution.
References:
History of Mechanical Inventions, Usher.
Behemoth, The Story of Power, Hodgins and Magoun.
The following chapter is on Industrial growth curves, and involves graphics, so I cannot be bothered to put it here (just read it in the link!).
However, here is Lesson 14:
Lesson 14
MINERAL RESOURCES
In the United States in 1929, 55 percent of all revenue freight hauled by
Class I railroads consisted of ‘products of the mines’. This classification included
only mineral products before manufacture. If the same products after
manufacture had been included, the total would have been approximately
75 percent. Thus, modern high-energy civilizations, as contrasted with all
previous ones of a low-energy character, may truly be called mineral civilizations.
In all earlier civilizations the rate of energy consumption per capita per
day has been low, the order at most of 2,000 or 3,000 kilogram calories of
extraneous energy. In the United States, in 1929, this figure had reached
the unprecedented total of 153,000 kilogram calories per capita per day. The
significance of this can best be appreciated if we consider that this figure is
responsible for the railroads, the automobiles, the airplanes, the telephone,
telegraph and radio, the electric light and power; in short, for everything
that distinguishes fundamentally our present state of civilization from all
those of the past, and from those of such countries as India and China at the
present time. Stated conversely, if we did not consume energy—coal, oil, gas
and water power—at this or a similar rate, our present industrial civilization
would not exist. Ours is a civilization of energy and metals.
Inspection of the growth curves in Lesson 13 shows us something that is
rather startling, namely, that most of this industrial growth in the United
States has occurred since the year 1900. Stated in another way, if from those
curves we compute the amount of coal or iron that has been produced and
used since 1900, we would find this to be greatly in excess of all the coal and
iron produced prior to that time.
106
LESSON 14. MINERAL RESOURCES 107
14.1 Discovery of Minerals
It frequently is assumed by people interested in world social problems that
such industrial growth as has taken place in North America and Western
Europe is a mere accident of circumstances, and that it might equally well
have occurred in India or China instead. A corollary to this assumption is
that it is possible for these areas to develop high-energy industrial civilizations
and that the only reason they have not done so thus far is due to the
backwardness of the people.
Since we have found that high-energy civilizations depend upon the existence
of abundant resources—energy and industrial metals—it is a very
simple matter to determine the validity of such assumptions by considering
the world distribution of these essential minerals.
Until 30 or 40 years ago, the knowledge of the world distribution of minerals
was more or less in the category of the knowledge of the geographical
distribution of land shortly after the discovery of the Americas. Maps of the
known world in the sixteenth century showed certain land areas that were
well known, such as parts of Europe, Africa and Asia; other areas which
were but partially known, such as the eastern boundary of the only partially
explored New World; and other parts of the world which were totally blank,
due to the fact that no knowledge of these parts whatsoever was available.
In the mineral map of the world prior to 1900, there were still large blank
places representing areas as yet unknown. Since that time these blank spaces
have become almost non-existent. Quietly and unheralded, the prospector,
followed by the geologist and the mining engineer, has penetrated to the
utmost corners of the earth.
It is a well known geological fact that certain mineral resources only occur
in large amounts in certain geological environments.
Oil, for instance, only occurs in sedimentary rocks which have not been
too greatly folded or otherwise disturbed since their original deposition. In
igneous rocks or in pre-Cambrian basement complexes, such as the region
between the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay, or of the Scandinavian Peninsula,
oil in large quantities cannot exist.
Iron ores, likewise, as Leith pointed out, have shown a remarkable tendency
to occur in these very pre-Cambrian terrains of the United States,
Brazil, India and South Africa, from which oil is absent. Other mineral
resources have their own more probable environments. Since these various
major types of areas are known, it follows that the geography of the future
LESSON 14. MINERAL RESOURCES 108
mineral discoveries for the entire world may now be fairly well predicted.
14.1.1 Methods of Discovery
The intensity of prospecting and the number of people engaged in the search
for new mineral deposits have in the last few decades increased tremendously.
