The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1893-01-04
NIAGARA IN HARNESS
WATER FROM THE GREAT FALLS
USED TO DRIVE MACHINERY

A Great Engineering work-Over ST.
100000 Spent for 100. o Horsepower
There Will 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 u%tilitarian
American is likely TO do some figuring
on horsepower and available units of
work. The prophecies Of years are
about to materialize in a great power
plant which will utilize 1OO, 900 of the
1900, 900 Of horsepower going to waste
over the falls, and s., 800 600 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 a canal,
which takes water from a point above
the rapids and conducts it to a set of
mills built on the banks below the falls
and now known az 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 n.y.
pothenuse of a 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 IA 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 a modification of a plan first proposed
by Thomas Duershed, a division engl-
ucer 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 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 800 feet
long, l2 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 $40 feet effective
mead 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 I'M
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 a horseshoe,
twenty-eight feet high and eighteen feet
broad, inside dimensions. Starting at a
depth of 1GO feet it has a downward
slope or pitch of four feet in a Thousand
at first, increasing to sever 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 a
second, with which the water will rush
u of it. there will be a discharge Of
about so. 900 gallons every minute.
And yet this enormous amount of
water will not show any appreciate
drain whatever on the magnificent vol
ume Of Niagara. 1t will lower the
level of the great flood only about one
and d 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
m~iles-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 1853 feet high and
.. 1000 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 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 80 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 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