New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1907-09-11
[ LIGHTING NIAGARA.
Famous Falls Ablaze With Count
less Hues by Night.
GRAND SPECTACLE OF COLOR

l.
Hitherto Shrouded After Sunset.
Huge searchlights Of Many coIors
Enhance Beauty of Natures Great
| Show.
All the folks Of Niagara Falls crossed
| fhe river into Canada the other night
to see their great water falls illumi-
mated by 1,115,Ooo,00O candle power.
The figures sound big, but they are ac-
curate and in keeping with all the
other statistics concerning Niagara,
| says a Niagara Falls correspondent of
the New York Post.
| The procession over the border was
4 led, at least fguratNely, by Anthony
| G. Douglass, mayor Of the city Of Nj
agara Falls. He brought about the IL
| Elimination as an experiment. If his
people approve, the New York town
will buy the plant for 100000 and
will maintain it as municipal enter
prise at cost Of about $4,000 year.
To be perfectly frank, it is to be
great spectacular advertisement for
On the Canadian side.
w. D'A Ryan, the Illuminating en-
gineer Of the General Electric COM
pany, is the man who has done this
thing. He evidently anticipated OBJ
lection and explained that he had
never lost sight Of Niagara as it is and
hadn't for one moment thought he
could improve upon 1t. He simply
sought to continue natures great show
after dark. He promises, and so does
Mayor Douglass, that no brand Of
whisky or patent medicine shall ever
be flashed upon the cascade or worked
out in colored lights upon the clouds
Of mist. So, after all, the Illumination
does not cheaper Americas great Nj
agara. It merely cheats the night by
turning it into day all up and down
the gorge. 1t gives wonderful tints to
the falls themselves and to the vapor'
above them. The sensational feature
Of the night light is that it is con-
centrated on the foaming waters Of the
American and Canadian falls, making
them stand out dazzlingly distinct
against the blackness of the grim rock
cliffs between and on the outer sides.
The batteries Of Illumination consist
OF fifty powerful searchlights equipped
with both thirty inch and sixty inch
projectors and operated by electrical
engines of 300 horsepower Their COM
bined light is the equivalent of that of
1,115, 100000 candles, and the fifty rays,
when thrown up together in a vertical
column, make a shaft of light visible
for 125 miles
All the rest Of the plant consists of
color "scintillators," which are circular
frames surrounding disks Of colored
gelatine, which give to the shafts Of
light all the colors that can be mag
ined and some perhaps which can't
be imagined unless a person is stand
ing just above the gorge, literally and
iguratively drinking in the mist Of
many hues
The batteries are mounted below the
falls on the Canadian side. Those on
the low ground near the rivers edge
throw their beams up to meet the fall
ing foam, while the batteries on the
heights plunge their rays into the
crests of the two cascades, 50 that all
told, half million square feet of
tumbling, roaring water is Illuminated
At s o'clock, the hour set for turning
on the lights, the balconies and veran-
das Of the Clifton House, on the Cana
dian side of the river, and all the
walks and terraces Of Queen Victoria
park were crowded with onlookers,
who numbered we'll up into the tens Of
thousands. AS many more thronged
all the vantage places on the American
side
Perhaps the most supplementary
thing that can be said of the spectacle
is that it was witnessed in dead 81
lence. From all those thousands there
was no acclaim, no suggestion of d
cheer They simply gazed and won
dered and admired, speechless The
roar of the falls was. the only accom-
paniment for the show.
In the beginning all the power Of the
fifty searchlights was concentrated
upon the American falls and the Bridal
II,
nothing could be a purer white than
that huge wall Of foam plunging 157
feet down the face Of rock Between
the big falls and the smaller cascade to
the right, known as the Bridal Veil, the
naked rock stood out gray and grim.
with every crevice revealed by the
fearful glare to the watchers across
the river.
Then broad band of the white
foam suddenly turned to red, with a
rose tinted cloud of mist above it
mingling with the white vapor Grad
ually the red rays suffused the whirl-
pool below, and then their light made
its Way up the river against the rush
OF water and climbed into the smoother
water of the Horseshoe
Somebody said "a river Of blood''
but the remark wasn't as obvious as
1t might seem to have been. The eff