NIAGARA IN HARNESS 



series of great water conduits, and strain your eyes up- 

 ward in the endeavor to follow the great funnel to its 

 very end, an oppressive sense of the irresistible weight 

 of the great column of water it supports comes to you, 

 and you can scarcely avoid a feeling of apprehension. 

 Suppose one of the great tubes were to burst? we 

 should all be drowned like rats in a hole. There is small 

 danger, to be sure, of such a contingency; but it is well 

 worth while to have stood thus away down here at the 

 heart of the great power-house to have gained an awed 

 sense of what man can accomplish toward rivaling the 

 wonders of nature. To have stood an hour ago on the 

 ice bridge at the foot of the most tremendous cataract in 

 the world, where Nature exhausts her powers amidst the 

 mad rush and roar of seething waters ; and now to stand 

 beneath this other column of water which effects a no 

 less wonderful transformation of energy, serenely, 

 silently, is to have run such a gamut of emotions as few 

 other hours in all your life can have in store for you. 



f 



A MIRACULOUS TRANSFORMATION OF ENERGY 



There are eleven of these great turbine mechanisms, 

 each with a supplying funnel of water and a revolving 

 shaft extending upward to its companion dynamo, in 

 the room in which we stand. Energy representing fifty- 

 five thousand horse-power is incessantly transformed 

 and made available for man's use in the subterranean 

 building in which we stand. And there is not a pound 

 of coal, not a lick of flame, not an atom of steam in- 

 volved in the transformation. There are no dust- 



