To tie together the separated power plants of 10 States so that one can give aid to the other, so that one can take the place of the other, so that all may join their power for good in any great drive that may be projected--this would be the prime purpose of the plan; and from this would evolve the development of the most practicable method of supplying this vast interdependent system with more power--perhaps from the conversion of coal, as it drops from the very tipple, using the mine as one might use a waterfall, or by the development of great hydroelectric plants on the many streams from the Androscoggin to the James. WHITE COAL AND BLACK. This would be a plan for the wedding of the stream and the mine, the white coal with the black. "White coal" they call it in imaginative France, this tumbling water which is converted into so many forms; and a much cleaner, handier kind of coal it is than its black brother. And cheaper, for the water goes on to return again and fall once more and forever into the pockets of the turbine which whirls the dynamo and so gathers or releases that mystery which we name but never define. Farsighted, purposeful Germany fought four and a half years upon the strength of great power plants run by the snows of the Alps. She did not rely on these alone for power, nor were they her main reliance, but they gave her a lasting power which otherwise she would not have had. And we may expect her to improve on that war-time experience for the conduct of the hard fight she is to make in the industrial field. France saved enough territory from the invader to permit her to make new adventures into this field and so to some degree offset the coal loss of Lens. Italy found that she had still left unused opportunities for hydroelectric development sufficient with the coal she could secure from England and America to see her through the war. And with coal conditions as they are in Europe we may expect a still greater push to make use of water power to turn the industrial wheels of peace. It must be so likewise here. And it is likely that the long-pending power bill which will make available the dam and reservoir sites on withdrawn public lands and make feasible the financing of many projects on both navigable and unnavigable streams will soon have become law. We shall then have an opportunity that never before has been given us to develop the hydroelectric possibilities of the country. And this raises the question as to their extent.