222 EDWARD H. SANBORN 



50,000 horsepower, one of which is in full operation and the 

 other in course of equipment with machinery. 



The electric generators are at the surface, and the water 

 wheels which drive them are in a wheel pit 150 feet under 

 ground, being connected by a steel shaft; the water reaches 

 the wheels through steel tubes. After the water has dehvered 

 up its energy, it is carried off by means of a tunnel 7,000 feet 

 in length, with an average slope of 6 feet in 1,000. This timnel, 

 which has a net section of about 386 square feet, empties just 

 under the first suspension bridge, where the waste water 

 rushes out with a speed of nearly 20 miles an hour. 



The Niagara Falls Power company has under its charter 

 the right to take sufficient water from the upper river to de- 

 velop 200,000 horsepower, and has large franchises also on 

 the Canadian side. The development of its work has gone 

 on without in anywise marring the beauty of the spot, while 

 the diversion of water is obviously too small to make any 

 perceptible difference in the amount passing over the crest 

 of the Horseshoe or American falls; the potential power of 

 the main stream is estimated to be equal to at least six or 

 seven million horsepower. 



The first power house of the company, which has now been 

 in operation for some time, contains 10 dynamos of 5,000 

 horsepower each. Between this and the other is a large 

 transforming station, at the end of the canal, where huge 

 transformers are grouped for raising the current of 2,200 

 volts to a pressure of 22,000 volts for transmission to Buffalo, 

 and to 11,000 volts for utilization on the company's own 

 factory land, and by a large variety of industries already 

 concentrated along the bank of the Niagara river toward 

 Tonawanda. 



These are the leading features of the generation of cur- 

 rent above the falls on the American side, but the American 

 com^pany has already given out contracts for a large plant 

 on the Canadian^side, where the current will be developed by 

 the largest dynamos in the world, built in the United States, 

 and can, if necessary, be brought across the river for use in 

 this country. The dynamos, 3 in number, will each deliver 

 10,000 horsepower to the circuits, returning 98 per cent of 



