Arizona republican., 1892-12-23
NIAGARA IN HARNESS
WATER FROM THE GREAT FALLS USED TO DRIVE MACHINERY.

kaCl0 Ol power ulhplHJ6u Dy NldSdTd
 Balls without feeling that it was a
 trime to allow the enormous energy
 there stored up to run to waste from
 kternity 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
 bn horsepower and available units of
 work, The prophecies of years are hbout to materialize in a great power plant which will utilize 100000 of the
 l5,000,0 900 of horsepower going to waste over the falls, and $2,500, 900 has been Axpended, 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 hwere freely discussed, but nothing was done until about 1850, when Horace A. Dey caused the construction of canal,
 which takes water from point above the rapids and conducts it to set of mills built on the banks below the falls and now known as Schoellkopf s mills
 The Niagara river makes bend at a right angle, and the falls are at the apex of that angle. This canal forms the hy- bothenuse 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 bunk in pits only about fifty or sixty feet deep, and consequently their tail races discharge a hundred feet or more above the surface of the rapids below the falls, hnd half of the available power of the water brought down by the canal is thus wasted. Less than COCO horsepower is utilized.
 The new works have reversed this plan of a long supply canal and short tailrace. They have been constructed on modification of plan first proposed by Thomas Duershed. division engl- heer of the New York state canals The plan is to have the mills on the banks above the falls and at 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 Q mile above the falls. As far es con- ktructed the canal is about 1,500 feet long, l2 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 it's branches to be built are sunk pits to a depth of l60 Feet, and at the bottom of these pits are placed the turbine water wheels. Each of these wheels has l40 feet effective head of water over 1t. The water is carried down to them in great pipes seven or eight feet in diameter, called penstocks, After the water had done its 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 up. It is in the form of horseshoe, twenty-eight feet high and eighteen feet broad inside dimensions Starting at a depth of l6O feet it has a downward slope or pitch of four feet in thousand at first. increasing to seven feet in thousand It's mouth where it dis charges into the rapids is 2l4 feet below the brink of the cliffs which form the ravine. It's cross section is 365 square feet. and at the speed of twenty feet second, with which the water will rush out of it. there will be a discharge of about bO,oOO gallons every minute.
 And yet this enormous amount of water will not show any appreciable drain whatever on the magnificent vol tune of Niagara. It will lower the level of the great flood only about one and a half inches. The extent and con- Rtancy of this water power can be un- 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 to more than twice the area of Great Britain and Ireland. about 40,- 900 square miles more than the total area of France, and more than fifteen times the total area of Switzerland. The Horseshoe falls are 1858 feet high and 2,O0O feet wide. The other channel, in the state of New York. forms the Amer ican falls, which are l69 feet high at the eastern side. and 1000 feet wide, both falls comprising 3,600 linear feet of water
 The extreme limits of variation in the | depth of the river at different times above the falls are 3Ik feet, but these limits are rarely reached. The ordinary variation is about one foot Below the fails the extreme variation reaches fif- teen feet, Generally variation of one foot above the falls is followed by a change of level of five feet below the falls. These slight changes are of short { duration, and are due mainly to long con- tinued 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 265, 900 cubic feet second Moreover, as far as this or the next two genera