"It must be noted, however, that the processes are new and are doubtless capable of improvement as experience is gained in working them; while, on the other hand, the competition of the two rival artificial manures is likely to diminish as the years pass on. "The new industry is, therefore, likely to be a permanent addition to the list of electro-metallurgical processes. But for the present its success can only be expected in centres of very cheap water-power, as, for instance, in those localities where the electric horse-power year can be generated and transmitted to the cyanamide works at an inclusive cost of £2 ($10) or under." ELECTRICAL ENERGY AND HIGH TEMPERATURES It will be observed that the active instrumentality by which the industrial feats thus far outlined have been accomplished, is that weird conveyer of energy known as electricity. In the case of the aluminum manufacture, electricity operated according to the strange process of electrolysis, in virtue of which certain atoms of matter move to one pole of a battery while other atoms move to the opposite pole, thus effecting a separation--the result being, in the case in question, the deposit of pure aluminum at the negative pole. In the case of the nitrogen factories, however, the manner of operation of the electric current is quite different. Electricity, as such, is not really concerned in the matter; the efficiency of the current depends solely upon the production of heat. For example, any other agency that brought the atmosphere to a corresponding temperature would be equally efficacious in igniting the nitrogen. But in actual practice, for this particular purpose, no other known means of producing high temperatures could at all compete with the electric arc.