Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1901-07-04
NiAeARA's PowER-HousE.
Method by Which Great Waterfall I,
Harnessed


Harnessed.
The visitor 90 Niagara Falls this
summer who returns after ten years
absence will find 1t hard to realize
that In the interim the immense pow
er-supply with which he is familiar
has been tapped, and that under his
feet there rushes torrent which has
been diverted from its wasteful leap
over the cliff and has been forced to
turn the wheels Of man. II, however,
he will walk up the river to a point
about opposite the lower end of Grass
island, he will find a new canal, $50
feet in width and 1 200 feet long, con-
Quoting a lazily flowing stream of
water away from the main body and
leading it to handsome limestone
building of pleasing though plain
architectural design. On entering
this building, he will discover that
the interior is one long room, where
in are placed in single row running
centrally throughout the entire length
ten mammoth electrical generators,
revolving in all the majesty of in
herent power. And this is the result
of all the planning and designing, the
financiering mad legislative delibera-
ton; this is the central source from
which the hundred new industries at
tracted to new manufacturing
center obtain their power, and upon
which Buffalo, fifteen miles away de-
ponds for the operatio of many Of
its street railways and mills That
canal which SO unostentatiously takes
its fraction from the Niagara river
has capacity in its twelve feet of
depth to serve the station with water
sufficient for the generation of 1907
600 horsepower, twice the capacity
of the present electrical installation.
The power station is nearly 500 feet
long, and is built over an excavation
In the solid rock 178 feet deep, which
runs its entire length-a mammoth
cellar. This is the wheelpit wherein,
at the bottom and directly under the
dynamos in the room above, are
placed the immense turbine water
wheels which change the energy
stored in the falling water into me-
IL.
generators are directly connected by
shafts made of 38-inch steel tubes, q
inch in thickness, narrowing down to
short, solid sections, occasional to
pass through guides which maintain
the vertical alignment and terminal
ing in 11h-inch hollow-forged dy-
namo shafts at the upper end. The
immense weight of this shaft and of
the revolving parts of the water
wheels and dynamos is supported by
the water impinging against the
blades fthe wheel and the upward
thrust Of the water against balance
piston, which is formed by the car
r.er ot one OF the rings Of turbine
blades of the wheel and the upward
vertical thrust is taken up by thrust
bearing near the dynamo floor. The
pen-stocks, which conduct the water
from the canal to the turbines, con-
sist of 1s-foot steel tubes running
from the head gates at the surface to
the turbine deck" 140 feet below,
paralleling the connecting shafts. No
draft tubes are used on the other side
of the water-wheels, the water after
leaving them, simply dropping to the
bottom of the wheel-pit where a
short, curved passage conducts it to
the exit tunnel, and it flows at the
rate of about 20 miles an hour to the
river below.-William c. Andrews in
American Monthly Review of Re-
views