NIAGARA IN HARNESS 



your fears in this regard, they will not be realized. In- 

 spect the rapids and the falls as you may, you will see 

 no evidence that man has tampered with their pristine 

 freedom. Subtler means have been employed to tame 

 the wild steed. The mad waves that go dashing down 

 the rapids are as free and untrammeled to-day as they 

 were when the wild Indian was the only witness of their 

 tempestuous activity. Such portions of the current as 

 reach the rapids have full license to pass on untram- 

 meled, paying no toll to man. The water which is 

 made to pay tribute is drawn from the stream up there 

 above the rapids, where it lies placid and as yet unstirred 

 by the beckoning incline. To see Niagara in harness, 

 then, you must leave the cataract and the rapids and 

 pass a full mile up the stream where the great river 

 looks as calm as the Hudson or the Mississippi, and 

 where, under ordinary conditions, not even the sound 

 of the falls comes to your ear. 



Prosaic enough it seems to observe here nothing 

 more startling than a broad cul de sac of stagnant water, 

 like the beginning of a broad canal, extending in for a 

 few hundred yards only from the main stream; its 

 waters silent, currentless, seemingly impotent. This 

 stagnant pool, then, not the whirling current below, 

 is to furnish the water whose reserve force of energy 

 of position is drawn upon to serve man's greedy purpose. 

 Coming from the rapids and cataract to this stagnant 

 canal, you seem to step from the realm of poetic beauty 

 to the sordid realities of the work-a-day world. Of a 

 truth it would seem that " harnessing Niagara" is but 

 a far-fetched metaphor. 