The old-fashioned prospector, with burro, pick and hammer, has
been replaced by the modern highly trained geologist and mining engineer,
traveling by automobile and by airplane. Areas are now mapped by aerial
photography. Geophysical instruments are now available which enable the oil
geologist to discover salt-dome oil pools that are completely hidden beneath
the surface of the ground. He has seismographs that enable him to make
maps of geological structures at depths of 5,000 feet, and more, beneath the
surface of the ground. For the use of the mining engineer there are electrical
instruments capable of detecting metallic minerals buried several hundred
feet under earth. By means of these methods the mineral geography of the
earth is at present rather well known.
It is significant to note, as Leith has pointed out, that except for oil (and
recently potash in the United States1), a major source of minerals has not
been discovered in Europe since 1850, and in the United States since 1910.
This seems to indicate that most of the discovering in these areas may have
been done already.
14.1.2 Coal
What is the mineral geography of the world as it is now known? Consider
coal, which is probably the best known of the major mineral resources.
It is interesting to note that the United States alone, according to the
estimate of the International Geological Congress of 1913, possesses approximately
51 percent of the coal reserves of the entire world. Canada has
about 16 percent of the world total. Of the remaining 33 percent, Europe
has approximately a third, or 10 percent of the world’s total. Asia, Africa,
South America and Australia, all together, have only about 23 percent of the
world’s total coal reserves.
1Within the last few years there has been discovered and New Mexico and Texas what
promises to be the world’s largest supply of potash.
LESSON 14. MINERAL RESOURCES 109
14.1.3 Oil
In the case of oil, the United States in 1929 was producing 69 percent of the
world’s total production.
The proven oil reserves of the world in 1933 were, according to the estimate
of Garfias, in a report read before the Society of Mining and Metallurgical
Engineers, approximately 25 billion barrels. Of these, 48 percent, or 12
billion barrels, were in the United States. This estimate of reserves represents
only the differential between discovery and consumption of oil. Should
discovery cease a reserve of 12 billion barrels would last the United States
only about 12 years at the 1929 rate of consumption.
14.1.4 Iron
The iron reserves of the world are localized chiefly in a few areas. In the
United States most of the iron produced comes from the region around Lake
Superior, and the Birmingham district in Alabama. Foreign iron ores, in
greatest abundance, are to be found in such regions as England, Alsace-
Lorraine, Spain, Sweden and Russia. In South America the largest reserves
are found in Brazil. Other large supplies are found in India, South Africa
and Australia.
The United States in 1929 produced slightly less than 48 percent of the
world’s total production of pig iron.
14.1.5 Copper
Next to iron, the most important industrial metal is probably copper. In
1929 the total world production of copper was 2,100,000 short tons, of which
the United States in that year produced 1,000,000 short tons, or slightly less
than 50 percent. Of our major metallic resources, copper is probably the
nearest to a forced decline resulting from a gradual exhaustion of high grade
ores. Within the last few years large supplies of African copper have rapidly
come into a prominent place in world production. It is quite possible that
Africa may become the leading producer of copper in the future.
From what has been said with regard to the production and reserves
of coal, oil, iron and copper, it becomes evident that the United States is
singularly well supplied with the world’s essential industrial minerals. In
fact, it would not be overstating the case to say that the United States has
LESSON 14. MINERAL RESOURCES 110
the lion’s share of the world’s mineral resources. She is by far the best
supplied of all the nations of the world, and the North American Continent
surpasses in a similar manner all the other continents.
14.1.6 The Ferro-alloys
The United States, however, is largely devoid of certain highly essential industrial
minerals, the group known as the ferro-alloys—manganese, chromite,
nickel, and vanadium. While these minerals are required only in small quantities,
they are essential for most alloy steels which are used in industrial
processes, and but for them, modern high-speed machinery would be impossible.
So essential are these alloys that in war time they have come to be
known as ‘key’ minerals.
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