Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1892-11-28


Flow Over the Falls.
No engineer ever looked at the spec
tacle of power displayed by Niagara
| falls without feeling that it was n
| crime to allow the enormous energy
there stored up to run to waste from
| eternity to eternity. The artist is com
{, - 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
| $4,000, 600 of horsepower going TO waste
over the falls, and $2,500,000 has been
expended, aud 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
| Gone 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
/
| The Niagara river makes a bend at a
right angle, and the falls are at the apex
! of that angle. This canal forms the by
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 a long supply canal and a 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 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
a mile above the falls. AS far as con-
structed the canal is about 1900 feet
! long, 10 feet deep, and varies from a
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 a 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 100 feet it has a downward
slope or pitch of four feet in thousand
| at first, increasing to seven feet in
| 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 viii rush
out of it, there will be discharge of
about 90, 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. 1t will lower the
level of the great food 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 158 feet high and
1900 feet wide. The other channel, IN
| the state of New York, forms the Amer
| lean falls, which are 169 feet high at
the eastern side, and 900 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 31S 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 a 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
luration, and are due mainly TO long con-
timed 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
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 presgnt style for
i rkU~