Arizona republican., 1893-01-28
NIAGARA IN HARNESS
WATER FROM THE GREAT FALLS USED TO DRIVE MACHINERY.

b0O,oOO Spent for 100, ,oOO Horsepower.
 Flow Over the Falls
 No engineer ever looked at the spec
 facle of power displayed by Niagara
 Balls without feeling that it was a
 trime to allow the enormous energy
 here stored up to run to waste from
 tternity 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
 about to materiali2e in a great power
 plant which will utilize 100000 of the
 l5,OOO,OOO of horsepower going to waste
 over the falls. and $2 .500.000 has been
 expended. and the water wheels will be
 in place and the sIuices 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.
 pey caused the construction of canal, which takes water from point above
 the rapids and conducts 1t to set of
 mills built on the banks below she falls and now known as Schoellkopf s mills.
 The Niagara river makes bel,d at a right angle, and the falls are at the apex of that angle This canal forms the hy- pothennSe of right angled trie hgle, of which the longest side is the riv r above and the shortest side the river below the falls The mills are near the ff Ills and are not picturesque feature of the scenery.
 The turbines which drive the Hills are sunk in pits only about fifty or sixty feet deep, and consequently their tail races discharge hundred feet or moe above the surface of the rapids below the falls, and half of the available power of the water brought down by the canrl is thus wasted. Less than 6,U0O norseiOwer is utilized
 1 The new works have rever ed this plan of a long supply canal and a short tairace. They have been con itructed on a modification of a plan first proposed by Thomas Duershed, division engl- neer of the New York state canals. The plan is to have the mills on the banks above the falls and at distaiice from the scenic locality, and then tC. have long tunnel 10 carry the vase water down to the rapids.
 The mouth of the canal is m ore than mile above the falls As far as con. structed the canal IS about 60O feet long l2 feet deep and varies from q breadth of 2O0 feet at the mouth 10 100 feet at it's inner end. Along the sides built are sunk pits to depth of l60 feet and at the bottom of these pits are placed the turbine water wheels Each of these wheels has 40 feet tffective 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 hnd done its work on the wheels 1t 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 l z 1000 feet of the tunnel had to be bricked | up It is in the form of a horseshoe. | twenty eight feet high and eighteen feet i broad, inside dimensions Starting at a | depth of lG0 feet it has downward 1 slope or pitch of four feet in a thousand l at first, increasing to seven feet in a ! thousand, It's mouth where it dis | charges into the rapids is 2l4 feet below ! the brink of the cliffs which form the | rayine. 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 discharge of | about 50, coo 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- atancy 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 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 fails are 158 feet high and l 2, ,00O 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 $500 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 ff- | teen feet. Generally variation of one foot above the falls is followed by change of level of five feet below the | L.. Il.