The growth of electricity supply and its relations to civilisation

Abstract

I make no apology for the inaccuracies and discrepancies found in the statistics presented later on; prolonged research and much correspondence would have been necessary to produce statistics on an absolutely comparative basis; the object of this paper is qualitative rather than qualitative, so though the figures, except in one or two cases, may only be approximately accurate, and though the derived figures have been obtained with only slide rule accurracy, the general trend of events is sufficiently well indicated. The world statistics indeed must be the roughest of rough estimates, distinguished as may have been the compilers.