NIAGARA IN HARNESS 



SUBTERRANEAN TAIL-RACES 



As we step from the door of the power-house and 

 stand again beside the canal whose waters produce the 

 wonderful effects we have witnessed in imagination, 

 one question remains to be answered: What becomes 

 of the water after it has passed through the turbine 

 wheels down there in the depths? The answer is 

 simple: All the water from the various turbines flows 

 away into a great subterranean canal which passes 

 down beneath the city of Niagara Falls, and discharges 

 finally at the level of the rapids a few hundred yards be- 

 low the Falls. The construction of this subterranean 

 canal would in itself have been considered a great 

 engineering feat a few decades ago; but of late years 

 mountain tunnels, such subterranean railways as the 

 London "tube system" and tunnels beneath rivers have 

 robbed such structures of their mystery. It may be^ 

 added that another such subterranean canal, to serve 

 as a tail-race for one of the new Canadian plants, ex- 

 tends beneath the cataract itself, discharging not far from 

 the centre of the Horsehoe Falls. Another of the power 

 companies utilizes the water of the old surface canal 

 which extends to the brink of the gorge some distance 

 below the Falls. Yet another company on the Canadian 

 side conveys water from far above the rapids in a gigan- 

 tic closed tube to the brink of the gorge just below the 

 Canadian Falls, above the point where their power-house 

 is located. 



But the principle involved is everywhere the same. 

 The idea is merely to utilize the weight of falling water. 



