176 



NATURE 



[April 7, 1910 



mistakable records. The chief operator is thus able, 

 without moving from his chair, to control every electrical 

 circuit and situation of the system, and to stop, start, 

 regulate, or s3'nchronise each unit. He can throw the out- 

 put of each unit through its transformer to the trans- 

 mission as if from a single isolated plant, or he can throw 

 the current upon either bus-bar while supplying its trans- 

 formers from the same or another bus-bar. The experi- 

 ence obtained up to the present in the practical working 

 of the plant has been so successful that it is to be antici- 

 pated that other large plants in the future will adopt the 

 same system. 



Distribution of Power by the Ontario Power Co. 



Two 60,000-volt lines run from the distributing station 

 for six miles to a point on the Niagara River near the 

 town of Queenstown, vvhere they cross the gorge, and 

 connect with • the lines of the Niagara, Lockport, and 

 Ontario Power Company delivering power for use in the 

 United States. These lines consist of aluminium con- 

 ductors I5 inches in diameter, carried on steel towers 55 

 feet high to the top wire, with an average span of 500 feet. 

 The insulators for this line are of porcelain, and weigh 

 35 lb. each. 



The first of the transmission lines was put into opera- 

 tion on July 7, 1906, and the plans realised at present, and 

 contemplated for the immediate future, in the plant of the 

 Niagara, Lockport, and Ontario Power Co., involve a 

 maximum transmission distance of 160 miles. This 

 distance puts the plant amongst the longest transmissions 

 of the world. 



Size of Cables. — ^There are only three sizes of cables 

 used on the main transmission lines, designated by the 

 company as 3/3, 2/3, and 1/3 respectively. The 3/3 cable 

 is aluminium cable, consisting of nineteen strands, and 

 having a total area of 642,800 cir mils, being equivalent to 

 400,000 cir mils copper. The areas of cross-section of the 

 other cables are respectively two-thirds and one-third that 

 of the large one. 



It is impossible to enumerate the manifold purposes 

 for which the power is used, but some of the more 

 important are the following : — 



Light. — The power generated at this station and sent 

 out over the above-described transmission lines furnishes 

 part or all of the public and private lighting in Niagara 

 Falls, Welland, Stamford, and St. Catherines, Ontario ; 

 and Lockport, Depew, West Seneca, Hamburg, Batavia, 

 Rochester, Canandaigua, Auburn, Baldwinsville, Phoenix, 

 Fulton, and Syracuse, New York. 



Heat. — The same power operates electric furnaces for 

 the reduction of iron, copper, and other ores, and the 

 manufacture of cement, calcium carbide, and lime nitrates 

 in Port Colborne, Welland, Niagara Falls, and Thorold, 

 Ontario, and Lewiston, Lockport, and Caledonia, New 

 York. 



Power. — The same power operates wholly or in part 

 the trolley systems in Syracuse, Rochester, Canandaigua, 

 Geneva, West Seneca, and Hamburg ; and the interurban 

 lines Syracuse, Lake Shore and Northern Syracuse and 

 South Bay, Rochester and Geneva, Rochester and Mount 

 Morris (Erie Railroad), Buffalo, Lockport and Rochester, 

 Buffalo and Hamburg, and Buffalo and Dunkirk (partly 

 constructed). It operates the steel works of the Ontario 

 Iron and Steel Company at Welland, Lackawanna Steel 

 Company (7000 employees), Shenandoah Steel WMre Com- 

 pany, plate-rolling mills of Seneca Iron and Steel Company, 

 and pumping works of Depew and Lake Erie Water Com- 

 pan}' at West Seneca ; repair shops of the New York 

 Central and Hudson River Railwav Company, and Dela- 

 ware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company, and 

 the works of the Gold Coupler Company at Depew, stone- 

 crushing establishment of the Kelley Island Lime and 

 Transport Company at Akron ; works of the United States 

 Gypsum Company at Oakfield, and various smaller indus- 

 tries located on main transmission lines. 



