628 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 
away and produce a shove. A tremendous upheaval results, and large masses 
of ice are piled on high for miles around, often doing much damage. 
It is well known that the most effective prevention to the formation of both 
frazil- and anchor-ice is the protection afforded by a surface sheet of ice. If a 
power-house is located on a river normally frozen over, with no stretches of open 
water above, no ice troubles are experienced. When this is not possible, artificial 
intake canals are usually constructed, in which the water flows sufficiently slowly 
to freeze over. If the canal is fed from the open river, booms and crib-work are 
resorted to in order to deflect much of the ice. If the inflowing water-current is 
sufficiently rapid to draw the frazil under the surface ice, it is often necessary to 
cut artificial channels to allow of sufficient water for the wheels. Thus a surface 
sheet may prove to be disadvantageous. So many and varied are the conditions 
to be met with in the location of a power-house that no set of rules can be given 
to meet the general case. It is only by a thorough knowledge of the laws under- 
lying the formation of ice that means may be found to cope with any particular 
situation. It may safely be said, however, that the ice problem in Canada is no 
bar to the future development of her vast water-powers. 
4. On the Application of Water Power, and how to secwre the greatest 
Efficiency in its Working.| By Joun Suytu,M.A., M.Inst.C.£.I. 
The author showed that a great many falls of water are not now made use of 
because they are too small or the supply of water is too irregular, but that they 
may become valuable by supplementing the water power by means of a variable 
auxiliary power. On the Upper Bann River, in the North of Ireland, there are a 
number of these small falls, and the author described one where the normal quan- 
tity of water, as maintained by the Reservoir Company, only produces through the 
turbine 7:2 horse-power to the foot of the fall; but having made the turbines of 
sufficient capacity to take and use the winter and flood flow of the stream, an average 
of 11 horse-power is obtained, making a distinct gain of 3:8 horse-power, equal to 
19/. per annum, as compared with steam power for a drive of ten hours per day. 
In the case described a steam engine is used as the supplementary power, since it 
is specially suitable to the work done in that mill. Any other motor, however, 
such as an oil or gas engine, would do equally well, according to the nature of the 
work to be done. 
The author would also make these falls more valuable by the construction of 
compensating or subsidiary reservoirs or lakes on poor Jands along the course of 
each river, into which floods might be drained or impounded and gradually with- 
drawn afterwards to the lower reaches for the use of the mills. 
This would have the further advantage of diminishing floods, and would not 
interfere with the construction of reservoirs on the higher grounds, where the 
water is purer for the supply of towns, and thus the full advantage would be taken 
of the entire drainage area of each river. 
In a paper read before this Association in 1874, at the Belfast meeting, on the 
industrial uses of the Upper Bann River, and published in ertenso in its Report, 
the author mentioned one such reservoir which had then for many years been of 
great service to the mills. It is still doing the same good work, 
The author believes water-power is not sufficiently valued by engineers and 
millowners because of the inefficient water motors so long in general use, but there 
is no difficulty now in procuring motors to give 80 per cent. of the full power 
instead of from 30 to 70 as heretofore. 
! Published in Zlectrical Review, August 23. 
