The Pacific commercial advertiser., 1892-12-06
NIAGARA IN HARNESS
WATER FROM THE GREAT FALLS
USED TO DRIVE MACHINERY.

Flow Over the Falls
No engineer ever looked at the spec
tacle of power displayed by Niagar;
falls without feeling that it was
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 ot
the scene, but the average utilitaria1
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
$4,000, 900 of horsepower going to waste
over the falls, and So, SOC, 900 has beer
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 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 a bend at a
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 a 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
taiirace. They have been constructed
on modification of plan first proposed
by Thomas Duershed, division engi-
neer 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 a
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 1,50O feet
long, 12 feet deep, and varies from
breadth of 200 feet at the mouth to 100
feet at its 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 140 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
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.
1t 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. 1t is in the form of horseshoe,
twenty-eight feet high and eighteen feet
broad, inside dimensions. Starting at
depth of 160 feet it has downward
slope OF pitch of four feet in thousand
at first, increasing to seven feet in a
thousand. Its mouth where it dis
charges into the rapids is 214 feet below
the brink of the cliffs which form the
ravine. Its 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 $4,000 gallons every minute.
And yet this enormous amount of
water will not show any appreciable
drain whatever on the magnificent vol
ume of Niagara. 1t 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 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 to-
tai drainage basin of over 240, 900 square
miles-equal to more 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 The
Horseshoe falls are 15S feet high and
1000 feet wide. The other channel. in
the state of New York, forms the Amer
ican falls, which are 169 feet high at
the eastern side, and 1000 feet wide.
both falls comprising 5000 linear feet of
water.
The extreme limits of variation in the
depth of the river at different times
above the falls are 81 feet, but these
limits are rarely reached The ordinary
variation is about one foot. Below the
falls 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-
tlnued and violent wind or sudden great
-aecun1ulations 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.
tions are concerned, it doesn't matter
whether there is any rainfall, for there
are 5000 cubic miles of water backed up
In the little mill pond of the Niagara
Falls Power company, which is sufficient
to run the falls in their present style for
100 years without the help of another