The revised estimate of the cost of the partial development is 15,835,000. The estimated costs of the further and full development are .£7,7oo,000 and .18,000,000 re spectively. Provision is made for the advance of £2,500,000 to the Electricity Supply Board for the purpose of constructing the low tension network, wiring houses, and acquiring existing under takings. The price at which electricity can be supplied to the con sumer will depend upon the density of population in the locality and upon the volume of demand. It is estimated that the whole sale price of electric power supplied in hulk at Dublin and Cork should be about o•6d. and at the end of the io kv. lines about 2.5d. Ultimately the current might be supplied at a flat rate, in which case the wholesale price everywhere should be less than id. per unit. These figures are considerably less than the costs at the commencement, and the price might be expected continu ously to decrease with the growth in the demand for current. It was calculated that the scheme should return from 51 to 7% upon the invested capital, provided out of public money.
The success of the scheme will de pend largely upon the growth of effective demand for current.
At first the Free State was very backward in its use of electricity both for industrial and domestic purposes. Both Siemens-Schuck ert and the experts who advised on the scheme were of opinion that the supply would create a very rapid growth in demand and this hope has been largely realized. Cheap light, heat and power for domestic consumption would be provided ; and also power for large and small scale industry, particularly mills and creameries. It was hoped that farmers would use the power to light their premises and to drive farmyard machinery, and that the growth of manufacturing industries of an electrochemical nature would be stimulated. The electrification of the railway system, apart from those suburban lines with heavy traffic, was not contem plated.
It remains to consider the effects which the Siemens-Schiickert Scheme will have on (a) the drainage, (b) the navigation and (c) the fisheries of the Shannon. As regards drainage, it is claimed that the partial development, in which the winter level at Lough Derg will be maintained for about five months of the year, will by reason of the embankments to be erected, save from 3,00o to 4,000 acres of land from annual flooding; and that the later stages of development, in which the storage capacity will be increased and the consequent embankment extended, will save a further large area. The drainage of the Shannon basin will there fore be improved by the scheme. As regards navigation, there have been constructed two locks each so feet high to provide a passage from the tail race to the head race. The complete pro
tection of the fisheries from damage is admitted to be impos sible, but everything possible has been done or is being done to minimize the injury that will be inflicted; also provision has been made in the scheme for compensation to fishery in terests.
particulars of the Shannon Scheme are to be found in The Electrification of the Irish Free State; The Shannon Scheme Developed by Siemens-Schiickert and The Report of the Ex perts appointed by the Government Stationery Office, Dublin ; Dail Eireann, Debates, Official Report, vol. 10 and I1. See also Electrical Industries (Aug. 29, 1928) ; Annual accounts of the Shannon Power Development Fund, and annual reports and accounts of the Electricity Supply Board. (G. O'B.)
SHANSI, an upland province in the interior of north China. It is a link in the girdle of loess-lands which wrap around the edges of the Mongolian plateau and which in effect constitute a belt intermediate between arid pastoral Mongolia and the great plain of north China, one of the foci of Chinese agricultural population. The Shansi plateau rises abruptly from the alluvial plain (relative to which it constitutes the "western mountains" as opposed to Shantung, the "eastern mountains") in the broken limestone edge of the Tai-hang-shan, but passes by much easier gradations into the Mongolian tableland beyond. The plateau surface is not, however, uniform. A series of ridges, arranged in the form of an arc, convex to the north-west, obtrudes from beneath the loess-mantle and, while almost buried in south Shansi, becomes increasingly conspicuous northwards so that in north Shansi the loess-cover is restricted to basins between high moun tain ranges. Let down below the general level of the plateau in south Shansi is a chain of alluvial-floored basins strung along the valley of the Fen-ho and continuous with the Wei-ho valley in central Shansi. The largest of the Shansi basins lies at the head of the Fen-ho valley in the very heart of the province and con tains Taiyilan-fu, the capital. These basins, being the foci of drainage, are better watered than the porous loess of the pla teau above. As the rainfall of Shansi as a whole is marginal (being under 20 inches) and liable to fail, this distinction be tween basin and plateau is of great importance and the population is mainly concentrated either in the central belt of basins or on the terraces of the Tai-hang-shan which sink into the plains of Chihli (Hopeh) and Honan. The total population was estimated in 1926 at 12,153,127, and that of Taiyiian-fu at 51,363. The bulk of the population is therefore essentially rural.