THE MENACE TO NIAGARA, 



499 



of the engineers is 224,000 cubic feet per second. It is in cubic feet 

 per second that we prefer to express our statements ; the attempt to put 

 them in terms of horse-power is attended with too many uncertainties. 

 The potential or theoretical horse-power of this volume of water 

 falling in the cataract is variously, sometimes carelessly stated in the 

 engineers' reports as from three to six millions. A recalculation gives 

 it at 3,800,000 for the cataract, which would be increased by the ad- 

 ditional fall from the height of the rapids to the crest of the Falls. 

 Goat Island, picketing the frontier, divides the waters unfairly, giving 

 much more than three-fourths of their volume to the Canadian side, 



The Rock-bed of the River, left Dry by the Wing Dam of one of the 



Canadian Companies. 



though the international boundary established by the Treaty of Ghent 

 lies at the line of deepest water. Now as less than one fourth of 

 the total volume of the waters pours down the American channel and 

 this channel is much shallower than the other, it is at once evident 

 that abstractions of water will make themselves first perceptible in 

 the shoaling of the American channel. At the parting of the waters 

 above Goat Island the great current of the river moves to the west, 

 and converges into the funnel of the splendid Horseshoe Falls. The 

 American channel actually carries in comparison but a feeble flow and 

 the whole American cataract is in extremely delicate equilibrium. 

 A competent hydraulic engineer, taking the accepted volume of 



