Electrical Export Trade.— The effect of the European War has been felt generally in the export of American manufactures, but in this respect electrical goods have been a con spicuous item. The foreign demand for Ameri can electrical apparatus and supplies, even under the severe limitations imposed by lack of ships and many closed markets, has carried the strictly electrical exports from $19,771,757 in the year ending 30 June 1915 to no less an amount than $52,158,773 in the corresponding period 1916-17. The chief gains were in insulated wires and cables from $1,911,850 to $7,191,684; electrical in use in modern power stations on land, con nected to two independent induction motors mounted on each of the four propeller shafts. It is quite probable that details as to any part of this tremendous innovation in naval equip ment should not be expected until the war is over. Many advantages for this method of propulsion are claimed by the designers and disputed by critics. Three battleships requiring 33,000 horse power each, of the same type, have also been provided for in naval plans; and one of these, the superdreadnought California, cor batteries from $967,146 to $3,286,674; electric motors from $2,818,743 to $5,895,696; trans formers from $624,483 to $1,265,459; telegraph instruments from $76,271 to $539,389; incan descent lamps from $575,072 to $2,301,407; electric meters from $2,818,743 to $5,895,696.
Electrical A decided novelty in the field of electrical manufacture is the equipment of electrically propelled ships. The world is familiar with the use of launches driven by storage batteries and with submarine boats in which the same motive power is employed ; but in the modern electrical ship propulsion is secured by means of electrical energy fed from steam turbine generators to electric motors mounted on the propeller shafts. The success of this method in the United States collier Jupiter would seem to be very emphatically evidenced in the provision in the Navy Bill of 1916 for four great battleships or cruisers each requiring 180,000 horse power delivered to four screw shafts turning at full speed at about 250 revo lutions per minute, which yield a rate of travel through the water of 35 knots per hour. Each of the ships is to have. installed four high speed turbine-dnven generating units, similar to those responding to the present direct steam-driven Arizona, is under construction. No other nation has yet ventured on such an experiment.