298 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Fig. 4. Eastern Side of Falls being drained. 

 ground is situated in the park on the Canadian side. 



Power House in the back- 



channel from Goat Island — thus affecting most the eastern side of the 

 falls. If.it were broken through, as it will be in the distant future by 

 the recession of the falls, the water in the basin would be immediately- 

 lowered, and the Upper Rapids would reappear as a cataract just below 

 the Buffalo Water Works, where the rock-floor is now seventeen feet 

 below the surface of the river, while at a mile and a quarter farther 

 down the drift has already been excavated to a depth of fifty-three 

 feet. 



13. Artifical Openings now made in the Basin. — It is immaterial 

 whether the artificial enlargement of the orifice to the basin be made 

 across the rim, or from its sides, or from the bottom. One lateral 

 channel has been made for a breadth of 100 feet, and a depth of four- 

 teen feet below the surface of the basin. There is also a neighboring 

 one of about equal proportions. These made channels consequently 

 reach depths much below the general level of the rock rim. They con- 

 stitute the intakes of the two power companies on the New York side, 

 and were calculated to carry 14,500 cubic feet per second at low stages 

 (see map, figure 5). 



On the Canadian side, the Ontario Power Company has installed 

 a peculiar structure at the end of the rock rim, above which the river 

 has a depth of five or six feet. Just below, at the natural edge of the 

 basin, they threw out a wall, forming a wing-dam of some eight acres. 

 This wall was brought to about the height of the river floor above. 



