1896.] on the Utilisation of Niagara. 271 



Edward D. Adams, who organised the corporate interests that, with 

 an expenditure of 1,000,000Z. in five years, have carried out the 

 present work. 



So many engineering problems arose early in the enterprise, that 

 after the survey of the property in 1890, an International Niagara 

 Commission was established in London, with power to investigate 

 the best existing methods of power development and transmission, and 

 to select from among them, as well as to award prizes of an aggre- 

 gate of 4400J. This body included men like Lord Kelvin, Mascart, 

 Coleman Sellers, Turrettini and Dr. Unwin, and its work was of the 

 utmost value. Besides this the Niagara Co. and the allied Cataract 

 Construction Co. enjoyed the direct aid of other experts, such as 

 Prof. George Forbes, in a consultative capacity ; while it was a 

 necessary consequence that the manufacturers of the apparatus to be 

 used threw upon their work the highest inventive and constructive 

 talent at their command. 



The time-honoured plan in water-power utilisation has been to 

 string factories along a canal of considerable length, with but a short 

 tail race. At Niagara the plan now brought under notice is that of 

 a short canal with a very long tail race. The use of electricity for 

 distributing the power allows the factories to be placed away from 

 the canal, and in any location that may appear specially desirable or 

 advantageous. 



The perfected and concentrated Evershed scheme comprises a 

 short surface canal 250 feet wide at its mouth, 1^ mile above the 

 Falls, far beyond the outlying Three Sisters Islands, with an intake 

 inclined obliquely to the Niagara Kiver. This canal extends inwardly 

 1700 feet, and has an average depth of some 12 feet, thus holding 

 water adequate to the development of about 100,000 horse-power. 

 The mouth of the canal is 600 feet from the shore line proper, and 

 considerable work was necessary in its protection and excavation. 

 The bed is now of clay, and the side walls are of solid masonry 17 feet 

 high, 8 feet at the base, and 3 feet at the top. The north-eastern side 

 of the canal is occupied by a power house and is pierced by ten inlets 

 guarded by sentinel gates, each being the separate entrance to a wheel 

 pit in the power house, where the water is used and the power is 

 secured. The water as quickly as used is carried off by a tunnel to 

 the Niagara Eiver again. 



The massive canal power house is a handsome building designed 

 by Stanford White, and likely to stand until Niagara, spendthrift 

 fashion, has consumed its way backward through its own crumbling 

 strata of shale and limestone to the base of it. This building is 

 outwardly of hard limestone, and inwardly of enamel brick and 

 ordinary brick coated with white enamel paint. It is 200 feet in 

 length at present, and has a 50-ton Sellers electric travelling crane 

 for the placing of machinery and the handling of any parts that need 

 repair. The wheel pit, over which the power house is situated, is a 

 long deep cavernous slot at one side under the floor cut in the rock, 



