New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1857-07-11
THE HYDRAULIC CANAL AT NIAGARA.

NIAGARA FALLS, July b, 1897.
An event of no little significance in it's ultimate
results affecting the Niagara frontier as great
manufacturing point in the future took place here
the other day. During the past two or three years
a large Hydraulic Canal has been in the course of
excavation, commencing at the cod French land
ing" but biscuit toss above the extreme head of
the rapids and not more than half mile above the
village hotels. This Canal, when completed, is to
take channel of water some eighty feet in width
by ten feet in depth, from the point above named
through the rear part of the town, across the elbow
which the land makes Immediately at the Falls,
and bring it out to the river bank near mile below
where the Canal Company have tract of about
seventy acres to be devoted to the erection OF mills
manufactures and their APPENDICES.
The Fourth of July was the time fixed to cele.
brate the hitherto untried steamboat navigation OF
the Niagara River down to the French Landing
"A thing never before attempted, and believed by
most of those acquainted with the river impossible.
The project Of running steam passenger boat from
Buffalo to this point had years ago been proposed
by the aid of an artificial canal along the shore from
the I" old Schlosser Warehouse, two miles above,
the lowest point to which steamboats, or sail vessels
had ever ventured. But the railroad had cut off
that project and until recently ali idea of water
navigation below was abandoned.
But Mr.. Allen, BOstOnian, President of the
Canal Company, determined that trial should be
made m advance of opening the canal, and on the
day appointed thousands of anxious people assem-
bed at its debOuchure from the river at the French
Landing aforesaid, to witness the experiment
The President of the Company had chartered three
small steamboats,, the Cygnet and Alliance of Black
Rock, and the Swallow OF Chippewa, for the occasion
At eleven O'Clock the Cygnet, with the President
himself on board as pilot, led off from the Schlos
ser storehouse, the Swallow following, and through
an eight foot channel, which had been previously
buOyed out down the river, they left for the head of
the Hydraulic Canal. In this new track the bold
little steamers sped their way, and in few minutes
rounded to in front of the wharf at the Canal, aud
again passed the channel up to their first starting
point. Joined now by the Alliance all came down
in beautiful STYLE regatta fashion, rounded up to the
dock and fastened. Here they were received by
the booming OF cannon, the shouts and appauses of
the people, in the shape of military, fremen, bands
of music, females in costume for the occasion, and
citizens generally. The company then separated,
and after lying few hours at the wharf the steam
boats left for the places whence they came.
The above-rected event in itself, as holiday
pageant Oply would be but commonplace affair;
but as testing a hitherto doubtful problem in nav
eating with vessels of large tonnage, 50 bold stream
as the Niagara to importanta manufacturing point
as the immediate Falls itself it assumes character
worthy Of distinct notice. This is comparatively
new region Of country. Manufacturing industry has
hitherto been restricted to local demand, and that
mainly by the aid OF steam-pOwer in the large towns
about U.S. The time must, however, arrive when
extensive manufactures, driven by water-pOwer,
will be located on this unreasonable fountain Even
this little canal, with its volume of eighty feet by
ten, is trifing thing compared with what may be
required when a great manufacturing city shall be
built upon its borders, away below the cataract, al
though q fall of hundred and fifty feet upon the
wheels one after another may turn the splndes and
tilt the hammers of a thousand busy factories. 1t is
the demonstration of great, strong fact, standing
out boldly by ITSELF 10 show that We have the re-
sources within ourselves of supplying our wants in
al the handicraft labor which our ingenuity and
skill may choose to fabrcate The wool from the
illimitabe West will reach here by water navigation
through the Lakes. The cotton of New-YOrk City
will be landed at the doors Of the factories through
the Erie Canal aud Niagara River, by its own boats.
The coal and the iron of the Upper Allegheny will
come in the same way, aided by the Genesee Valley
Canal; and the iron and copper from the further
shores of Lake Superior by water alsO-al contrib
utiDg to the industry and wealth of this great manu-
featuring center.
The imaginative man. the poet and the pleasure I
seeker may drop lamentation that so grand spec.
tace as Niagara Falls, with its green and shadOwy
scenery, should be desecrated by the smoke, and
CRIME, and laboring population of a manufacturing
toWn let the nhnuldcIOrIcS Will De nearly u nile
below the cataract, which may still be preserved in
tact in its natural beauty and magnifcence. But in
this matterOf.fact. busy world, what does all this
amount to! Suppose the Niagara River. OF a
stream like it, ran through the heart of England
Think you that the cotton mills of Manchester the
wooden factories of Leeds, the cutlery and iron
shops Of Sheffield aud Birmingham, would be driven
BY fires of coal dug from the deep caverns in their
vicinity Not at all. The grand scenery of its
navigable shOres.would be decorated by the castle,
and dwellings Of the nobility, gentry and wealthy
manufacturers, even to the verge of the hammers
and spindles which would stretch for miles along its
borders below the great falls, and every available
rood of its banks be devoted to the great, earnest
purposes of human life aud human industry And
so will it, in time, be here. With railways from
every point of the compass centerng on this river
the great commercial City of Buffalo receiving the
commerce Of New-York by the Erie
Canal and the vast country bordering the Western
lakes over their waters and that city only an hour
distance by rail. with water navigation into the
very heart of this town. the destiny Of the Niagara
River and its borders is no longer problem III the
ph, steal development OF our State Well may New
! crk claim 10 be The Empire State" with her
pastern gate on the Atlantic Ocean at the chief seat
of our nations commerce; her western gate upon
the great lakes, and her lnes Of railway aud canal