580 



Popular Science Monthly 



Miniature Ships That Were Built 

 to Prove a Point 



IN an effort to show the constant 

 necessity of deepening the channel 

 leading into New York Harbor, the War 

 Department has had an interesting fleet 

 of perfectly modeled miniature ships 

 made by H. E. Boucher of New York, 

 ranging from the S. S. Dreadnought of 

 nearly a century ago to the S. S. Vater- 

 land of the present day. Other minia- 

 ture ships in this fleet are the Britannic, 

 Borussia, Arizona, and Oceanic, with 

 drafts of from sixteen feet in the case 

 of the Dreadnought to thirty-eight feet 

 in the case of the Vaterland. 



it will also serve as a source of power for 

 manufacturers. Another important fea- 

 ture involved in his plan is to conserve 

 the scenic beauty of Niagara Falls, 

 which is now being seriously threatened 

 by power plants. The scheme is to con- 

 struct a canal between Lake Erie and 

 Lake Ontario and provide adequate 

 locks to compensate for the fall in water 

 level so that the canal can eventually be 

 used for trafhc. More important to the 

 people on the lower levels, however, than 

 its use for power and traffic, is the pros- 

 pect of an unlimited amount of fresh, 

 pure water. 



Numersous cities cast their sewage 



The steamers of the world's history, in exact relative proportions, are shown in a War 

 Department model. The whole story of the steamer's development is graphically shown 



in tiny compass 



The intention of the War Department 

 is to prove that the increase in size of 

 ocean vessels with their consequent in- 

 creased draft means that sea harbors, to 

 be adequate, should be dredged con- 

 tinually. 



Pure Water for Six Hundred Thou- 

 sand People 



A SYSTEM of supplying pure water 

 to the community between Buffalo 

 and Lake Ontario, now using the water 

 of the Niagara River, which is contami- 

 nated by the City of Buffalo, has been 

 planned by an engineer residing at 

 Washington, D. C. 



Not only will his water system furnish 

 water to the cities on the lower level, but 



into Lake Erie so that its lower end is 

 unfit for human consumption. From a 

 technical standpoint, one of the most 

 interesting phases of the proposed proj- 

 ect is the way of reducing the danger 

 now existing. 



The canal will have two intakes, one 

 above the city of Buffalo and the other 

 below it. The latter conducts away the 

 sewage from the city so that the towns 

 farther down the river are most effec- 

 tively immunized. 



Another advantage of the canal will 

 be its provision of a safe harbor at either 

 end. The power plant which is proposed 

 to do away with much of the water 

 diversion at the Falls will be located 

 at the end of the canal, overlooking 

 Lake Ontario. 



