THE INDUSTRIES OF NIAGARA FALLS 



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Ontario Power Company, Niagara Falls, Ontario. 



tion of engineers to install a large generator plant at Niagara Falls, 

 discoveries were announced in the field of electrochemistry which if 

 extensively developed would require the use of thousands of horse-power 

 of electrical energy, and these discoveries encouraged the promoters of 

 the great power project to believe that capital invested in the proposed 

 plant would not be spent in vain. Moreover, the perfecting of an 

 economical system of transmitting the electric current over consider- 

 able distances made it evident to engineers that very large quantities 

 of Niagara power could be utilized commercially beyond the immediate 

 vicinity of the power plants. 



Two of the great power houses have been erected on the American 

 side of the Niagara Eiver somewhat over a mile from the crest of the 

 cataract. In order to take advantage of the potential energy of the 

 water and to afford an outlet for the water after its pressure has been 

 used, two wheelpits were excavated out of solid limestone and shale 

 about 177 feet deep, 18 feet wide and 450 feet long. Over each of 

 these wheelpits was constructed a massive power house to contain 

 the generators, switchboards, oil switches and other necessary appa- 

 ratus. Extending vertically down the wheelpits to the depth of 

 about 140 feet are hollow shafts to connect the generators on the 

 power house floor with the turbines or water wheels below. Eunning 

 parallel with each of the ten or eleven shafts in each power house is 

 an immense pipe, or penstock as it is technically termed, of seven and 

 one half feet in diameter through which water, after proper screening 

 to remove ice and other obstructions, is conveyed from the intake 

 canal to each turbine. After the large volume of water conveyed to 



