NEW YORK (CITY). 



NIAGARA FALLS. 



561 



south, near Ardsley; the third at Tibbets 

 Brook, 5 miles farther down ; and the fourth 

 at Harlem river, 7 miles below. Three gate- 

 houses, for controlling and regulating the 

 water-supply through the aqueduct, were con- 

 templated, the largest and most elaborate one 

 to be located at the Oroton Dam entraace, the 

 second at the end of the conduit at 135th 

 Street, where the pipe-lines begin, and the 

 third at the Central Park Reservoir. The gate- 

 house at 135th Street and 10th Avenue is the 

 southern terminus of the tunnel, and from this 

 point the immense volume of water will be 

 carried to its destination by twelve pipes, each 

 four feet in diameter. At the beginning of 

 November, 1887, the excavation for the gate- 

 house had just been completed. It is 25 feet 

 deep, 60 feet long, and 30 feet broad, and is 

 cut in solid rock. Through it there will flow 

 250,000,000 gallons of water a day. At High 

 Bridge is the deepest and largest shaft on the 

 works, and the largest in the United States. 

 It is 20 by 40 feet, and extends 426J feet in 

 depth. From its bottom the fourteen foot 

 tunnel is being bored under Harlem river 

 and is now nearly completed. From the north 

 side of the river, from High Bridge to South 

 Yonkers, all the tunneling had been com- 

 pleted at the end of the year, and' only a 

 few thousand feet required to be done be- 

 fore that portion of the aqueduct would be 

 ready to carry water. At South Yonkers the 

 aqueduct runs for half a mile on the sur- 

 face of the ground. Here Tibbets Brook, a 

 stream that swells to considerable size in the 

 spring, is carried under the Croton water-way, 

 and at the point where they cross, a "blow- 

 off," or series of gates, set in massive masonry, 

 for turning the course of the water in the duct 

 out into the brook, has been erected. The bed 

 of the brook has been widened, and the banks 

 walled, preparatory to a sudden increase of its 

 volume should occasion require it. Where 

 Pocantico river intersects the line of the tun- 

 nel, the problem whether to carry the river 

 over or under the tunnel was filially solved by 

 making an artificial bed for the river a little 

 south of the natural bed, thus turning it from 

 its course until the aqueduct at that point had 

 been finished, and then turning the river back 

 again to its own course, a remarkable and suc- 

 cessful piece of engineering work. An extraor- 

 dinary instance of engineering skill was also 

 shown in connecting two shafts, each 350 feet 

 deep and 0,250 feet apart. The work was ac- 

 complished so accurately that at the point of 

 union the drills met and struck against each 

 other. 



The number of accidents reported along the 

 line of the aqueduct up to Jan. 1, 1887, was 

 166, of which 59 were fatal. 



It is believed that the entire work of the 

 aqueduct to 135th Street will be completed 

 before the end of 1888. The East Branch 

 Reservoir and the Muscoot Dam and Reser- 

 voir will be completed before the end of 1889, 

 VOL. xxvii. 36, A 



which will give New York an adequate water- 

 supply until the Quaker Bridge Dam and 

 Reservoir can be constructed, when the whole 

 flow of the Croton river will be utilized as a 

 water-supply. 



The present Aqueduct Commissioners are 

 James C. Spencer, President; William Dowd, 

 Vice-President ; C. C. Baldwin, Commissioner; 

 John Newton, Commissioner of Public Works, 

 and ex-officio Aqueduct Commissioner ; Oliver 

 W. Barnes, Edgar L. Ridgway, and Hamilton 

 Fish, Jr., Commissioners; John C. Sheehan, 

 Secretary. The principal engineers of the 

 Commission are : Benjamin S. Church, Chief 

 Engineer; George S. Rice, Deputy Chief 

 Engineer; Alphonse Fteley, Consulting En- 

 gineer; J. Imbrie Miller, Principal Assistant 

 Engineer. Division Engineers: Charles S. 

 Gowan, First Division ; H. M. Walbrecht, 

 Second Division ; Alfred Craven, Third Divis- 

 ion ; S. Fisher Morris, Fourth Division; Ed- 

 ward Wegmann, Jr., Fifth Division ; George 

 B. Burbank, Sixth Division. 



NIAGARA FALLS, UTILIZING THE POWER OF. 

 For many years numerous plans for employing 

 water-power at Niagara, not only for use at 

 hand but also for transmission to other places 

 through the agency of electricity, compressed 

 air, etc., have been discussed. No practical 

 attempt was made to realize this project until 

 1886, when the Legislature of New York in- 

 corporated a company to construct a subter- 

 ranean tunnel from the water-level below the 

 Falls, about 200 feet under the high bank of 

 the river, extending through the rock to the 

 upper Niagara river, at a point about one 

 mile above the falls, where a head of 120 

 feet is obtained. The tunnel thence extends 

 parallel with the shore of the river one and a 

 half mile, at an average depth of 100 feet be- 

 low the surface of the earth, and at a distance 

 of about 400 feet from the navigable waters of 

 the river, with which it is connected by means 

 of conduits, or lateral tunnels. It is thought 

 by electricians that it would be practicable to 

 light the city of Buffalo (distant 20 miles) with 

 power furnished by Niagara Falls. The prop- 

 osition is, to dig pits at certain distances, so 

 that the water may fall upon turbine wheels. 

 It is said that sufficient land along the river 

 has been secured, surveyed, and apportioned 

 into mill-sites, fronting on the river and on the 

 line of the proposed tunnel, with ample streets 

 and dockage, affording facilities for approach 

 by rail or water, to accommodate 238 mills of 

 500 horse-power each, or 119,000 horse-power 

 in all. It is said that this total far exceeds the 

 combined available power in use at Holyoke, 

 Lowell, Minneapolis, Cohoes, Lewiston, and 

 Lawrence, and that it can be constructed at an 

 expense not to exceed one tenth of the : outlay 

 for the development of the power at the pluc'i s 

 designated. It is further claimed that the 

 facilities for transportation afforded to the 

 mills are unequaled. The mill-sites are fixed 

 upon the Niagara river at a point above the 