The utilisation of a portion of the vast energy of 

 Niagara without in any way detracting from the splendour 

 or beauty of the Falls is destined to create in the Ontario 

 peninsula and in western New York a vast manufacturing 

 district. 



NO. 2II0, VOL. 83] 



SCIENTIFIC WORK OF THE SMITHSONIAN 



INSTITUTION. 

 'T'HE report of Dr. Charles D. Walcott, secretary of the 

 ■*■ Smithsonian Institution, for the year ending June 

 30, . 1909, has just been issued. .\\l the numerous depart- 

 ments of the institution's activity receive attention, but it 

 is possible here to deal only with the more direct scientific 

 work accomplished during the year under review. Sub- 

 joined is a summary of the parts of th./ report dealing with 

 matters of scientific interest. 



Smithsonian African Expedition. 



Through the generosity of friends of the institution, there 

 was provided during the year a special fund to pay for the 

 outfitting and to meet the expenses of the naturalists on 

 a hunting and collecting expedition to Africa under the 

 direction of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. No part of the 

 fund was derived from any Government appropriation or 

 from the income of the institution. The special interest 

 of the institution in the expedition is the collection of 

 biological material for the United States National Museum. 



The party sailed on March 23, 1909, from New York, 

 whence steamer was taken to Mombasa, British East 

 Africa.' The expedition arrived in Africa on April 21. 

 K letter, dated at Nairobi, May 31, announced the ship- 

 ment of twenty barrels of large mammal skins in brine, 

 comprising Colonel Roosevelt's first month's collection. 

 While no new species, so far as is known, is included in 

 this first shipment, the collection will supplement materially 

 the specimens already in the National >Iuseum. Together 

 with this shipment are expected a large number of speci- 

 mens of small mammals, and also of birds. Through the 

 Smithsonian African expedition the National Zoological 

 Park has been presented with an exceptional collection of 

 live African animals. 



Cambrian Geology and Palaeontology. 

 Dr. Walcott 's studies of the older sedimentary rocks of 

 the North American continent, which he has been carry- 

 ing on as opportunity offered for more than twenty years, 

 were continued in Montana and the Canadian Rockies 

 during the field season of 1908. The scientific results of 

 the 950-mile trip through the forests and on mountain 

 trails will aid materially in the solution of several problems 

 connected with the stratigraphy and structure of the main 

 ranges of the eastern Rocky Mountains and of the geor 

 logical position and age of many thousands of feet of the 

 sandstones, shales, and limestones forming the mountains 

 in northern Montana, British Columbia, and Alberta. On 

 the return an examination was made of the geological 

 formations in the vicinity of Helena, Mont., and of the 

 Wasatch Range, south-east of Salt Lake City, Utah. 

 Three additional papers giving a summary of the results 

 of these studies in Cambrian geology and palaeontology 

 were published during the year. 



Researches on Atmospheric Air. 



A Hodgkins grant was approved in October, 1908, for 

 the erection of a small stone shelter on the summit of 

 Mount Whitney, California, for the use of investigators 

 during the prosecution of researches on atmospheric air, or 

 on subjects closely related thereto. The pioneer trip to 

 the summit of Mount Whitney in the summer of 1S81 by 

 the late secretary. Dr. Langley, at that time director of 

 the Allegheny Observatory, will be recalled in this con- 

 nection, as well as his conviction that in no country if 

 there a finer site for meteorological and atmospheric 

 observations than Mount Whitney and its neighbouring 

 peaks. 



Mr. C. G. Abbot, who succeeded Secretary Langley as 

 director of the astrophysical observatory of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, and to whose immediate suggestion and earnest 

 personal efforts the preparation for and the establishment 

 of this important post on Mount Whitney are largely due, 

 began his observations there in the summer of iqo'g, and 

 obtained important data in the determin.ation of the solar 

 constant. The cooperation of Prof. W. W. Campbell, the 



