THE INDUSTRIES OF NIAGARA FALLS 



3" 



Entrance and Spillway House, Ontario Power Company, Niagara Palls, Ontario. 



The uses to which electrical power is put in the city of Niagara 

 Falls are most interesting. In 1886 Charles M. Hall, at the age of 

 twenty-two and fresh from Oberlin College, devised a process for the 

 inexpensive production of aluminum. Prior to Mr. Hall's discovery 

 aluminum though the most abundant of all metals was united to other 

 elements in such a way that a separation of the metal from its com- 

 pounds was very difficult and correspondingly expensive. 



Mr. Hall's process for obtaining aluminum from its ore is a re- 

 duction or cleoxidation process by electrolysis. Into a carbon lined 

 vat or " reducing pot " extend carbon cylinders. The vat is partly 

 filled with powdered cryolite, a beautiful white mineral mined in 

 southern Greenland. When the electric current passes, the resistance 



Power House No. 1 and Power House No. 2 and " Step up " Transformer House 

 in middle, Niagara Falls Power Company (American side). 



