1896.] on the Utilisation of Niagara, 277 



barrels a flay. All that oil has first to be gathered from individual 

 wells in the oil region, and delivered to storage tanks with a capacity 

 of 9,000,000 barrels of oil. Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore are 

 centres for similar systems of oil pipe running hundreds of miles over 

 hill and dale. As for natural gas, that is to-day sent in similar 

 manner over distances of 120 miles, Chicago being thus supplied from 

 the Indiana gas fields ; and the gas has its pressure raised and lowered 

 several times on its way from the gas well to the consumer's tap, 

 just as though it were current from Niagara. 



We must not overlook some of the fantastic schemes proposed for 

 transmitting the power of Niagara before electricity was adopted. 

 One of them was to hitch the turbines to a big steel shaft running 

 through New York State from east to west, so that where the shaft 

 passed a town or factory, all you had to do was to hitch on a belt or 

 some gear wheels and thus take off all the power wanted. Not much 

 less expensive was the plan to have a big tube from New York to 

 Chicago with Niagara falls at the centre, and with the Niagara 

 turbines hitched to a monster air compressor which should compress 

 air under 250 lbs. pressure to the square inch in the tube. 



So far as actual electrical long-distance transmission from Niagara 

 is concerned, it can only be said to be in the embryonic stage, for the 

 sole reason that for nearly a year past the Power Company has beon 

 unable to get into Buffalo, and that not until last year was it able to 

 arrive at acceptable conditions, satisfactory alike to itself and to the 

 city. Work is now being pushed, and by June 1897 power from the 

 Falls will, by contract with the city, be in regular delivery to the 

 local consumption circuits at Buffalo, twenty-two miles away. But 

 the question arises, and has been fiercely discussed, whether it will 

 pay to send the current beyond Buffalo. Recent ofiicial investigations 

 have shown that steam power in large bulk under the most favourable 

 conditions, costs to-day in Buffalo lOZ. per year per horse-power and 

 upwards. Evidently Niagara power starting at 2/. on the turbine 

 shaft, or say less than il. on the line, has a good margin for effective 

 competition with steam in Buffalo. 



As to the far-away places, the well known engineers, Prof. E. J. 

 Houston and Mr. A. E. Kennelly, have made a most careful estimate 

 of the distance to which the energy of Niagara could be economically 

 transmitted by electricity. Taking established conditions, and prices 

 that are asked to-day for apparatus, they have shown, to their own 

 satisfaction at least, that even in Albany or anywhere else in the same 

 radius, 330 miles from the Falls, the converted energy of the great 

 cataract could be delivered cheaper than good steam engines on the 

 spot could make steam power with coal at the normal price there of 

 12s. per ton. 



What this enterprise at Niagara aims to do is not to monopolise 

 the power but to distribute it ; and it makes Niagara, more than it ever 

 was before, common property. After all is said and done, very few 

 people ever see the Falls, and then only for a chance holiday once in a 



