Popular Science Monthly 



183 



A view of Niagara Falls when, a few years ago, ice dammed the river above and shut off 

 all but a small proportion of the water. One of Prof. Norton's plans would denude the falls 

 each night still more than is shown here. When the water diverted by his dam to the running 

 of his power plant, the "grand curtain would be rent and gashed as by invisible knives, a 

 minute or two more, and rivulets here and there would pour over the brink . . . Another 

 minute, and the rivulets have changed to drops . . . Niagara is silent!" 



Such would be the daily sequence of 

 events. On holidays, on the Sabbath, the 

 lovers of nature could view the falling 

 sheet of water at all hours of day and 

 night, in the twilight, at dawn, in the 

 solemn quiet of midnight. 



When used for motive power on rail- 

 ways, street-car lines, etc., in many 

 branches of electrochemical industry, 

 continuity of current is imperatively nec- 

 essary. Storage batteries may be em- 

 ployed, but at an increased cost for each 

 electrical unit. 



It is, however, perfectly feasible to 

 rescue a very large proportion of the 

 power, ordinarily going to waste during 

 the shorter period of the day, when the 

 cataract resumes its normal activity, 

 without affecting, to any noticeable de- 

 gree, any elements of its scenic beauty. 



In the deep recesses behind the fall- 

 ing sheet of water at Niagara, the Cave 

 of the Winds, etc.. a gigantic system of 

 scaffolds could be erected. These would 

 serve as the supports of a series of over- 



shot wheels or endless chain-bucket 

 wheels. By careful disposition a consid- 

 erable fraction of the available power — 

 possibly thirty to forty per cent — could 

 be utilized and directed to electrochem- 

 ical or transportation centers without re- 

 ^•ealing any portion of the mechanism to 

 the eye of the beholder gazing at the cat- 

 aract. There would be a noticeable in- 

 crease in the volume of spray, which 

 could tend only to heighten the scenic 

 beauty of the waterfall. 



The simplest means to accomplish the 

 purpose would be a series of buckets, 

 operating on endless belts, working on 

 axes located immediately beneath the 

 brink of the cataract and at the base of 

 the falling sheet of water. Essentially 

 an enormous overshot water wheel, with 

 its modern effective devices on the per- 

 iphery, distorted and elongated into the 

 form of a belt, as used for the transmis- 

 sion of power from one shaft to another. 

 A complete series of such elongated 

 wheels, closely adjusted side by side. 



