Los Angeles herald., 1892-11-22
NIAGARA In HARNESS
WATER FROM THE GREAT FALLS
USED TO DRIVE MACHINERY.


A Great Engineering work-Over &C..
100000 Spent for 100, 900 Horsepower.
There VIII BE Little Diminution of the
Flow Over the Falls.
No engineer ever looked at the spec
tacle Of power displayed by Niagara
falls without a feeling that it was a
crime to allow the enormous energy
there stored up to run to waste from
eternity to eternity. The artist is con
tent to steep his soul in the beauty of
the scene, but the average utilitarian
American is likely to do some figuring
on horsepower and available units of
work. The prophecies of years are
about to materialize in great power
plant which will utilize 100000 of the
1900, 900 OF horsepower going to waste
over the falls, and SO 10000 has been
expended, and the water wheels will be
in place and the sluices will be opened.
From the early years Of the owner
ship Of the falls by the Porter family
the advantages of the great water power
were freely discussed, but nothing was
done until about 1850, when Horace A.
Dey caused the construction of q canal,
which takes water from q point above
the rapids and conducts it to set of
mills built on the banks below the falls
and now known as Schoellkopf 8 mills.
The Niagara river makes bend at
right angle, and the falls are at the apex
of that angle. This canal forms the hy-
pothenuse of right angled triangle, of
which the longest side is the river above
and the shortest side the river below the
falls. The mills are near the falls and
are not picturesque feature of the
scenery.
The turbines which drive the mills are
sunk in pits only about fifty or sixty feet
deep, and consequently their tail races
discharge hundred feet or more above
the surface of the rapids below the falls,
and half Of the available power OF the
water brought down by the canal is thus
wasted. Less than 5000 horsepower is
utilized.
The new works have reversed this
plan of long supply canal and short
tailrace. They have been constructed
on modification of plan first proposed
by Thomas Duershed, a division engl-
neer of the New York state canals The
plan is to have the mills on the banks
above the falls and at a distance from
the scenic locality. and then to have
long tunnel to carry the waste water
down to the rapids.
The mouth of the canal is more than
mile above the falls. AS far as con-
structed the canal is about 1900 feet
long, 12 feet deep, and varies from a
breadth OF 200 feet at the mouth to 100
feet at it's inner end. Along the sides
of this canal and of its branches to be
built are sunk pits to depth of 100
feet, and at the bottom of these pits are
placed the turbine water wheels. Each
Of these wheels has 40 feet effective
head of water over it. The water is
carried down to them in great pipes
seven or eight feet in diameter called
penstocks. After the water had done
it's work on the wheels it is discharged
into the big tunnel, which runs away un-
derground to the river below the falls.
This tunnel has been the most diff
cult and costly part of the work SO far
It was cut through solid limestone rock,
but the rock was found to crumble SO
badly after exposure that the whole
1000 feet of the tunnel had to be bricked
mp. 1t is in the form of horseshoe,
twenty-eight feet high and eighteen feet
broad, inside dimensions Starting at
depth of 100 feet it has downward
slope OF pitch Of four feet in a thousand
at first, increasing to seven feet in
thousand. Its mouth where it dis
cha ,-ges into the rapids is 214 feet below
the br,.ak of the cliffs which form the
rayine. IT'S cross section is 365 square
feet, and at the speed of twenty feet a
second. with ". .,dch the water will rush
out of it, there will be discharge of
about 80, 900 gallons every minute
And yet this enormous amount OF
water will not show any. appreciable
drain whatever ON the magnificent vol
ume of Niagara. It will lower the
level of the great flood only about one
and half inches. The extent and con-
stancy of this water power can be I'M
derstood when it is realized that the
water service of the great lakes, with
the land sloping into them and contrib
uting to the Falls of Niagara, has a to-
tai drainage basin Of over 240, 900 square
miles-equal tomore than twice the area
of Great Britain and Ireland, about 40
600 square miles more than the total
area Of France, and more than fifteen
times the total area of Switzerland. Tho
Horseshoe falls are 1853 feet high and
1000 feet wide. The other channel, in
n . state of New York, forms the Amer
ican falls, which are 1859 feet high at
the a, Netern side, and 1000 feet wide,
both fal " comprising 5000 linear feet OF
water.
The axtre ne limits of variation in the
denth Of the river at different times
above the falls are 81a feet, but these
limits are rarely cached. The ordinary
variation is about me foot. Below the
falls the extreme va-v,atlon reaches flf-
teen feet. Generally variation OF one
foot above the falls is followed by
change of level of five fest below the
falls. These slight changes are OF snNt
duration, and are due mainly to long con-
t;nped and violent wind or sudden great
accumulations OF ice.
The average discharge OF water at the
outlet of Lake Erie into the Niagara
river is estimated by some authorities at
285 600 cubic feet second. Moreover,
as far as this or the next two genera
tions are concerned, it doesn't matter
49, :, o,x, rainfall for there