49§ 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Adding to this total the limits of the American producing com- 

 panies (16,300), we have for the entire chartered abstraction of the 

 five companies referred to, 48,400 cubic feet per second. 



This is of itself a dry and apparently barren fact. Let us look 

 to its bearings upon the structure of the Niagara Eiver and the total 

 flow of waters through its channel. 



The Niagara Eiver flows over a rock bottom, on which the strata 

 dip uniformly to the west. The sill or edge of the Falls is ten feet 

 higher on the American than on the Canadian side, the waters at the 

 crest of the American Falls ten feet shallower. 



IKi-e**-. 



m 



. 



The Rock-bed of the River on the Canadian Side, now partly enclosed 

 by Permanent Construction. 



The flow of water through the channel and over the Falls was 

 measured by the United States engineers in 1868, and by Sir Casimir 

 Gzowski in 1870-3, with results varying from 246,000 cubic feet per 

 second (the latter) to a maximum of 280,000 cubic feet per second 

 (the former). The later averages given by the United States engi- 

 neers, derived from the mean flow of water from Lake Erie at Buffalo 

 during a period of forty years, afford 222,400 cubic feet per second. 

 There are certain constants of abstraction for the Welland and the 

 Erie canals which may be regarded as equalized by the inflow of 

 streams into the river between Buffalo and the Falls, so that the figure 

 which has been generally accepted and has entered into the calculations 



