CHAPTER IX. WIND-POWER.

Wind-power, aside from the objections of uncertainty and irregularity, is the cheapest kind of motive-power. Steam machinery, besides costing a large sum as an investment, is continually deteriorating in value, consumes fuel, and requires continual skilled attention. Water-power also requires a large investment, greater in many cases than steam-power, and in many places the plant is in danger of destruction by freshets. Wind-power is less expensive in every way, but is unreliable for constancy except in certain localities, and these, as it happens, are for the most part distant from other elements of manufacturing industry. The operation of wind-wheels is so simple and so generally understood that no reference to mechanism need be made here. The force of the wind, moving in right lines, is easily applied to producing rotary motion, the difference from water-power being mainly in the comparative weakness of wind currents and the greater area required in the vanes upon which the wind acts. Turbine wind-wheels have been constructed on very much the same plan as turbine water-wheels. In speaking of wind-power, the propositions about heat must not be forgotten. It has been explained how heat is almost directly utilised by the steam-engine, and how the effect of heat is utilised by water-wheels in [42] a less direct manner, and the same connection will be found between heat and wind-wheels or wind-power. Currents of air are due to changes of temperature, and the connection between the heat that produces such air currents and their application as power is no more intricate than in the case of water-power.

(1.) What is the difference in general between wind and water wheels?—(2.) Can the course of wind, like that of water, be diverted and applied at pleasure?—(3.) On what principle does wind act against the vanes of a wheel?—(4.) How may an analogy between wind-power and heat be traced?