THE UTILIZATION OF NIAGARA POWER 241 



ground distribution, and all the power will be taken out from 

 the Canadian plant underground, necessarily, on account of 

 the power house being in the park. 



For very long distance transmission, transformation will 

 take place to a much higher voltage in a transformer station 

 located on the plateau above the park. Transformation will 

 be made to 22,000, 40,000, or 60,000 volts, depending upon 

 the transmission distance. 



The Canadian plant will be electrically interconnected 

 with both of the American power houses by cal^les across the 

 upper steel bridge arch, so that three large independent 

 generating stations will be available for the suppl}' of power 

 to the system of the Niagara Falls Power company. This is 

 a matter of the greatest importance to the Niagara frontier. 

 In case of some unforeseen accident to any one of the plants, 

 interconnections could at once be established so that the 

 most important users of power, supplied normally by the 

 disabled plant, could be supplied with power without inter- 

 ruption. This is especially important where the public utili- 

 ties are involved, such as the electric railways and electric 

 lighting companies. 



One naturally asks where this 215,000 horsepower is 

 going to be used. The same question was asked in regard to 

 the 50,000 horsepower for which the first power house was 

 constructed. The latter has been quickly answered l)y the 

 fact that the load this winter exceeded 75,000 horsepower. 

 At the present rate of increase it will not be many years before 

 the capacity of all three plants is reached. 



The use of machine tools and mechanical processes in 

 factories nowadays consumes a large amount of power, and 

 the cost of power has therefore become a very important item 

 to the manufacturer. It has made him investigate carefully 

 the question of power cost, and the saving in this account 

 which results from the use of power from the Niagara system 

 as compared with that from an isolated plant. The central 

 locality in the country of the Niagara frontier is also attracting 

 attention in the industrial world, and I should not be surprised 

 to see, during the next ten years, a great influx of all classes 

 of manufacturing concerns, attracted to this locality by the 



Vol. 7—16 



